LD
STORAGE
4167 1223
.M75
021
MEMORIAL
OF THE
GOUER-
A 58525 4

HON. JAMES MONROE, A.M., LL.D.
1
MEMORIAL
OF THE
HON. JAMES MONROE,
A.M.,
LL.D.
1821-1898.
PUBLISHED BY OBERLIN COLLEGE.
1898.
JAMES MONROE.
1821. Born July 18, at Plainfield, Windham coun-
ty, Conn.
1839. In his youth he was a teacher in common
schools.
1841. Lecturer for the American Anti-Slavery So-
ciety.
1844. Entered Oberlin College as a Junior.
1846. Graduated with degree of A. B. Tutor in
College.
1849. Graduated from Theological Seminary.
1849-1862. Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres
in Oberlin College.
1850. Degree of A. M.
1856-1860. Representative in Ohio Legislature.
1860-1862. Senator in Ohio Legislature.
1863-1870. United States Consul at Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil; Chargé d'Affaires ad interim.
1871-1881. Representative in Congress of the
United States.
1882. Honorary degree of LL.D. from University
of Nebraska.
1883-1896. Professor of Political Science and Mod-
ern History, Oberlin College.
The chair founded and endowed by his per-
sonal friends.
1897. Published a volume of Lectures and Ad-
dresses.
1898. July 6, died at his home in Oberlin.
He was married in 1847 to Elizabeth Maxwell, of
Mansfield, Ohio, and in 1865 to Julia R. Finney,
daughter of Rev. Charles Grandison Finney. Two
sons and two daughters survive him.
FACULTY ACTION.
And
AT the opening of the College term in Sep-
tember, 1898, in the meeting of the Faculty,
formal announcement was made of the death,
during the vacation, of the Honorable JAMES
MONROE, lately Professor in the chair of Polit-
ical Science and Modern History. The honor
in which he was held in the College, the per-
sonal love felt for him, and his eminent public
services, made it seem fitting that a memorial
meeting should be held in commemoration of
his useful career and his worth as a man.
it being intimated that the church of which he
was a member, and his fellow citizens desired
to unite in such a tribute to him, Professor A.
H. Currier, D. D., of the Seminary, and Pro-
fessors Lyman B. Hall and Thomas N. Carver,
of the College, were appointed a committee to
arrange the details for the public meeting. In
a subsequent session of the Faculty, on the re-
port of the committee, it was voted that the
memorial meeting be held in the First Congre-
gational Church on Sunday evening, October
30, and that the following persons be invited
to address it, viz: Hon. Jacob D. Cox, on the
Public Life of Mr. Monroe; Prof. Henry C.
King, D.D., on his College Work; and Rev.
James Brand, D.D., on his Religious Life. Pro-
fessor Currier was requested to preside at the
meeting.
At the very large and impressive gathering
at the appointed time, the following was the
order of exercises:
1. Organ Voluntary, Funeral March,
Svendsen
2. Anthem, "Blessed are the Men who fear Him,"
3. Prayer by Professor Currier.
4. Hymn, "Jerusalem the Golden."
5.
The Addresses.
Mendelssohn
6. Hymn, "As shadows cast by cloud and sun
The summer grass flit o'er."
7. Benediction by Rev. Dr. Brand.
8. Organ, Funeral March,
Guilmant
THE ADDRESSES.
HIS PUBLIC LIFE.
BY HON. JACOB D. COX, LL. D.
JAMES MONROE'S public life began before he
came to Oberlin as a student. His Quaker
parents were, like the Friends in general, earn-
est anti-slavery people, and his own nature,
sympathetic with every noble impulse, made
him, whilst he was yet a youth, an advocate of
emancipation. His gift for public speaking
was quickly evident, and as a young man of
twenty, he was enrolled among the agents and
lecturers of the American Anti-Slavery Society.
Garrison, Phillips, Frederick Douglas, the Bur-
leighs, Edmund Quincy and others were the
leaders in New England of the remarkable
band of orators devoted to the advocacy of the
great reform, and young Monroe was fraternally
received among them, a beloved yoke-fellow in
their labors and their persecutions.
For two years, from the time he was twenty
till he was twenty-two, he traveled in the in-
terests of the reform; sometimes in peril from
6
HIS PUBLIC LIFE.
the mob-spirit which tried to squelch the anti-
slavery agitation, sometimes the victim of
actual violence, but always intrepid and per-
suasively faithful in bringing home to men's
hearts and consciences their personal responsi-
bility in regard to the great national wrong.
Intimately associated with men who were in-
clined oftentimes to the severe method of the
Hebrew prophets in their arraignment of wrong-
doing, James Monroe followed his own bent in
seeking more to arouse sympathy with the
down-trodden and to awaken a noble love of
freedom which should set men's consciences at
work spontaneously, than to drive them into
activity in reform by denunciation. He was
greatly attracted by Frederick Douglas's won-
derful power of pathos and humor, mingled
with lofty moral exhortation, and a hearty com-
radeship sprang up between them in tours of
lecturing duty where they worked in harmony
for the cause. In Wendell Phillips the younger
man saw clearly how natural genius was refined
by culture, and a Demosthenian oratory made
strong for highest flights by broad education
and intellectual discipline. Pondering on these
things and dreaming of the added power he
might hope to gain as he himself matured, he
saw the value a liberal classical education would
HIS PUBLIC LIFE.
7
have for him, and resolved to build upon the
good foundation he had already laid in the
academy near his father's home and the private
studies his zeal had prompted him to.
He came to Oberlin in 1844, studied hard
in the summer term and entered the Junior
class in College at the Commencement in Au-
gust. Oberlin was well known to the anti-
slavery men of those days, and though the rad-
ical followers of Mr. Garrison were grieved at
the willingness of Mr. Finney and the faculty
to uphold the political organization of the Lib-
erty party, they did justice to the college which
offered the colored man, cordially, the same ed-
ucation as his white brother. The associates
who interested themselves in young Monroe's
future, helped him canvass the reasons which
led him to choose this college for his alma
mater, and whilst some discouraged, those he
most trusted approved his choice.
He came, then, as one who had already made
his mark in public, whose career was brilliantly
begun, no longer a boy wistfully uncertain
what he was to do and unacquainted with the
great world outside, but a man, a young one it
is true, yet one whose important work was only
interrupted for a space, whilst he should train
for larger efforts and for more responsible lead-
8
HIS PUBlic life.
ership. I remember him as I first saw him in
1846, lithe, graceful, handsome, beaming with
intelligence, full of magnetic power, and as a
preparatory student, I looked up to the gradu-
ating senior as the brilliant model of what we
younger men might hope to become.
His development here took on features which
he had not anticipated. Greatly influenced by
the preaching and teaching of Mr. Finney, the
sincere piety of his Quaker boyhood accepted
new views of theology and of church organiza-
tion and work. He joined the First Congrega-
tional Church here, where he retained his mem-
bership to the day of his death. Revising his
theories of the relations of slavery to the gov-
ernment, he became convinced that the shortest
road to emancipation lay through earnest polit-
ical activity of anti-slavery men, and he gave his
support to Birney and Chase, Gerrit Smith and
Goodell in the steps which led finally to the
organization of the Republican party upon the
platform of the exclusion of slavery from the
Territories of the United States.
These changes were not a reaction in him
either in religion or in politics. They were
simply the development of his convictions un-
der the influences of a broader education. His
personal love for and fellowship with his Quak-
HIS PUBLIC LIFE.
9
er friends was strong as ever.
His conviction
that it was the moral duty of the slaveholder
to emancipate his slaves had not abated a jot,
and his regard for his associates in the lecture
field continued strong, as the volume of his
Thursday Lectures fully attests. He supple-
mented his earlier views by methods of politi-
cal action, of which the great results soon
became manifest, and proved the soundness of
his judgment.
Mr. Monroe's college life was one of labor-
ious study and successful work. His abilities
shone in all departments, for he was well
rounded intellectually, and did not allow him-
self to neglect any study on the plea of lack of
taste for it. It was long before the days of
electives, and the triad of languages, mathe-
matics, philosophy, made the solid frame of a
prescribed course which tested the powers of
the strongest. Yet he was not allowed to for-
get the field of his successes on the platform,
and he was in demand as a public speaker
whenever his college duties would allow him to
accept such invitations.
In 1855 he was sent as a delegate from Lo-
rain county to the convention which organ-
ized the Republican party in Ohio, fusing into
one great organization all the anti-slavery ele-
ΤΟ
HIS PUBLIC LIFE.
He, of course,
ments of the older parties.
represented the most pronounced form of advo-
cacy of freedom and the most advanced mem-
bers of the new party. Still, he had the
instincts of practical wisdom in working sin-
cerely within the lines agreed upon, with all
the shades of temper and doctrine which are
found in a new army. This quality, joined
with his brilliant and persuasive advocacy,
marked him as a leader the new party could
not afford to leave in private life, and in that
opening campaign he was made the candidate
for a seat in the state legislature. He was now
professor in college and had no thought of neg-
lecting the duties of his chair; but the long
vacation then came in the winter, and the short
sessions of the legislature could be attended
without interference with his duties as teacher.
His colleagues and the friends of the college
felt that the cause which the institution had
championed in a peculiar way, might well de-
mand this active assistance from a member of
the faculty.
In four years of service in the House of
Representatives at Columbus, Mr. Monroe be-
came noted for the qualities which distinguished
him in all his career. His absolute fidelity to
conscience was first. He was in politics to
1
HIS PUBLIC LIFE.
II
Per-
advance a great reform by noble means, and
his devotion was so evident and sincere that no
one could doubt it. He was in advance of
many of his co-workers, and sometimes seemed
to them too radical, but what he thought it his
duty to do was done with a quiet courage which
could not be dismayed or made to flinch. Yet
he was as marked for his charity and suavity as
for his conscientiousness. His appeals were
all to high motives and noble principles.
sonal censoriousness and dogmatic egotism
were never seen in him. Those who did not go
with him felt that their conflict was with the
best impulses of their own souls and not with
him. It was most interesting to see the regard
approaching personal affection which some of
his strongest opponents showed for him. There
was in the House of Representatives from Cin-
cinnati, an erratic, but eloquent, brilliant and
impulsive man, William M. Corry, who was an
avowed disciple of Calhoun, and the open de-
fender of the right of secession. Yet this
fierce enemy of the doctrines which Mr. Monroe
supported was so swayed by the sweet spirit
as well as the power of his advocacy, that he
would put his arm about Monroe in a friendli-
est embrace, when they met, in the impulse to
show him his admiration and respect.
12
HIS PUBLIC LIFE.
In 1859 Mr. Monroe was elected to the State
Senate, and for two years he, Garfield, and my-
self sat beside each other in that body, our
chairs representing the contiguous districts
from which we came. It was the legislature
immediately before the outbreak of the great
rebellion, and men were arraying themselves in
the great controversy, with reference to the
momentous contingencies which were looming
up. As before, Mr. Monroe was the personi-
fication of unflinching right, charitable as to
persons, but strong in public action and un-
compromising as to principle. His personal
qualities as well as his skill as a parliamentar-
ian were recognized by making him president
pro tem. of the Senate, to occupy the chair
whenever the Lieutenant-Governor should be
absent. When Lincoln was elected and on his
way to the capital, Mr. Monroe was sent as one
of a small committee to escort him from Indi-
anapolis to Columbus. When Kentucky sent
a delegation to visit us in the efforts then mak-
ing to cultivate good feeling, Mr. Monroe was
again appointed on the committee to meet
them at the Ohio river. These things showed
that his radicalism did not prevent the recog-
nition of his character and attainments.
He did not confine his legislative activity to
HIS PUBLIC LIFE.
13
matters connected only with the great struggle.
He had introduced the bill which originated
our State Reform School, and saw it become a
law. He was one of the earliest and strongest
friends of the State School for feeble-minded
youth and fostered it with tender sympathy.
In common school education he was a leader
at the time when the graded schools were in
their infancy. He was active in the legisla-
tion to protect the property rights of married
women. To all reformatory and soundly pro-
gressive legislation he gave hearty and useful
assistance, and was relied on for unstinted help
when a good cause needed it. In the direct
line of anti-slavery effort, he led in the move-
ment to extend the elective franchise to the
colored people of the State, and the first de-
feats did not dampen his ardor in renewing the
contest in each new legislature. He introduced
a bill to modify the habeas corpus act so as to
protect alleged fugitive slaves by a jury trial.
He saw clearly and urged most forcibly that we
must ourselves rise to the height of true devo-
tion to human rights, if we would give charac-
ter to our opposition to slavery extension, and
save it from being mere sectionalism.
In December, 1859, John Brown was hanged
at Charlestown, Virginia, for his celebrated
14
HIS PUBLIC LIFE.
"raid" upon Harper's Ferry. With him suf-
fered a colored man of Oberlin, John A. Cope-
land, who was a member of his band. The
distress of his parents and their great desire to
reclaim his body for burial at home so worked
upon the sympathies of their townsmen that a
purse was raised to procure and bring back
Copeland's remains. Mr. Monroe volunteered
to be the agent in this charitable purpose,
though he knew that the local excitement in
Virginia was such as to make the task any-
thing but a pleasant one. He has himself
given a vivid account of the journey and its
perils. In spite of his best efforts he could not
succeed; but the aid he got from the more in-
telligent people near Charlestown and the chiv-
alrous devotion with which they protected him
while there and got him away safely on his re-
turn home, were strongest proofs of his power
to impress a faith in his character and motives.
upon those he met.
The outbreak of the civil war brought new
and strange duties home to many of us. The
patriotic zeal of the undergraduate students of
Oberlin College was attested by the organiza-
tion of the famous "Company C," which be-
came part of the Seventh Ohio Regiment, and
was among the very first that responded to the
HIS PUBLIC LIFE.
15
President's call for volunteers. The regiment
came to Camp Dennison in Southern Ohio, and
was only beginning to learn its duties and fit.
itself for the field, when it became evident that
the three months which was the legal limit of
Mr. Lincoln's power to call out the militia,
must be only a step toward the organization of
an army for the war. The first weeks were
enough to show the young soldiers something
of the hardships of army life, the first flush of
enthusiasm had passed, many were homesick,
not a few were in hospital, and yet it was nec-
essary then and there to make the appeal to
change their enlistment from three months to
three years! To Company C it meant more
than to most. Service for three months was
only the loss of a term in college which could
be made up in vacation; but three years meant
a breaking up of plans for a lifetime for those
who should live to return from the war. The
great debate with their own souls went on for
some days and it was necessary to decide. Mr.
Monroe was invited to come down from Colum-
bus and help the young men to reach a right
conclusion. Evening twilight was coming on
when Captain Shurtleff marched the company
to the further side of a round hill near the
camp, and seated on the slope, away from in-
16
HIS PUBLIC LIFE.
trusion of others, they listened to Mr. Monroe
and others who tried to help them sum up the
reasons on which their decision must rest. His
earnest sympathy gave full weight to the love
of home and friends, but over against these was
the dire necessity of the country and the great
importance that a well-known anti-slavery
school like this college should continue to lead
the young men of the land in devoted patriot-
ism. The conference lasted through the even-
ing hours, but when the company marched
back to its quarters it was with the announced
resolve to renew its enlistment for the long
term. None who did not do it can know how
completely that act was a conscious sacrifice,
for the sake of country, of life and all that made
it dear. The sharp pang of death itself was
suffered, and when the new duties were taken
up with cheerful courage, it was like a resur-
rection of the new man.
Mr. Monroe continued through the legisla-
tive session in close confidential relations to
Governor Dennison, assisting in putting into
statutory form the measures which the extraor-
dinary crisis demanded, working incessantly as
one of the most successful leaders in the Sen-
ate of the state. After some months he was
appointed to represent the United States
1
HIS PUBLIC LIFE.
17
abroad as Consul at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
This position was important of its kind; for
not only was it at the commercial metropolis of
the Brazilian empire, but the port and harbor
were of the first-class in international commerce
and the rendezvous for the ships of war of all
countries. It was the Consul's duty to look
after the rights and interests of sailors and ship-
masters, and to act as judge in controversies
which might arise between them. His rela-
tions to our naval officers were important and
constant. He collected from all sources news
of the movements of Confederate cruisers and
gave it to our ships of war when they called at
the port, For a time, in the absence of the
United States Minister, he acted in his stead,
as chargé d'affaires and was in immediate re-
lations to the court of the Emperor Dom Pe-
dro. One of the most interesting of his duties
and one which he remembered with great zest,
was his sending home by the authority of the
State Department, after the civil war was over,
a numerous band of expatriated confederates,
who had imagined that they could be happy as
colonists in Brazil, but who learned by a pain-
ful experience that the evils they feared from
the rule of the national government at home
were light compared with their sufferings in a
18
HIS PUBLIC LIFE.
foreign land, where language, customs, religion,
and methods of labor were all strange to them.
Mr. Monroe's kindness to these unfortunate
people and his arrangements for their return
home brought him repeated acknowledgments
from them in later years.
His performance of duty was highly compli-
mented by the Brazilian government as well as
by our own, and the tact, wisdom, and devoted
industry which marked all he did, brought him
great praise from Mr. Seward, the Secretary of
State. I myself once accidently overheard an
American merchant from Brazil speak of his
consulate at Rio in terms which were most
grateful to my ears. I was traveling to New
York and was sitting in front of two gentlemen,
one the merchant referred to, and the other a
resident of the United States. They seemed to
have been talking of the way in which an Amer-
ican Consul abroad may help or harm the com-
merce of the country, when my attention was
attracted by the remark, "We had lately at Rio
a Consul, Mr. Monroe, who was a thorough
gentleman and a statesman, just and upright,
and sparing neither labor nor pains to be
of use to his countrymen resident abroad."
When the conversation passed to examples
mentioned by way of contrast, of incompetent,
HIS PUBLIC LIFE.
19
self-seeking, arrogant officials the speaker had
seen in similar places, I felt as never before the
importance of some system by which men of
the right type might be ensured for such re-
sponsible places.
As consul and as acting minister Mr. Monroe
was brought into intimate relations to the rep-
resentatives of other governments at Rio, and
it was interesting to find that, without com-
promising his own convictions, his breadth of
mind and culture joined with a genial polish of
manners won for him a solid place in the es-
teem and respect of the trained diplomatists at
the Brazilian court.
Mr. Seward's estimate of the value of the
service done the country at Rio was so high
that he resisted all efforts to have Mr. Monroe
removed when the breach between President
Johnson and the Republican party became
complete, although it was well known that the
consul was in accord with radical Republican-
ism. Excepting a short visit home, the foreign
residence continued seven years, when on Judge
Welker's acceptance of the judgeship of the
Federal courts in northern Ohio, a spontaneous
movement of the Republicans of the district.
made Mr. Monroe their Representative in Con-
gress.
There he served them through five suc-
20
HIS PUBLIC LIFE.
It
cessive terms, extending through the adminis-
trations of General Grant and General Hayes.
The period covered the final scenes of recon-
struction in the South and the complete resto-
ration of the States lately in rebellion.
included the establishment of a reformed civil
service and the long battle by which it won its
way to permanent favor. In it was also the
disputed Presidential election between Tilden
and Hayes when the country came perilously
near the verge of another civil war.
Each year
of the ten brought its special excitements, its
burning questions, as well as the less noticed
but more solidly important daily labor of carry-
ing on the public business of a great country.
In this last I am sure Mr. Monroe found more
satisfaction than in the sensational party com-
bats that fill the galleries. He found a sort of
fascination in the working of the complicated
machine by which the nation performs its will.
To take the estimates of the executive depart-
ments and the manifold propositions for expan-
sion of expenditures, and work them down into
a reasonable budget with efficient methods of
raising an equal revenue was work which does
not bring public notoriety, but which the prac-
tical statesman must master. The task of
helping the education of millions of freedmen
HIS PUBLIC LIFE.
21
and of framing such laws as should make their
freedom a reality and help them forward toward
responsible citizenship, required deep study,
patient investigation, and days and weeks of
confining committee room work not seen of
men. The legislation to improve the diplo-
matic and consular service, to fix the places.
and the grades of position of all the members
of both corps, demanded work of a similar
sort. To arrange all the details of a census
bill, with the machinery for collecting, system-
atizing and digesting the statistics which show
the growth and progress of the country, is not
a thing which "comes by nature," and most.
men would hesitate to tackle it at all. But com-
pared with such things, the political debates
which are head-lined in the newspapers, draw
crowds, and give momentary prominence to the
debaters, are the mere chaff which is blown off
with the wind, whilst the wheat is quietly pour-
ing into the sacks below.
Mr. Monroe's native powers of oratory and
enjoyment of the ability to move an audience
would have impelled him to more prominent
activity in discussion on the floor, had it not
been tempered with a sincerity of charity and
goodwill, which made mere gladiatorship odi-
ous to him. Harrying the opposition has made
:
22
HIS PUBLIC LIFE.
many a man his party's temporary idol, but it
never made a statesman. Close observation of
such things reinforced the effect of Mr. Mon-
roe's liberal education in curbing exuberance
and increasing his love for simplicity and dis-
tinctness. A great cause called out all his
powers, but a railing opponent could not draw
him into the lists, unless it was for mild rebuke
and an exhortation to a higher level of dis-
cussion.
A new member of Congress must begin with
the lower places on committees and progress
slowly to the higher, and the speaker's cast of
the whole will be modified by party expedi-
ency and the pressure of personal influences.
Mr. Monroe's abilities and capacity for work
soon carried him where his influence was largely
felt. His recognized character made him sure
of honorable assignments to duty even when
his own party was in a minority and the speak-
er was a political opponent. On the Foreign
Affairs Committee he was often assigned to
manage the passage of a bill on the floor of
the House. In such cases his admirable tact
and temper, his ready skill in parliamentary
rules, his personal popularity with his fellow
members, all combined in a most telling way
to give him success. In the committee on
HIS PUBLIC LIFE.
23
Education and Labor he perfected some im-
portant measures and as its chairman carried
them through. In the Appropriations Com-
mittee his mastery of economics and adminis-
trative organization made him a valuable mem-
ber, relied upon by everybody for assistance in
casting measures into practical shape, and for
disinterested watchfulness of the public inter-
ests. It was interesting to see one who was
marked out from his youth for the swaying of
popular audiences, quickly putting these gifts
back into secondary positions, and finding his
most satisfying career in laboring behind the
scenes to make the public business of the na-
tion go successfully on, and practical reforms
take the shape of acts upon the statute book.
For five and twenty years of public service, the
sifting of measures of public policy, the lucid.
instruction of his constituents regarding them,
the labor of the legislative workshop as dis-
tinguished from the forum, the administrative
and diplomatic handling of great affairs—these
made up his life, a laborious and useful life,
recognized as a noble one by his State and
country, but in his own conscientious judgment
most influential and most useful in the paths
which were not trodden under the public gaze
or accompanied by the applause of crowds.
24
HIS PUBLIC LIFE.
In Congress, as in the State Legislature, his
entire devotion to principle was known to all.
The charity and geniality of his character made
smooth all the personal relations of life, and
men who opposed his views with passionate
warmth would be most ready in loving appre-
ciation of the man. It was accepted, as of
course, that he could not be swerved by any-
thing but sound reason from what he believed
to be right, and no one wasted time in using
with him any of the lower forms of persuasion
or of pressure. His open sincerity was his ar-
mor, and so effective that he was saved from
much of the chafing and the pain which seem
almost inevitable in a career of constant debate.
In the social life of the capital he was ad-
mirably fitted to shine. Society there takes
its color in large measure from the gathering
of the departments of the government into a
centre which controls the movements of the
whole. The President, his Cabinet, the Judi-
ciary, the members of Congress, the Diplomatic
corps, the notables of the scientific surveys, of
the Smithsonian Institute, of the Army and
Navy, and of the administrative departments,
make a body of distinguished persons so large
that private persons of cultivation and refine-
ment may willingly accept secondary places in
HIS PUBLIC LIFE.
25
the society thus formed. There is a constant
passing of distinguished visitors, princes by ti-
tle and untitled, peers of the realm and explor-
ers of the ends of the earth. In such circles
Mr. Monroe's experience of the world, his re-
finement and cultivation, and his great attract_
iveness of person and of manners, made him
not only a welcome guest, but the peer of any
he met. Already familiar with the amenities.
of social life in official circles abroad, he gave
and received a refined pleasure in similar soci-
ety at home.
In 1880 he resolved to relieve
himself from
refused to be
In 1881 he
the burdens of political life, and
again a candidate for Congress.
came back to his neighbors and old friends, and
to the college. He came to take up other
work, for he had no mind to be idle, and he
brought to it all the qualities of mind and
heart which had made him a noteworthy fig-
ure and a man to be loved wherever he was.
This last portion of his life is for another to
sketch. He died in midsummer, when most of
his college associates and the students of whom
he was so fond, were away, in the vacation ;
and so it has happened that now, in the time
of the Christian year which for many centuries
has been that of the commemoration of All
26
HIS PUBLIC LIFE.
Souls that have gone to glory, we are fitly
gathered to recall and bear witness to the worth
of our friend who has joined their assembly.
AS A TEACHER AND CO-LABORER IN
THE FACULTY.
BY PROF. HENRY C. KING, D.D.
James Monroe came to Oberlin as a student
in 1844; he did brilliant work and graduated
from College in 1846, and from the Theological
Seminary in 1849. President Fairchild has
said of his college work: "During my sixty
years of teaching at Oberlin I have known
many bright scholars, but no one ever sur-
prised me as did this young student from
Connecticut." He began his teaching in Oberlin
College as a tutor in languages while still a
student in the Seminary. His full teaching
work dates from 1849, when, after a brief pas-
toral experience in Sandusky, he accepted the
call to the chair of Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres
in the College. He continued in active service
in this position until 1862-thirteen years.
was in the earlier part of this period that he
labored so effectively in securing an endowment
for the College, by the sale of scholarships;
and so gained the wide acquaintance that
through "the growth of the anti-slavery vote.
It
28
HIS COLLEGE WORK.
in this region" naturally introduced him into
political life.
After his eventful and important public ca-
reer he finally returned to the Faculty of his
alma mater as Professor of Political Science
and Modern History from 1884 to 1896, when
he resigned at the age of seventy-five, and ex-
actly fifty years after his graduation, thus round-
ing out an even quarter of a century of service
as a Professor in Oberlin College. Even in the
midst of his public life, he apparently never
wholly gave up the thought of teaching, and
he himself often remarked that he always re-
garded the title Professor, frequently given him
in Congress, as his highest title. His final
resignation of the chair of rhetoric and belles-
lettres seems not to have taken place until
1865; and the reluctance of the College to re-
sign its claim upon him is evidenced by the fact
that in the same year the Trustees offered to
him, through Professor Fairchild, the Presiden-
cy of the College. In the later term of service
as in the earlier, the College received most val-
uable financial aid through Professor Monroe,
for it was his friends who contributed the funds
for the endowment of the much needed new
chair.
As to the earlier term of service, I can, of
}
HIS COLLEGE WORK.
29
course, give no personal testimony. There seems
to have been the same charming personality
that characterized his later years; the same
quiet humor, the same generous self-forget-
fulness, the same enthusiastic devotion to
every good cause, the same tender, warm, re-
ligious spirit, and the same genuine personal
popularity, all coupled with a fiery intensity in
his speaking especially on slavery, that was yet
neither narrow, nor bitter.
A letter from a friend, who stood near him
in those days, gives a glimpse into the times,
but perhaps rather as the situation appeared
from the outside, for one of the marked things
in the earlier history of Oberlin is the calm, and
even confidence and buoyancy with which the
men who were the central forces in the college
and community life moved on here at home,
almost indifferent to the storm without.
friend writes:
!
The
"He has no need of earthly appreciation now, although
I doubt not such words as will be spoken by the older
men will be very pleasant to him there. The new Fac-
ulty do not and cannot know what the old Faculty were
to one another in those days that did try men's souls.
The public censure and dislike-political, social, ecclesi-
astical—were bitter, unjust, prejudiced, in the extreme.
"The poverty of the Faculty, which voted in '61 to
stand by the College so long as its members could receive
$400 per year, and the triumph of Oberlin, when the
30
HIS COLLEGE WORK.
principles for which it had suffered proscription became
national and secured by the battles of the great Civil
War!-the new men cannot enter into the old College
life—its memories, traditions, prayers—and the old men
are few, very few."
Of his later term of service, I can speak from
personal knowledge, for I was directly associated
with him in the Faculty during the entire period.
In all this later teaching, his students felt
perhaps first of all the influence of his own long
public experience. This won their attention
from the start, and led them to give unusual
weight to his historical and political judgments.
They believed that the mere scholar's dictum
was being constantly tested by practical ex-
perience. But if it was his practical public
experience that first attracted students, they
could not fail later to give tribute to the full-
ness of his knowledge and reading; they felt
that he made no hasty or narrow preparation
for his work, and were often surprised by the
variety of the fields from which he could draw
for illustration. Particularly was it true, I
think, that no student could fail to appreciate
the large broad handling of his themes, whether
in history, or in political science, or in econom-
ics. His treatment was never petty or narrow;
you felt its sense and soundness. I have been
so fortunate as to secure the written judgment
HIS COLLEGE WORK.
31
upon his teaching of a mature and unusually
competent hearer of Professor Monroe's. The
record was made in 1887:
"I have just come from another of Professor Monroe's
lectures in modern history. I have never been so much
interested in any speaking I have heard him do as in
these lectures. I think they may fairly be called bril-
liant, this too, in a simple and direct manner, very de-
lightful. His preparation is as thorough as he can make
it; the material accumulated is so abundant and press-
ing as to urge him forward with rapidity; and he so
sympathises with the characters and so enters into the
circumstances in which they are placed, that he spreads
out all his facts with a dramatic energy quite unassumed,
and makes his hearers see all as vividly as he does him-
self. The bare facts, usually so dry and difficult to be
retained in memory if given in rapid outlines, are fused
and glowing in his mind, and make an impression as
lively as if of yesterday's occurrence. Nothing in re-
gard to his success in these lectures strikes me more
than the interesting way in which he describes purely
military events. His never having served in the army or
having shown a particular interest in accounts of battles,
or in the study of military tactics-so far as I know
-makes me wonder how interesting is his account of
such engagements. I have not well seen my way through
battles in my reading, or got any vivid idea of how com-
manders thought and felt; but these lectures make one
feel the excitement, the rush, the heroism, the over-
whelming responsibilities, and even the skill-of the
maneuvers of war.
"In this exercise of lecturing on historical scenes he
is doing what, I suppose, can be done by few persons-
his natural gifts and temperament here working out a
unique and most interesting result. It seems to me that
32
HIS COLLEGE WORK.
the student to whom he speaks must gain a relish for
history and a way of looking at it, and of seeing the rela-
tion of its parts each to each and to the whole stream of
time, which will be most valuable."
I care to emphasize but a single point in this
careful characterization of Professor Monroe's
ability as a lecturer in history-his great power
in the portrayal of personal character, of which
his address on Seward furnished a notable ex-
ample. This power of portraying character
seems to me to have grown right out of his
own high personal qualities-his broad and
yet discriminating sympathy and charity; his
conspicuous ability to enter into the circum-
stances and motives of another; his great fair-
ness and concrete, not abstract, justness. He
had the needful imagination, and neither in
history nor in life did he begrudge the time and
the thought necessary to put himself thorough-
ly into the place of the other man; he felt him-
self in the other's situation, and lived his ex-
perience all through with him. It was, it
could be, no cheap and easy attainment.
But beyond all the special qualities of his
teaching as such, doubtless his pupils felt the
influence of his own spirit and personality.
They knew he was no mere school-master. No
one, going out of a class of his, could think
HIS COLLEGE WORK.
33
that he had been in the presence of a little,
petty man. Those who were taught by him,
were impressed, I think, first of all by the pure
unspoiled nobility of his character. They
knew his long public career, but it seemed to
them that it had left all untouched the highest
qualities of his character. And this very fact
moved them as perhaps the same qualities in
another would not have done. His moral
earnestness and religious sincerity too were for
every man beyond all question, and were of
perpetual influence in his class room, manifest-
ing themselves in countless little ways.
It was
almost impossible that there should be person-
al disrepect, or any real irreverence in his pres-
ence. And he had withal such trustfulness of
men, and such love for them that it was a mean
man indeed that could betray the trust given
by James Monroe. He called out thus in rare
degree the tender personal affection of his pu-
pils. I hope he knew how much they loved
him. Even the half-joking student names they
gave him betrayed their love. I doubt if any
pupil of his in these last years can think of
him without something of the same feeling
which the thought of his own father calls out
in him.
To speak of Professor Monroe as a co-laborer
34
HIS COLLEGE WORK.
He
in the Faculty is only to emphasize these same
personal qualities so manifest in his teaching.
He showed the height of his attainment by his
keen sense of personal relations. This came
out in his relations to his pupils. The relation
of pupil and teacher was for him distinctly
personal; and any unnecessary absence from
class was for him a breach of the relation.
had the same sensitiveness in his relations to
the Faculty, and it was interesting to see how
his presence practically compelled a greater
care as to the smaller courtesies due from
teacher to teacher. There was a like quickness.
to respond to others in his relations to citizens
of all classes. In the case of each there was
the same unfailing willingness to give interest,
sympathy, time and help. I doubt if any other
man has been for years so much of a father
confessor for the community as he, or any sin-
gle place has witnessed so much of helpful
sympathetic counsel as that study-so like him
-with its long windows open to the rising sun.
Right out of this keen sensitiveness to per-
sonal relations grew his genial courtesy, always
provoking to love and good works. It was not
easy to set aside the gentleness of his reproof.
It was hard to remain discourteous or long to
retain any bad humor where he was. His pres-
HIS COLLEGE WORK.
35
ence had a rare quality of fairly radiating sim-
ple, kindly good fellowship, that was irresistible.
At the bottom of all there seemed to be in
truth a Christian honoring of all men, as chil-
dren of God, that reverence for man as such,
that was the spring of his strong antislavery
feeling, and that made it impossible for him to
treat any man with disrespect. He had occa-
sion many times to show that this was no sen-
timentalism, but could accompany good hard
fighting; but even his opposition was courteous.
He was thus a born peacemaker, everywhere
and on all occasions doing this work of God in
bringing in peace, shedding abroad love in the
hearts of men. His very presence in the
Faculty, during long and trying discussions on
many points, and where there were strong dif-
ferences of opinion, was a benediction, and yet.
there was not the least show of the professional
peacemaker. It seemed rather simply to be
true, that his own spirit was contagious—a
rarely "provoking" man!
And this all means, that in wonderful degree
we found him a man of love. Descended from
Friends on both his father's and mother's side,
few men ever better deserved the name—friend.
As I have thought of him recently, I have
found my mind continually recurring to Paul's
36
HIS COLLEGE WORK.
matchless description of love, as to a rare ex-
tent fitting the character of the man we are
gathered to honor. You who knew him will
bear me witness, as you compare in your own
consciousness his gracious memory with even
these words:
"Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not;
love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave
itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked,
taketh not account of evil; rejoiceth not in unrighteous-
ness, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things,
believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all
things."
I can pronounce no higher eulogy upon any
man, than to say that the spirit of his life for-
cibly reminds me of this priceless passage in
praise of love. He was nearly seventy-seven
years old when he died, but we had never been
able to think him old; the youthfulness of a
loving spirit was so upon him.
It is in such personalities and in such char-
acters, that the true wealth of an institution of
learning consists.
HIS RELIGIOUS LIFE.
BY REV. JAMES BRAND, D.D.
When a great and good man whose influ-
ence has been conspicuously beneficent has
passed forever from our sight, it is a debt we
owe, not only to his memory, but also to the
truth itself, to see to it that those principles
which made him what he was shall not be left
obscure. The world is too poor and too needy
to pass lightly by whatever tends to build a
true man.
It is only saying what every one of his friends
knows to be true, when I say, that with all his
public services and intellectual eminence, Pro-
fessor Monroe was preeminently a Christian.
I. The key to his religious life, like that of
St. Augustine, is to be found in the influence
of a wise and godly mother. He derived his
talent, we are told, from his father, who was a
lawyer, and a man of “fine intelligence." But
his best moral traits were derived from his mo-
ther. Professor Monroe was a birthright mem-
ber of the society of Friends; and was trained
in the pure, simple, austere doctrines of that
38
HIS RELIGIOUS LIFE.
body. Taught to regard himself as a child of
God from his infancy, he grew up into a sweet,
ardent, Christian life before the world had a
chance to lay its hands upon him.
He was
trained to obey his parents, to speak the truth,
to keep the Sabbath, to read the Bible, to ab-
stain from profane language, and to make the
dominant fact of his life, obedience to the "in-
ward light" of the Holy Spirit. This rock
foundation for a true manhood was laid in the
boy's soul, by her whom his brother, Dr. Mon-
roe, of Akron, calls "a holy mother"; "a wo-
man who to her children was without spiritual
fault and who herself was to us a revelation of
all that she taught us." In addition to the
influence of this holy mother, Mr. Monroe,
when he arrived in Oberlin, as a young man of
twenty-three years, came at once under the in-
fluence of President Finney, whose powerful
doctrinal and evangelistic sermons evidently
had a profound effect upon his life. It is evi-
dent that he was a true Christian in his early
boyhood, but in that transitional period which
all Christian boys have to meet, while passing
from the experience of child religion to that of
manhood, his faith and hope were evidently
disturbed. At the age of seventeen, while still
in Connecticut he wrote in his journal, "I
HIS RELIGIOUS LIFE.
39
thought I had met with a change of heart this
winter, but have since thought that I was mis-
taken." Six years later in Oberlin, he wrote
again, "By the help of God I believe I have
started in a new course of life. I believe I am
renewed in my spirit toward God." The next
season (1845) he wrote once more, "In the
spring of this year I joined the church of
Christ."
II. His character was thus moulded by
those great eternal verities of the Old and New
Testaments which he had studied from child-
hood. He was profoundly impressed by his
conception of the holiness of God, the nature
of the Divine government, the guilt and unrea-
son of sin, and the gracious divine life and
mission of Christ. Religion with him was no
mere. sentiment, but a momentous, imperative,
practical duty. His theological training here
in the Seminary, turned his attention to the
fundamental principles of the Christian faith,
and fitted him to investigate them. His re-
markable articles on "The Divine Origin of the
Religion of the Bible," recently published in
the Bibliotheca Sacra, which, I am told, were
written in part at least a good many years ago,
show how "a layman," to use his own words,
"thought out his Christian evidences." In
40
HIS RELIGIOUS LIFF.
those articles he elaborates four propositions:
(1) That every production of the human intel-
lect is a natural outgrowth of the age in which
it was given to the world and bears the unmis-
takable marks of the tendencies of its own
time. (2) The religion of the Bible does not
have these marks of a human origin. It is not
the result of tendencies of its time, but of ten-
dencies the opposite of these. Hence it is not
a human production. (3) Every human sys-
tem is eventually outgrown by the thinking
portion of mankind. (4) There is no evidence
of any tendency to outgrow the religion of the
Bible. It meets the deepest wants of man in
every age and clime, and demands not only the
highest actual but the highest conceivable vir-
tue; therefore it must be of divine origin.
These principles and convictions touched the
very core of his life and made him what he was
in both his public and private career. Under
all the temptations of political experience, he
never swerved from his duty as a disciple of
Christ. His influence in the halls of legisla-
tion, both State and National, must have been
a perpetual though courteous rebuke to all the
arts of the demagogue and the meanness of
self-seeking. Years ago when Mr. Monroe de-
clined to be returned to Congress, I received a
HIS RELIGIOUS LIFE.
41
letter from the pastor of the church at Wash-
ington, where the Professor had been accus-
tomed to worship, regretting that he was not
to return and saying, “If you have any more
such Christian statesmen in Ohio, please send
them along."
While a Consul at Rio de Janeiro he was so
helpful to the Presbyterian missionaries there
that they said his influence for the cause of re-
ligion was equal to an additional missionary.
III. With convictions founded thus upon
biblical principles, it was natural that the Chris-
tian church should have, in his view, a large
place in the plan of God, and that active church
life on the part of professors and students in a
Christian college should be regarded as of par-
amount importance. Mr. Monroe held that
this was especially imperative here in Oberlin,
where we have no distinctively college church,
and where in the absence of the dormitory sys-
tem, students are so intimately connected with
the people of the community. This relation
of a Christian community to a Christian col-
lege Mr. Monroe felt to be the peculiar advan-
tage of Oberlin. Under such circumstances, a
true teacher must be something more than a
specialist in his own department of instruction.
His duty to his students involves a duty to
42
HIS RELIGIOUS LIFE.
the community which constitutes the environ-
ment of the college; and this duty is naturally
discharged, in large part at least, through the
Christian church. With such views and with
his great heart full of human sympathy, Pro-
fessor Monroe was always a townsman close to
the heart of the people as well as a college
man—a citizen as well as a teacher.
His per-
sonal influence and splendid intellectual equip-
ment have always been at the service of the
poorest and the lowliest. He felt that his ob-
ligations to his church were no less imperative
than his obligations to his pupils. He be-
lieved that Christian character, the enthrone-
ment of Christ in the hearts of the people, was
the supreme end to be attained in all life and
education. Hence he never seemed to feel that
his duty in any other line could justify his neg-
lect of Christian work. While believing that
beyond every other influence, the preaching of
the great central doctrines of the Gospel to the
consciences of men was God's most approved
way of saving the world, yet he felt that a sim-
ple talk to little children was no more beneath
him than a lecture to college men or an ad-
dress to the general public. He was always,
therefore, in his place with his Bible class, al-
ways in his seat at public worship, and always
HIS RELIGIOUS LIFE.
43
at the prayer meeting, where his prayers, so
thoughtful, so direct, so genuine, so sweet in
spirit, so original and simple, and yet so pro-
found, seemed to be simply adoring, familiar
talks with God about the great needs of the
college, the community, and the world. One
morning at his home, while longing for a
shower upon his little garden in which he was
always interested, he said: "I don't mind
praying for rain and not being answered.
just bleat like a lamb for it."
I
It was thus that he made so great a place
for himself and became apparently so indispen-
sable to the people. He has rendered great
services to the country, but to live a long life
of faith and love and good will to all men be-
cause his life was dominated by the spirit of
Christ, is perhaps, the greatest service any man
can render.
As he advanced in years, the su-
premacy of the mind over the body, and the
spiritual over the intellectual became more and
more marked. And yet he was never led into
anything that approached fanaticism or into
any religious position which could not be de-
fended on the ground of reason. The leading
characteristics therefore of his religious life
were breadth, naturalness, tolerance, whole-
someness, catholicity. In conversation with
44
HIS RELIGIOUS LIFE.
his family at one time about somebody's con-
science or obstinacy, "Oh," he said, "it makes
me sick of conscience. I'd rather have an
ounce of love than ten pounds of conscience—
wouldn't you?"
To an exceedingly rich and ingenuous nature
had been added the crowning grace of a simple
unwavering faith in the great principles of
God's righteousness and law. He was always
hopeful, because always sure that God was in
his own world. This is what made him, to so
many hundreds of students a benediction, and
to so many burdened hearts" as the shadow of
a great rock in a weary land." It is not sur-
prising therefore that when this man, who
talked with little children, visited the sick and
went about doing good, has vanished forever
from among us, the whole community should
feel bereaved. His sturdy convictions, his
quick apprehension of situations, his delicious
vein of humor, his comprehensive grasp and
tender appreciation of truth, together with his
rare mastery of language, and that power to
accomplish a prodigious amount of work in
a given time which surprised President Fair-
child, fifty-four years ago, all go to show an
unusual intellectual fertility and force. But
from the Christian point of view his heart was
HIS RELIGIOUS LIFE.
45
greater than his mind. His emotional nature
was impressible to every touch as the sea to
the swaying of the winds. His face, always
sympathetic, tender, truth-loving, mobile, and
near the end, spiritualized by the chastisement
of years, told the old story over again, that
while the outward man was perishing, the in-
ward man was being renewed day by day.
“We talk about entering eternity," he said,
"but time is a part of eternity. I have entered
eternity. This morning, I woke in eternity,"
and Mrs. Monroe herself adds, "How blithe
and wholesome is all this! It reminds one of
Sir Thomas More's injunction to 'be merrie
in God.'
Mr. Monroe's personal friendship was a spir-
itual fortune to all who possessed it. To me,
personally, as pastor of the church, he has been
for twenty-five years, so kind, so helpful, so
generous, and of late years so near and dear,
that it is difficult for me to think of his depart-
ure in any other way than as a preparation
for a blessed meeting again in God's great
other world.
"He has served his generation and fallen on
sleep according to the will of God." The leg-
acy of influence he has left to his family, to his
pupils, to the slaves he helped to emanci-
46
HIS RELIGIOUS LIFE.
pate, and to the country he helped to ennoble
ought to be cherished by every friend of Oberlin,
and by every friend of the State.
What we all need here, and what the world
needs everywhere to-day, is this type of man-
hood whose feet are planted on the everlasting
rock.
To close this imperfect sketch I cannot do
better than to read to you a letter from which
I have already quoted, written by the Profes-
sor's brother, Dr. Thomas E. Monroe, of Ak-
ron. The letter is so admirable and throws so
much light upon Professor Monroe's early re-
ligious life that you ought to hear it entire.
My Dear Brother Brand:
Your request came by last mail and I write at my first
moment.
Our father was a lawyer, beginning professional life,
when he became a Friend or Quaker-a church which, at
that time did not permit litigation, nor allow its members
to practice law. He therefore, relinquished his profes-
sion. Our mother was a Friend from her birth.
We
were, therefore, by birth, members of "The Friends
Meeting," and were trained in the opinions and practices
of the sect. We were taught that we were to grow up
Christians in the church and not to think ourselves out
of it, to be brought in later in life. We were taught to
recognize and to obey the Holy Spirit of God as his
children, from our early childhood. It was felt by us
that the children of Christians, reared in Christian homes
could only be Christian men. Conversion was assumed
as certain, and all holy impressions were to be accepted
HIS RELIGIOUS LIFE.
47
as proceeding from God and to be reverently obeyed.
So we grew up, esteeming ourselves to be already
Christ's.
You see our religious life began with intelligent con-
duct, and the principal dominant was obedience to the
"inward light" of the Holy Ghost. These doctrines
were less pronounced, but were such as were common to
all evangelical Christians. All practical virtues, were,
however, pressed on us. Strict veracity, honesty, kind-
ness, forgiveness, fearless discharge of duty were pressed
on us down to their roots. It was a growth, rather than
a conversion, never permitted to pause.
These principles were received from our holy mother,
a woman, who to her children was without spiritual fault,
and who, herself, was to us a revelation of all she taught
us. I am certain all her children, if alive, would join
me in this opinion. I am certain no child of hers ever
saw her exhibit passion or anger or selfishness, yet she
was fearless to guide and, if needful, to rebuke..
I have said we, thus far. Of her children, James was
our mother's most teachable pupil. At 14 he began to
teach in the public schools, and at that date organized
the "Black Hill Moral Society," a society composed of
our rural children and young folks, which met each Sun-
day afternoon. Its members were pledged to obey and
to honor their parents, to speak the truth, to keep the
Sabbath, to read the Bible and to abstain from profane
language.
I infer that at that date he was an earnest and ardent
Christian. After teaching till he was about 18, he en-
tered the anti-slavery work and traveled widely. I think
he spoke in every town of Connecticut east of the Con-
necticut river, and in many west of it. He did this as a
religious work, from convictions of duty solely. His
support was most meagre and he was often mobbed. At
some time during his lecture life, he became acquainted
48
HIS RELIGIOUS life.
with Oberlin, and came to Oberlin to finish his educa-
tion, interrupted while he was in the anti-slavery field.
He here united with the Congregational church. This
is his life as I see it, brave, simple-hearted, pure lived,
generous to a fault,—from child to man, the best work of
our blessed mother. A Christian, I think, from his very
early childhood, and a man led of the Holy Ghost.
T. E. MONroe.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
3 9015 06441 5972