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SOMETHING OF MEN I HAVE KNOWN

With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and
Retrospective

by

ADLAI E. STEVENSON

Fully Illustrated

Second Edition

[Frontispiece]

[Publisher's logo]

Chicago A. C. McClurg & Co. 1909

Copyright
A. C. McClurg & Co.
1909
Published October, 1909
Second Edition, December 17, 1909
The Lakeside Press
R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company
Chicago

TO MY WIFE
Letitia Green Stevenson
THE PATIENT LISTENER TO THESE
"TWICE-TOLD TALES"

FOREWORD

To write in the spirit of candor of men he has known, and of great events in which he has himself borne no inconspicuous part, has been thought not an unworthy task for the closing years of more than one of the most eminent of our public men. It may be that the labor thus imposed has oftentimes enabled the once active participant in great affairs submissively "to entertain the lag end of his life with quiet hours."

Following the example of such at a great distance and along a humbler path, I have attempted to write something of events of which I have been a witness, and of some of the principal actors therein during the last third of a century.

My book in the main is something of men I have personally known; the occasional mention of statesmen of the past seems justified by matters at the time under discussion.

With the hope that it may not be wholly without interest to some into whose hands it may fall, I now submit this slight contribution to the political literature of these passing days.

A. E. S. BLOOMINGTON, ILLINOIS, August 1, 1909.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. ON THE CIRCUIT II. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES III. AGAIN IN CONGRESS IV. THE VICE-PRESIDENT V. THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES VI. A TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN VII. STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS VIII. THE FIRST POLITICAL TELEGRAM IX. ALONG THE BYPATHS OF HISTORY X. THE CODE OF HONOR XI. A PRINCELY GIFT XII. THE OLD RANGER XIII. THE MORMON EXODUS FROM ILLINOIS XIV. A KENTUCKY COLONEL XV. FORGOTTEN EVENTS OF THE LONG AGO XVI. ROBERT G. INGERSOLL XVII. A CAMP-MEETING ORATOR XVIII. CLEVELAND AS I KNEW HIM XIX. THE UNANIMOUS CHOICE FOR SPEAKER XX. A LAWYER OF THE OLD SCHOOL XXI. HIGH DEBATE IN THE MOUNTAINS XXII. THE SAGE OF THE BAR XXIII. "THE GENTLEMAN FROM MISSISSIPPI" XXIV. AN OLD-TIME COUNTRY DOCTOR XXV. A QUESTION OF AVAILABILITY XXVI. A STATESMAN OF A PAST ERA XXVII. NOT GUILTY OF PREACHING THE GOSPEL XXVIII. AMONG THE ACTORS XXIX. THE LOST ART OF ORATORY XXX. THE COLONELS XXXI. REMINISCENCES XXXII. A TRIBUTE TO IRELAND XXXIII. THE BLIND CHAPLAIN XXXIV. A MEMORABLE CENTENNIAL XXXV. COLUMBUS MONUMENT IN CENTRAL PARK XXXVI. A PLATFORM NOT DANGEROUS TO STAND UPON XXXVII. ANECDOTES OF GOVERNOR OGLESBY XXXVIII. THE ONE ENEMY XXXIX. CONTRASTS OF TIMES XL. ENDORSING THE ADMINISTRATION XLI. ANECDOTES ABOUT LINCOLN XLII. FIRST LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY IN AMERICA XLIII. A NEW DAY ADDED TO THE CALENDAR XLIV. A MOUNTAIN COLLEGE XLV. DEDICATION OF A NATIONAL PARK XLVI. A BAR MEETING STILL IN SESSION XLVII. THE HAYNE-WEBSTER DEBATE RECALLED XLVIII. IN THE HIGHLANDS XLIX. ANECDOTES OF LAWYERS L. OUR NOBLE CALLING LI. THE "HOME-COMING" AT BLOOMINGTON

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

[facing] PAGE
ADLAI E. STEVENSON Frontispiece
ADLAI E. STEVENSON AT 30 8
JAMES S. EWING 9
GEORGE F. HOAR 12
SAMUEL J. TILDEN 13
JAMES G. BLAINE 18
ROBERT E. WILLIAMS 19
JAMES A. GARFIELD 22
NATH. P. BANKS 23
WILLIAM R. MORRISON 26
WILLIAM M. SPRINGER 27
SAMUEL J. RANDALL 30
ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS 30
LUCIUS Q. C. LAMAR 30
JAMES B. BECK 30
DAVID DUDLEY FIELD 31
HENRY WATTERSON 33
SAMUEL S. COX 34
LEVI P. MORTON 48
JAMES A. McKENZIE 49
WILLIAM McKINLEY 56
SENATE TESTIMONIAL TO MR. STEVENSON AS PRESIDENT
OF SENATE 57
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 82
ANDREW JOHNSON 83
ULYSSES S. GRANT 100
HORATIO SEYMOUR 101
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS 126
SAMUEL F. B. MORSE 127
WILLIAM M. GWIN 170
JAMES SHIELDS 171
JAMES SMITHSON 174
JOSEPH HENRY 175
JOHN REYNOLDS 196
JOSEPH SMITH 197
R. G. INGERSOLL 226
PETER CARTWRIGHT 227
CLEVELAND AND STEVENSON 240
WILLIAM FREEMAN VILAS 241
WILLIAM M. EVARTS 262
JOE WHEELER 263
DAVID DAVIS 286
S. S. PRENTISS 287
EDWIN BOOTH 304
JOSEPH JEFFERSON 305
RUFUS CHOATE 312
ISAAC N. PHILLIPS 313
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 316
W. H. MILBURN 317
R. J. OGLESBY 346
JOSEPH W. FIFER 347
LAWRENCE WELDON 352
THOMAS F. MARSHALL 353
MATTHEW T. SCOTT 372
ADLAI E. STEVENSON 373
LYMAN TRUMBULL 382
HOME OF ADLAI E. STEVENSON, BLOOMINGTON, ILL.
383

SOMETHING OF MEN I HAVE KNOWN

I ON THE CIRCUIT

DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY AFTER THE CIVIL WAR—SLAVERY THE APPLE OF DISCORD BEFORE THE WAR—LINCOLN AS A COUNTRY LAWYER—SOCIABILITY OF THE LAWYERS OF THE PERIOD—THEIR EXCELLENCE AS ORATORS—HENRY CLAY AS A PARTY LEADER—EULOGIUMS ON LAWYERS—LINCOLN'S ADMIRATION FOR GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT—THE WRITER'S ADDRESS ON THE LAW AND LAWYERS.

The period extending from my first election to Congress in 1874, to my retirement from the Vice-Presidency in 1897, was one of marvellous development to the country. Large enterprises were undertaken, and the sure foundation was laid for much of existing business conditions. The South had recovered from the sad effects of the Civil War, and had in a measure regained its former position in the world of trade, as well as in that pertaining to the affairs of the Government. The population of the country had almost doubled; the ratio of representation in the Lower House of Congress largely augmented; the entire electoral vote increased from 369 to 444. Eight new States had been admitted to the Union, thus increasing the number of Senators from seventy-four to ninety.

The years mentioned likewise witnessed the passing from the national stage, with few exceptions, of the men who had taken a conspicuous part in the great debates directly preceding and during the Civil War and the reconstruction period which immediately followed. By the arbitrament of war, and by constitutional amendment, old questions, for a half-century the prime cause of sectional strife, had been irrevocably settled, and passed to the domain of history. New men had come to the front, and new questions were to be discussed and determined.

To the student of history, the years immediately preceding the Civil War are of abiding interest. In some of its phases slavery was the all-absorbing subject of debate throughout the entire country. It had been the one recognized peril to the Union since the formation of the Government. Beginning with the debates in the convention that formulated the Federal Constitution, it remained for seventy years the apple of discord,—the subject of patriotic apprehension and repeated compromise. The last serious attempt to settle this question in the manner just indicated was by the adjustment known in our political history as "the compromise measures of 1850." These measures, although bitterly denounced in the South as well as in the North, received the sanction in national convention of both of the great parties that two years later presented candidates for the Presidency. It is no doubt true that a majority of the people, in both sections of the country, then believed that the question that had been so fraught with peril to national unity from the beginning was at length settled for all time. The rude awakening came two years later, when the country was aroused, as it had rarely been before, by impassioned debate in and out of Congress, over the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. It was a period of excitement such as we shall probably not see again. Slavery in all its phases was the one topic of earnest discussion, both upon the hustings and at the fireside. There was little talk now of compromise. The old-time statesmen of the Clay and Webster, Winthrop and Crittenden, school soon disappeared from the arena. Men hitherto comparatively unknown to the country at large were soon to the front.

Conspicuous among them was a country lawyer whose home was at Springfield, Illinois. With the mighty events soon to follow, his name is imperishably linked. But it is not of Lincoln the President, the emancipator, the martyr, we are now to speak. It is of Lincoln the country lawyer, as he stepped upon the arena of high debate, the unswerving antagonist of slavery extension half a century and more ago.

His home, during his entire professional life, was at the capital of the State. He was, at the time mentioned, in general practice as a lawyer and a regular attendant upon the neighboring courts. His early opportunities for education were meagre indeed. He had been a student of men, rather than of books. He was, in the most expressive sense, "of the people,"—the people as they then were. For,

"Know thou this, that men are as the time is."

His training was, in large measure, under the severe conditions to be briefly mentioned. The old-time custom of "riding the circuit" is to the present generation of lawyers only a tradition. The few who remember central Illinois as it was sixty years ago will readily recall the full meaning of the expression. The district in which Mr. Lincoln practised extended from the counties of Livingston and Woodford upon the north, almost to the Indiana line—embracing the present cities of Danville, Springfield, and Bloomington. The last named was the home of the Hon. David Davis, the presiding judge of the district. As is well known, he was the intimate friend of Mr. Lincoln, and the latter was often his guest during attendance upon the courts at Bloomington. At that early day, the term of court in few of the counties continued longer than a week, so that much of the time of the judge and the lawyers who travelled the circuit with him was spent upon horseback. When it is remembered that there were then no railroads, but few bridges, a sparse population, and that more than half the area embraced in that district was unbroken prairie, the real significance of riding the circuit will fully appear. It was of this period that the late Governor Ford, speaking of Judge Young,—whose district extended from Quincy, upon the Mississippi River to Chicago,—said: "He possesses in rare degree one of the highest requisites for a good circuit judge, —he is an excellent horseback rider."

At the period mentioned there were few law-books in the State. The monster libraries of later days had not yet arrived. The half-dozen volumes of State Reports, together with the Statutes and a few leading text-books, constituted the lawyer's library. To an Illinois lawyer upon the circuit, a pair of saddle-bags was an indispensable part of his outfit. With these, containing the few books mentioned and a change or two of linen, and supplied with the necessary horse, saddle and bridle, the lawyer of the pioneer days was duly equipped for the active duties of his calling. The lack of numerous volumes of adjudicated cases was, however, not an unmixed evil. Causes were necessarily argued upon principle. How well this conduced to the making of the real lawyer is well known. The admonition, "Beware the man who reads but one book," is of deep significance. The complaint to-day is not of scarcity, but that "of the making of many books there is no end." Professor Phelps is authority for the statement that "it is easy to find single opinions in which more authorities are cited than were mentioned by Marshall in the whole thirty years of his unexampled judicial life; and briefs that contain more cases than Webster referred to in all the arguments he ever delivered."

The lawyers of the times whereof we write were, almost without exception, politicians—in close touch with the people, easy of approach, and obliging to the last degree. Generally speaking, a lawyer's office was as open to the public as the Courthouse itself. That his surroundings were favorable to the cultivation of a high degree of sociability goes without saying. Story-telling helped often on the circuit to while away the long evenings at country taverns. At times, perchance,

"the night drave on wi' sangs and clatter."

Oratory counted for much more then than now. When an important case was on trial all other pursuits were for the time suspended, and the people for miles around were in prompt attendance. This was especially the case when it was known that one or more of the leading advocates were to speak. The litigation, too, was to a large extent different from that of to-day. The country was new, population sparse; the luxuries and many of the comforts of life yet in the future; post-offices, schools, and churches many miles away. In every cabin were to be found the powder-horn, bullet-pouch, and rifle. The restraints and amenities of modern society were in large measure unknown; and altogether much was to be, and was, "pardoned to the spirit of liberty." There were no great corporations to be chosen defendants, but much of the time of the courts was taken up by suits in ejectment, actions for assault and battery, breach of promise, and slander. One, not infrequent, was replevin, involving the ownership of hogs, when by unquestioned usage all stock was permitted to run at large. But criminal trials of all grades, and in all their details, aroused the deepest interest. To these the people came from all directions, as if summoned to a general muster. This was especially true if a murder case was upon trial. Excitement then ran high, and the arguments of counsel, from beginning to close, were listened to with breathless interest. It will readily be seen that such occasions furnished rare opportunity to the gifted advocate. In very truth the general acquaintance thus formed, and the popularity achieved, have marked the beginning of more than one successful and brilliant political career. Moreover, the thorough knowledge of the people thus acquired by actual contact—the knowledge of their condition, necessities, and wishes—resulted often in legislation of enduring benefit to the new country. The Homestead law, the law setting apart a moiety of the public domain for the maintenance of free schools, and judicious provision for the establishment of the various charities, will readily be recalled.

Politics, in the modern sense—too often merely "for what there is in it"—was unknown. As stepping-stones to local offices and even to Congress, the caucus and convention were yet to come. Aspirants to public place presented their claims directly to the people, and the personal popularity of the candidate was an important factor in achieving success. Bribery at elections was rarely heard of. The saying of the great bard,

"If money go before,
All ways do open lie,"

awaited its verification in a later and more civilized period. As late even as 1858, when Lincoln and Douglas were rival aspirants to the Senate, when every voter in the State was a partisan of one or the other candidate, and the excitement was for many months intense, there was never, from either side, an intimation of the corrupt use of a farthing to influence the result.

No period of our history has witnessed more intense devotion to great party leaders than that of which we write. Of eminent statesmen, whose names were still invoked, none had filled larger space than did Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson. The former was the early political idol of Mr. Lincoln; the latter, of Mr. Douglas. Possibly, since the foundation of the Government, no statesman has been so completely idolized by his friends and party as was Henry Clay. Words are meaningless when the attempt is made to express the idolatry of the Whigs of his own State for their great chieftain. For a lifetime he knew no rival. His wish was law to his followers. In the realm of party leadership a greater than he hath not appeared. At his last defeat for the Presidency strong men wept bitter tears. When his star set, it was felt to be the signal for the dissolution of the great party of which he was the founder. In words worthy to be recalled, "when the tidings came like wailing over the State that Harry Percy's spur was cold, the chivalrous felt somehow the world had grown commonplace."

The following incident, along the line indicated, may be considered characteristic. While Mr. Clay was a Senator, a resolution, in accordance with a sometime custom, was introduced into the Kentucky House of Representatives instructing the Senators from that State to vote in favor of a certain bill then pending in Congress. The resolution was in the act of passing without opposition, when a hitherto silent member from one of the mountain counties, springing to his feet, exclaimed: "Mr. Speaker, am I to understand that this Legislature is undertaking to tell Henry Clay how to vote?" The Speaker answered that such was the purport of the resolution. At which the member from the mountains, throwing up his arms, exclaimed "Great God!" and sank into his seat. It is needless to add that the resolution was immediately rejected by unanimous vote.

Two-thirds of a century ago the Hon. John P. Kennedy wrote of the lawyers of his day:

"The feelings, habits, and associations of the bar in general, have a very happy influence upon the character. And, take it altogether, there may be collected from it a greater mass of shrewd, observant, droll, playful, and generous spirits, than from any other equal numbers of society. They live in each other's presence like a set of players; congregate in courts like the former in the green room; and break their unpremeditated jests, in the intervals of business, with that sort of undress freedom that contrasts amusingly with the solemn and even tragic seriousness with which they appear in turn upon the boards. They have one face for the public, rife with the saws and learned gravity of the profession, and another for themselves, replete with broad mirth, sprightly wit, and gay thoughtlessness. The intense mental toil and fatigue of business give them a peculiar relish for the enjoyment of their hours of relaxation, and, in the same degree, incapacitate them for that frugal attention to their private concerns which their limited means usually require. They have, in consequence, a prevailing air of unthriftiness in personal matters, which, however it may operate to the prejudice of the pocket of the individual, has a mellow and kindly effect upon his disposition. In an old member of the profession, one who has grown gray in the service, there is a rich unction of originality that brings him out from the ranks of his fellowmen in strong relief. His habitual conversancy with the world in its strangest varieties and with the secret history of character, gives him a shrewd estimate of the human heart. He is quiet, and unapt to be struck with wonder at any of the actions of men. There is a deep current of observation running calmly through his thoughts, and seldom gushing out in words; the confidence which has been placed in him, in the thousand relations of his profession, renders him constitutionally cautious. His acquaintance with the vicissitudes of fortune, as they have been exemplified in the lives of individuals, and with the severe afflictions that have 'tried the reins' of many, known only to himself, makes him an indulgent and charitable apologist of the aberrations of others. He has an impregnable good humor that never falls below the level of thoughtfulness into melancholy."

A distinguished writer, two generations ago, said of the early
Western bar:

"Not only was it a body distinguished for dignity and tolerance, but chivalrous courage was a marked characteristic. Personal cowardice was odious among the bar, as among the hunters who had fought the British and the Indians. Hence, insulting language, and the use of billingsgate, were too hazardous to be indulged where a personal accounting was a strong possibility. Not only did common prudence dictate courtesy among the members of the bar, but an exalted spirit of honor and well-bred politeness prevailed. The word of a counsel to his adversary was his inviolable bond. The suggestion of a lawyer as to the existence of a fact was accepted as verity by the court. To insinuate unprofessional conduct was to impute infamy."

I distinctly recall the first time I saw Mr. Lincoln. In September, 1852, two lawyers from Springfield, somewhat travel-stained with their sixty miles' journey, alighted from the stage-coach in front of the old tavern in Bloomington. The taller and younger of the two was Abraham Lincoln; the other, his personal friend and former preceptor, John T. Stuart. That evening it was my good fortune to hear Mr. Lincoln address a political meeting at the old Courthouse in advocacy of the election of General Winfield Scott to the Presidency. The speech was one of great ability, and but little that was favorable of the military record of General Pierce remained when the speech was concluded. The Mexican War was then of recent occurrence, its startling events fresh in the memory of all, and its heroes still the heroes of the hour. The more than half-century that has passed has not wholly dispelled my recollection of Mr. Lincoln's eloquent tribute to "the hero of Lundy's Lane," and his humorous description of the military career of General Franklin Pierce.

The incident now to be related occurred at the old National Hotel in Bloomington in September, 1854. Senator Douglas had been advertised to speak, and a large audience was in attendance. It was his first appearance there since the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. The writer, then a student at the Wesleyan University, with his classmate James S. Ewing and many others, had called upon Mr. Douglas at his hotel. While there the Hon. Jesse W. Fell, a prominent citizen of Bloomington and the close friend of Mr. Lincoln, also called upon Mr. Douglas, and after some conversation with him said in substance, that inasmuch as there was profound interest felt in the great question then pending, and the people were anxious to hear both sides, he thought it would be well to have a joint discussion between Judge Douglas and Mr. Lincoln. To which proposition Mr. Douglas at once demanded, "What party does Mr. Lincoln represent?" The answer of Mr. Fell was, "the Whig party, of course." Declining the proposition with much feeling Mr. Douglas said, "When I came home from Washington I was assailed in the northern part of the State by an old line abolitionist, in the central part of the State by a Whig, and in Southern Illinois by an anti-Nebraska Democrat. I cannot hold the Whig responsible for what the abolitionist says, nor the anti-Nebraska Democrat responsible for what either of the others say, and it looks like dogging a man all over the State." There was no further allusion to the subject, and Mr. Lincoln soon after called. The greeting between Judge Douglas and himself was most cordial, and their conversation, principally of incidents of their early lives, of the most agreeable and friendly character. Judge Lawrence Weldon, just then at the beginning of an honorable career, was present at the above interview, and has in a sketch of Mr. Lincoln given its incidents more in detail.

Courts of justice, and the law as a distinctive calling, are the necessary outgrowths of civilization. In his rude state, man avenged his wrongs with his own strong arm, and the dogma, "Might makes right," passed unchallenged. But as communities assumed organic form, tribunals were instituted for the administration of justice and the maintenance of public order. The progress of society, from a condition of semi-barbarism and ignorance to a state of the highest culture and refinement, may be traced by its advancement in the modes of administering justice, and in the character and learning of its tribunals. The advance steps taken from time to time in the history of jurisprudence are the milestones which stand out on the highway of civilization. All along the pathway of human progress, the courts of justice have been the sure criteria by which to judge of the intelligence and virtue of our race.

Truly it has been said: "With the coming of the lawyer came a new power in the world. The steel-clad baron and his retainers were awed by terms they had never before heard and did not understand, such as precedent, principle, and the like. The great and real pacifier of the world was the lawyer. His parchment took the place of the battle-field. The flow of his ink checked the flow of blood. His quill usurped the place of the sword. His legalism dethroned barbarism. His victories were victories of peace. He impressed on individuals and on communities that which he is now endeavoring to impress on nations, that there are many controversies that it were better to lose by arbitration than to win by war and bloodshed."

It is all-important, never more so than now, that the people should magnify the law. Whatever lessens respect for its authority bodes evil and only evil to the State. No occasion could arise more appropriate than this in which to utter solemn words of warning against an evil of greater menace to the public weal than aught to be apprehended from foreign foe. In many localities a spirit of lawlessness has asserted itself in its most hideous form. The rule of the mob has at times usurped that of the law. Outrages have been perpetrated in the name of summary justice, appalling to all thoughtful men. It need hardly be said that all this is in total disregard of individual rights, and utterly subversive of all lawful authority.

By the solemn adjudication of courts, and under the safeguards of law, the fact of guilt is to be established, and the guilty punished. The spirit of the mob is in deadly antagonism to all constituted authority. Unless curbed it will sap the foundation of civilized society. Lynching a human creature is no less murder when the act of a mob than when that of a single individual. There is no safety to society but in an aroused public sentiment that will hold each participant amenable to the law for the consequences of the crime he either perpetrates or abets. This is the land of liberty, "of the largest liberty," but let it never be forgotten that it is liberty regulated by law. Let him be accounted a public enemy who would weaken the bonds of human society, and destroy what it has cost our race the sacrifice and toil of centuries to achieve.

The sure rock of defence in the outstretched years as in the long past, will be the intelligence, the patriotism, the virtue of a law-abiding, liberty-loving people. To a degree that cannot be measured by words, the temple of justice will prove the city of refuge. "The judiciary has no guards, no palaces, no treasuries; no arms but truth and wisdom; and no splendor but justice."

II IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

NOTABLE MEMBERS OF THE FORTY-FOURTH CONGRESS—TRIAL OF GENERAL BELKNAP—THE PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST BETWEEN HAYES AND TILDEN—CREATION OF THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION—THE WRITER'S SPEECH ON THAT OCCASION— PROMINENT MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE DURING THIS CONGRESS—ANECDOTES OF MR. BLAINE—OTHER MEMBERS—ANECDOTES OF MR. HOAR—ELECTION OF THE "BLIND PREACHER"—MR. LAMAR'S ERROR AT TABLE—"BLUE JEANS WILLIAMS"—RETIREMENT OF DR. BUTLER FROM THE CHAPLAINCY—MR. BLACKBURN'S SPEECH AT AN EXECUTION—MR. COX'S READY WIT—PROCTOR KNOTT'S ABILITY AS A LAWYER—HIS SPEECH ON DULUTH—HIS REPLY TO HIS COMPETITOR FOR THE GOVERNORSHIP.

The forty-fourth Congress—the first of which I was a member— assembled December 6, 1875. Among its members were many gentlemen of distinction, some of whom had known active service in the field. Political disabilities had been in large measure removed, and the South was now, for the first time since the war, represented in Congress by its old-time statesmen. Of this number may be mentioned Mr. Stephens of Georgia, Mr. Lamar of Mississippi, and Mr. Reagan of Texas. From the membership of this House were afterwards chosen twenty-six Senators, ten members of the Cabinet, one Justice of the Supreme Court, and from this and the House immediately succeeding, three Vice-Presidents and two Presidents of the United States. The proceedings of this Congress marked an important epoch in our history. During its first session occurred the masterful debate upon the General Amnesty Bill. The very depths of partisan feeling were stirred, and for many days it was indeed a titanic struggle. The speeches attracting the greatest attention were those of Blaine and Garfield upon the one side, and Hill of Georgia and Lamar upon the other. This great debate recalled vividly that of Webster and Hayne, in the other wing of the Capitol, almost half a century before.

This session also witnessed the impeachment of a Cabinet officer, General Belknap, Secretary of War. The trial occurred before the Senate, sitting as a court of impeachment during the closing weeks of the session, and resulted in his acquittal, less than two-thirds of the Senators voting for conviction. General Belknap was represented by an able array of counsel, chief of whom were Judge Black of Pennsylvania and the Hon. Matthew H. Carpenter of Wisconsin. Mr. Knott of Kentucky, Mr. Hoar of Massachusetts, and Mr. Lord of New York, conducted the prosecution in the main as managers on the part of the House of Representatives. The principal contention on the part of the counsel for the accused was that there could be no conviction, inasmuch as Belknap had resigned his office before the article of impeachment had been preferred. This view seems to have been decisive of the final vote of many Senators, and the accused stood acquitted at the bar of the Senate.

When the second session of this Congress convened, in December, 1876, the excitement throughout the country was intense over the pending Presidential contest between Hayes and Tilden. As will be remembered, the electoral vote of two States, Louisiana and Florida, was claimed by each of the candidates. These votes were decisive of the result. As the days passed and the time approached for the joint session of the Senate and the House, for the purpose of counting the electoral votes and declaring the result, the tension became greater, and partisan feeling more intense. The friends of Hayes were in the majority in the Senate; those of Tilden, in the House. With conflicting certificates, both purporting to give the correct vote from each of the States named, and no lawful authority existing to determine as to their validity, it can readily be seen that the situation was one to arouse the grave apprehension of all thoughtful men. The condition was without a precedent in our history. Twice had there been a failure to elect a President by the people, and by constitutional provision the election in each instance devolved upon the House. In the first-mentioned case, in 1801, Mr. Jefferson was chosen; and in the latter, in 1825, Mr. John Quincy Adams. In neither of the cases just mentioned had there been a question as to how any State had voted. It was simply that no person had received a majority of all of the electoral votes cast. The method of settlement was clearly pointed out by the Constitution. As already indicated, the case was wholly different in the Hayes-Tilden controversy. The question then was as to how certain States had voted. It was for the purpose of ascertaining this fact and certifying the same to the joint session of the Senate and House, that the Electoral Commission was constituted. The bill having this end in view originated in the House in January, 1877; the Commission was constituted, and the controverted questions were soon thereafter determined.

The Electoral Commission was an imperative necessity. As such it was created,—consisting of five members each from the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Supreme Court. Its decisions were adverse to Mr. Tilden from the beginning, and resulted in the finding that all disputed votes should be counted for his opponent. This, it will be remembered, gave Hayes a majority of one on the final count, and resulted in his induction into office. Partisan feeling was at its height, and the question of the justice of the decision of the Electoral Commission was vehemently discussed.

To the end that there might be a peaceful determination of the perilous question, that of disputed succession to the Presidency, I was an earnest advocate of the bill creating the Commission. Upon the question of concurrence by the House of Representatives in the final determination of the Commission, bitter opposition was manifested upon the part of friends of Mr. Tilden, and a heated partisan debate resulted, and during this debate I spoke as follows:

"When this Congress assembled in December, it witnessed the American people from one end of the country to the other divided upon the question as to which candidate had been lawfully elected to the high office of President of the United States. The business industries of the country were paralyzed, public confidence destroyed, and the danger of civil war was imminent. That Mr. Tilden had received a majority of more than two hundred thousand of the popular vote was not disputed. That he had secured a majority of the Presidential electors in the several States, and was lawfully entitled to be inducted into the great office, was the firm belief of fully one-half of the people of this country. The hour was one of great peril to our institutions, and many were apprehensive that we were but entering into the dark night of anarchy and confusion. After many weeks of angry discussion, which resulted in still further arousing the passions of the people, a measure of adjustment was proposed. It was believed that there was still patriotism enough left in the American Congress to secure an honorable and fair settlement of this most dangerous question. We all recall how our hopes revived, and how gladly we hailed the introduction of the bill recommended by a joint committee of conference of the Senate and House of Representatives. It was welcomed as the harbinger of peace by the entire people of our country.

"I gave that bill my earnest support. It had in the House no friend more ardent in its advocacy than myself. I believed it to be a measure in the interest of peace. I believed that those who framed it, as well as those who gave it their support upon the floor, were honest in their statements, that no man could afford to take the Presidency with a clouded title, and that the object of the bill was to ascertain which of the candidates was lawfully entitled to the electoral votes of Florida and Louisiana. I never mistrusted for a moment that statesmen of high repute could in so perilous an hour, upon so grave a question, palter with words in a double sense.

"We who are the actors in this drama know, and history will record the fact, that the Conference Bill became a law, and the Electoral Commission was organized, not for the purpose of ascertaining which candidate had prima facie a majority of the electoral votes; not for the purpose of ascertaining that the Governor of Florida, and the de facto Governor of Louisiana, had given certificates to the Hayes electors. It was never dreamed that a tribunal, consisting in part of five judges of the highest court on earth, was to be constituted, whose sole duty was to report a fact known to every man in the land, that the returning-board of Louisiana had given the votes of that State to the Hayes electors. The avowed object of that bill was to ascertain which candidate had received a majority of the legal votes of those States. The avowed object of the bill was the secure the ends of justice; to see that the will of the people was executed; that the Republic suffered no harm; to see that the title to this great office was not tainted with fraud. How well the members of this tribunal have discharged the sacred trust committed to them, let them answer to history.

"The record will stand that this tribunal shut its eyes to the light of truth; refused to hear the undisputed proof that a majority of seven thousand legal votes in the State of Louisiana for Tilden was by a fraudulent returning-board changed to eight thousand majority for Hayes. The Republican Representative from Florida, Mr. Purman, has solemnly declared upon this floor that Florida had given its vote to Tilden. I am not surprised that two distinguished Republican Representatives from Massachusetts, Mr. Seelye and Mr. Pierce, have in such thrilling tones expressed their dissent from the judgment of this tribunal. By this decision fraud has become one of the legalized modes of securing the vote of a State. Can it be possible that the American people are prepared to accept the doctrine that fraud, which vitiates all contracts and agreements, which taints the judgments and decrees of courts, which will even annul the solemn covenant of marriage—fraud, which poisons wherever it enters —can be inquired into in all the relations of human life save only where a returning-board is its instrument, and the dearest rights of a sovereign people are at stake?

"But we are told that we created this tribunal and must abide by its arbitrament. I propose to do so in good faith. I have, from the beginning, opposed every movement that looked only to delay. I have voted against all dilatory motions. But the decision of this tribunal is too startling and too far-reaching in its consequences to pass unchallenged. That the returning-board of Louisiana will find no imitators in our future history is more than I dare hope. The pernicious doctrine that fraud and perjury are to be recognized auxiliaries in popular elections is one that may return to plague its inventors. The worst effect of this decision will be its lesson to the young men of our country. Hereafter old-fashioned honesty is at a discount, and villainy and fraud the legalized instruments of success. The fact may be conceded, the proof overwhelming, that the honest voice of a State has been overthrown by outrage and fraud, and yet the chosen tribunal of the people has entered of solemn record that there is no remedy.

'O Judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts!'

"My criticism of the decision of this tribunal rests upon its finding in the cases of Louisiana and Florida; upon the Oregon case I have no criticism to offer. It is true that but two votes of that State could have been given to Hayes had the decision first adopted by the Commission been followed in the case of Oregon. However inconsistent it may be with other rulings of the Commission, standing alone it is in the main correct. The sanctity of seal of State and certificate of Governor applied only to Louisiana and Florida; the Governor of Oregon was not of the household of the faithful.

"The people of Oregon cast a majority of their votes for Hayes, and no vote or act of mine shall stand in the way of its being so recorded. Such have been my convictions from the beginning, and the great wrong done in Louisiana and Florida cannot warp my convictions at this hour.

"We have now reached the final act in this great drama, and the record here made will pass into history. Time, the great healer, will bring a balm to those who feel sick at heart because of this grievous wrong. But who can estimate, what seer can foretell, the evils that may result to us and our children from this judgment? Fortunate, indeed, will it be for this country if our people lose not faith in popular institutions; fortunate, indeed, if they abate not their confidence in the integrity of that high tribunal, for a century the bulwark of our liberties. In all times of popular commotion and peril, the Supreme Court of the United States has been looked to as the final arbiter, its decrees heeded as the voice of God. How disastrous may be the result of decisions so manifestly partisan, I will not attempt to forecast.

"Let this vote be now taken and the curtain fall upon these scenes forever. To those who believe, as I do, that a grievous wrong has been suffered, let me entreat that this arbitrament be abided in good faith, that no hindrance or delay be interposed to the execution of the law, but that by faithful adherence to its mandates, by honest efforts to revive the prostrate industries of the country, by obedience to the constituted authorities, we will show ourselves patriots rather than partisans in the hour of our country's misfortune."

Some mention will now be made of prominent members of the House during this Congress. The Hon. Michael C. Kerr of Indiana was elected Speaker of the House. The vote of the Republican minority was given to the Hon. James G. Blaine, who had been Speaker during the three Congresses immediately preceding. Mr. Kerr was a gentleman of high character and recognized ability. He had been for many years a member of the House, and was familiar with the details of its business. He was in failing health at the time of his election, and died before the close of the first session of that Congress. He was physically unable to preside during the greater part of the session, and was frequently relieved from the onerous duties of the Chair by two new members who were yet to achieve distinction in that body, Mr. Blackburn of Kentucky and Mr. Springer of Illinois.

Mr. Blaine, the leader of the minority, had been for twelve years a member of the House, having been first elected at the age of thirty-three. He was a brilliant debater, well versed in parliamentary law, and at all points fully equipped for the conflict. With the exception of Henry Clay, the House of Representatives has probably never known his equal as a party leader. That he possessed a touch of humor will appear from the following. While the discussion was at its height upon his amendment excluding Jefferson Davis from the benefit of the General Amnesty Bill, Mr. Blaine, looking across to the opposite side of the Chamber, said: "I confess to a feeling of commiseration for some gentlemen upon the other side, who represent close districts. Surrounded by their Southern associates here, and with intense Union constituencies at home, their apprehension, as they are called to vote upon this amendment, is indeed deplorable. It remind me of a Hibernian procession I once saw moving down Broadway, where the serious question was how to keep step to the music, and at the same time to dodge the omnibuses!"

My seat was just across the aisle from that of Mr. Blaine. When introduced, I handed him letters of introduction from two of his college classmates, the Hon. Robert E. Williams and the Rev. John Y. Calhoun. After reading the letters and speaking most kindly of his old Washington College classmates, he brusquely inquired, "What are John Y. Calhoun's politics?"

I answered, "He is a Democrat."

Blaine instantly replied, "Well, how strangely things do come around in this world! When we were in college together, Calhoun was the strongest kind of Presbyterian."

I intimated that his sometime classmate was still of that eminently respectable persuasion. The reply was, in manner indicating apparent surprise, "Is it possible that out in your country a man can be a Presbyterian and a Democrat at the same time?"

I was a member of the Board of Visitors to West Point in June, 1877. Mr. Blaine and Bishop Quintard of Tennessee were also members. General Hancock was with our Board for some days at the little West Point Inn, and delivered the address to the graduating class of cadets. He was then in excellent health, and as superb in appearance as he had been courageous in battle. I have never heard more brilliant conversation than that at our table, in which the chief participants were Gail Hamilton, Bishop Quintard, General Hancock, Senator Maxey, and Mr. Blaine. The last named, "upon the plain highway of talk," was unrivalled.

While the Board was in session, Mr. Blaine and I spent some hours with the Hon. Hamilton Fish, late Secretary of State, at his country home near West Point. Near by was still standing the historic Beverly Robinson House, the home of Benedict Arnold when he was in command of the Colonial forces at West Point. As we passed through the quaint old mansion, Mr. Blaine, whose knowledge of our Revolutionary history was all-embracing, described graphically the conditions existing at the time of Arnold's treason, and just where each person sat at the breakfast table in the old dining-room in which we were then standing, on the fateful morning when the courier from the British camp hurriedly announced to General Arnold the capture of Major Andre.

Mr. Blaine and I were once passing along Pennsylvania Avenue, a third of a century ago, when he remarked that the old building just to our right had once been a high-toned gambling house; that there were traditions to the effect that some well-known statesmen were not wholly unadvised as to its exact location and uses. He then told me that during his first term in Congress he was early one morning passing this building on his way to the Capitol. Just as he reached the spot where we were then standing, the Hon. Thaddeus Stevens came down the steps of the building mentioned, and, immediately after his cordial greeting to Mr. Blaine, was accosted by a negro preacher, who earnestly requested a contribution toward the building of a church for his people. Promptly taking a roll from his vest pocket, Mr. Stevens handed the negro a fifty-dollar bill, and turning to Blaine solemnly observed,

"God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform!"

At the time first mentioned, Mr. Blaine was in excellent health, buoyant in spirits, aggressive to the last degree, and full of hope as to the future. The disappointments and bereavements that saddened the closing years of his life had as yet cast no shadow upon his pathway.

Next in leadership to Mr. Blaine, upon the Republican side, was the Hon. James A. Garfield. He possessed few of the qualities of brilliant leadership so eminently characteristic of Blaine, but was withal one of the ablest men I have ever known. Gifted with rare powers of oratory, with an apparently inexhaustible reservoir of information at his command, he knew no superior in debate. At one period of his life he was the recipient of public honors without a parallel in our history. While yet a Representative in Congress, he was a Senator-elect from Ohio, and the President-elect of the United States. For once, it indeed seemed that "fortune had come with both hands full." In the words of the Persian poet, "he had obtained an ear of corn from every harvest." And yet, a few months later, in the words of his great eulogist, "the stately mansion of power had become to him the wearisome hospital of pain, and he begged to be taken from its prison walls, from its oppressive, stifling air, from its homelessness and its hopelessness."

My personal acquaintance with Mr. Garfield began early in January, 1876, when we were members of the House Committee appointed by the Speaker to convey the remains of a deceased member to his late home, Norwich, Connecticut, for burial. Another member of the Committee was Representative Wheeler of New York. It was late Saturday afternoon when we were conveyed by carriages from the crossing at Jersey City to the depot where the Norwich train was in waiting. Our route lay for some distance along Broadway, through the very heart of the great metropolis. As we passed the hurrying throngs that crowded the great thoroughfare that sombre winter evening, Mr. Garfield remarked that it was a scene similar to the one we were then witnessing that suggested to Mr. Bryant one of the most stirring of his shorter poems.

At our request and in tones that linger even yet in my memory, he then repeated these lines:

"Let me move slowly through the street
Filled with an ever shifting train,
Amid the sound of steps that beat
The murmuring walks like autumn rain.

How fast the flitting figures come,
The mild, the fierce, the stony face;
Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some
Where secret tears have left their trace!

They pass to toil, to strife, to rest,
To halls in which the feast is spread,
To chambers where the funeral guest
In silence sits beside the dead.

Each where his tasks or pleasures call
They pass, and heed each other not.
There is Who heeds, Who holds them all
In His large love, and boundless thought.

These struggling tides of life that seem
In wayward, aimless course to tend,
Are eddies of the mighty stream
That rolls to its appointed end."

Norwich, the home of the deceased member, Mr. Starkweather, and where he was laid to rest, is a beautiful city and one of much historic interest. It was here that Benedict Arnold was born, and the ruins of his early home were still to be seen. Of greater interest was a monument standing in an old Indian burying-ground near the centre of the city,—"Erected to the Memory of Uncas." It was within the memory of the oldest inhabitant that the President of the United States and his Cabinet were in attendance at the dedication of this monument, and deeply interested in the impressive ceremonies in honor of "the last of the Mohicans."

An exceedingly courteous gentleman upon the same side of the chamber was the Hon. Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts. He had been a Major-general during the late war and was an ex-Governor of his State. He first achieved national distinction in the thirty-fourth Congress, when after a protracted and exciting struggle, he was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives. In the body over which he had so ably presided in ante-bellum days, he had again taken his seat. While by no means taking the highest rank as a debater, he was familiar with the complicated rules governing the House, and his opinion challenged the highest respect. He and Mr. Blaine were the only members of that House who had previously held the position of Speaker.

Near General Banks sat the Hon. William D. Kelley of Pennsylvania. He had known many years of legislative service, and was long "the father of the House." One of the features of its successive organization, as many old members will recall, was the administration of the official oath to the Speaker-elect by the member who had known the longest continuous service—"the gentleman from Pennsylvania." When in the fulness of times he passed to "the house not made with hands," his mantle fell upon Judge Holman of Indiana.

The House probably contained no member of rarer attainments in scholarship than Julius H. Seelye of Massachusetts. He stood in the front ranks of the great educators of his day, and was President of Amherst College during the latter years of his life. His political service was limited to one term in Congress. His speech near its beginning upon the General Amnesty Bill challenged the profound attention of the House, and at once gave him honored place in its membership.

The Congressional career of the Hon. George W. McCrary, of Iowa, terminated with this Congress. He was recognized as one of the ablest lawyers of the House, and was one of its most agreeable and courteous members. During the presidency of Hayes he held the position of Secretary of War, and was later a Judge of the United States Circuit Court.

The Hon. Joseph G. Cannon of Illinois, the present Speaker, was just at the beginning of his long Congressional career. For many years he has been an active leader of the House and a prominent participant in its important debates. His characteristic patience and long-suffering courtesy have no doubt at times been sorely tried by attempts to enlarge the sum total of appropriation bills reported by the Committee of which he was chairman. To the important post of "watch-dog of the Treasury," he was, nem. con., the successor to the lamented Holman. In this connection a suggestive incident is recalled. One of the guides of the Capitol, when some years ago showing a visitor through the Vice-President's chamber, called attention to a little old-fashioned mirror upon its walls. The guide explained that this mirror was purchased at a cost of thirty dollars when John Adams was Vice-President, but when the bill for its payment was before the House, Mr. Holman objected. A Western member, who had just been defeated upon a proposed amendment to an appropriation bill, by reason of a fatal point of order raised by the chairman, promptly exclaimed, "I move to strike out Holman and insert Cannon."

The sagacity and untiring industry of Mr. Cannon have elevated him to the Speakership, and possibly yet higher honors await him. It is a significant fact in this connection, however, that notwithstanding the brilliant array of ambitious statesmen who have held the Speakership for more than a century, only one, Mr. Polk, has ever reached the Presidency.

The forty-fourth Congress was the last of which the Hon. William A. Wheeler of New York was a member. He was elected Vice-president in 1876, and the duties of that office have rarely been discharged by an abler or more courteous officer. He was highly esteemed by his associates during his long service in the House. His principle in action seemed ever to be, "there is nothing so kingly as kindness."

Messrs. Hale and Frye of Maine, Aldrich of Rhode Island, Money of Mississippi, Taylor of Tennessee, and Elkins of West Virginia, were members of this House; all of whom are now Senators of marked ability, and well known to the entire country.

A member of this House, who at a later date, and in the other wing of the Capitol, achieved yet greater distinction, was the Hon. George F. Hoar of Massachusetts. At the close of this Congress he was transferred to the Senate, where for more than a quarter of a century he was a prominent leader. His ability and attainments were of the highest, and he was the worthy successor of Webster in the great body of which he was so long an honored member.

In addition to more solid qualities, Mr. Hoar was gifted with a keen sense of humor, as will appear from one or two incidents to be mentioned. In the House, Mr. Springer, in order to prevent the reconsideration of resolutions and debate thereupon under the rules, had frequently cut off the possibility of such debate by the timely interposition of the words, "Not to be brought back on a motion to reconsider." Now, it so fell out that upon a certain day Mr. Springer received a telegram calling him home just as the roll-call was ordered upon an important bill. Earnestly desiring to vote— which owing to the early departure of his train was impossible if he waited until his name was regularly reached upon the roll —he moved to the front of the Speaker, and after brief explanation, asked unanimous consent to vote at once. Permission was of course granted, his name at once called, and his vote given. Grateful for the courtesy, he bowed repeatedly to each side of the Chamber, and, hurrying up the aisle, was about to take his exit, when Mr. Hoar, pointing his finger at the retreating figure, solemnly exclaimed, "Not to be brought back upon a motion to reconsider!"

At a much later day the Senate was "advising and consenting" over the appointment of a distinguished gentleman whose name had just been sent in for confirmation as Ambassador to an important European Court. The gentleman in question had voted for the then incumbent of the great office, but his former political affiliations had been wholly with the opposing party. The nomination was about being confirmed without objection when Mr. Hoar, arising with apparent reluctance, said:

"As this is in some measure a family affair, Mr. President, I hesitate to interfere. If our friends upon the opposite side of the Chamber are satisfied with this appointment, I certainly shall interpose no objection. The gentleman named is well qualified, and has more than once held high place at the hands of the party which he has but recently deserted, and to which he will no doubt return in due time. We have, however, in New England an old-time custom, as sacred as if part of the written law, that if a man is so unfortunate as to lose his companion he will not marry again within one year. Now sir, I have always thought this rule, as to time, might well be applied to the matter of office-seeking. Where a man has been repeatedly honored by his party as this appointee has been, but where, prompted by motives purely unselfish no doubt, he has gone over to the camp of the enemy, I think a due sense of modestly should impel him to serve in the ranks at least one year before being an applicant for high office at the hands of his newly found friends."

Coming over to the Democratic side of the Chamber, well to its front sat the Hon. William R. Morrison of Illinois. By virtue of his position as Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means he was the traditional leader of the House. Possessing little of the brilliancy of the leader of the minority, Colonel Morrison was none the less one of the ablest and most useful members of that body. He had for many sessions been a member of the House, and had been a soldier in the Mexican and in the Civil War. His record was honorable, both as soldier and legislator. He was the author of the Tariff Bill which was fully debated during the first session of that Congress, and was in some measure a determining factor in the Presidential campaign that soon followed. At a later day, Colonel Morrison was a prominent candidate for nomination as President by the national convention of his party. His personal friendships and antagonisms were well known. It is related of him that during a serious illness, apprehending that the dread messenger was in near waiting, arousing himself to what appeared to be a last effort, he said in scarcely audible tones to a sorrowing colleague at his bedside: "I suppose when this is all over they will have something to say about me, as is the custom, in the House. Well, if Springer, and Cox, and Knott, and Stevenson want to talk, let them go ahead, but if old Spears tries to speak just cough him down."

Never in any political gathering has there been a more effective speech, of a single sentence, than that in which Colonel Morrison presented to the Democratic caucus of the House members the name of the "Blind Preacher" for Chaplain. Three or four candidates were already in nomination when Morrison arose and said: "Mr. Chairman, I present for the office of Chaplain of the House the name of Doctor Milburn, a man who loves God, pays his debts, and votes the Democratic ticket!" Before the applause that followed had entirely died away the names of his competitors were withdrawn, and the "Blind Preacher" was nominated by acclamation.

The Hon. William M. Springer, of the same State, had just entered upon his twenty years of continuous service in the House. He came promptly to the front as a ready debater and skilful parliamentarian. He was thoroughly educated, ambitious, and withal an excellent speaker, and was the possessor in full measure of the suaviter in modo. His personal popularity was great, and a more obliging, agreeable, and pleasing associate it would have been difficult to find. He was optimistic to the last degree. To him every cloud had a silver lining,—the lining generally concealing the cloud. It was said of him by one of his colleagues that when the election returns were coming in, showing overwhelming defeat to his party,— even before they were fully summed up,—Mr. Springer with beaming countenance would promptly demonstrate by figures of his own how we were sure to be victorious four years later.

The Hon. Carter H. Harrison was a prominent member of the Illinois delegation. He soon took high rank as an orator, and never failed to command the attention of the House. Few speeches delivered during that session of Congress were so generally published, or more extensively quoted than were those of Mr. Harrison. At the end of four years' service in Congress he was elected Mayor of Chicago, an office he filled most acceptably for many years. His tragic death, upon the concluding day of the great Exposition, was universally deplored throughout the entire country.

The Hon. John H. Reagan, of Texas, was a Representative in Congress before the war. At its beginning he resigned his seat in the House, and cast in his fortunes with the South. He was early selected a member of the Davis Cabinet, and continued to discharge the duties of Postmaster-General until the fall of the Confederacy. He was a citizen of Texas while it was yet a Republic, and took an active part in securing its admission to the Federal Union. Judge Reagan was a gentleman of recognized ability, and of exceedingly courteous and dignified bearing.

An old-time statesman, on the same side of the Chamber, was the Hon. Fernando Wood of New York. A generation had passed since he first entered Congress. He was a Representative in the old hall of the Capitol while Webster, Calhoun, and Clay were in their prime. Erect, stately, faultless in his attire, and of bearing almost chivalric, Mr. Wood was long one of the active and picturesque personages of the House. At the time whereof we write, his sands were almost run, but, courageous to the last, he was in his accustomed seat but a little time before the final summons came, and he died, as was his wish, with the harness on. All in all, we shall hardly see his like again.

Surrounded by his colleagues near the centre of the hall sat one of the most remarkable men of his day, philosopher, jurist, statesman, orator, Lucius Q. C. Lamar of Mississippi. In his early manhood he was a member of the House, and even then was recognized as one of the most brilliant of the many brilliant men his section had sent to the national councils. During the war his services in field and council were given to the South, and something less than a decade after the return of peace, Mr. Lamar, still in his prime, again took his seat in the hall where his first laurels had been won. His great speech—one that touched all hearts—was not long delayed; the occasion was the day set apart in the House for tributes to the memory of the lamented Sumner. Many eulogies were delivered; that of Lamar still lingers in the memory of all who heard it. "The theme was worthy the orator; the orator, the theme." As a splendid tribute to a great tribune, as a plea for peace,—abiding, eternal, between all sections of a restored union,—it stands unsurpassed among the great masterpieces of ancient or modern eloquence.

Later, Mr. Lamar was a prominent participant in one of the fiercest debates the Senate has ever known. A leading Senator upon the opposite side of the chamber, in advocating the passage of the "Force bill," reflected bitterly upon Mississippi and her Senators. In replying to the personal portion of the speech, Lamar said, "the Senator has uttered upon this floor a falsehood—knowing it to be such. The language I have used, Mr. President, is severe. It was so intended. It is language, sir, that no honest man would deserve, and that no brave man will wear!"

Mr. Lamar was one of the most absent-minded of men. A number of years ago, by invitation of the Faculty, he delivered an address to the graduating class of Centre College, Kentucky. The day was quite warm, the exercises somewhat protracted, and, at the close of his able and eloquent address, he was very much exhausted.

An excellent collation, prepared by the ladies connected with the College, was served in the chapel near by, at the close of the exercises. Seated upon the platform, with Mr. Lamar at the head of the table, were Doctor Young, the President, Justice Harlan, Governor Knott, the Rev. Doctor Bullock, Chaplain of the Senate, Judge McCormick, and others.

At the plate of each guest a large tomato was in readiness and, excellent itself, was, moreover, the earnest of better things to come. Immediately upon being seated, Mr. Lamar "fell to" and, wholly oblivious of the surroundings, soon made way with the one viand then in visible presence. Just as its last vestige disappeared, the President of the College arose and, with a solemnity eminently befitting the occasion, called upon Doctor Bullock to offer thanks. Deeply chagrined, Mr. Lamar was an attentive listener to the impressive invocation which immediately followed. At its conclusion, with troubled countenance, he turned to Knott and said, "I am humiliated at my conduct. I should have remembered that Presbyterians always say grace before meals, but I was very hungry and exhausted, and the tomato very tempting; I have really disgraced myself." To which Knott replied, "You ought not to feel so, Mr. Justice; the blessing of Doctor Bullock's was broad and general; in large measure retrospective as well as prospective. It reminds me of a little incident that occurred on the 'Rolling Fork.' An old-time deacon down there was noted for the lengthy blessing which at his table was the unfailing prelude to every meal. His hired man, Bill Taylor, an unconverted and impatient youth, had fallen into the evil habit of commencing his meal before the blessing thereon had been fully invoked. The frown and rebuke of the good deacon were alike unavailing in effecting the desired reform. Righteously indignant thereat, the deacon, in a spirit possibly not the most devout, at length gave utterance to this petition, 'For what we are about to receive, and for what William Taylor has already received, accept our thanks, O Lord!"

In cheery tones the great orator at once replied, "Knott, you are the only man on earth who could have thought of such a story just at the opportune moment." The temporary depression vanished; Lamar was himself again, and was at once the brilliant conversationalist of the delighted assemblage.

The surviving members of that Congress will recall a little chair that daily rolled down the aisle to the front to the Speaker's desk. It contained the emaciated form of a man whose weight at his best was but ninety pounds—Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, "whose little body lodged a mighty mind." No one who saw Mr. Stephens could ever forget him. He looked as though he had just stepped out from an old picture, or dropped down from the long-ago. There was probably as little about him "of the earth, earthy" as of any mortal this world has known. Upon his weak frame time had done its work, and, true it is, "the surest poison is time." And yet, his feeble piping voice—now scarcely heard an arm's length away—was potent in the contentions of the great hall when he was the honored associate of men whose public service reached back to the formation of the Government. In the old hall near by—now the Valhalla of the nation—he had sat with John Quincy Adams and contemporaries whose names at once recall the Revolutionary period. After serving as Vice-President of the Confederacy, whose rise and fall he had witnessed, Mr. Stephens, with the shadows falling about him, was, by unanimous voice of his people, again, in his own words, "in our father's house." His apartments in the old National Hotel, as he never failed to explain to his visitors, were those long ago occupied by his political idol, Henry Clay. His couch stood in the exact spot where Mr. Clay had died; and he no doubt thought—possibly wished— that his own end might come just where that great Commoner had breathed his last. This, however, was not to be. His last hours were spent at the capital of his native commonwealth, which had, with scarce a dissenting voice, just honored itself by electing him to its chief executive office.

The Hon. Samuel J. Randall, of Pennsylvania, was the successor of the lamented Kerr as Speaker of the House. As such he presided during the last session of the forty-fourth Congress, and during the two Congresses immediately succeeding. He had long been a member, coming in with Blaine and Garfield just before the close of the war. Able, courageous, and thoroughly skilled in parliamentary tactics, he had achieved a national reputation as the leader of the minority in the forty-third Congress. During the protracted and exciting struggle near its close, over the Force Bill—the House remaining in continuous session for fifty-six hours—Mr. Randall had displayed wonderful endurance and marvellous capacity for successful leadership. He was more than once presented by his State in Democratic national conventions for nomination to the Presidency. He was an excellent presiding officer, prompt, often aggressive, and was rarely vanquished in his many brilliant passages with the leaders of the minority. One incident is recalled, however, when the tables were turned against the Speaker, no one joining more heartily than himself in the laugh that followed. Mr. Conger, of Michigan, with great earnestness and persistency, was urging the consideration of a resolution which the Speaker had repeatedly declared out of order. By no means disconcerted by the decision, Mr. Conger, walking down the aisle, was vehement in his demand for the immediate consideration of his resolution. At which the Speaker with much indignation said, "Well, I think the Chair has a right to exercise a little common sense in this matter." To which Mr. Conger instantly responded, "Oh, if the Chair has the slightest intention of doing anything of that kind, I will immediately take my seat!"

The Hon. David Dudley Field, elected to fill a vacancy, was a Representative from the city of New York during the closing session of the forty-fourth Congress. He was an eminent lawyer, and, at the time, stood at the head of the American bar. His name is inseparably associated with many important reforms in legal procedure during the last half century. He had been instrumental in securing the appointment of a committee of distinguished jurists, chosen from the leading nations, to prepare the outlines of an international code. His report accompanying the plan, to the preparation of which he had given much thought and time, received the earnest commendation of leading publicists and jurists in Europe, as well as in his own country. His untiring efforts, looking to the substitution of international courts of arbitration for war, have given his name honored place among the world's benefactors.

Mr. Field was the eldest of four brothers, whose names are known wherever our language is spoken. The family was distinguished for talents of the highest order. It would indeed be difficult to find its counterpart in our history. One of the brothers, Stephen J. Field, was for a third of a century a distinguished justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The youngest, Dr. Henry M. Field, was eminent alike as theologian and author. The name of the remaining brother, Cyrus W. Field, is, and will continue, a household word in two hemispheres. After repeated failures, to the verge even of extremity, "the trier of spirits," the dream of his life became a reality. The Atlantic cable was laid, and, in the words of John Bright, Mr. Field had "moored the New World alongside the Old."

The Hon. Henry Watterson, of Kentucky, was a representative during the closing session of Congress. As the editor of a great journal, Mr. Watterson was already well known to the country. His talents were of a high order. In his chosen field he had no superior. For many years he was a recognized leader of his party, and one of the chief managers in all its national conventions. His contributions to the literature of three decades of political campaigns were almost unparalleled. As a forcible, trenchant writer he is to be mentioned with Greeley, Raymond, Prentice, and Dana. His career, too, as a public lecturer, has been both successful and brilliant. The Congressional service of Mr. Watterson terminated with the session just mentioned. His speech, near its close, upon the bill creating an electoral commission to determine the Tilden-Hayes Presidential controversy was listened to with earnest attention, and at once gave him high place among the great debaters of that eventful Congress.

While a passenger on a train to Washington, to be present at the opening of Congress, my attention was directed to a man of venerable appearance, who entered the sleeping-car at a station not many miles out from Cincinnati. He was dressed in "Kentucky jeans" and had the appearance of a well-to-do farmer. Standing in the aisle near me, he was soon engaged in earnest conversation with the porter, endeavoring to secure a berth. The porter repeatedly assured him that this was impossible, as every berth was taken. He told the porter that he was quite ill, and must get on his journey. I then proposed that he share my berth for the night. He gladly did so until other accommodations were provided.

On the Monday following, when the House was in the process of organization, the name of James D. Williams of Indiana being called, my sleeping-car acquaintance, still attired in blue jeans, stepped forward with his colleagues to the Speaker's desk and was duly sworn in as a member of Congress. This was his first term, but he soon became quite well known to the country. As chairman of the Committee of Accounts, having to do with small expenditures, he closely scrutinized every claim presented, and scaled to the lowest many pet measures. His determination to economize, as well as his peculiarity of dress and appearance, soon made him an especial object of amusement to newspaper correspondents. He was the butt of many cheap jokes; one being his alleged complaint that hundreds of towels were being daily used by members at the Capitol, at the public expense, while at his home, on his farm, one towel would last a week, with eleven in the family. Despite, however, all jokes and gibes, he soon became the most popular man in his State. "Blue Jeans Williams" became a name to conjure with; and in the celebrated campaign of 1876, after an exciting contest, he was elected Governor, defeating an able and popular leader, who, twelve years later, was himself elected President of the United States.

No sketch of "the American Commons" during the last fifty years would be in any measure complete that failed to make mention of the man who was nineteen times elected a Representative, the Hon. William S. Holman, of Indiana. Whatever the ups and downs of party supremacy, despite all attempts by gerrymandering to relegate him to the shades of private life, Judge Holman, with unruffled front, "a mien at once kindly, persuasive, and patient," held sturdily on his way. Amid political upheavals that overwhelmed all his associates upon the ticket, his name, like that of Abou Ben Adhem, led all the rest. From Pierce to McKinley—whatever the issues, and howsoever determined—at each successive organization of the House "the gentleman from Indiana" was an unfailing respondent to the opening roll-call. An old English stanza comes to mind:

"And this is law, that I'll maintain
Until my dying day, sir,
That whatsoever King shall reign,
Still I'll be vicar of Bray, sir."

His integrity was unquestioned; his knowledge of public business, phenomenal. With no brilliancy, little in the way of oratory, Judge Holman was nevertheless one of the most valuable members ever known to the House of Representatives. The Lobby regarded him as its mortal foe. He was for years the recognized "watch-dog of the Treasury." Personal appeals to his courtesy, to permit the present consideration of private bills, had, in the main, as well have been made to a marble statue. His well known and long to be remembered, "I object, Mr. Speaker," sounded the knell of many a well devised raid upon the Treasury. It may be that he sometimes prevented the early consideration of meritorious measures, but with occasional exceptions his objections were wholesome. He kept in close touch with the popular pulse, and knew, as if by instinct, which would be the safe and which the dangerous side of the pending measure. It sometimes seemed that he could even "look into the seeds of time and tell which grain will grow and which will not."

It has been said that even great men have at times their little weaknesses. An incident to be related will show that possibly Judge Holman was no exception to that rule. The consideration of sundry bills for the erection of post-office buildings in a number of districts having "gone over" by reason of his objection, the members having the bills in charge joined forces and lumped the several measures into an "omnibus bill" which was duly presented. The members especially interested in its passage, to "make assurance doubly sure," had quietly inserted a provision for the erection of a Government building in one of the cities of Holman's district. When the bill was read, Judge Holman, as he sat busily writing at his desk, was, without solicitation upon his part, the closely observed of every member. Apparently oblivious, however, to all that was occurring, he continued to write. No objection being made, the bill was in the very act of passing when an exceedingly bright member from Wisconsin, "being moved and instigated by the devil," no doubt, rushed to the front and exclaimed, "Mr. Speaker, I desire to call the attention of the gentleman from the fourth district of Indiana to the fact that the Treasury is being robbed!" Unmoved by the appeal, the Judge continued to write, and, as one of his colleagues afterwards remarked, "was chewing his tobacco very fine." After a moment of suspense, and amid applause in which even the galleries took part, the member from Wisconsin, in tragic tones, exclaimed, "Ah, Mr. Speaker, our watch-dog of the Treasury, like all other good watch-dogs, never barks when his friends are around!"

Mr. Blackburn, of Kentucky, began his long and eventful legislative career as a member of this Congress. As the representative of the Ashland District, he was the successor of Clay, Crittenden, Marshall, Breckenridge, Beck—illustrious names in the history of the State and of the nation. He was worthy of the succession, and, at the close of ten years' service in the House, was elected to the Senate. He came within a few votes of being chosen as the candidate of his party for Speaker at the opening of the forty-sixth Congress. He was a born orator. It was as natural for him to speak as to breathe. Wake him up at any hour of the night, and he would be ready upon the instant for an eloquent speech of any length, upon any subject. Thoroughly familiar with all that pertained to our political history, with a voice easily heard above the storm, he was ever in the forefront of the hurly-burly of heated partisan debate. There was little that was conciliatory about him. He neither gave nor asked quarter. A born fighter, he had rather

"Follow his enemy through a fiery gulf,
Than flatter him in a bower."

Possessing neither the keen wit of his colleague, McKenzie, nor the profound humor of Knott, he was nevertheless the hero of more interesting narratives than any member who ever crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The incident to be related may have suggested the witty reply of Senator Proctor to the Vice-President when invited by the latter to come into the devotional exercises: "Excuse me, I am paired with Blackburn on prayers." This equals his reply when asked by Senator Hale what he thought of Senator Chandler: "I like him, but it is an acquired taste."

Upon the occasion of the retirement of the Rev. Dr. Butler from the Chaplaincy of the Senate—a position he had filled most acceptably for many years—many of the Senators spoke regretfully of his retirement. The speech of Mr. Blackburn, for beauty of expression and pathetic eloquence, was unrivalled. He spoke most tenderly of the faithfulness of the venerable man of God; how for long years he had gone in and out before us; of his daily walk and conversation; how, like the Blessed Master, his only thought was of doing good; of how he had often invoked the Divine blessing upon us and our loved ones, and lifted us as it were in his arms up to the very throne of grace. The orator seemed inspired, as though his lips were indeed touched with a live coal from the altar. The counterpart of the scene that followed his closing words had never been witnessed in legislative assembly. All were in tears. It was even said that venerable Senators, who had never shed a tear since the ratification of the treaty of Ghent, actually sobbed aloud, and refused to be comforted. At length, amid silence that could be felt, an adjournment was effected, and the Senators passed sadly out to their homes. As he passed the Chair, Senator Vest, in undertone, remarked to the Vice-President, "Jo never saw him!"

The next day, in the absence of his successor, "the blind chaplain," Dr. Butler again, and for the last time, officiated, simply repeating in manner most solemn and impressive, the Lord's Prayer. At its conclusion, Senator Blackburn, who had been a most attentive listener, came forward to the desk and remarked to Vice-President Stevenson: "I tell you, sir, I like that new chaplain of ours. What a splendid prayer! There is something original about that man!"

Thirty years and more ago, when first a candidate for Congress, Mr. Blackburn attended a public execution—in common parlance "a hanging"—in one of the counties in his district. Being a gentleman of great distinction, and a candidate for Congress, he was appropriately invited by the sheriff to occupy a seat with the prisoner and his spiritual adviser upon the gallows. At the near approach of the fatal hour, the sheriff, with watch in hand, amid the sea of upturned faces, stated to the prisoner that he had yet five minutes to live, and it was his privilege if he so desired to address the audience. The prisoner meekly replied that he did not wish to speak. Whereupon Mr. Blackburn, stepping promptly to the front of the scaffold, said: "As the gentleman does not wish to speak, if he will kindly yield me his time, I will take this occasion to remark that I am a candidate for Congress, regularly nominated by the Democratic Convention," etc. This incident being told in the presence of Mr. Marshall, the opposing candidate, the latter remarked that he remembered it well, and could vouch for its truth. He then added that when Mr. Blackburn proposed to speak out the prisoner's time, the latter turned to the Sheriff and inquired who that was. To which the officer replied, "Captain Blackburn." At this the prisoner, who had amid all the exciting scenes of his arrest and trial, and even up to the present moment, with his open coffin beside him, displayed marvellous fortitude, suddenly exhibiting deep emotion, piteously exclaimed, "Please hang me first, and let him speak afterwards!"

When, in the tide of time, will the House of Representatives witness the like of "Sunset" Cox? Beginning a Congressional career, which was to terminate only with his death, when scarcely of the constitutional age, he was in close succession a representative from two great States,—in his early manhood from the Capital district of Ohio, and in his maturer years, even down to old age, the most prominent of the delegation from the great State of New York. Mr. Cox was gifted as few men have been in this world. His literary attainments were of a high order, and some of the books of which he was the author will no doubt furnish instructive and entertaining reading for many generations to come. He was an indefatigable student, and seemed, as did Lord Bacon, to have "taken all knowledge for his province." His accurate knowledge of the history of all countries and times was a marvel, and, all at his instant command, placed him upon rare vantage ground in the many forensic struggles in which he took part. Woe betide the unfortunate antagonist whose record was other than faultless. He was a born debater, full of resources, and aggressive to the last degree. He never waited for opportunities, but sought them. In great emergencies he was often put forward by his political associates for the fierce encounter with the great leaders upon the opposite side of the Chamber. He was withal one of the most kindly of men. He was the soul of personal and official honor. His integrity could know no temptation. It may truly be said of him that—

"Whatever record leaps to light,
He never can be shamed."

His sympathies were deeply enlisted for the safety of those "who go down to the sea in ships." For years he was the earnest advocate of a thorough life-saving system. Much of the present efficiency of this humane branch of the public service is due to his untiring efforts. He had travelled to all countries, and even to the islands of the sea. He was of sunny disposition, and believed that "whatever places the eye of Heaven visits are to the wise man ports and happy havens."

Mr. Cox was one of the most genial and delightful of associates. With him and Vance, Knott, and Randolph Tucker as companions for the social hour, the night would flee away like a shadow. His wit was of the rarest order. He would have been on terms of recognized kinship with Sydney Smith and Charles Lamb. He once said of a vinegar-visaged member that the only regret he had on earth was that there were no more commandments to keep; what few there were he kept so easily. As illustrating his readiness and elasticity, whatever the emergency, two instances, out of the many that crowd upon memory, will be given. During an all-night session of the House, amid great confusion, the roll-call was ordered. The first name, "Mr. Archer," was called, and the response "Aye" was given. The clerk, failing to hear the response, immediately repeated, "Mr. Archer," to which the latter, in tones heard above the din of many voices, again answered "Aye." Instantly Mr. Cox exclaimed: "Insatiate Archer, would not one suffice?"

A new member from a district far to the westward entered the House. His advoirdupois was in keeping with the vast territorial area he represented. As a wit, he was without a rival in his section. The admiration of his constituents over the marvellous attainments of the new member, scarcely exceeded his own. Only the opportunity was wanting when the star of the gentleman from New York should go down and his own be in the ascendant. The opportunity at length came. Mr. Cox was the victim of the hour; the recipient of many compliments much more fervid than kind. The seven vials of wrath were opened upon him. A vast storehouse of wit, ancient and modern, was literally exhausted for the occasion. Even the diminutive size of the New York member was mentioned in terms of disparagement. The speech caused much merriment in the House during its delivery, and its author with an air of self-satisfaction rarely witnessed even in that body, resumed his seat. Mr. Cox at once took the floor. No attempt will be made to do justice to his speech. The manner, the tone of voice, which caused an uproar upon the floor and in the galleries, can never find their way into print. Referring to the ill-mannered allusion to his size, he said "that his constituents preferred a representative with brains, rather than one whose only claims to distinction consisted in an abnormal abdominal development." In tragic tones he then pronounced a funeral eulogy over his assailant, and suggested, as a fitting inscription for his tombstone, the pathetic words of Byron,

"'T is Greece, but living Greece no more!"

Soon after the nomination of Tilden for President, Mr. Cox was invited to attend a political meeting at the State capital, and address the Democracy of Vermont. When the scarcity of Democrats in the Green Mountain State is taken into account, the significance of Mr. Cox's reply will readily appear. His telegram was to the effect that pressing engagements prevented his attending, but "if the Democracy of Vermont will drop into my library any afternoon, about four o'clock, I will address them with great pleasure."

In attempting to write something of a member so long and so favorably known to the House as the Hon. J. Proctor Knott of Kentucky, I am reminded of the opening sentences of the touching tribute of Judge Baldwin to an honored associate:

"I nib my pen and impart to it a fine hair stroke in order that I may give the more delicate touch which can alone show forth the character of this distinguished gentleman. If I hold the pen in hand in idle reverie, it is because my mind rests lovingly upon a picture I feel incapable of transcribing with fidelity to the original; and therefore I pause a moment to look once more at the original, before it is obscured by the rude counterpart."

It was worth while to have known Proctor Knott, to have been his cotemporary in public life, the sharer of his confidence, the guest at his hearthstone. In the highest sense of the expression, he was a gentleman of the old school. To him there was rare meaning in the words, "Old wood to burn! Old wine to drink! Old friends to trust!"

He was as familiar with the Bible, with Shakespeare, and Burns, as though he had written them. His quotations, whether in private conversation, or in public speech, were always timely. There was little in the way of the best literature, ancient or modern, that he had not read. As was truly said of the gifted Prentiss:

"His imagination was colored and imbued with the light of the shadowy past. He lingered spell-bound among the scenes of mediaeval chivalry. His spirit had dwelt until almost naturalized in the mystic dreamland of the Paladins, Crusaders, and Knights Templars; with Monmouth and Percy, with Bois-Guilbert and Ivanhoe and the bold McGregor; with the Cavaliers of Rupert, and the iron enthusiasts of Fairfax."

He was the inveterate hater of shams of all kinds, and of mere pretenders of every description. He ever avoided the short cuts, and kept steadily along in the old way. His heroes, like those of Dickens, were taken from the common walk; the men he had met in the road and at the hustings, at whose firesides he had passed many hours. Whatever concerned them, whatever involved in any manner their welfare, was of deep interest to him. If he had chosen his own epitaph it might have read:

"In common ways, with common men,
I served my race and time."

He was both an artist and a poet. He loved flowers, and there was to his ears no music so sweet as the merry laughter of children. And, whether in private life, or in his great executive office as "the arbiter of human fate," the tale of woe never failed to touch a sympathetic cord. He had in very deed,

"A tear for pity, and a hand open as day to melting charity."

He was welcome at every hearthstone, as one "who cometh unto you with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney corner."

Soon after his admission to the bar, Mr. Knott removed to Missouri, where he was almost immediately elected to the responsible position of Attorney-General of the State. In due time he returned to his native State, and was for six terms a representative in Congress. Yet later, and as the shadows were beginning to fall to the eastward, he was, almost by common acclaim, called to the chief executive office of the commonwealth. It may truly be said of him that "with clear head, and with clean hands, he faithfully discharged every public trust."

Mr. Knott entered Congress just at the close of the great Civil War. It was a period of excitement throughout the entire country, and of intense foreboding to the section he represented. In the debates of that stormy period he bore no mean part. He was counted a foeman worthy the steel of the ablest who entered the lists. A thorough student from the beginning, of all that pertained to Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights, and the Federal Constitution, he was equipped as few men have been, for forensic contests that have left their deep impress upon history. The evidence of his ability as a lawyer is to be found in the satisfactory manner in which for three Congresses he discharged the duties of the trying position of Chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives. The ablest lawyers of both political parties constituted this great committee, and its chairman, if possessing only mediocre talents or attainments, would have been sadly out of place.

But with his heavy armor laid aside, the genius of Knott was made manifest along more pleasing lines. Few speeches ever delivered in Congress have been so generally read, or so thoroughly imbedded into current literature, as one he delivered soon after his first admission to the House. Duluth awoke the morning after its delivery to find itself famous. As, "the zenith city of the unsalted seas," it has been known and read of all men. As such, it will probably continue to be known for ages to come. The speech hopelessly defeated a bill making a land grant to a proposed railroad, of which Duluth was to be the terminus. His mirthful prediction, however, as to its marvellous future has been fulfilled. How true it is that "jesters do oft prove prophets!" Bearing in mind that the great city of to-day then had no place even upon the map, the words quoted from the speech will be appreciated:

"Duluth, Duluth! The word fell upon my ear with peculiar and indescribable charm, like the gentle murmur of a brook stealing forth in the midst of roses, or the soft sweet accent of an angel's whisper in the bright joyous dream of sleeping innocence. Duluth! 'T was the name for which my soul had panted for years, as the hart panteth for the water brooks. I was convinced that the greatest calamity that ever befell the benighted nations of the ancient world was their having passed away without a knowledge of the actual existence of Duluth; that their fabled Atlantis, never seen save by the hallowed vision of inspired poesy, was in fact but another name for Duluth; that the golden orchard of the Hesperides was but a poetical synonym for the beer-gardens in the vicinity of Duluth. As that name first fell upon my ear, a resplendent scene of ineffable glory opened before me, such as I imagine burst upon the enraptured visions of the wandering Peri through the opening gates of Paradise."

Mr. Knott was often the sad and silent man. His real intimacies were few, and to strangers he was reserved. But to those who came within the circle of his personal friendship he was one of the most delightful of companions. No man was ever given less to a parade either of his friendships or of his animosities. His enemies —and it would have been strange if, passing through the eventful scenes he did, he had had none—knew just where to find him. He was, in very truth,

"Lofty and sour to them that loved him not;
But, to those men that sought him, sweet as summer."

The cause often of mirth in others, he was at times far from being joyous himself. Few men have been the possessors in so rare degree of the gift of humor, the sure indication of the humane and sympathetic in our nature; that "which blends the pathetic with the ludicrous, and by the same stroke moves to laughter and to tears." As Emerson says, "Both an ornament and a safeguard—genius itself." The line of separation between wit and humor is shadowy, not easily defined. There may be in the same individual, in some measure, a blending of the two. As has been said: "While wit is a purely intellectual thing, into every act of the humorous mind there is an influx of the moral nature. Humor springs up exuberantly, as from a fountain, and runs on, its perpetual game to look with considerate good-nature at every object in existence, and dismiss it with a benison." While wit, the purely intellectual quality, sparkles and stings, humor, "touched with a feeling of our infirmity," would "gently scan thy brother man," remembering ever that

"What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted."

It is not strange, then, that he who in large degree possesses or is possessed by this subtle quality should be subject to moods, it may be melancholy—"the effect of that humor that sometime hath his hour with every man." That Governor Knott was deeply endowed with humor in its best sense, no one who knew him could doubt. In relating incidents that convulsed his listeners, he gave no sign; his own features remained as solemn as if he were attending the obsequies of his dearest friend. There is something that is suggestive in the lines of Thomas Hood,

"There's not a string attuned to mirth
But has its chord in melancholy."

While Governor of Kentucky, he sent to the Hon. Stoddart Johnson a certificate, officially signed and bearing the impress of the great seal of State, duly commissioning him as "Mister," a distinctive and honorable title that no Kentuckian had previously borne. This recalls the witty remark of Max O'Rell: "The only thing that Mr. Ingersoll appears to hold in common with his countrymen is the title of Colonel."

Many years ago McCullough, the tragedian, was giving his splendid impersonations of the two masterpieces of Shakespeare at the national Capital. The morning following one of these, Mr. Knott and I, passing along the avenue on our way to the House, were stopped by an exceedingly solemn-visaged individual who, addressing the former, said: "Mr. Knott, I would like to have your judgment as to which is the best play, Hamlet or Macbeth."

Gazing earnestly at his inquisitor, and in a tone at once deprecatory and inimitable, Knott replied: "My friend, don't ask me that question. I am a politician, and a candidate for re-election to Congress; my district is about equally divided; Hamlet has his friends down there, and Macbeth his, and I am unwilling to take any part between them!"

When in joint canvass with his competitor for the Governorship of the State, Mr. Knott, having, by appointment, at one of the county seats in "the Purchase," made the opening speech, was seated near by to listen to that of the opposing candidate. The latter, a gentleman having a high sense of propriety, and a dignity of bearing that would have done no discredit to an assembly of divines, had been exceedingly annoyed by Knott's speech, which had in very truth kept the audience in an uproar during its entire delivery. Beginning his reply, he said:

"Fellow-citizens, I will endeavor to indicate to you the kind of a man who, in my judgment, should be elected to the position of Governor of this grand old commonwealth. In the first place, that exalted position would never be filled by one who, for lack of serious argument, constantly appeals to the risibilities of his audience; never by a wit, a mere joker, a story-teller; in other words—if you will pardon me, my fellow-citizens—by a mere buffoon. On the contrary, the incumbent of the exalted position of chief executive of this grand old commonwealth should be a gentleman of character, of ability, the worthy successor of Shelby, of Morehead, of Crittenden; he should be a gentleman of scholastic attainments and of dignified bearing, well versed in classic lore and a thorough student of the higher order of state-craft. In a word, fellow-citizens, you should elect as your Governor a gentleman of lofty character, of ripe scholarship, of commanding dignity, of exalted statesmanship, of ——"

At this point, Knott, interrupting, said, in manner and tone the exact counterpart of that of the speaker, "Pardon me, Colonel Smith, but I am too modest a man to listen longer to the beautiful and truthful description you have just given of me!"

Whereupon, amidst the wildest applause, he retired from the hall, as did the audience, and the speaking for the day, and the joint discussion for the campaign, were closed.

III AGAIN IN CONGRESS

CHANGES IN THE PERSONNEL OF THE HOUSE CONTRASTED WITH THOSE IN THE
BRITISH HOUSE OF COMMONS—LEVI P. MORTON—MR. COVERT AND MR. SHELLEY
—GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON—TWO NOTABLE SPEECHES BY JAMES A. McKENZIE
—JOHN E. KENNA—BENJAMIN BUTTERWORTH—MR. KEIFER OF OHIO—MR.
CARLISLE OF KENTUCKY—SPEAKER REED—PRESIDENT McKINLEY—THE WRITER'S
SPEECH AT THE PEACE JUBILEE BANQUET, 1898.

After an absence of two years I was returned to the forty-sixth Congress. Circumstances over which I had no control had prevented my taking a seat in the intervening Congress, my successful competitor being the Hon. Thomas F. Tipton. In politics, however, as in other things, "the whirligig of time brings in his revenges," and I was in turn the successful competitor of my late opponent in his candidacy for re-election.

Meanwhile, many changes had occurred in the personnel of the House. Many familiar names had been dropped from its roll. Of these, nine had been transferred to that of the Senate, a former member was now in the Cabinet, and Mr. Wheeler of New York was Vice-President. A significant fact in this connection, and one illustrating the uncertainty of the tenure by which place is held in that body, was that more than one-third of those with whom I had so recently served were now in private life. Possibly no feature of our governmental system causes more astonishment to intelligent foreigners than the many changes biennially occurring in the membership of the House of Representatives. There is marked difference between the British House of Commons, and the popular branch of the American Congress. A seat lost in the latter—it may be by a single unfortunate utterance, or unpopular vote—is usually a seat lost forever; while in the former, membership may continue for an almost indefinite period, and until an "appeal to the country" by the Ministry upon a new and vital issue. If defeated by one constituency, the member of Parliament may soon be returned by another, the question of residence having no significance. In fact if possessing superior talents, the member is liable to be chosen by two or more constituencies at the same election, the choice then resting with himself as to which he will represent. Such has been the experience of the most eminent of British statesmen. The names of Burke, Peel, Gladstone, and Balfour, quite recently, will readily be recalled in this connection. In the little island the aspirant to legislative honors has several hundred constituencies from which to choose, or be chosen, while in the larger America his political fortunes are usually bound up in his own residence district.

Upon the roll of the House in the new Congress, called in special session in March, 1879, in addition to some heretofore mentioned, were names well known to the country. Of these none is more worthy of honorable mention than that of the Hon. Levi P. Morton of New York. In the business world his name was a synonym for integrity. The head of a great banking house, he was almost as well known in the principal cities of Europe as in the great city of his residence. At the time of his first election to Congress Mr. Morton was, by appointment of the President, an honorary commissioner to the Paris Exposition. At the close of his legislative career he held successively the honored positions of Ambassador to France, Vice-President of the United States, and Governor of New York. In Congress, Mr. Morton was the able representative of a great constituency; as chief executive of his State his name is worthy of mention with the most eminent of those who have been called to that exalted station; as ambassador to a foreign court the honor of his country was ever in safe keeping; as Vice-President, he was the model presiding officer over the greatest deliberative body known to men.

One of the brightest members of the New York delegation was the Hon. James W. Covert of Flushing. Altogether he served ten years in the House, and became in time one of its leading members. He was an excellent lawyer, a delightful associate, and an able and ready debater. That he was gifted with a touch of the humorous will appear from the following. The House was passing through the agony of an all-night session. Confusion reigned supreme. During it all, Mr. Shelley, from one of the Gulf States, stood at his desk and repeatedly made the point of order upon Covert, Springer, Kenna, McKenzie, and others, as they successively addressed the Chair, that "The gentleman is not speaking from his desk." The point of order was as repeatedly sustained by the Speaker, the rules requiring members to address the Chair only from their respective desks. The confusion at length became so great that many members, in their eagerness to be heard, pressed to the front. The voice of Mr. Shelley, however, was heard above the din still calling for the enforcement of the rule; to which the Speaker, his patience exhausted, now turned a deaf ear. Desperate beyond measure, Mr. Shelley at length left his own desk, and taking his position immediately in front of the clerk's desk fiercely demanded, "Mr. Speaker, I call for the enforcement of the rule." At which Covert immediately exclaimed, "Mr. Speaker, I call for the enforcement of the rule in Shelley's case!"

Almost directly in front of the Speaker's desk sat a gentleman, small in stature, and of quiet dignified bearing, "The silent man," "whose voice was in his sword," General Joseph E. Johnston of Virginia. Until this, his first election to Congress from the Capital District of the Old Dominion, he had known none other than military public service. He was a born soldier. No one who saw him could mistake his calling. Napoleon did not more truly look the soldier than did General Johnston. A graduate of West Point, his first service was in the Black Hawk War, and later in Mexico. For gallant conduct at the battle of Cerro Gordo, he was brevetted colonel in the regular army. His last service was when, as Lieutenant-General of the Confederate Army, he surrendered to Sherman, thus ending the great Civil War. He had already reached the allotted threescore years and ten when he entered Congress, and its ordinary details apparently interested him but little. He earnestly desired the return of the era of good feeling between the North and South, and upon his motion the House duly adjourned in honor of the day set apart for the decoration of the graves of Union soldiers.

No member of this House attracted more attention than did the Hon. James A. McKenzie of Kentucky, the representative from what in local parlance was known as "the pennyryle district." He was the youngest member of the body, tall, erect, and handsome. Mr. McKenzie rendered a valuable service to his constituents and the country during this Congress, by securing the passage of a bill placing quinine upon the free list. His district was seriously afflicted with the old-time fever and ague, and the reduction by his bill to a nominal cost of the sure and only specific placed his name high upon the list of benefactors.

Two of his kinsmen, one from Illinois, the other from Florida, occupied seats immediately in his front. Addressing them one day, he said: "It seems strange, indeed, that we three cousins—one from Illinois, one from Florida, and one from Kentucky—are all here together in Congress"; and then added, with apparent gravity, "and ours not an office-seeking family either!"

As the session drew near its close, he made repeated efforts to obtain unanimous consent for the consideration of a bill for the erection of a Government building in the principal city of his district. The interposition of the stereotyped "I object" had, however, in each instance, proved fatal. During a night session, near the close of the Congress, requests for recognition came to the Speaker from all parts of the chamber. In the midst of the tumult Mr. McKenzie arose and, addressing the Chair, stated with great solemnity of manner that he arose to a question of personal privilege. This at once arrested the attention of the Speaker, and he requested the gentleman from Kentucky to state his question of privilege. "I rise, Mr. Speaker," said McKenzie, "to a question of the highest privilege, one pertaining to the right of a member to a seat upon this floor—in the next Congress. If I don't get that post-office bill through now, my seat will be imperilled. I beg the House for unanimous consent for its immediate consideration." The House was convulsed; no objection was interposed, the bill was considered and passed, and McKenzie's seat was safe for many years to come.

Has there ever been a more feeling two-minutes' speech, than that of McKenzie in the National Convention of 1892, when he arose to second the nomination of Cleveland? After a night of intense excitement, the convention was still in session at three o'clock in the morning. A storm was raging without, while within, thousands in the great hall were impatiently and loudly demanding an immediate vote. More than one of the chief orators of the party,—men well known to the country—had in vain attempted to be heard. Chaos seemed to have come again at the crucial moment that McKenzie, standing upon his chair in the centre of the vast enclosure, began: "If I speak longer than two minutes, I hope that some honest half-drowned Democrat will suspend my carcass from one of the cross-beams of this highly artistic, but terribly leaky auditorium. Cleveland needs no nomination from this convention. He has already been nominated by the people all along the line—all the way from Hell Gate to Yuba Dam!"

The bedlam that now broke loose exceeded all that had gone before. The uproar drowned the voice of the orator within, and even, for the time, called a halt upon the raging elements without. The speech was never concluded. What might have been the closing words of McKenzie's speech, with such a beginning, can never be known. The effect of his opening, however, was instantaneous. It was the immediate prelude to the overwhelming nomination of his candidate.

The Hon. John E. Kenna, of West Virginia, was just at the beginning of a remarkably brilliant career. He was under thirty years of age when he first entered Congress. At the close of his third term in the House, he was elected to the United States Senate, and held his seat in that body by successive elections until his death at the early age of forty-four. He possessed rare gifts as a speaker, and was an active participant in many of the important debates during that eventful period. Senator Kenna was the beloved of his State, and his early death brought sorrow to many hearts.

His manners were pleasing, and he was companionable to the last degree. He often related an amusing incident that occurred in the convention that first nominated him for Congress. His name was presented by a delegate from the Crossroads in one of the mountain counties, in substantially the following speech: "Mr. President, I rise to present to this convention, as a candidate for Congress, the name of John E. Kenna—the peer, sir, of no man in the State of West Virginia."

Among the new members elected to this Congress was the Hon. Benjamin Butterworth of Ohio. His ability as a lawyer and his readiness in debate soon gave him prominence, while his abundant good-nature and inexhaustible fund of anecdotes made him a general favorite in the House. One of his stories was of a Western member whose daily walk and conversation at the national Capital was by no means up to the orthodox home standard. The better element of his constituents at length became disgusted, as reports derogatory to their member from time to time reached them. A bolt in the approaching Congressional convention was even threatened, and altogether serious trouble was brewing. The demand was imperative upon the part of his closest friends that he at once come home and face his accusers. Homeward he at length turned his footsteps, and was met at the depot by a large concourse of his friends and constituents. Hurriedly alighting from the train and stepping upon the platform, with beaming countenance and heart made glad by such an enthusiastic reception, he thus began:

"Fellow-citizens, my heart is deeply touched as my eyes behold this splendid assemblage of my constituents and friends gathered here before and around me. During my absence in Congress my friends have spoken in my vindication. I am here now to speak for myself. Vile slanders have been put in circulation against me. I have been accused of being a defaulter; I have been accused of being a drunkard; I have been accused of being a gambler; but, thank God, fellow-citizens, no man has ever dared to assail my good moral character!"

One incident is related by Butterworth of a judge in his State who, becoming thoroughly disgusted with the ease with which naturalization papers were obtained, determined upon a radical reform. That the pathway of the reformer—along this as other lines—was by no means one of flowers will appear from the sequel. Immediately upon taking his seat, the judge, with great earnestness of manner, announced from the bench that thereafter no applicant could receive from that court his final papers, entitling him to the exercise of the high privilege of citizenship, unless he was able to read the Constitution of the United States. A few mornings later, Michael O'Connor, a well-known partisan of the Seventh Ward, appeared in court accompanied by a diminutive-looking countryman, Dennis Flynn by name. Mr. O'Connor stated to the judge that his friend Dennis Flynn had already taken out his first papers, and the legal time had passed, and he now wanted His Honor to grant him his final papers. With much solemnity of manner the judge inquired whether Mr. Flynn had ever read the Constitution of the United States. Somewhat abashed by the unusual interrogatory, Mr. O'Connor looked inquiringly at Mr. Flynn, at which the latter, wholly unconscious of the purport of the inquiry, looked appealingly to Mr. O'Connor. The latter then replied that he presumed he had not, at which the judge, handing the applicant a copy of the revised statutes containing the Constitution, admonished him to read it carefully. Mr. Flynn, carrying the volume in his arms, and followed by his patron, sadly left the court-room. Just eight minutes elapsed, the door suddenly opened and both reappeared, Mr. O'Connor in front, bearing the book aloft, and exclaiming, "Dinnie couldn't rade it, Your Honor, but I rid it over to him, and he is parefictly deloighted wid it!"

Three gentlemen, each of whom at a later day reached the Speakership, had served but a single term in the House at the opening of the forty-sixth Congress: Mr. Keifer of Ohio, Mr. Carlisle of Kentucky, and Mr. Reed of Maine. Mr. Keifer was a gentleman of ability and of exceedingly courteous manners. He took a prominent part in debate, and was the immediate successor of Mr. Randall in the chair. After an absence of twenty years he has again been returned to his seat in the House.

Few abler men than Mr. Carlisle have been in the public service. He was a recognized leader of his party from his first appearance in the House, and an authority upon all questions pertaining to tariff or finance. During his long service as Speaker he established an enduring reputation as an able presiding officer; as possessing in the highest degree "the cold neutrality of the impartial Judge." While a Senator, he was appointed by President Cleveland to the important position of Secretary of the Treasury. The duties of that great office have never been discharged with more signal ability.

Mr. Reed stood alone. He was unlike other men, a fact which probably caused him little regret. Self-reliant, aggressive, of will indomitable, he was a political storm centre during his entire public career. His friends were devoted to him, and he was never forgotten by his enemies. Whoever was brought into close contact with him, usually carried away an impression by which to remember him. Upon one occasion, in the House, when in sharp debate with Mr. Springer, the latter quoted the familiar saying of Henry Clay, "Sir, I would rather be right than be President." Mr. Reed, in a tone far from reassuring, retorted, "The gentleman from Illinois will never be either!"

The retort courteous, however, was not always from the lips of the Speaker. Mr. Springer, having at one time repeatedly attempted, but in vain, to secure the floor, at length demanded by what right he was denied recognition. The Speaker intimated that such ruling was in accord with the high prerogative of the Chair. To which Springer replied:

"Oh, it is excellent
To have a giant strength; but 't is tyrannous
To use it like a giant."

Of immense physical proportions, towering above his fellows, with voice by no means melodious, a manner far from conciliatory, a capacity for sarcastic utterance that vividly recalled the days of John Randolph and Tristram Burgess, and, withal, one of the ablest men of his generation, Mr. Reed was in very truth a picturesque figure in the House of Representatives. He apparently acted upon the supposition of the philosopher Hobbes that war is the natural state of man. The kindly admonition,

"Mend your ways a little
Lest they may mar your fortunes,"

if ever given him, was unheeded. In very truth,

"He stood,
As if a man were author of himself,
And knew no other kin."

No man in his day was more talked of or written about. At one time his star was in the ascendent, and he seemed to be on the highroad to the Presidency. His great ambition, however, was thwarted by those of his own political household. At the close of a turbulent session, while he was in the Chair, the usual resolution of thanks to the Speaker "for the able, fair, and courteous manner in which he had presided" was bitterly antagonized, and finally adopted only by a strictly party vote. It was an event with a single antecedent in our history, that of seventy-odd years ago, when the Whig minority in the House opposed the usual vote of thanks to Speaker Polk upon his retirement from the Chair. In the latter case, the cry of persecution that was instantly raised had much to do with Mr. Polk's almost immediate election to the Governorship of his State, and his subsequent elevation to the Presidency. The parallel incident in Mr. Reed's career, however, failed to prove "the prologue to the swelling act."

The Hon. William McKinley, of Ohio, was a member of this Congress. He was one of the most pleasing and delightful of associates, and my acquaintance with him was of the most agreeable character. One of his earliest official acts as President was my appointment as a member of the Bimetallic Commission to Europe.

Mr. McKinley was in very truth one of Fortune's favorites: five times elected a member of the House of Representatives, three times Governor of his State, and twice elevated to the Presidency. He was the third of our Presidents to fall by the hand of an assassin. His tragic death is yet fresh in our memories.

The last time I met President McKinley was at the Peace Jubilee Banquet at the Auditorium in Chicago, on the evening of October 19, 1898. On this occasion, following the toast to the President of the United States, I spoke as follows:

"The incumbent of this great office holds with unchallenged title the most exalted station known to men. Monarchs rule by hereditary right, or hold high place only by force of arms. The elevation of a citizen to the Presidency of the United States is the deliberate act, under the forms of law, of a sovereign people. As an aspirant, he may have been the choice only of a political party; as the incumbent of the great office, he is the representative of all the people—the President of all the people. It augurs well for the future of the Republic when the American people magnify this office; when the honor, as now, the President who has so ably upheld its dignity, so worthily met its solemn responsibilities, so patriotically discharged its exacting and imperative duties.

"The office of President of a self-governing people is unique. It had no place in ancient or mediaeval schemes of government, whether despotic, federative, or in name republican. It has in reality none amongst the nations of modern Europe. The Presidency of the United States, in the highest degree, represents the majesty of the law. It stands for the unified authority and power of seventy-five millions of free men. It typifies what is most sacred to our race: stability in government and protection to liberty and life. The President is the great officer to whom the founders of the government entrusted the delicate and responsible function of treating with foreign States; in whom was vested in time of peace and of war, chief command of the army and of the navy.

"An eminent writer has well said: 'The ancient monarchs of France reigned and governed; the Queen of England reigns but does not govern; the President of France neither reigns nor governs; the President of the United States does not reign, but governs!'

"Experience has demonstrated the more than human wisdom of the framers of the great federal compact which for more than a century, in peace and amid the stress of war, has held States and people in indissoluble bond of union. In no part of their matchless handiwork has it been more clearly manifested than in the creation of a responsible executive. To secure in the largest measure the great ends of government, responsibility must attach to the executive office; and of necessity, with responsibility, power. The sooner France learns from the American Republic this important lesson, the sooner will government attain with her the stability to which it is now a stranger. Her statesmen might well recall the words of Lord Bacon: 'What men will not alter for the better, Time, the great innovator, will alter for the worse.'

"The splendid commonwealth in which we are assembled contains a population a million greater than did the entire country at the first inauguration of President Washington. The one hundred and nine years which have passed since that masterful hour in history have witnessed the addition of thirty-two States to our federal Union, and of seventy millions to our population. And yet, with but few amendments, our great organic law as fully meets the requirements of a self-governing people to-day as when it came from the hands of its framers. The builders of the Constitution wisely ordained the Presidential office a co-ordinate department of the Government. Moving in its own clearly defined orbit, without usurpation or lessening of prerogative, the great executive office, at the close as at the beginning of the century, is the recognized constitutional symbol of authority and of power. The delegated functions and prerogatives that pertained in our infancy and weakness have proved ample in the days of our strength and greatness as a nation.

"It is well that to the people was entrusted the sovereign power of choosing their chief magistrate. It is our glory, in the retrospect of more than a century, that none other than patriots —statesmen well equipped for the discharge of its timeless duties —have ever been chosen to the Presidency. May we not believe that the past is the earnest of the future, and that during the rolling years and centuries the incumbents of the great office—the chosen successors of Washington and of Lincoln—in the near and in the remote future, will prove the guardians and defenders of the Constitution, the guardians and defenders of the rights of all the people?

"Luminous will be the pages of history that tell to the ages the story of our recent conflict, of its causes and of its results. In brilliancy of achievement, the one hundred days war with Spain is the marvel of the closing century. It was not a war of our seeking. It was the earnest prayer of all, from the President to the humblest in private life, that the horrors of war might be averted. Had our ears remained deaf to the cry of the stricken and starving at our doors, we would not have been guiltless in the high court of conscience, and before the dread judgment seat of history. The plea 'Am I my brother's keeper?'—whether interposed by individual or by nation—cannot be heard before the august tribunal of the Almighty.

"Justified then, as we solemnly believe, in the sight of God for our interposition, we rejoice over the termination of a struggle in which our arms knew no defeat. The dead hand of Spain has been removed forever from the throats of her helpless victims. Emphasizing our solemn declaration as a nation, that this was a war for humanity, not for self-aggrandizement, we demand no money indemnity from the defeated and impoverished foe.

"The sacrifice of treasure and of blood has not been in vain. However it may have been in the past, the United States emerges from the conflict with Spain a united people. Sectional lines are forever obliterated. Henceforth, for all time, we present to foreign foe and unbroken front. In the words of Webster: 'Our politics go no farther than the water's edge.'

"No less important is the fact, that the United States of America to-day, as never before, commands the respect and admiration of the world. No foreign coalition, however formidable, can excite our serious apprehension or alarm. For all this, all honor to our brave soldiers and sailors; all honor to the helpful hands and sympathetic hearts of America's patriotic women.

"As in the early morning and in the noon of the nineteenth century, America gave to the world its best lessons in liberty and in law, so in its closing hours, it has given to all the nations a never-to-be-forgotten lesson in the dread art of war. In quick response to the splendid achievements of American valor comes from across the sea the startling proposal of despotic Russia for the disarmament of continental Europe—and in the end universal peace.

"Thankful to God for all he has vouchsafed to us in the past, and with the prayer that henceforth peace may be the priceless boon of all nations, we await the dawn of the new century, and turn our faces hopefully to the future."

IV THE VICE-PRESIDENCY

ELECTION, POWERS, AND DUTIES OF THE VICE-PRESIDENT—NAMES AND DATES OF ALL THE VICE-PRESIDENTS—FOUR WHO BECAME PRESIDENTS BY ELECTION —FIVE WHO SUCCEEDED UPON THE DEATH OF THE PRESIDENT—ATTEMPTS TO SECURE THE IMPEACHMENTS OF PRESIDENTS—THE TWELFTH AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION—REMARKS ON SOME OF THE VICE-PRESIDENTS—THE WRITER'S FAREWELL ADDRESS TO THE SENATE.

By the provisions of the Federal Constitution, a Vice-President of the United States is elected at the same time, for the same term, and in like manner as the President—by electors chosen in each of the States. A majority of the votes cast in the several electoral colleges is necessary to an election. The Vice-President is the President of the Senate, and in the event of an equal division in that body, he gives the deciding vote. Under no other contingency has he a vote. The powers and duties of the office of President devolve upon the Vice-President in case of the death, resignation, or removal from office of the President. The Vice-President is included in the list of public officers liable to removal from office on impeachment, on conviction for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. By the twelfth amendment to the Constitution no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President can be elected to that of Vice-President. In the event of a vacancy occurring in the office of Vice-President, the Senate is presided over by a member of that body. In such contingency the death of the President would, under existing law, devolve the office of President upon the Secretary of State.

Twenty-seven persons have held the office of Vice-President; the dates of their respective elections are as follows: John Adams of Massachusetts, in 1788, re-elected in 1792; Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, in 1796; Aaron Burr of New York, in 1800; George Clinton of New York, in 1804, re-elected in 1808; Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, in 1812; Daniel D. Tompkins of New York, in 1816, re-elected in 1820; John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, in 1824, re-elected in 1828; Martin Van Buren of New York, in 1832; Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky, in 1836; John Tyler of Virginia, in 1840; George M. Dallas of Pennsylvania, in 1844; Millard Fillmore of New York, in 1848; William R. King of Alabama, in 1852; John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky, in 1856; Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, in 1860; Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, in 1864; Schuyler Colfax of Indiana, in 1868; Henry Wilson of Massachusetts, in 1872; William A. Wheeler of New York, in 1876; Chester A. Arthur of New York, in 1880; Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana, in 1884; Levi P. Morton of New York, in 1888; Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois, in 1892; Garrett A. Hobart of New Jersey, in 1896; Theodore Roosevelt of New York, in 1900; Charles W. Fairbanks of Indiana, in 1904; James S. Sherman of New York, in 1908.

Four Vice-Presidents were subsequently elected Presidents, namely: John Adams in 1796; Thomas Jefferson in 1800 and 1804; Martin Van Buren in 1836; and Theodore Roosevelt in 1904. The dates given have reference to the election by vote of the electors in the several States by whom the President and Vice-President were subsequently chosen. Six Vice-Presidents died in office: namely, Clinton, Gerry, King, Wilson, Hendricks, and Hobart. In the Presidential contest of 1836, Martin Van Buren received a majority of the electoral votes for President, but no candidate received a majority for Vice-President. By Constitutional requirement the duty of electing a Vice-President then devolved upon the Senate, the candidates from whom such choice was to be made being restricted to the two who had received the highest number of electoral votes. One of these, Richard W. Johnson of Kentucky, was duly elected by the Senate. The only Vice-President who resigned the office was John C. Calhoun. This occurred in 1832, and Mr. Calhoun soon thereafter took his seat in the Senate, to which body he had been elected by the Legislature of South Carolina.

Five Vice-Presidents have, upon the death of the President, succeeded to the Presidency. The first President to die during his incumbency of the great office, was William Henry Harrison. His death occurred April 4, 1841, just one month after his inauguration. The Vice-President John Tyler, then at his country home in Virginia, was officially notified of the event, and upon reaching the seat of Government at once took the oath of office as President. There was much discussion for a time in and out of Congress as to his proper title, whether "Vice-President of the United States acting as President," or "President." The language of the Constitution however, is clear, and it is no longer controverted that upon the death of the President the Vice-President becomes, in name as in fact, President. Upon the death of President Zachary Taylor, July 9, 1850, Vice-President Millard Fillmore succeeded to the Presidency, and was at a later date an unsuccessful candidate for election to that office. The third Vice-President who reached the Presidency by succession was Andrew Johnson; this occurred April 15, 1865, the day following the assassination of President Lincoln. President Garfield was shot July 2, 1881, and died in September of that year, when he was succeeded by Vice-President Chester A. Arthur. Vice-President Roosevelt was the successor of President McKinley, who died by the hand of an assassin in September, 1901.

Two attempts have been made to secure the impeachment of Presidents, the incumbent in each instance having been elected Vice-President and succeeded to the higher office upon the death of the President. A resolution looking to the impeachment of President Tyler was introduced into the House of Representatives in January, 1843, but was defeated, and no further steps were taken. Articles of impeachment, for "high crimes and misdemeanors," were presented by the House of Representatives against President Johnson in 1868. By constitutional provision the trial was by the Senate, the Chief Justice of the United States presiding. Less than two-thirds of the Senators voting for conviction, he was acquitted.

Until the adoption of the twelfth amendment, no Constitutional provision existed for separate votes in the electoral colleges for President and Vice-President; the candidate receiving the highest number of votes (if a majority of all) became President, and the one receiving the second highest, Vice-President. In 1801, Jefferson and Burr each received seventy-three electoral votes, and by constitutional requirement the election at once devolved upon the House of Representatives, voting by States. On the thirty-sixth ballot a majority of the States voting for Jefferson, he became President, and Burr, Vice-President. The Constitutional amendment above indicated, by which separate ballots were required in the electoral colleges for each office, was the result of the intense excitement throughout the country engendered by this contest. The earnest opposition of Alexander Hamilton to Aaron Burr in the above-mentioned contest, was the prime cause of the duel by which Hamilton lost his life at the hands of Burr in 1804.

George Clinton, the fourth Vice-President, had as a member of the Continental Congress voted for the Declaration of Independence, and held the rank of Brigadier-General during the War of the Revolution. The fifth Vice-President, Elbridge Gerry, had been a prominent member of the Constitutional Convention of 1787. William R. King, elected in 1852, by reason of ill health never entered upon the discharge of the duties of his office. By special act of Congress, the oath of office was administered to him in Cuba and his death occurred soon thereafter. Of the twenty-seven Vice-Presidents thus far elected, ten have been from the State of New York. Adams and Jefferson, the first and second Vice-Presidents, rendered valuable service to the young Republic at foreign courts; each by election was elevated to the Presidency; and their deaths occurred upon the same historic Fourth of July, just fifty years from the day they had signed the Declaration of Independence.

A marble bust of each of the Vice-Presidents has been placed in the gallery of the Senate Chamber. The office of Vice-President is one of great dignity. He is the presiding officer of the most august legislative assembly known to men. In the event of an equal division in the Senate, he gives the deciding vote. This vote, many times in our history, has been one of deep significance. It will readily be seen that the contingency may often occur when the Vice-President becomes an important factor in matters of legislation.

On the occasion of the writer's retirement from office, March 4, 1897, he delivered the following farewell address before the Senate:

"Senators: The hour has arrived which marks the close of the fifty-fourth Congress, and terminates my official relation to this body.

"Before laying down the gavel for the last time, I may be pardoned for detaining you for a moment, in the attempt to give expression to my gratitude for the uniform courtesy extended me, for the many kindnesses shown me, during the time it has been my good fortune to preside over your deliberations. My appreciation of the Resolution of the Senate personal to myself, can find no adequate expression in words. Intentionally, I have at no time given offence; and I carry from this presence no shadow of feeling of unkindness toward any Senator, no memory of any grievance.

"Chief among the favors political fortune has bestowed upon me, I count that of having been the associate—and known something of the friendship—of the men with whom I have so long held official relation in this chamber. To have been the presiding officer of this august body is an honor of which even the most illustrious citizen might be proud. I am persuaded that no occupant of this Chair, during the one hundred and eight years of our Constitutional history, ever entered upon the discharge of the duties pertaining to this office more deeply impressed with a sense of the responsibilities imposed, or with a higher appreciation of the character and dignity of the great Legislative Assembly.

"During the term just closing, questions of deep import to political parties and to the country have here found earnest and at times passionate discussion. This Chamber has indeed been the arena of great debate. The record of four years of parliamentary struggles, of masterful debates, of important legislation, is closed, and passes now to the domain of history.

"I think I can truly say, in the words of a distinguished predecessor, 'In the discharge of my official duties, I have known no cause, no party, no friend.' It has been my earnest endeavor justly to interpret, and faithfully to execute, the rules of the Senate. At times the temptation may be strong to compass partisan ends by a disregard or a perversion of the rules. Yet, I think it safe to say, the result, however salutary, will be dearly purchased by a departure from the method prescribed by the Senate for its own guidance. A single instance, as indicated, might prove the forerunner of untold evils.

''T will be recorded for a precedent,
And many an error by the same example
Will rush into the State.'

"It must not be forgotten that the rules governing this body are founded deep in human experience; that they are the result of centuries of tireless effort in legislative hall, to conserve, to render stable and secure, the rights and liberties which have been achieved by conflict. By its rules, the Senate wisely fixes the limits to its own power. Of those who clamor against the Senate and its mode of procedure it may be truly said, 'They know not what they do.' In this Chamber alone are preserved, without restraint, two essentials of wise legislation and of good government—the right of amendment and of debate. Great evils often result from hasty legislation, rarely from the delay which follows full discussion and deliberation. In my humble judgment, the historic Senate, preserving the unrestricted right of amendment and of debate, maintaining intact the time-honored parliamentary methods and amenities which unfailingly secure action after deliberation, possesses in our scheme of government a value which can not be measured by words. The Senate is a perpetual body. In the terse words of an eminent Senator now present: 'The men who framed the Constitution had studied thoroughly all former attempts at Republican government. History was strewn with the wrecks of unsuccessful democracies. Sometimes the usurpation of the executive power, sometimes the fickleness and unbridled license of the people, had brought popular governments to destruction. To guard against these dangers, they placed their chief hope in the Senate. The Senate which was organized in 1789, at the inauguration of the Government, abides and will continue to abide, one and the same body, until the Republic itself shall be overthrown, or time shall be no more.'

"Twenty-four Senators who have occupied seats in this Chamber during my term of office are no longer members of this body. Five of that number—Stanford, Colquitt, Vance, Stockbridge, and Wilson— 'shattered with the contentions of the Great Hall,' full of years and of honors have passed from earthly scenes. The fall of the gavel will conclude the long and honorable terms of service of other Senators, who will be borne in kind remembrance by their associates who remain.

"I would do violence to my feelings if I failed to express my thanks to the officers of this body for the fidelity with which they have discharged their important duties, and for the kindly assistance and unfailing courtesy of which I have been the recipient.

"For the able and distinguished gentleman who succeeds me as your presiding officer, I earnestly invoke the same co-operation and courtesy which you have so generously accorded me.

"Senators, my parting words have been spoken, and I now discharge my last official duty, that of declaring the Senate adjourned without day."

V THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

DIFFICULTY OF FORMULATING A FEDERAL CONSTITUTION—THE CONVENTION OF 1787 SEES THE NECESSITY FOR A GENERAL GOVERNMENT WITH PLENARY POWERS—JEALOUSY OF THE SMALLER TOWARD THE LARGER STATES— BRITISH PARLIAMENT TAKEN, WITH QUALIFICATIONS, AS THE MODEL FOR THE HOUSES OF CONGRESS—EQUAL STATE REPRESENTATION IN THE SENATE— NON-EXISTENCE OF ANY METHOD FOR TERMINATING DEBATES IN THE SENATE— POTENCY OF THE PRESIDENT'S VETO—ABUSE OF THE CLOTURE IN THE HOUSE—PROCEDURE IN THE EVENT OF THE FAILURE OF THE PEOPLE TO ELECT A PRESIDENT OR A VICE-PRESIDENT—THE HAYES-TILDEN CONTEST—DANGER OF USURPATION OF POWER BY THE EXECUTIVE—THE SENATE AS A HIGH COURT OF IMPEACHMENT—TRIAL OF CHASE OF MARYLAND—TRIAL OF BELKNAP, SECRETARY OF WAR—TRIAL OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON.

It is a well-known fact in our political history that the convention which formulated our Federal Constitution greatly exceeded the powers delegated to its members by their respective States. It was the supreme moment, and upon the action of the historic assemblage depended events of far-reaching consequence. The Constitution of the United States is the enduring monument to the courage, the forecast, the wisdom of the members of the Convention of 1787. It was theirs to cut the Gordian knot, to break with the past, and, regardless of the jealousies and antagonisms of individual States, to establish the more perfect union, which has been declared by an eminent British statesman "the greatest work ever struck off at a given time from the brain and purpose of man."

The oft-quoted expression of Gladstone is, however, more rhetorical than accurate. The Constitution of the United States was not "struck off at a given time," but as declared by Bancroft, "the materials for its building were the gifts of the ages." In the words of Lieber, "What the ancients said of the avenging gods, that they were shod with wool, is true of great ideas in government. They approach slowly. Great truths dwell a long time with small minorities."

The period following the treaty of peace with Great Britain in 1783, which terminated the War of the Revolution, has been not inaptly designated "the critical period of American history." The Revolutionary Government, under which Washington had been chosen to the chief command of the colonial forces, the early battles fought, and the Declaration of Independence promulgated, had been superseded in 1781 by a Government created under the Articles of Confederation. The latter Government, while in a vital sense a mere rope of sand, was a long step in the right direction; the earnest of the more perfect union yet to follow.

Under the Government, more shadowy than real, thus created, the closing battles of the Revolution were fought, independence achieved, a treaty of peace concluded, and our recognition as a sovereign Republic obtained from our late antagonist and other European nations.

The Articles of Confederation, submitted for ratification by the Colonial Congress to the individual States while the country was yet in the throes of a doubtful struggle, fell far short of establishing what in even crude form could properly be designated a Government. The Confederation was wholly lacking in one essential of all Governments: the power to execute its own decrees. Its avowed purpose was to establish "a firm league of friendship," or, as the name indicates, a mere confederation of the colonies. The parties to this league were independent political communities, and by express terms, each State was to retain all rights, sovereignty, and jurisdiction not expressly delegated to the Confederation. In a Congress consisting of a single House were vested the powers thus grudgingly conferred. Its members were to be chosen by the States as such; upon every question the vote was given by States, each, regardless of population, having but a single vote. The revenues and the regulation of foreign commerce were to remain under the control of the respective States, and no provision was made for borrowing money for the necessary maintenance of the general Government. In a word, in so far as a Government at all, it was in the main one of independent States, and in no sense that with which we are familiar, a Government of the entire people. Whatever existed of executive power was in a committee of the Congress; the only provision for meeting the expenses of the late war and the interest upon the public debt was by requisition upon the States, with no shadow of power for its enforcement.

Under the conditions briefly mentioned, with the United States of America a byword among the nations, the now historic Convention of 1787 assembled in Philadelphia, in the room where eleven years earlier had been promulgated the Declaration of Independence. It consisted of fifty-five members; and without a dissenting voice, Washington, a delegate from Virginia, was elected its President. Not the least of his public services was now to be rendered in the work of safeguarding the fruits of successful revolution by a stable Government. Chief among the associates with whom he was daily in earnest, anxious counsel in the great assemblage, were men whose names live with his in history. If Franklin, Wilson, Sherman, King, Randolph, Rutledge, Mason, Pinckney, Hamilton, Madison, and their associates had rendered no public service other than as builders of the Constitution, that alone would entitle them to the measureless gratitude of all future generations of their countrymen.

When they were assembled, the startling fact was at once apparent that, under the Confederation, with its constituent States at times in almost open hostility to one another, the country was gradually drifting into a condition of anarchy.

It is our glory to-day, and will be that of countless on-coming generations, that the men of '87 were equal to the stupendous emergency. Regardless of instructions, expressed or implied, the master spirits of the Convention, looking beyond local prejudices and State environment, and appealing to time for vindication, with a ken that now seems more than human, discerned the safety, the well-being, the glory of their countrymen, bound up in a general Government of plenary powers, a Government "without a seam in its garment, to foreign nations."

To this end the proposition submitted by Paterson of New Jersey, in the early sittings of the Convention, for a mere enlargement of the powers of the Confederation, was decisively rejected. With the light that could be gleaned from the pages of Montesquieu, the suggestive lessons to be drawn from the fate of the short-lived republics whose wrecks lay along the pathway of history, and from the unwritten Constitution of the mother country, as their only guides, the leaders of the Convention were at once in the difficult role of constructive statesmen. The Herculean task to which with unwearied effort they now addressed themselves was that of "builders" of the Constitution; the establishers, for the ages, of the fundamental law for a free people.

One of the perils which early beset the Convention, and whose spectre haunted its deliberations till the close, was the hostility engendered by the dread and jealousy of the smaller toward the larger States. This fact will in some measure explain what in later years have been denominated the anomalies of the Constitution. To a correct understanding of the motives of the builders, and an appreciation of their marvellous accomplishment, it must not be forgotten that "The foundations of the Constitution were laid in compromise." The men of '87 had but recently emerged from the bloody conflict through which they had escaped the domination of kingly power. With the tyranny of George the Third yet burning in their memories, it is not to be wondered that the Revolutionary patriots of the less populous States were loath to surrender rights, deemed, by them, secure under their local governments; that they dreaded the establishment of what they apprehended might prove an overshadowing—possibly unlimited—central authority.

The creation of a general Government, with its three separate and measurably independent departments, happily concluded, with the delegated powers of each distinctly enumerated, the salient question as to the basis of representation in the Congress at once pressed for determination. Upon the question of provision for a chief executive, and his investment with the powers necessarily incident to the great office, there was after much debate a practical consensus of opinion. And practical unanimity in the end prevailed regarding the judicial department, with its great court without a prototype at its creation, and even yet without a counterpart in foreign Governments.

The rock upon which the Convention barely escaped early dissolution, was the basis of representation in the Congress created under the great co-ordinate legislative department. The model for our Senate and House of Representatives was unquestionably the British Parliament. This statement is to be taken with weighty qualifications; for hereditary or ecclesiastical representation, as in the House of Lords, is wholly unknown in our system of government. The significant resemblance is that of our Lower House to the British Commons. In these respective chambers, the people, as such, have representation.

The earnest, at times violent, contention of the smaller States, in our historic Convention, was for equal representation in both branches of the proposed national legislature. This was strenuously resisted by the larger States under the powerful leadership of Madison of Virginia, and Wilson of Pennsylvania. Their equally earnest, and by no means illogical contention was for popular representation in each House, as outlined in the Virginia plan which had been taken as the framework of the proposed Constitution. The opposing views appeared wholly irreconcilable, and for a time the parting of the ways seemed to have been reached. Threats of dissolution were not uncommon in the Chamber, and for many days the spirit of despair brooded over the Convention. A delegate from Maryland vehemently declared: "The Convention is on the verge of dissolution, scarcely held together by the strength of a hair." Well has it been said: "In even the contemplation of the fearful consequence of such a calamity, the imagination stands aghast."

At the crucial moment mentioned, Sherman and Ellsworth presented upon behalf of Connecticut the first and most far-reaching of the great compromises of the Constitution. The Connecticut plan was in brief to the effect that in fixing the ratio of representation there should be recognition alike of the federal and of the national feature in government, in a word, that in the Lower House the national, and in the upper the federal principle should have full recognition. This was a departure from the Virginia plan to the extent that it in effect proposed the establishment of a federal republic,—in the concrete, that the House should be composed of representatives chosen directly by the people from districts of equal population; while representation in the Senate should be that of the States, each, regardless of population, to have two members, to be chosen at stated periods by their respective legislatures.

After heated debate, this compromise was carried by a bare majority, and the provision for popular representation in the House, and equal State representation in the Senate, became engrafted upon our Federal Constitution. This feature, an eminent foreign writer has declared, "is the chief American contribution to the common treasures of political civilization." The eminent writer, De Tocqueville, has well said: "The principle of the independence of the States triumphed in the formation of the Senate, and that of the sovereignty of the nation in the composition of the House of Representatives."

The success of the Connecticut plan made possible that of other essential compromises which followed; and the result was, as the sublime consummation of wise deliberation and patriotic concession, the establishment of the Government of the United States.

It is the proud boast of the Briton, that "the British Constitution has no single date from which its duration is to be reckoned, and that the origin of English law is as undiscoverable as that of the Nile." Our Government, buttressed upon a written Constitution of enumerated and logically implied powers, had its historic beginning upon that masterful day, April 30, 1789, when Washington took solemn oath of office as our first President.

The Senate of the United States has been truly declared "the greatest deliberative body known to men." By Constitutional provision it consists of two members from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for the term of six years. No person has the legal qualification for Senator "unless he shall have attained the age of thirty years, be an inhabitant of the State for which he is chosen, and have been nine years a citizen of the United States." No State, without its consent, can ever be deprived, even by Constitutional amendment, of its equal representation in the Senate. Nevada with a population of less than forty thousand has her equal voice with New York with a population exceeding seven million. This anomaly was occasioned by concession by the larger to the smaller States in the Convention of 1787, a concession which made possible the establishment of the federal Union.

One essential difference between the House of Representatives and the Senate is that to the latter "the previous question" is unknown; no method existing for terminating debate, other than by unanimous consent. Here, unlimited discussion and amendment can have their perfect work. Within the last three or four decades many fruitless attempts have been made to introduce a modified "previous question" or cloture, by which the Senate could be brought to an immediate vote. At first blush such change might seem desirable, but experience has demonstrated the wisdom of the method to which there has been such steady adherence. It secures time for consideration and full discussion upon every question. In the end the vote will be taken. Debate is rarely prolonged beyond reasonable limit. Not infrequently the public welfare is imperilled by too much, rather than too little, legislation. It was the belief of Jefferson that government should touch the citizen at the fewest possible points. The quaint lines of the old English poet have lost nothing of their significance:

"How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!"

The House of Representatives has in large degree ceased to be a deliberative body. Under the iron rule of the "previous question" measures of importance are hurriedly passed without the possibility of discussion or amendment. The rights of the minority are at times but as the dust in the balance.

Unlike the House of Lords, the Senate is in reality an important factor in legislation. As is well known in recent years, government in Great Britain is virtually that of the House of Commons, in large measure through a cabinet practically of its own appointment. The King is little more than a ceremonial figure-head, and the House of Lords is almost in a death struggle for existence. The end would probably come by serious attempt upon its part to thwart the popular will as expressed through the House of Commons. The power of Edward the Seventh is but a shadow of that exercised almost without let or hindrance by the predecessors of Queen Victoria. The veto power, so potent an instrumentality in the hands of the American President, is to all intents a dead letter in the mythical British Constitution. For a century and a half it has remained in practical abeyance. It is believed that its attempted exercise at this day would produce revolution; possibly endanger the existence of the throne.

By means of what is known as a suspension of the rules, under the operation of the "previous question," much important legislation is enacted in our House of Representatives, without the minority having the privilege of debate, or amendment, or even the necessary time to a full understanding of the pending measure. The constantly recurring "River and Harbor Bill," with its enormous sum total of appropriations, is a striking object lesson of the vicious character of such methods.

In the light of what has been suggested, the wisdom displayed in the establishment of the bicameral, or two-chamber system, in our legislative scheme, is strikingly apparent. At the time of its creation, it had no counterpart in any of the Governments of continental Europe. Its only prototype, in so far as it was such, was the British House of Lords as already indicated.

Save only in the right to originate revenue bills, the power of the Senate is concurrent with that of the House in all matters of legislation; and these are wisely subject to amendment by the Senate. The presiding officer of the Senate is the Vice-President of the United States, and in his absence a Senator chosen as President pro tempore.

In the event of a failure on the part of the people to elect a President or a Vice-President of the United States, through electors duly appointed at the stated time, the duty of such election devolves upon the House and the Senate acting independently of each other. The choice of President is limited to the three candidates who have received the highest number of votes in the several electoral colleges. The determination is by the House of Representatives, the vote being by States. In such event the vote of Nevada would again count equally with that of New York. In the contingency mentioned, of a failure to elect a Vice-President, the election devolves upon the Senate, each Senator having a personal vote; and the person chosen must by Constitutional requirement be one of the two receiving the highest number of electoral votes. In 1836, Mr. Van Buren of New York received a majority of the electoral votes for President; but no person receiving a majority for the second office, Colonel Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, one of the two persons eligible, was chosen by the Senate. No similar instance has occurred in our history.

In the Presidential election of 1800, and in that of 1824, the ultimate determination was by the House of Representatives. In the former, Jefferson and Burr each received seventy-three electoral votes, without specification as to whether intended for the first or second office. The protracted struggle which followed resulted in the choice of Jefferson for the higher office. This fortunate termination was in large measure through the influence of Alexander Hamilton, and was the initial step in the bitter personal strife which eventuated in his early death at the hands of Burr. In the light of events, we may well believe that not the least of the public services of Hamilton was his unselfish interposition at the critical moment mentioned. The possibility of similar complication again arising in the election of the President was soon thereafter obviated by the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution.

Seldom in Presidential contests has there been such an array of great names presented as in that of 1824. The era of good feeling which characterized the administration of Monroe found sudden termination in the rival candidacy of two members of his cabinet, for the succession—Mr. Adams, Secretary of State, and Mr. Crawford, of the Treasury. The other aspirants were Clay, the brilliant Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Jackson, with laurels yet fresh from the battlefield of New Orleans. Mr. Clay receiving the smallest number of electoral votes, and no candidate the majority thereof, the selection again devolved upon the House, resulting eventually in the choice of John Quincy Adams.

In the two Presidential contests last mentioned, the Senate had no part in the final adjustment. An occasion, however, arose nearly a half-century later, involving the succession to the Presidency, in which the Senate, equally with the House, was an important factor in the final determination. The country has known few periods of profounder anxiety to thoughtful men, or of greater peril to stable government, than the feverish hours immediately succeeding the Presidential contest of 1876. The shadow cast by the Hayes-Tilden contest even yet, in a measure, lingers. As a Representative in Congress at the time, I was deeply impressed with the gravity of the situation. In the instances first mentioned it was the mere question of the failure of any candidate to receive a majority of the electoral votes. The framers of the Constitution had wisely provided for such contingency by action of the House in manner indicated. The far more serious question now confronting was, For whom had the disputed States of Florida and Louisiana cast their votes? The settlement of this question virtually determined which candidate should be inaugurated President. Conflicting certificates from the States named had been forwarded to the seat of government, and were in keeping of the officer designated by law as the custodian of the electoral returns from the several States. The contingency which had now arisen was one for which there was no provision. The sole function of the joint session of the Senate and the House was "to open all the certificates and count the votes." This was "the be all and end all" of its authority. Upon the arising of any question demanding a vote, or even deliberation, the members of the joint session could only return to their separate chambers. They could act only in their separate capacities. In a word, the perilous exigency presented was, the friends of one candidate having a majority in the Senate, and of the other in control of the House; conflicting certificates presented, upon which hinged the result, and the tension throughout the entire country assuming alarming proportions. Coupled with the question of peaceable succession to the great office was that of the durability of popular government. Tremendous issues, upon which depended unfathomable consequences, pressed for settlement; and no tribunal was in existence for their determination.

The sober second thought of those upon whom was then cast the responsibility asserted itself at the opportune moment, and a commission consisting of an equal number of Senators, Representatives, and Judges of the Great Court was created. This commission— extra-Constitutional, as was believed by many—decided as to the validity of the conflicting certificates, and in effect determined as to the Presidential succession.

The justification of the act creating the commission might well rest upon the fact that an overshadowing emergency had arisen, where necessity becomes the paramount law. "The pendulum of history swings in centuries," and a single term of the great office weighed little in view of the perils that surely awaited a failure to secure peaceful adjustment.

I may be pardoned for adding that in the retrospect of a life, no longer a short one, I have no regrets that my humble voice and vote were given for peaceable and lawful adjustment of a perilous controversy, that cast its dark shadow across our national pathway —such a one, as, please God, our country may never witness again.

Unquestionably the least satisfactory of the devices of our Federal Constitution is that for the election of President and Vice-President through the instrumentality of colleges of electors chosen by the several States. Upon this subject notes of warning have been many times sounded by eminent statesmen of the past. In view of the hazardous complications through which we have happily passed, and of those which may possibly beset our future pathway as a nation, it would indeed be the part of wisdom, if by Constitutional amendment a less complicated and cumbrous instrumentality could be devised for ascertaining and making effective the popular will in the selection of President and Vice-President of the United States.

One of the apprehensions of the framers of the Constitution was that of executive usurpation of functions lawfully pertaining to the co-ordinate department of the Government. This was measurably guarded against by the provision requiring appointment to high office to be by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. While the President by the exercise of the veto power possesses a negative upon legislation, the Senate by virtue of the provision quoted has an equally effective negative upon executive appointments to important office.

To the President is confided primarily the treaty-making power. Treaties are the law of the land, and their observance in spirit as well as letter touches the national honor. Upon this often depends the issue of peace or war. Before becoming effective their ratification by a two-thirds vote of the Senate is indispensable. From these and other safeguards strikingly appear what are known as "the checks and balances" of the Constitution.

An important function of the Senate yet to be mentioned is that of sitting as a high court of impeachment. The President, Vice-President, and other high officials are amenable to its jurisdiction. The initial step, however, in such procedure is by the House of Representatives, as the grand inquest of the nation, presenting articles of impeachment, the Senate possessing the sole power of trial. Six times only in our history has the Senate been resolved into a Court of Impeachment, and only twice—in the case of district judges—has there been a conviction. The earliest trial, more than a century ago, was that of a supreme justice, Chase of Maryland. Apart from the high official position of the accused, and the august tribunal before which he was arraigned, this trial is of historic interest from the fact that it involved the once famous Alien and Sedition Laws; that John Randolph was chief of the managers on the part of the House; Pinckney, Martin, and William Wirt of counsel for the defence; and Vice-President Aaron Burr, the presiding officer of the court.

The trial of Belknap, Secretary of War, is still within the memory of many. As a member of the House, I attended it from the beginning. It appearing from the evidence that Belknap had resigned his office before the presentation of the articles of impeachment, he was acquitted. The fate of General Belknap was indeed a sad one, that of a hitherto honorable career suddenly terminated under a cloud. Morally guiltless himself, his chivalric assumption of responsibility for the act of one near to him, and his patiently abiding the consequence, has invested with something of pathos, and even romance, the memory of his trial.

An impeachment that has left its deep impress upon history, and before which all others pale into insignificance, was that of President Johnson, charged by the House of Representatives with the commission of "high crimes and misdemeanors." He had been elected to the second place upon the ticket with Mr. Lincoln in 1864, and upon the death of the latter, succeeded to the Presidency. Radical differences with the majority in the Congress, upon questions vital and far-reaching, ultimately culminated in the presentation of articles of impeachment. Partisan feeling was at its height, and the excitement throughout the country intense. The trial was protracted for many weeks without jot or tittle of abatement in the public interest. The chief managers on the part of the House were Benjamin F. Butler and Thaddeus Stevens. The array of counsel for the accused included the names of Benjamin R. Curtis, Henry Stanberry, and William M. Evarts. The Senate, in its high character of a court, was presided over for the first and only time by the Chief Justice of the United States. The trial was conducted with marked decorum; every phase of questions touching the exercise of executive authority, or lawful discretion, was fully discussed, the very springs of legislative power, and its limitation under Constitutional government, were laid bare—all with an eloquence unparalleled save only in the wondrous efforts of Sheridan, Fox, and Burke in the historic impeachment of Warren Hastings before the British House of Lords. The spectacle presented was one that challenged the attention and wonder of the nations; that of the chief magistrate of a great republic at the bar of justice, calmly awaiting judgment without popular disturbance or attempted revolt, under the safeguards of law and its appointments. The highest test of the virtue of our system of representative government, and of the unfaltering devotion of our people to its prescribed methods, is to be found in the fact, that during the protracted trial the various departments proceeded with wonted regularity; the verdict of the Senate was acquiesced in without manifestation of hostility; partisan passion soon abated and the great impeachment peaceably relegated to the domain of history.

The House of Representatives has an official life of short duration. Its reorganization is biennial. The Senate is enduring. Always organized, it is the continuing body of our national legislature. Its members change, but the Senate continues the same now, as in the first hour of the Republic.

In his last great speech in the Senate, Mr. Webster said:

"It is fortunate that there is a Senate of the United States; a body not yet moved from its propriety, not lost to a full sense of its own dignity and its own high responsibilities, and a body to which the country looks with confidence for wise, moderate, patriotic, and healing counsels."

Upon the first assembling of the Senate in its present magnificent chamber nearly half a century ago, the Vice-President closed his eloquent dedicatory address with the words:

"Though these marble walls moulder into ruins, the Senate in another age may bear into a new and larger chamber the Constitution vigorous and inviolate, and the last generation of posterity shall witness the deliberations of the representatives of American States still united, prosperous, and free."

VI A TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN

THE WRITER'S SPEECH AT THE LINCOLN CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, 1909 —PATRIOTIC CHARACTER OF THE MEETING—LEADING HISTORICAL EVENTS BETWEEN 1809 AND 1909—BIRTH OF LINCOLN—TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION OF ILLINOIS—BIRTH OF DARWIN AND GLADSTONE—CAREER OF NAPOLEON—WAR OF 1812—THE SLAVERY QUESTION—SEIZURE AND SURRENDER OF MASON AND SLIDELL—EMANCIPATION OF SLAVES.

February 12, 1909, will long be remembered as the day of the celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. For on that day was the culmination of a celebration which, in various parts of the country, had begun at least a week before. Rarely has there been an occasion of so much decoration, so many addresses, or so much patriotism. The largest celebration occurred in New York City, but that of Chicago, if not so large, was at least as interesting and impressive, for in it and surrounding parts of Illinois some of the most memorable events in the life of Lincoln took place. Yet these manifestations were not a whit more patriotic than those of many small towns and villages.

Every hamlet, every town, and every city of the United States seemed to be imbued with a desire to do honor to the memory of the man Lincoln. Every newspaper and every magazine of whatever name or order was filled with pictures, anecdotes, and sketches of the life of "Honest Abe." Books galore were published emphasizing every phase of his life, character, work, and influence; and they sold well.

My contribution to this occasion was the following speech delivered at Bloomington, Illinois, February 12:

"We have assembled to commemorate one of the epoch-making events in history. In the humblest of homes in the wilds of a new and sparsely settled State, Abraham Lincoln was born one hundred years ago, this day.

"The twelfth day of February, like the twenty-second day of the same month, is one of the sacred days in the American calendar. It is well that this day be set apart from ordinary uses, the headlong rush in the crowded mart suspended, the voice of fierce contention in legislative halls be hushed, and that the American people—whether at home, in foreign lands, or upon the deep—honor themselves by honoring the memory of the man of whose birth this day is the first centennial.

"This coming together is no idle ceremony, no unmeaning observance. To this man, more than to any other, are we indebted for the supreme fact that ninety millions of people are at this hour, in the loftiest sense of the expression, fellow-citizens of a common country. Some of us, through the mists of half a century, distinctly recall the earnest tones in which Mr. Lincoln in public speech uttered the words, 'My fellow-citizens.' Truly the magical words 'fellow-citizens' never fail to touch a responsive chord in the patriotic heart. Was it the gifted Prentiss who at a critical moment of our history exclaimed:

"'For whether upon the Sabine or the St. John's; standing in the shadow of Bunker Hill or amid the ruins of Jamestown; near the great northern lakes or within the sound of the Father of Waters flowing unvexed to the sea; in the crowded mart of the great metropolis or upon the western verge of the continent, where the restless tide of emigration is stayed only by the ocean—everywhere upon this broad domain, thank God, I can still say "fellow-citizens"!'

"Let us pause for a moment and briefly note some of the marvellous results wrought out by the toil, strife, and sacrifice of the century whose close we commemorate. The Year of Our Lord 1809 was one of large place in history. The author of the Declaration of Independence was upon the eve of final retirement from public place, and the Presidential term of James Madison just beginning, when in a log cabin near the western verge of civilization the eyes of Abraham Lincoln first opened upon the world. The vast area stretching from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean was under the dominion of Spain. Two decades only had passed since the establishment of the United States Government under the Federal Constitution, and the inauguration of Washington as its first President. Lewis and Clark had but recently returned from the now historic expedition to the Columbia and the Oregon,—an expedition fraught with momentous consequences to the oncoming generations of the Republic. Only five years had passed since President Jefferson had purchased, for fifteen millions of dollars from Napoleon Bonaparte, the Louisiana country, extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the frozen lakes, out of which were to be carved sixteen magnificent States to become enduring parts of the American Republic. From the early Colonial settlements that fringed the Atlantic, a tide of hardy emigration was setting in to the westward, and, regardless of privation or danger, laying the sure foundation of future commonwealths. Four States only had been admitted into the Federal Union, and the population of the entire country was less than that of the State of New York to-day. This same year witnessed the first organization of Illinois into a distinct political community and its creation, by act of Congress, as the Territory of Illinois, with a white population less than one-twentieth of that of this good county to-day. The United States having barely escaped a war with France,—our ally in securing our independence,—was earnestly struggling for distinct place among the nations.

"No less significant, and fraught with deep consequences, were events occurring in the Old Worlds. The year 1809 witnessed the birth of Darwin and Gladstone. The despotism of the Dark Ages still brooded over Continental Europe, and whatever savored of popular public rule—even in its mildest form—was yet in the distant future. Alexander the First was on the throne of Russia,— and her millions of serfs were oppressed as by the iron hand of the Caesars. The splendid German Empire of to-day had no place on the map of the world; its present powerful constituencies were antagonistic provinces and warring independent cities. Napoleon Bonaparte—'calling Fate into the lists'—by a succession of victories unparalleled in history had overturned thrones, compelled kings upon bended knee to sue for peace, and substituted those of his own household for dynasties that reached back the entire length of human history. With his star still in the ascendant, disturbed by no forecast of the horrid nightmare of the retreat from Moscow, 'with legions scattered by the artillery of the snows and the cavalry of the winds,' tortured by no dream of Leipsic, of Elba, of Waterloo, of St. Helena, he was still the 'man of destiny,' —relentlessly pursuing the ignis fatuus of universal empire.

"The year that witnessed the birth of Abraham Lincoln witnessed the gathering of the disturbing elements that were to precipitate the second war with the mother country. England—with George the Third still upon the throne—by insulting and cruel search of American vessels upon the high seas, was rendering inevitable the declaration of war by Congress,—a war of humiliation upon our part by the disgraceful surrender of Hull at Detroit and the wanton burning of our Capitol, but crowned with honor by the naval victories of Lawrence, Decatur, and Perry, and eventually terminated by the capture of the British army at New Orleans. As an object lesson of the marvels of the closing century, an event of such momentous consequence to the world as the formulation of the Treaty of Ghent, by which peace was restored between England and America, would to-day be known at every fireside a few hours after its occurrence. And yet, within the now closing century, the battle of New Orleans was fought twenty-three days after the Treaty of Ghent, coming by slow-sailing vessels across the Atlantic, had received the signature of our commissioners; all unsettled accounts squared eternally between America and Great Britain; and the United States, by valor no less than by diplomacy, exalted to honored and enduring place among the nations.

"The fifty-six years that compassed the life of Abraham Lincoln were years of transcendent significance to our country. While he was yet in his rude cradle the African slave trade had just terminated by constitutional inhibition. While Lincoln was still in attendance upon the old field school, Henry Clay—yet to be known as the 'great pacificator'—was pressing the admission of Missouri into the Union under the first compromise upon the question of slavery since the adoption of the Federal Constitution. From the establishment of the Government the question of human slavery was the one perilous question,—the one constant menace to national unity, until its final extinction amid the flames of war. Marvellous to man are the purposes of the Almighty. What seer could have foretold that, from this humblest of homes upon the frontier, was to spring the man who at the crucial moment should cut the Gordian knot, liberate a race, and give to the ages enlarged and grander conception of the deathless principles of the declaration of human rights?

"'Often do the spirits of great events
Stride on before the events,
And in to-day already walks to-morrow.'

"The first inauguration of President Lincoln noted the hour of breaking with the past. It was a period of gloom, when the very foundations were shaken, when no man could foretell the happening of the morrow, when strong men trembled at the possibility of the destruction of our Government.

"Pause a moment, and recall the man who, under the conditions mentioned, on the fourth of March, 1861, entered upon the duties of the great office to which he had been chosen. He came from the common walks of life—from what, in other countries, would be called the great middle class. His early home was one of the humblest, where he was a stranger to the luxuries and to many of the ordinary comforts of life. His opportunities for education were only such as were common in the remote habitations of our Western country one century ago.

"Under such conditions, began a career which in grandeur and achievement has but a single counterpart in our history. And what a splendid commentary this upon our free institutions,—upon the sublime underlying principle of popular government! How inspiring to the youth of high aims every incident of the pathway that led from the frontier cabin to the Executive Mansion,—from the humblest position to the most exalted yet attained by man! In no other country than ours could such attainment have been possible for the boy whose hands were inured to toil, whose bread was eaten under the hard conditions that poverty imposes, whose only heritage was brain, integrity, lofty ambition, and indomitable purpose. Let it never be forgotten that the man of whom I speak possessed an integrity that could know no temptation, a purity of life that was never questioned, a patriotism that no sectional lines could limit, and a fixedness of purpose that knew no shadow of turning.

"The decade extending from our first treaty of peace with Great Britain to the inauguration of Washington has been truly denominated the critical period of our history. The eloquence of Adams and Henry had precipitated revolution; the unfaltering courage of Washington and his comrades had secured independence; but the more difficult task of garnering up the fruits of victory by stable government was yet to be achieved. The hour for the constructive statesman had arrived, and James Madison and his associates, equal to the great emergency, formulated the Federal Constitution.

"No less critical was the period that bounded the active life of the man whose memory we honor to-day. One perilous question to national unity which for nearly three-quarters of a century had been the subject of repeated compromise by patriotic statesmen; the apple of discord producing sectional antagonism, whose shadow had darkened our national pathway from the beginning,—was now for weal or woe to find determination. Angry debate in the Senate and upon the forum was now hushed, and the supreme question that took hold of national life was to find enduring arbitrament in the dread tribunal of war.

"It was well that in such an hour, with such tremendous issues in the balance, a steady hand was at the helm; that a conservative statesman—one whose mission was to save, not to destroy—was in the high place of responsibility and power. It booted little then that he was untaught of schools, unskilled in the ways of courts, but it was of supreme moment that he could touch responsive chords in the great American heart, all-important that his very soul yearned for the preservation of the Government established through the toil and sacrifice of the generation that had gone. How hopeless the Republic in that dark hour, had its destiny hung upon the statecraft of Talleyrand, the eloquence of Mirabeau, or the genius of Napoleon! It was fortunate indeed that the ark of our covenant was then borne by the plain, brave man of conciliatory spirit and kind words, whose heart, as Emerson has said, 'was as large as the world, but nowhere had room for the memory of a wrong.'