THE LIFE OF LYMAN TRUMBULL
Lyman Trumbull (signature)
THE LIFE OF LYMAN TRUMBULL
BY
HORACE WHITE
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1913
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY HORACE WHITE
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published October 1913
PREFACE
A few years since, the widow of Lyman Trumbull requested me to write a biography of her husband, who was United States Senator from Illinois during the three senatorial terms 1855-1873, or to recommend some suitable person for the task. It had been a cause of surprise and regret to me that the name of Trumbull had not yet found a place in the swelling flood of biographical literature that embraces the Civil War period. Everybody, North or South, who stood on the same elevation with him, everybody who exercised influence and filled the public eye in equal measure with him, had found his niche in the libraries of the nation, and such place in the hearts of the people as his merits warranted. Trumbull alone had been neglected. I reflected upon the matter and came to the conclusion that, although better writers than myself could be found for this kind of work, no one was likely to be found who had been more intimate with him during his whole senatorial career, or who had warmer sympathy for his aims or higher admiration for his abilities and character. I reflected also that very soon there would be no person living possessing these special qualifications. Accordingly I decided to undertake the work.
Mrs. Trumbull placed in my hands several thousand letters received by Trumbull, and a few written by him, during his public career. All these have been examined by me, and they are now in the Library of Congress. He was not in the habit of keeping copies of letters written by himself unless he deemed them important, and such copies were generally written out by his own hand, not taken in a copying-press. Other letters written by him have been sought with varying success in the hands of his correspondents, or their heirs, in various parts of the country, but nothing has been found in this way that can be considered of much importance.
During the Reconstruction era I had sustained the policy of Congress in opposition to that of Andrew Johnson, but had revolted at the carpetbaggery and misgovernment which had ensued, and had abhorred the "Ku-Klux" bills and "Force" bills which the Union party for a long time continued to enact or threaten. I was not quite prepared to find, however, upon going over the whole ground again, that I had been wrong from the beginning, and that Andrew Johnson's policy, which was Lincoln's policy, was the true one, and ought never to have been departed from. This is the conclusion to which I have come, after much study, in the evening of a long life. This does not mean that all of the doings and sayings of President Johnson were wise and good, but that I believe him to have been an honest man, a true patriot, and a worthy successor of Lincoln whose Reconstruction policy he followed. Lincoln himself could not have carried that policy into effect without a fight, and many persons familiar with the temper of the time think that even he would have failed. All that we can now affirm is that he was armed with the prestige of victory and the confidence of the North, and hence would have been better prepared than Johnson was for meeting the difficulties that sprang up at the end of the war. It must be admitted, however, that Johnson honestly aimed to carry out that policy, both because it was Lincoln's and because he himself, after careful consideration, esteemed it sound.
I acknowledge my indebtedness to the Diary of Gideon Welles, which I regard as the most important contribution to the history of the period of which it treats that has yet been given to the public. The history of Mr. James Ford Rhodes I have found to be an invaluable guide, as to both facts and judgments of men and things. I am indebted to Professor William A. Dunning, of Columbia University, for valuable suggestions, criticism, and encouragement, as well as for the assistance derived from his admired writings on Reconstruction. Miss Katherine Mayo has lightened my labors greatly by her intelligent and indefatigable search of old letters and newspaper files and by interviews with persons still living. My gratitude is due also to the late William H. Lambert, of Philadelphia, for giving me access to his collection of manuscript correspondence that passed between Lincoln and Trumbull prior to the inauguration of the former as President; also to Dr. William Jayne, of Springfield, Illinois, to Hon. J. H. Roberts, of Chicago, to the wife of Walter Trumbull (now Mrs. L. C. Pardee, of Chicago), and to Mrs. Mary Ingraham Trumbull, of Saybrook Point, Connecticut.
H. W.
CONTENTS
ANCESTRY AND EARLY LIFE
The Trumbulls from Newcastle-on-Tyne, England—Most illustrious family in Colony of Connecticut—Lyman Trumbull born and educated at Colchester—Begins his career as school-teacher in Georgia in 1833—Studies law there in office of Hiram Warner—In 1837 makes a journey on horseback to Shawneetown, Illinois—Begins practice of law in office of Governor Reynolds at Belleville—"Riding on the circuit" in the early days—In a letter to his father describes the killing of Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy at Alton—Elected to the legislature from St. Clair County in 1840—Appointed secretary of state in 1841 by Governor Carlin—Removed from office in 1843 by Governor Ford—Political disturbance in consequence—Belleville in 1842—Marriage of Trumbull and Miss Julia Jayne—Their wedding journey—Political campaign of 1848—Trumbull fails of nomination for governor—Is elected judge of the supreme court in 1848—Removes his residence to Alton—Reëlected as judge in 1852, but resigns in the following year. 1
SLAVERY IN ILLINOIS
French adventurers from Canada the first whites in Illinois—Followed by colonists from Louisiana—Slaves sent from Santo Domingo by John Law's Company of the Indies—Thomas Jefferson takes steps to exclude slavery from the Northwest Territory—The Anti-Slavery Ordinance of 1787—The territorial legislature authorizes the holding of "indentured servants" for a limited time—Attempts to repeal the Ordinance defeated in Congress by John Randolph of Roanoke—State constitution in 1818 prohibits slavery—the pro-slavery men attempt to change the constitution—Bitter contest in 1824 results in their defeat—Slavery continues, nevertheless, under judicial decisions—Trumbull wages war against it in the courts—His final victory in the Jarrot case, in 184523
FIRST ELECTION AS SENATOR
Senator Douglas and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise—Disruption of political parties—Trumbull announces himself a candidate for Congress in opposition to the Nebraska Bill—Is elected in the Eighth Illinois District—Abraham Lincoln takes the stump against Douglas—Their joint debate at Springfield in October, 1854—An Anti-Nebraska legislature elected—Lincoln a candidate for Senator in place of General Shields—Five Anti-Nebraska Bill members vote for Trumbull—Supporters of Shields transfer their votes to Governor Matteson—Lincoln transfers his votes to Trumbull, who is elected by a majority of one32
THE KANSAS WAR
Trumbull takes his seat in the Senate—A protest is presented declaring him not eligible—It is overruled after debate—Disturbances in Kansas consequent upon the passage of the Nebraska Bill—Trumbull makes a speech criticizing Douglas's report thereon—Debate between the two Senators attracts wide attention—Speeches of Seward, Sumner, Collamer, and others—Trumbull's first appearance in debate is warmly welcomed by the opponents of the Nebraska Bill48
THE LECOMPTON FIGHT
The national contest of 1856 results in the election of James Buchanan as President—The Republicans of Illinois elect their state ticket—The Kansas war continues—Buchanan appoints Robert J. Walker governor of the territory—The Pro-Slavery party hold a convention at the town of Lecompton to form a state constitution—The Free State men decide not to participate, but to vote against the constitution when submitted to the people—The convention decides not to submit the constitution to popular vote—President Buchanan agrees to this plan—Governor Walker thereupon resigns his office and Senator Douglas opposes the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution—Both Trumbull and Douglas speak against the Lecompton measure and Congress rejects it—Douglas contemplates joining the Republicans69
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1858 AND THE JOHN BROWN RAID
Popularity of Douglas among the Eastern Republicans growing out of the Lecompton fight—Not shared by those of Illinois—The latter choose Lincoln as their candidate for Senator—Some letters from Lincoln to Trumbull in 1858—The campaign of 1858 results in the reëlection of Douglas, but the popular vote shows a plurality for Lincoln—Douglas's doctrine of "Unfriendly Legislation" in the territories in regard to slavery turns the South against him—The John Brown raid at Harper's Ferry—Trumbull's speech and debate thereon in the Senate 86
THE ELECTION OF LINCOLN—SECESSION
The National Republican Convention at Chicago in 1860—How Lincoln was nominated in preference to Seward—the Secession movement after the election—Trumbull makes a speech at Springfield which includes a brief statement of Republican policy written by Lincoln—Correspondence between Lincoln and Trumbull before the inauguration—Trumbull advises his friends in Chicago not to make concessions to those who threaten to overthrow the Government—He has a debate in the Senate with Jefferson Davis—Makes a speech at the night session, March 2, 1861, against the Crittenden Compromise—The latter defeated in the Senate by Yeas, 19; Nays, 20—Some items of Washington society news from Mrs. Trumbull—Interview between President Buchanan and Judge McLean—Text of Trumbull's Speech against the Crittenden Compromise102
CABINET-MAKING—THE DEATH OF DOUGLAS
Trumbull's interview with William Cullen Bryant, and others, who oppose William H. Seward as a member of Lincoln's Cabinet—They consider Seward's coterie in New York corrupt and dangerous—Trumbull communicates the objections to Lincoln—Lincoln thinks that the forces which backed Seward at the Chicago Convention must not be snubbed—He has already offered a place to Seward—The question of Cameron more difficult—David Davis's bargain with friends of Cameron and of Caleb Smith—Cameron tries to procure an invitation to Springfield, but Lincoln refuses—Leonard Swett gives invitation without Lincoln's authority—Cameron visits Springfield and secures promise of Cabinet position from Lincoln—A. K. McClure protests against Cameron's appointment and Lincoln requests Cameron to decline—Cameron does not decline—Trumbull advises Lincoln not to appoint Cameron—Lincoln's Illinois friends protest against Cameron—Trumbull urges appointment of Judd—Seward and Weed support Cameron, who is finally appointed Secretary of War—Trumbull, reëlected as Senator, becomes Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary—The last great service of Senator Douglas to his country—His death and Trumbull's tribute to his memory139
FORT SUMTER
The Senate appoints a committee to ask the President to recall the appointment of Harvey as Minister to Portugal—He had notified Governor Pickens of the Government's intention to relieve Fort Sumter—Trumbull a member of the committee—Seward says that he did not know of Harvey's action till after the appointment was made—In fact, Seward gave the information to Harvey intending that he should send it to Pickens—John Hay's Diary says that Lincoln, before his inauguration, offered to evacuate Fort Sumter—Also that he repeated the offer after inauguration—This confirms a narrative of John Minor Botts—The controversy between Botts and J. B. Baldwin concerning the latter's interview with Lincoln on April 5, 1861—Reasons for believing that Botts's story is true—Remarkable interview between Douglas and Seward as to Fort Sumter155
BULL RUN—THE CONFISCATION ACT
Trumbull makes an excursion with Senator Grimes to the battle of Bull Run—Is caught by the retreating Union army and driven back to Washington—His account of the panic and stampede says, "It was the most shameful rout you can conceive of"—Sends a telegram to Mrs. Trumbull, but the authorities suppress it—Consternation at the Capital—General Frémont's doings at St. Louis—His military order of emancipation—Lincoln considers it premature and revokes it—Correspondence between Trumbull and M. Carey Lea, of Philadelphia—Cameron follows Frémont's example in his first Annual Report—Sends report to the newspapers without the President's knowledge—Lincoln directs him to recall it and strike out the part relating to slavery—General David Hunter issues an order freeing all slaves in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida—The President revokes it—Trumbull reports a bill from the Senate Judiciary Committee to confiscate the property of rebels and to give freedom to all of their slaves—Collamer opposes confiscation as both unconstitutional and impolitic—He offers an amendment to substitute judicial process for military confiscation—Collamer's views prevail—The President objected, however, to the forfeiture of real estate beyond the lifetime of the owner—This was the first bill passed by Congress dealing a heavy blow at slavery165
THE EXPULSION OF CAMERON
Cameron and Alexander Cummings—Two million dollars placed in New York subject to Cummings's draft—The steamer Catiline chartered and laden by Cummings and Thurlow Weed—The House Committee on Government Contracts—Cummings's testimony—Congressman Dawes's exposure of horse contracts—An equine Golgotha around Washington City—The House censures Cameron—Lincoln removes him and appoints Stanton in his place—Cameron appointed Minister to Russia—Trumbull opposes confirmation—Cameron is confirmed, six Republican Senators voting in the negative178
ARBITRARY ARRESTS
Lincoln's first suspension of the writ of habeas corpus—Secretary Seward and John Hay give verbal instructions thereunder—Senate debate on arbitrary arrests—Wide differences of opinion as to legality thereof—Trumbull calls for information—Debate between Trumbull, Dixon, and Wilson—Was power to suspend the writ lodged in the executive or in the legislative department?—Chief Justice Taney held that the writ had not been lawfully suspended anywhere—Trumbull demands trial by jury, without delay, of civilians arrested in loyal states—Before Congress takes action the election of 1862 results in victory for Democrats—Republican leaders intimidated—Stanton discharges all civilian prisoners—Congress passes Trumbull's bill authorizing President to suspend writ, but requiring trial in civil courts and discharge of persons not indicted—Bill to indemnify the President for previous acts passed by both houses—Banishment of Vallandigham and suppression of the Chicago Times—Trumbull opposes the latter190
INCIDENTS OF THE YEARS 1863 AND 1864
The movement in the Senate for the retirement of Secretary Seward—Letters from Gustave Koerner, Alfred Iverson, and Walter B. Scates—The appointment of M. W. Delahay as judge of the U.S. District Court of Kansas—His subsequent impeachment and resignation—Letters of General John M. Palmer, Colonel Fred Hecker, and Jesse K. Dubois—Trumbull doubts the expediency of Lincoln's second nomination—He thinks that there is a lack of efficiency in the prosecution of the war—This opinion shared by Henry Wilson and by Congressmen generally in the beginning of 1864—The people, however, were for Lincoln's renomination—The Cleveland Convention, and nomination of General Frémont—Simultaneous retirement of Frémont and Postmaster-General Blair210
THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION
Scope of Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipation—Amendment of the Constitution to abolish slavery—First proposals by Wilson, of Iowa, and Henderson, of Missouri—Trumbull reports the Thirteenth Amendment from the Senate Judiciary Committee—His argument thereon—Speeches of Senators Henderson and Reverdy Johnson—Amendment passes the Senate, but fails in the House—Second attempt in the House successful by a trade with Democrats—Amendment ratified—Objections raised by Southern States explained away by Seward222
RECONSTRUCTION
Death of Lincoln—Conflict of opinions concerning the status of the seceding states—Lincoln's proclamation of December, 1863—Reconstruction of Louisiana in pursuance thereof—Trumbull reports a joint resolution admitting that state—Sumner prevents the Senate from voting on it—Lincoln's last speech on Reconstruction—His plan indorsed by William Lloyd Garrison—Andrew Johnson as President adopts it—Recognizes Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Arkansas as restored to the Union—Issues an executive order appointing a governor of North Carolina to call a constitutional convention—Negroes not included in the list of voters—Similar orders issued for the other seceding states—Wendell Phillips sounds a blast against President Johnson—Northern newspapers at first favorable to Johnson—Desperate industrial condition of the South231
ANDREW JOHNSON'S FIRST MESSAGE
Excellent tone and temper of Johnson's first communication to Congress—Written by George Bancroft—Eulogy of the New York Nation—Johnson's early life and training—A first-rate stump-speaker—Sumner attacks Johnson for "whitewashing" the ex-slaveholders—Acts of Southern legislatures passed to keep the negroes in order—Senator Wilson moves that all such acts establishing inequality of civil rights be declared invalid—Trumbull argues for postponement of such legislation until the Thirteenth Amendment is ratified—Debate between Trumbull and Saulsbury—Reports of General Grant and General Carl Schurz on the condition and temper of the Southern people—Letter from J. L. M. Curry on the same244
THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU AND CIVIL RIGHTS BILLS
Trumbull introduces two bills to protect the freedmen in the states—Provisions of the Freedmen's Bureau Bill—Trumbull contends that the Thirteenth Amendment authorized Congress to abolish the incidents and disabilities of slavery—The Freedmen's Bureau Bill passed by Congress and vetoed by the President—The Senate fails to pass it over the veto—Struggle in the Senate to obtain a two-thirds majority—Senator Stockton (Democrat), of New Jersey, unseated—Trumbull's Civil Rights Bill taken up—It does not deal with the right of suffrage—Debate in the Senate on the constitutional question—Bill passes Senate—Is opposed in the House by Bingham, of Ohio—Is vetoed by the President—Exciting scene in Senate when the bill is passed over the veto—Trumbull takes the lead in the campaign of 1866 and is reëlected to the Senate—The Civil Rights Act in the courts—An echo from the State of Georgia257
THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT
The Joint Committee on Reconstruction reports the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution—It holds that the seceding states cannot be restored to their former places in the Union by the executive alone—Tennessee admitted to the Union by Congress—The Arm-in-Arm Convention at Philadelphia—President Johnson's unfortunate speech following that event—The Southern States refuse to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment—This refusal gives increased power to the radicals in the North281
CROSSING THE RUBICON
Decision of the Supreme Court in the Milligan case—It declares all trials of civilians by military commissions unlawful—It implies that Andrew Johnson's policy was preferable to that of Congress—All the members of the Cabinet support the President's policy—Stanton, however, secretly confers with the radicals to undermine the President—Sumner and Stevens become the leaders in Congress and pass bills annulling state governments in the South—The Conservatives follow reluctantly, believing that the negroes cannot be protected unless they have the right to vote—Remarkable series of Reconstruction Acts passed in 1867 and 1868—The case of Georgia—Trumbull overthrows Governor Bullock and his senatorial supporters288
IMPEACHMENT
The Tenure-of-Office Bill passed to curtail the President's power to remove office-holders—It does not apply to members of the Cabinet—The President vetoes it—The veto message written by Seward and Stanton in conjunction—Bill repassed over veto—First mutterings about impeachment—The Judiciary Committee reports in favor of it—The House rejects the report—The President requests Stanton's resignation—Stanton refuses to resign—The President removes him and appoints Grant Secretary of War ad interim—Stanton retires—The Senate disapproves of the removal of Stanton—Grant retires and Stanton resumes office—The President accuses Grant of bad faith, and appoints Lorenzo Thomas Secretary of War—The House votes to impeach the President and appoints managers therefor—The trial begins March 5, 1868—The President is acquitted by vote of 35 to 19, not two thirds—Seven Republican Senators including Trumbull vote "Not Guilty"—Newspaper comments sustaining the "Seven Traitors"—Trumbull's written opinion filed with the record—Consequences of the impeachment trial—Death of Fessenden—Death of Mrs. Lyman Trumbull301
THE McCARDLE CASE—GRANT'S CABINET—THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT
W. H. McCardle, of Mississippi, arrested by General Ord for seditious publications—Takes an appeal to the Supreme Court—General Grant, as Secretary of War ad interim, retains Trumbull to defend the military authorities—Congress passes a law to deprive the Supreme Court of jurisdiction—Trumbull votes for it—The Court rules that its jurisdiction has been withdrawn by Congress—Secretary Stanton fixes Trumbull's compensation for professional services at $10,000—Senator Chandler contends that the payment is contrary to law—Trumbull shows that both law and precedent are on his side—The facts in the case—President Grant's mishaps in choosing his Cabinet—Washburne for the State Department, Stewart for the Treasury, and Borie for the Navy—They are succeeded by Fish, Boutwell, and Robeson—General John A. Rawlins selected by himself for Secretary of War with Grant's approval—General Jacob Cox and Rockwood Hoar, two men of the highest type, appointed but soon resign—Adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution327
CAUSES OF DISCONTENT
Senator Grimes's estimate of the Republican party in 1870—President Grant's methods of carrying on the Government—His attempt to annex Santo Domingo—Senate rejects the treaty of annexation—The President comes in conflict with Charles Sumner, who is displaced as chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations—Trumbull sustains Sumner—Motley, Minister to Great Britain, is removed from office and Trumbull is asked to take his place—He declines the offer—First movement for civil service reform—Trumbull makes a speech at Chicago advocating it—Secretary Cox and Attorney-General Hoar cease to be members of Grant's Cabinet341
THE LIBERAL REPUBLICANS
The Liberal Republican movement begins in Missouri—Its leaders—Enfranchisement of the ex-Confederates, civil service reform, and revenue reform, the issues—Meeting of revenue reformers at New York, November 22, 1871—James G. Blaine, Speaker of the House, offers them a majority of the Committee of Ways and Means—The Missouri movement alarms the Republican leaders—They pass the Ku-Klux Bill for the employment of military force in the South—Trumbull and Schurz oppose the Ku-Klux bill—Trumbull pronounces it an unconstitutional measure—Schurz advocates the removal of all political disabilities—Congress passes an act of universal amnesty after the meeting of the Liberal Republican Convention351
GRANT'S ADMINISTRATION
General Grant's habits and training were not well adapted to civil and political duties—He was nominated for President on account of his military success—Rottenness in the New York Custom-House—Trumbull moves a general investigation of the waste of public money—The Senate decides in favor of a committee to investigate only matters specifically referred to it—The Leet and Stocking scandal—Colonel Leet found to be receiving $50,000 per year from the "General Order" business of the New York Custom-House—A Senate committee reports the facts to Secretary of the Treasury, Boutwell—The Secretary makes a new investigation and recommends that Collector Murphy discontinue the "General Order" system—Murphy allows it to continue indefinitely—A second Senate investigation ordered—The Leet and Stocking mystery explained—President Grant not a participant in the profits—The "General Order" system broken up—Indignation among Republicans resulting from the exposure361
THE CINCINNATI CONVENTION
The Liberal Republican Convention in Missouri calls national convention at Cincinnati—Prompt and favorable response in Ohio and other states—Coöperation of leading Democrats—Springfield Republican, Cincinnati Commercial, and Chicago Tribune, Republican newspapers, support the movement—Henry Watterson, Manton Marble, and August Belmont, Democrats, coöperate—The movement in Pennsylvania—William C. Bryant and others favor the nomination of Trumbull for President—Great meeting at Cooper Union, New York—Governor Palmer, of Illinois, favors the movement—Charles Francis Adams, Horace Greeley, David Davis, B. Gratz Brown, and A. G. Curtin mentioned for President—Correspondence with Trumbull on the subject—The editors' dinner at Murat Halstead's house—Platform embarrassment—The tariff question referred to the congressional districts—Frank Blair and Gratz Brown cause a commotion—Carl Schurz made chairman of the convention—Balloting for President—Brown withdraws his name and advises his friends to vote for Greeley—Greeley nominated on the sixth ballot—Consternation of the supporters of Adams and Trumbull—Most of the Liberal Republican editors decide to support Greeley—Carl Schurz is much distressed—Godkin and Bryant reject Greeley—Correspondence between Bryant and Trumbull—Charles Sumner's hesitating course—He finally decides to support Greeley372
THE GREELEY CAMPAIGN
How Trumbull received the news—Carl Schurz advises Greeley to decline the nomination—Greeley decides to accept it—Meeting of Liberal Republican leaders in New York to consider their course—Trumbull and Schurz decide to support the Cincinnati ticket—Correspondence between Schurz and Godkin—Parke Godwin against Greeley—President Grant renominated by the Republicans with Henry Wilson for Vice-President—The Democrats at Baltimore adopt both nominees and platform of the Liberal Republicans—A minority call a bolting convention, which nominates Charles O'Conor—Trumbull's speech at Springfield, Illinois, in support of the Cincinnati ticket—Greeley's campaign starts with the prospect of victory—North Carolina election in August gives the Grant ticket a small majority—The tide turns against Greeley—Greeley takes the stump in September and makes a favorable impression, but too late—The October elections, in Pennsylvania and Ohio, go heavily Republican—Greeley and Brown defeated—Death of Greeley following the election—State election in Louisiana in 1872—Fraudulent returns in favor of Kellogg exposed by Senators Carpenter and Trumbull—Kellogg sustained by President Grant389
LATER YEARS
Trumbull's senatorial term expires in 1873—Not reëlected—He resumes the practice of law in Chicago—The second Grant administration worse than the first—The Republican party beaten in the congressional elections of 1874—The Hayes-Tilden campaign in 1876—Disputed returns in Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida—The Electoral Commission—"Visiting Statesmen" sent to Louisiana to watch the count of the votes—Trumbull chosen as one of them—Chosen also to support Tilden's claim before the electoral commission—His argument thereon—E. W. Stoughton, in behalf of Hayes, contends that the returns of election certified by the governor of a state must be accepted—Also that the status of a governor recognized by the President of the United States cannot be questioned—Both these contentions are sustained by the Electoral Commission—By a vote of 8 to 7 Hayes is declared elected President—Trumbull's marriage to Miss Mary Ingraham—He is nominated for governor of Illinois by the Democrats in 1880—Is defeated by Shelby M. Cullom—My last meeting with Trumbull at the World's Columbian Exposition—Trumbull's professional services in the Debs case—His public speech, after the case was decided—He sides with the Populist party—Prepares their declaration of principles in December, 1894—Text of the Declaration407
CONCLUSION
Trumbull goes to Belleville to attend the funeral of Gustave Koerner—Is taken with illness at hotel—On his return to his home he is found to be suffering from an internal tumor—His physicians decide that a surgical operation would be fatal—He lingers till June 5, 1896—Dies in his eighty-third year—Impressive funeral—His great qualities as a lawyer and political debater—His conscientiousness and courage—His generosity, and fondness for little children—His place in the country's history—Eulogy by Joseph Medill, and other contemporaries—Trumbull's estimate of Lincoln—His religious views—His surviving family and descendants418
[Index] 433
INTRODUCTION
Events in the year 1854 brought into the field of national politics two members of the bar of southern Illinois who were destined to hold high places in the public councils—Abraham Lincoln and Lyman Trumbull. They were members of opposing parties, Lincoln a Whig, Trumbull a Democrat. Both were supporters of the compromise measures of 1850. These measures had been accepted by the great majority of the people, not as wholly satisfactory, but as preferable to never-ending turmoil on the slavery question. There had been a subsidence of anti-slavery propagandism in the North, following the Free Soil campaign of 1848. Hale and Julian received fewer votes in 1852 than Van Buren and Adams had received in the previous election. Franklin Pierce (Democrat) had been elected President of the United States by so large a majority that the Whig party was practically killed. President Pierce in his first message to Congress had alluded to the quieting of sectional agitation and had said: "That this repose is to suffer no shock during my official term, if I have the power to avert it, those who placed me here may be assured." Doubtless the Civil War would have come, even if Pierce had kept his promise instead of breaking it; for, as Lincoln said a little later: "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
It was not at variance with itself on the slavery question solely. In fact, the North did not take up arms against slavery when the crisis came. A few men foresaw that a war raging around that institution would somehow and sometime give it its death-blow, but at the beginning the Northern soldiers marched with no intention of that kind. They had an eye single to the preservation of the Union. The uprising which followed the firing upon Fort Sumter was a passionate protest against the insult to the national flag. It betokened a fixed purpose to defend what the flag symbolized, and it was only slowly and hesitatingly that the abolition of slavery was admitted as a factor and potent issue in the Northern mind.
It is true that the South seceded in order to preserve and extend slavery, but it was penetrated with the belief that it had a perfect right to secede—not merely the right of revolution which our ancestors exercised in separating from Great Britain, but a right under the Constitution.
The states under the Confederation, during the Revolutionary period and later, were actually sovereign. The Articles of Confederation declared them to be so. When the Constitution was formed, the habit of state sovereignty was so strong that it was only with the greatest difficulty that its ratification by the requisite number of states could be obtained. John Quincy Adams said that it was "extorted from the grinding necessity of a reluctant people." The instrument itself provided a common tribunal (the Supreme Court) as arbiter for the decision of all disputed questions arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States. But it was not generally supposed that the jurisdiction of the court included the power to extinguish state sovereignty.[1]
The first division of political parties under the new government was the outgrowth of emotions stirred by the French Revolution. The Republicans of the period, led by Jefferson, were ardent sympathizers with the uprising in France. The Federalists, who counted Washington, Hamilton, and John Adams as their representative men, were opposed to any connection with European strife, or to any fresh embroilment with England, growing out of it. The Alien and Sedition Laws were passed in order to suppress agitation tending to produce such embroilment. Jefferson met these laws with the "Resolutions of '98," which were adopted by the legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky. These resolutions affirmed the right of the separate states to judge of any infraction of the Constitution by the Federal Government and also of the mode and measure of redress—a claim which necessarily included the right to secede from the Union if milder measures failed. The Alien and Sedition Laws expired by their own limitation before any actual test of their validity took place.
The next assertion of the right of the states to nullify the acts of the Federal Government came from a more northern latitude as a consequence of the purchase of Louisiana. This act alarmed the New England States. The Federalists feared lest the acquisition of this vast domain should give the South a perpetual preponderance and control of the Government. Since there was no clause in the Constitution providing for the acquisition of new territory (as President Jefferson himself conceded), they affirmed that the Union was a partnership and that a new partner could not be taken in without the consent of all the old ones, and that the taking in of a new one without such consent would release the old ones.
Controversy on this theme was superseded a few years later by more acute sources of irritation—the Embargo and War of 1812. These events fell with great severity on the commerce of the Northern States, and led to the passage by the Massachusetts legislature of anti-Embargo resolutions, declaring that "when the national compact is violated and the citizens are oppressed by cruel and unauthorized law, this legislature is bound to interpose its power and wrest from the oppressor his victim." In this doctrine Daniel Webster concurred. In a speech in the House of Representatives, December 9, 1814, on the Conscription Bill, he said:
The operation of measures thus unconstitutional and illegal ought to be prevented by a resort to other measures which are both constitutional and legal. It will be the solemn duty of the State Governments to protect their own authority over their own militia and to interpose between their own citizens and arbitrary power.... With the same earnestness with which I now exhort you to forbear from these measures I shall exhort them to exercise their unquestionable right of providing for the security of their own liberties.[2]
The anti-Embargo resolutions were followed by the refusal of both Massachusetts and Connecticut to allow federal officers to take command of their militia and by the call for the Hartford Convention. The latter body recommended to the states represented in it the adoption of measures to protect their citizens against forcible drafts, conscriptions, or impressments not authorized by the Constitution—a phrase which certainly meant that the states were to judge of the constitutionality of the measures referred to. The conclusion of peace with Great Britain put an end to this crisis before it came to blows.
On February 26, 1833, Mr. Calhoun, following the Resolutions of '98, affirmed in the Senate the doctrine that the Government of the United States was a compact, by which the separate states delegated to it certain definite powers, reserving the rest; that whenever the general Government should assume the exercise of powers not so delegated, its acts would be void and of no effect; and that the said Government was not the sole judge of the powers delegated to it, but that, as in all other cases of compact among sovereign parties without any common judge, each had an equal right to judge for itself, as well of the infraction as of the mode and measures of redress. This was the stand which South Carolina took in opposition to the Force Bill of President Jackson's administration.[3]
A state convention of South Carolina was called which passed an ordinance nullifying the tariff law of the United States and declaring that, if any attempt were made to collect customs duties under it by force, that state would consider herself absolved from all allegiance to the Union and would proceed at once to organize a separate government. President Jackson was determined to exercise force, and would have done so had not Congress, under the lead of Henry Clay, passed a compromise tariff bill which enabled South Carolina to repeal her ordinance and say that she had gained the substantial part of her contention.
Despite the later speeches of Webster, the doctrine of nullification had a new birth in Massachusetts in 1845, the note of discord having been called forth by the proposed admission of Texas into the Union. In that year the legislature passed and the governor approved resolutions declaring that the powers of Congress did not embrace a case of the admission of a foreign state or a foreign territory into the Union by an act of legislation and "such an act would have no binding power whatever on the people of Massachusetts." This was a fresh outcropping of the bitterness which had prevailed in the New England States against the acquisition of Louisiana.
Thus it appears that, although the Constitution did create courts to decide all disputes arising under it, the particularism which previously prevailed continued to exist. Nationalism was an aftergrowth proceeding from the habit into which the people fell of finding their common centre of gravity at Washington City, and of viewing it as the place where the American name and fame were embodied and emblazoned to the world. During the first half-century the North and the South were changing coats from time to time on the subject of state sovereignty, but meanwhile the Constitution itself was working silently and imperceptibly in the North to undermine particularism and to strengthen nationalism. It had accomplished its educational work in the early thirties when it found its complete expression in Webster's reply to Hayne. But the South believed just as firmly that Hayne was the victor in that contest, as the North believed that Webster was. Hayne's speech was not generally read in the North either then or later. It was not inferior, in the essential qualities of dignity, courtesy, legal lore, and oratorical force, to that of his great antagonist. Webster here met a foeman worthy of his steel.
In the South the pecuniary interests bottomed on slavery offset and neutralized the unifying process that was ripening in the North. The slavery question entered into the debate between Webster and Calhoun in 1833 sufficiently to show that it lay underneath the other questions discussed. Calhoun, in the speech referred to, reproached Forsyth, of Georgia, for dullness in not seeing how state rights and slavery were dovetailed together and how the latter depended on the former.
That African slavery was the most direful curse that ever afflicted any civilized country may now be safely affirmed. It had its beginning in our country in the year 1619 at Jamestown, Virginia, where a Dutch warship short of provisions exchanged fourteen negroes for a supply thereof. Slavery of both Indians and negroes already existed in the West Indies and was regarded with favor by the colonists and their home governments. It began in Massachusetts in 1637 as a consequence of hostilities with the aborigines, the slaves being captives taken in war. They were looked upon by the whites as heathen and were treated according to precedents found in the Old Testament for dealing with the enemies of Jehovah. In order that they might not escape from servitude they were sent to the West Indies to be exchanged for negroes, and this slave trade was not restricted to captives taken in war, but was applied to any red men who could be safely seized and shipped away.
From these small beginnings slavery spread over all the colonies from Massachusetts to Georgia and lasted in all of them for a century and a half, i.e., until after the close of the Revolutionary War. Then it began to lose ground in the Northern States. Public sentiment turned against it in Massachusetts, but all attempts to abolish it there by act of the legislature failed. Its death-blow was given by a judicial decision in 1783 in a case where a master was prosecuted, convicted, and fined forty shillings for beating a slave.[4]
Public opinion sustained this judgment, although there had been no change in the law since the time when the Pequot Indians were sent by shiploads to the Bermudas to be exchanged for negroes. If masters could not punish their slaves in their discretion,—if slaves had any rights which white men were bound to respect,—slavery was virtually dead. No law could kill it more effectually.
In one way and another the emancipation movement extended southward to and including Pennsylvania in the later years of the eighteenth century. Nearly all the statesmen of the Revolution looked upon the institution with disfavor and desired its extinction. Thomas Jefferson favored gradual emancipation in Virginia, to be coupled with deportation of the emancipated blacks, because he feared trouble if the two races were placed upon an equality in the then slaveholding states. He labored to prevent the extension of slavery into the new territories, and he very nearly succeeded. In the year 1784 he reported an ordinance in the Congress of the Confederation to organize all the unoccupied territory, both north and south of the Ohio River, in ten subdivisions, in all of which slavery should be forever prohibited, and this ordinance failed of adoption by only one vote. Six states voted in the affirmative. Seven were necessary. Only one representative of New Jersey happened to be present, whereas two was the smallest number that could cast the vote of any state. If one other member from New Jersey had been there, the Jeffersonian ordinance of 1784 would have passed; slavery would have been restricted to the seaboard states which it then occupied, and would never have drawn the sword against the Union, and the Civil War would not have taken place.[5]
After the emancipation movement came to a pause, at the southern border of Pennsylvania, the fact became apparent that there was a dividing line between free states and slave states, and a feeling grew up in both sections that neither of them ought to acquire a preponderance of power and mastery over the other. The slavery question was not concerned with this dispute, but a habit grew up of admitting new states to the Union in pairs, in order to maintain a balance of power in the national Senate. Thus Kentucky and Vermont offset each other, then Tennessee and Ohio, then Louisiana and Indiana, then Mississippi and Illinois.
In 1819, Alabama, a new slave state, was admitted to the Union and there was no new free state to balance it. The Territory of Missouri, in which slavery existed, was applying for admission also. While Congress was considering the Missouri bill, Mr. Tallmadge, of New York, with a view of preserving the balance of power, offered an amendment providing for the gradual emancipation of slaves in the proposed state, and prohibiting the introduction of additional slaves. This amendment was adopted by the House by a sectional vote, nearly all the Northern members voting for it and the Southern ones against it, but it was rejected by the Senate.
In the following year the Missouri question came up afresh, and Senator Thomas, of Illinois, proposed, as a compromise, that Missouri should be admitted to the Union with slavery, but that in all the remaining territory north of 36 degrees and 30 minutes north latitude, slavery should be forever prohibited. This amendment was adopted in the Senate by 24 to 20, and in the House by 90 to 87. Of the affirmative votes in the House only fourteen were from the North, and nearly all of these fourteen members became so unpopular at home that they lost their seats in the next election. The Missouri Compromise was generally considered a victory for the South, but one great Southerner considered it the death-knell of the Union. Thomas Jefferson was still living, at the age of seventy-seven. He saw what this sectional rift portended, and he wrote to John Holmes, one of his correspondents, under date of April 22, 1820:
This momentous question, like a fire-bell in the night, awakened me and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated, and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper.
Nearly all of the emancipationists, during the decade following the adoption of the Compromise, were in the slaveholding states, since the evil had its seat there. The Colonization Society's headquarters were in Washington City. Its president, Bushrod Washington, was a Virginian, and James Madison, Henry Clay, and John Randolph, leading Southerners, were its active supporters. The only newspaper devoted specially to the cause (the Genius of Universal Emancipation), edited by Benjamin Lundy and William Lloyd Garrison, was published in the city of Baltimore. This paper was started in 1829, but it was short-lived. Mr. Garrison soon perceived that colonization, depending upon voluntary emancipation alone, would never bring slavery to an end, since emancipation was doubtful and sporadic, while the natural increase of slaves was certain and vastly greater than their possible deportation. For this reason he began to advocate emancipation without regard to colonization. This policy was so unpopular in Maryland and Virginia that his subscription list fell nearly to zero, and this compelled the discontinuance of the paper and his removal to another sphere of activity. He returned to his native state, Massachusetts, and there started another newspaper, entitled the Liberator, in 1831. The first anti-slavery crusade in the North thus had its beginning. It did not take the form of a political party. It was an agitation, an awakening of the public conscience. Its tocsin was immediate emancipation, as opposed to emancipation conditioned upon deportation.
The slaveholders were alarmed by this new movement at the North. They thought that it aimed to incite slave insurrection. The governor of South Carolina made it the subject of a special message. The legislature of Georgia passed and the governor signed resolutions offering a reward of $5000 to anybody who would bring Mr. Garrison to that state to be tried for sedition. The mayor of Boston was urged by prominent men in the South to suppress the Liberator, although the paper was then so obscure at home that the mayor had never seen a copy of it, or even heard of its existence. The fact that there was any organized expression of anti-slavery thought anywhere was first made generally known at the North by the extreme irritation of the South; and when the temper of the latter became known, the vast majority of Northern people sided with their Southern brethren. They were opposed to anything which seemed likely to lead to slave insurrection or to a disruption of the Union. The abolitionist agitation seemed to be a provocation to both. Hence arose anger and mob violence against the abolitionists everywhere. This feeling took the shape of a common understanding not to countenance any discussion of the slavery question in any manner or anywhere. The execution of this tacit agreement fell for the most part into the hands of the disorderly element of society, but disapproval of the Garrisonian crusade was expressed by men of the highest character in the New England States, such as William Ellery Channing and Dr. Francis Wayland. The latter declined to receive the Liberator, when it was sent to him gratuitously.
What was going on in the South during the thirties and forties of the last century? There were varying shades of opinion and mixed motives and fluctuating political currents. In the first place cotton-growing had been made profitable by the invention of the cotton-gin. This machine for separating the seeds from the fibre of the cotton plant caused an industrial revolution in the world, and its moral consequences were no less sweeping. It changed the slaveholder's point of view of the whole slavery question. The previously prevailing idea that slavery was morally wrong, and an evil to both master and slave, gradually gave way to the belief that it was beneficial to both, that it was an agency of civilization and a means of bringing the blessings of Christianity to the benighted African. This change of sentiment in the South, which became very marked in the early thirties, has been ascribed to the bad language of the abolitionists of the North. People said that the prime cause of the trouble was that Garrison and his followers did not speak easy. They were too vociferous. They used language calculated to make Southerners angry and to stir up slave insurrection. But how could anybody draw the line between different tones of voice and different forms of expression? Thomas Jefferson was not a speak-easy. He said that one hour of slavery was fraught with more misery than ages of that which led us to take up arms against Great Britain. If Garrison ever said anything more calculated to incite slaves to insurrection than that, I cannot recall it. On the other hand, Elijah Lovejoy, at Alton, Illinois, was a speak-easy. He did not use any violent language, but he was put to death by a mob for making preparations to publish a newspaper in which slavery should be discussed in a reasonable manner, if there was such a manner.
Nevertheless, the Garrisonian movement was erroneously interpreted at the South as an attempt to incite slave insurrection with the attendant horrors of rapine and bloodshed. There were no John Browns then, and Garrison himself was a non-resistant, but since insurrection was a possible consequence of agitation, the Southern people demanded that the agitation should be put down by force. As that could not be done in any lawful way, and since unlawful means were ineffective, they considered themselves under a constant threat of social upheaval and destruction. The repeated declaration of Northern statesmen that there never would be any outside interference with slavery in the states where it existed, did not have any quieting effect upon them. The fight over the Missouri Compromise had convinced them that the North would prevent, if possible, the extension of slavery to the new territories, and that this meant confining the institution to a given space, where it would be eventually smothered. It might last a long time in its then boundaries, but it would finally reach a limit where its existence would depend upon the forbearance of its enemies. Then the question which perplexed Thomas Jefferson would come up afresh: "What shall be done with the blacks?" Mr. Garrott Brown, of Alabama, a present-day writer of ability and candor, thinks that the underlying question in the minds of the Southern people in the forties and fifties of the last century was not chiefly slavery, but the presence of Africans in large numbers, whether bond or free. This included the slavery question as a dollar-and-cent proposition and something more. Mrs. Fanny Kemble Butler, who lived on a Georgia plantation in the thirties, said that the chief obstacle to emancipation was the fact that every able-bodied negro could be sold for a thousand dollars in the Charleston market. Both fear and cupidity were actively at work in the Southern mind.
In short, there was already an irrepressible conflict in our land, although nobody had yet used those words. There was a fixed opinion in the North that slavery was an evil which ought not to be extended and enlarged; that the same reasons existed for curtailing it as for stopping the African slave trade. There was a growing opinion in the South that such extension was a vital necessity and that the South in contending for it was contending for existence. The prevailing thought in that quarter was that the Southern people were on the defensive, that they were resisting aggression. In this feeling they were sincere and they gave expression to it in very hot temper.
General W. T. Sherman, who was at the head of an institution of learning for boys in Louisiana in 1859, felt that he was treading on underground fires. In December of that year he wrote to Thomas Ewing, Jr.:
Negroes in the great numbers that exist here must of necessity be slaves. Theoretical notions of humanity and religion cannot shake the commercial fact that their labor is of great value and cannot be dispensed with. Still, of course, I wish it never had existed, for it does make mischief. No power on earth can restrain opinion elsewhere and these opinions expressed beget a vindictive feeling. The mere dread of revolt, sedition, or external interference makes men, ordinarily calm, almost mad. I, of course, do not debate the question, and moderate as my views are, I feel that I am suspected, and if I do not actually join in the praises of slavery I may be denounced as an abolitionist.[6]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Mr. H. C. Lodge, in his Life of Daniel Webster, says, touching the debate with Hayne in 1830:
"When the Constitution was adopted by the votes of states at Philadelphia, and accepted by the votes of states in popular conventions, it is safe to say that there was not a man in the country, from Washington and Hamilton, on the one side, to George Clinton and George Mason, on the other, who regarded the new system as anything but an experiment entered upon by the states, and from which each and every state had the right to peaceably withdraw, a right which was very likely to be exercised."
Mr. Gaillard Hunt, author of the Life of James Madison, and editor of his writings, has published recently a confidential memorandum dated May 11, 1794, written by John Taylor of Caroline for Mr. Madison's information, giving an account of a long and solemn interview between himself and Rufus King and Oliver Ellsworth, in which the two latter affirmed that, by reason of differences of opinion between the East and the South, as to the scope and functions of government, the Union could not last long. Therefore they considered it best to have a dissolution at once, by mutual consent, rather than by a less desirable mode. Taylor, on the other hand, thought that the Union should be supported if possible, but if not possible he agreed that an amicable separation was preferable. Madison wrote at the bottom of this paper the words: "The language of K and E probably in terrorem," and laid it away so carefully that it never saw the light until the year 1905.
[2] Letters of Daniel Webster, edited by C. W. Van Tyne, p. 67. Mr. Van Tyne says that Webster "here advocated a doctrine hardly distinguishable from nullification."
[3] Referring to this speech of Calhoun and to Webster's reply, Mr. Lodge says:
"Whatever the people of the United States understood the Constitution to mean in 1789, there can be no question that a majority in 1833 regarded it as a fundamental law and not a compact,—an opinion which has now become universal. But it was quite another thing to argue that what the Constitution had come to mean was what it meant when it was adopted."
See also Pendleton's Life of Alexander H. Stephens, chap. XI.
[4] G. H. Moore's History of Slavery in Massachusetts, p. 215.
[5] Jefferson was cut to the heart by this failure. Commenting on an article entitled "États Unis" in the Encylopédie, written by M. de Meusnier, referring to his proposed anti-slavery ordinance, he said:
"The voice of a single individual of the State which was divided, or one of those which were of the negative, would have prevented this abominable crime from spreading itself over the new country. Thus we see the fate of millions unborn hanging on the tongue of one man, and Heaven was silent in that awful moment."
[6] General W. T. Sherman as College President, p. 88.
THE LIFE OF LYMAN TRUMBULL
CHAPTER I
ANCESTRY AND EARLY LIFE
The subject of this memoir was born in Colchester, Connecticut, October 12, 1813. The Trumbull family was the most illustrious in the state, embracing three governors and other distinguished men. All were descendants of John Trumbull (or rather "Trumble"[7]), a cooper by trade, and his wife, Ellenor Chandler, of Newcastle, England, who migrated to Massachusetts in 1639, and settled first in Roxbury and removed to Rowley in the following year. Two sons were born to them in Newcastle-on-Tyne: Beriah, 1637 (died in infancy), and John, 1639.
The latter at the age of thirty-one removed to Suffield, Connecticut. He married and had four sons: John, Joseph, Ammi, and Benoni.
Captain Benoni Trumbull, married to Sarah Drake and settled in Lebanon, Connecticut, had a son, Benjamin, born May 11, 1712.
This Benjamin, married to Mary Brown of Hebron, Connecticut, had a son, Benjamin, born December 19, 1735.
This son was graduated at Yale College in 1759, and studied for the ministry; he was ordained in 1760 at North Haven, Connecticut, where he officiated nearly sixty years, his preaching being interrupted only by the Revolutionary War, in which he served both as soldier and as chaplain. He was the author of the standard colonial history of Connecticut. He was married to Miss Martha Phelps in 1760. They had two sons and five daughters.
The elder son, Benjamin, born in North Haven, September 24, 1769, became a lawyer and married Elizabeth Mather, of Saybrook, Connecticut, March 15, 1800, and settled in Colchester, Connecticut. The wife was a descendant of Rev. Richard Mather, who migrated from Liverpool, England, to Massachusetts in 1635, and was the father of Increase Mather and grandfather of Cotton Mather, both celebrated in the church history of New England. Eleven children were born to these parents, of whom Lyman was the seventh. This Benjamin Trumbull was a graduate of Yale College, representative in the legislature, judge for the probate districts of East Haddam and Colchester, and died in Henrietta, Jackson County, Michigan, June 14, 1850, aged eighty-one. His wife died October 20, 1828, in her forty-seventh year. Lyman Trumbull was thus in the seventh generation of the Trumbulls in America.[8]
Five brothers and two sisters of Lyman reached maturity. A family of this size could not be supported by the fees earned by a country lawyer in the early part of the nineteenth century. The only other resource available was agriculture. Thus the Trumbull children began life on a farm and drew their nourishment from the soil cultivated by their own labor. It is recorded that, although the father and the grandfather of Lyman were graduates of Yale College, chill penury prevented him from having similar advantages of education. His schooling was obtained at Bacon Academy, in Colchester, which was of high grade, and second only to Yale among the educational institutions of the state. Here the boy Lyman took the lessons in mathematics that were customary in the academies of that period, and became conversant with Virgil and Cicero in Latin and with Xenophon, Homer, and the New Testament in Greek.
BIRTHPLACE OF LYMAN TRUMBULL, COLCHESTER, CONN.
The opportunities to put an end to one's existence are so common to American youth that it is cause for wonder that so many of them reach mature years. Young Trumbull was not lacking in such facilities. The following incident is well authenticated, being narrated in part in his own handwriting:
When about thirteen years old he was playing ball one cold day in the family yard. The well had a low curbing around it and was covered by a round flat stone with a round hole in the top of it. He ran towards the well for the ball, which he picked up and threw quickly. As he did so his foot slipped on the ice and he went head first down the well. His recollection of the immediate details is vague, but he did not break his neck or stun himself on the rocky sides, but appears to have gone down like a diver, and somehow managed to turn in the narrow space and come up head first. The well had an old-fashioned sweep with a bucket on it, which his brothers promptly lowered and he was hoisted out, drenched and cold, but apparently not otherwise injured.
He attended school and worked on the farm until he was eighteen years of age when he earned some money by teaching the district school one year at Portland, Connecticut. At the age of nineteen he taught school one winter in New Jersey, returning to Colchester the following summer. He had established a character for rectitude, industry, modesty, sobriety, and good manners, so that when, in his twentieth year (1833), he decided to go to the state of Georgia to seek employment as a school-teacher, nearly all the people in the village assembled to wish him godspeed on that long journey, which was made by schooner, sailing from the Connecticut River to Charleston, South Carolina. The voyage was tempestuous but safe, and he arrived at Charleston with one hundred dollars in his pocket which his father had given him as a start in life. This money he speedily returned out of his earnings because he thought his father needed it more than himself.
A memorandum made by himself records that "on the evening of the day when he arrived at Charleston a nullification meeting was held in a large warehouse. The building was crowded, so he climbed up on a beam overhead and from that elevated position overlooked a Southern audience and heard two of the most noted orators in the South, Governor Hayne, and John C. Calhoun, then a United States Senator. He remembers little of the impression they made upon a youth of twenty, except that he thought Hayne an eloquent speaker."
From Charleston he went by railroad (the first one he had ever seen and one of the earliest put in operation in the United States) to a point on the Savannah River opposite Augusta, Georgia, and thence by stage to Milledgeville, which was then the capital of Georgia. From Milledgeville he walked seventy-five miles to Pike County, where he had some hope of finding employment. Being disappointed there he continued his journey on foot to Greenville, Meriwether County, where he had more success even than he had expected, for he obtained a position as principal of the Greenville Academy at a salary of two hundred dollars per year in addition to the fees paid by the pupils. This position he occupied for three years.
While at Greenville he employed his leisure hours reading law in the office of Hiram Warner, judge of the superior court of Georgia, afterwards judge of the supreme court of the state and member of Congress. In this way he acquired the rudiments of the profession. As soon as he had gained sufficient capital to make a start in life elsewhere, he bought a horse, and, in March, 1837, took the trail through the "Cherokee Tract" toward the Northwest. This trail was a pathway formed by driving cattle and swine through the forest from Kentucky and Tennessee to Georgia. Dr. Parks, of Greenville, accompanied Trumbull during a portion of the journey. They traveled unarmed but safely, although Trumbull carried a thousand dollars on his person, the surplus earnings of his three years in Georgia. For a young man of twenty-four years without a family this was affluence in those days.
Through Kentucky, Trumbull continued his journey without any companion and made his entrance into Illinois at Shawneetown, on the Ohio River, where he presented letters of introduction from his friends in Georgia and was cordially welcomed. After a brief stay at that place he continued his journey to Belleville, St. Clair County, bearing letters of introduction from his Shawneetown friends to Adam W. Snyder and Alfred Cowles, prominent members of the bar at Belleville. Both received him with kindness and encouraged him to make his home there. This he decided to do, but he first made a visit to his parental home in Colchester, going on horseback by way of Jackson, Michigan, near which town three of his older brothers, David, Erastus, and John, had settled as farmers.
Returning to Belleville in August, 1837, he entered the law office of Hon. John Reynolds, ex-governor of the state, who was then a Representative in Congress and was familiarly known as the "Old Ranger." Reynolds held, at one time and another, almost every office that the people of Illinois could bestow, but his fame rests on historical writings composed after he had withdrawn from public life.[9]
For how long a time Trumbull's connection with Governor Reynolds continued, our records do not say, but we know that he had an office of his own in Belleville three years later, and that his younger brother George had joined him as a student and subsequently became his partner.
The practice of the legal profession in those days was accomplished by "riding on the circuit," usually on horseback, from one county seat to another, following the circuit judge, and trying such cases as could be picked up by practitioners en route, or might be assigned to them by the judge. Court week always brought together a crowd of litigants and spectators, who came in from the surrounding country with their teams and provisions, and often with their wives and children, and who lived in their own covered wagons. The trial of causes was the principal excitement of the year, and the opposing lawyers were "sized up" by juries and audience with a pretty close approach to accuracy. After adjournment for the day, the lawyers, judges, plaintiffs, defendants, and leading citizens mingled together in the country tavern, talked politics, made speeches or listened to them, cracked jokes and told stories till bedtime, and took up the unfinished lawsuit, or a new one, the next day. In short, court week was circus, theatre, concert, and lyceum to the farming population, but still more was it a school of politics, where they formed opinions on public affairs and on the mental calibre of the principal actors therein.
Two letters written by Trumbull in 1837 to his father in Colchester have escaped the ravages of time. Neither envelopes nor stamps existed then. Each letter consisted of four pages folded in such a manner that the central part of the fourth page, which was left blank, received the address on one side and a wafer or a daub of sealing wax on the other. The rate of postage was twenty-five cents per letter, and the writers generally sought to get their money's worth by taking a large sheet of paper and filling all the available space. Prepayment of postage was optional, but the privilege of paying in advance was seldom availed of, the writers not incurring the risk of losing both letters and money. Irregularity in the mails is noted by Trumbull, who mentions that a letter from Colchester was fifteen days en route, while a newspaper made the same distance in ten.
In a letter dated October 9, 1837, he tells his father that he is already engaged in a law case involving the ownership of a house. If he finds that he can earn his living in the practice of law, he shall like Belleville very much. In the same missive he tells his sister Julia that balls and cotillions are frequent in Belleville, and that he had attended one, but did not dance. It was the first time he had attended a social gathering since he left home in 1833. He adds, "There are more girls here than I was aware of. At the private party I attended, there were about fifteen, all residing in town." The writer was then at the susceptible age of twenty-four.
The other letter gives an account of the Alton riot and the killing of Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy. This is one of the few contemporary accounts we have of that shocking event. Although he was not an eye-witness of the riot, the facts as stated are substantially correct, and the comments give us a view of the opinions of the writer at the age of twenty-four, touching a subject in which he was destined to play an important part. The letter is subjoined:
Belleville, Sunday, Nov. 12, 1837.
Dear Father: Since my last to you there has been a mob to put down Abolitionism, in Alton, thirty-five miles northwest of this place, in which two persons were killed and six or seven badly wounded. The immediate cause of the riot was the attempt by a Mr. Lovejoy to establish at Alton a religious newspaper in which the principles of slavery were sometimes discussed. Mr. Lovejoy was a Presbyterian minister and formerly edited a newspaper in St. Louis, but having published articles in his paper in relation to slavery which were offensive to the people of St. Louis, a mob collected, broke open his office, destroyed his press and type and scattered it through the streets. Immediately after this transaction, which was about a year since, Mr. Lovejoy left St. Louis, and removed to Alton, where he attempted to re-establish his press, but he had not been there long before a mob assembled there also, broke into his office and destroyed his press. In a short time Mr. Lovejoy ordered another press which, soon after its arrival in Alton, was taken from the warehouse (where it was deposited), by a mob, and in like manner destroyed. Again he ordered still another press, which arrived in Alton on the night of the 7th inst., and was safely deposited in a large stone warehouse four or five storeys high.
Previous to the arrival of this press, the citizens of Alton held several public meetings and requested Mr. L. to desist from attempting to establish his press there, but he refused to do so. Heretofore no resistance had ever been offered to the mob, but on the night of the 8th inst., as it was supposed that another attempt might possibly be made to destroy the press, Mr. L. and some 18 or 20 of his friends armed themselves and remained in the warehouse, where Mr. Gilman, one of the owners of the house, addressed the mob from a window, and urged them to desist, told them that there were several armed men in the house and that they were determined to defend their property. The mob demanded the press, which not being given them, they commenced throwing stones at the house and attempted to get into it. Those from within then fired and killed a man of the name of Bishop. The mob then procured arms, but were unable to get into the house. At last they determined on firing it, to which end, as it was stone, they had to get on the roof, which they did by means of a ladder. The firing during all this time, said to be about an hour, was continued on both sides. Mr. Lovejoy having made his appearance near one of the doors was instantly shot down, receiving four balls at the same moment. Those within agreed to surrender if their lives would be protected, and soon threw open the doors and fled. Several shots were afterward fired, but no one was seriously injured. The fire was then extinguished and the press taken and destroyed.
So ended this awful catastrophe which, as you may well suppose, has created great excitement through this section of the country. Mr. Lovejoy is said to have been a very worthy man, and both friends and foes bear testimony to the excellence of his private character. Here, the course of the mob is almost universally reprobated, for whatever may have been the sentiments of Mr. Lovejoy, they certainly did not justify the mob taking his life. It is understood here that Mr. L. was never in the habit of publishing articles of an insurrectionary character, but he reasoned against slavery as being sinful, as a moral and political evil.
His death and the manner in which he was slain will make thousands of Abolitionists, and far more than his writings would have made had he published his paper an hundred years. This transaction is looked on here, as not only a disgrace to Alton, but to the whole State. As much as I am opposed to the immediate emancipation of the slaves and to the doctrine of Abolitionism, yet I am more opposed to mob violence and outrage, and had I been in Alton, I would have cheerfully marched to the rescue of Mr. Lovejoy and his property.
Yours very affectionately,
Lyman Trumbull.
After three years of riding on the circuit, Trumbull was elected, in 1840, a member of the lower house of the state legislature from St. Clair County. In politics he was a Democrat as was his father before him. This was the twelfth general assembly of the state. Among his fellow members were Abraham Lincoln, E. D. Baker, William A. Richardson, John J. Hardin, John. A. McClernand, William H. Bissell, Thomas Drummond, and Joseph Gillespie, all of whom were destined to higher positions.
Trumbull was now twenty-seven years of age. He soon attracted notice as a debater. His style of speaking was devoid of ornament, but logical, clear-cut, and dignified, and it bore the stamp of sincerity. He had a well-furnished mind, and was never at loss for words. Nor was he ever intimidated by the number or the prestige of his opponents. He possessed calm intellectual courage, and he never declined a challenge to debate; but his manner toward his opponents was always that of a high-bred gentleman.
On the 27th of February, 1841, Stephen A. Douglas, who was Trumbull's senior by six months, resigned the office of secretary of state of Illinois to take a seat on the supreme bench, and Trumbull was appointed to the vacancy. There had been a great commotion in state politics over this office before Trumbull was appointed to it. Under the constitution of the state, the governor had the right to appoint the secretary, but nothing was said in that instrument about the power of removal. Alexander P. Field had been appointed secretary by Governor Edwards in 1828, and had remained in office under Governors Reynolds and Duncan. Originally a strong Jackson man, he was now a Whig. When Governor Carlin (Democrat) was elected in 1838 he decided to make a new appointment, but Field refused to resign and denied the governor's right to remove him. The State Senate sided with Field by refusing to confirm the new appointee, John A. McClernand. After the adjournment of the legislature, the governor reappointed McClernand, who sued out a writ of quo warranto to oust Field. The supreme court, consisting of four members, three of whom were Whigs, decided in favor of Field. The Democrats then determined to reform the judiciary. They passed a bill in the legislature adding five new judges to the supreme bench. "It was," says historian Ford, "confessedly a violent and somewhat revolutionary measure and could never have succeeded except in times of great party excitement." In the mean time Field had retired and the governor had appointed Douglas secretary of state, and Douglas was himself appointed one of the five new members of the supreme court. Accordingly he resigned, after holding the office only two months, and Trumbull was appointed to the vacancy without his own solicitation or desire.
Two letters written by Trumbull in 1842 acquaint us with the fact that his brother Benjamin had removed with his family from Colchester to Springfield and was performing routine duties in the office of the secretary of state, while Trumbull occupied his own time for the most part in the practice of law before the supreme court. He adds: "I make use of one of the committee rooms in the State House as a sleeping-room, so you see I almost live in the State House, and am the only person who sleeps in it. The court meets here and all the business I do is within the building." Not quite all, for in another letter (November 27, 1842) he confides to his sister Julia that a certain young lady in Springfield was as charming as ever, but that he had not offered her his hand in marriage, and that even if he should do so, it was not certain that she would accept it.
Trumbull had held the office of secretary of state two years when his resignation was requested by Governor Carlin's successor in office, Thomas Ford, author of a History of Illinois from 1814 to 1847. In his book Ford tells his reasons for asking Trumbull's resignation. They had formed different opinions respecting an important question of public policy, and Trumbull, although holding a subordinate office, had made a public speech in opposition to the governor's views.[10] Of course he did this on his own responsibility as a citizen and a member of the same party as the governor. He acknowledged the governor's right to remove him, and he made no complaint against the exercise of it.
The question of public policy at issue between Ford and Trumbull related to the State Bank, which had failed in February, 1842, and whose circulating notes, amounting to nearly $3,000,000, had fallen to a discount of fifty cents on the dollar. Acts legalizing the bank's suspension had been passed from time to time and things had gone from bad to worse. At this juncture a new bill legalizing the suspension for six months longer was prepared by the governor and at his instance was reported favorably by the finance committee of the House. Trumbull opposed this measure, and made a public speech against it. He maintained that it was disgraceful and futile to prolong the life of this bankrupt concern. He demanded that the bank be put in liquidation without further delay.
When Trumbull's resignation as secretary became known, the Democratic party at the state capital was rent in twain. Thirty-two of its most prominent members, including Virgil Hickox, Samuel H. Treat, Ebenezer Peck, Mason Brayman, and Robert Allen, took this occasion to tender him a public dinner in a letter expressing their deep regret at his removal and their desire to show the respect in which they held him for his conduct of the office, and for his social and gentlemanly qualities. A copy of this invitation was sent to the State Register, the party organ, for publication. The publishers refused to insert it, on the ground that it "would lead to a controversy out of which no good could possibly arise, and probably much evil to the cause." Thereupon the signers of the invitation started a new paper under the watchword "Fiat Justitia, Ruat Cœlum," entitled the Independent Democrat, of which Number 1, Volume 1, was a broadside containing the correspondence between Trumbull and the intending diners, together with sarcastic reflections on the time-serving publishers of the State Register. Trumbull's reply to the invitation, however, expressed his sincere regret that he had made arrangements, which could not be changed, to depart from Springfield before the time fixed for the dinner. He returned to Belleville and resumed the practice of his profession.
Charles Dickens was then making his first visit to the United States, and he happened to pass through Belleville while making an excursion from St. Louis to Looking Glass Prairie. His party had arranged beforehand for a noonday meal at Belleville, of which place, as it presented itself to the eye of a stranger in 1842, he gives the following glimpse:
Belleville was a small collection of wooden houses huddled together in the very heart of the bush and swamp. Many of them had singularly bright doors of red and yellow, for the place had lately been visited by a traveling painter "who got along," as I was told, "by eating his way." The criminal court was sitting and was at that moment trying some criminals for horse-stealing, with whom it would most likely go hard; for live stock of all kinds, being necessarily much exposed in the woods, is held by the community in rather higher value than human life; and for this reason juries generally make a point of finding all men indicted for cattle-stealing, guilty, whether or no. The horses belonging to the bar, the judge and witnesses, were tied to temporary racks set roughly in the road, by which is to be understood a forest path nearly knee-deep in mud and slime.
There was an hotel in this place which, like all hotels in America, had its large dining-room for a public table. It was an odd, shambling, low-roofed outhouse, half cow-shed and half kitchen, with a coarse brown canvas tablecloth, and tin sconces stuck against the walls, to hold candles at supper-time. The horseman had gone forward to have coffee and some eatables prepared and they were by this time nearly ready. He had ordered "wheat bread and chicken fixings" in preference to "corn bread and common doings." The latter kind of refection includes only pork and bacon. The former comprehends broiled ham, sausages, veal cutlets, steaks, and such other viands of that nature as may be supposed by a tolerably wide poetical construction "to fix" a chicken comfortably in the digestive organs of any lady or gentleman.[11]
A few months later, Trumbull made another journey to Springfield to be joined in marriage to Miss Julia M. Jayne, a daughter of Dr. Gershom Jayne, a physician of that city—a young lady who had received her education at Monticello Seminary, with whom he passed twenty-five years of unalloyed happiness. The marriage took place on the 21st of June, 1843, and Norman B. Judd served as groomsman. Miss Jayne had served in the capacity of bridesmaid to Mary Todd at her marriage to Abraham Lincoln on the 4th of November preceding. There was a wedding journey to Trumbull's old home in Connecticut, by steamboat from St. Louis to Wheeling, Virginia, by stage over the mountains to Cumberland, Maryland, and thence by rail via Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. After visiting his own family, a journey was made to Mrs. Trumbull's relatives at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, including her great-grandfather, a marvel of industry and longevity, ninety-two years of age, a cooper by trade, who was still making barrels with his own hands. This fact is mentioned in a letter from Trumbull to his father, dated Barry, Michigan, August 20, 1843, at which place he had stopped on his homeward journey to visit his brothers. One page of this letter is given up to glowing accounts of the infant children of these brothers. And here it is fitting to say that all these faded and time-stained epistles to his father and his brothers and sisters, from first to last, are marked by tender consideration and unvarying love and generosity. Not a shadow passed between them.
The return journey from Michigan to Belleville was made by stage-coach. October 12, 1843, Mrs. Trumbull writes to her husband's sisters in Colchester that she has arrived in her new home. "We are boarding in a private family," she says, "have two rooms which Mrs. Blackwell, the landlady, has furnished neatly, and for my part, I am anticipating a very delightful winter. Lyman is now at court, which keeps him very much engaged, and I am left to enjoy myself as best I may until G. comes around this afternoon to play chess with me."
May 4, 1844, the first child was born to Lyman and Julia Trumbull, a son, who took the name of his father, but died in infancy. July 2, 1844, Trumbull writes to his father that the most disastrous flood ever known, since the settlement of the country by the whites, has devastated the bottom lands of the Mississippi, Missouri, and Illinois Rivers. He also gives an account of the killing of Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet, who was murdered by a mob in the jail at Carthage, Hancock County, after he had surrendered himself to the civil authorities on promise of a fair trial and protection against violence; and says that he has rented a house which he shall occupy soon, and invites his sister Julia to come to Belleville and make her home in his family.
In 1845, Benjamin Trumbull, Sr., sold his place in Colchester and removed with his two daughters to Henrietta, Michigan, where three of his sons were already settled as farmers. It appears from letters that passed between the families that none of the brothers in Michigan kept horses, the farm work being done by oxen exclusively. The nearest church was in the town of Jackson, but the sisters were not able to attend the services for want of a conveyance. They were prevented by the same difficulty from forming acquaintances in their new habitat. In a letter to his father, dated October 26, Trumbull delicately alludes to the defect in the housekeeping arrangements in Michigan, and says that anything needed to make his father and sisters comfortable and contented, that he can supply, will never be withheld. His brother George writes a few days later offering a contribution of fifty dollars to buy a horse, saying that good ones can be bought in Illinois at that price. George adds: "Our papers say considerable about running Lyman for governor. No time is fixed for the convention yet, and I don't think he has made up his mind whether to be a candidate or not."
The greatest drawback of the Trumbull family at this time, and, indeed, of all the inhabitants roundabout, was sickness. Almost every letter opened tells either of a recovery from a fever, or of sufferings during a recent one, or apprehensions of a new one and from these harassing visitations no one was exempt. In a letter of October 26 we read:
We have all been sick this fall and this whole region of country has been more sickly than ever before known. George and myself both had attacks of bilious fever early in September which lasted about ten days. Since then Julia has had two attacks, the last of which was quite severe and confined her to the room nearly two weeks. I also have had a severe attack about three weeks since, but it was slight. When I was sick we sent over to St. Louis for Dr. Tiffany, and by some means the news of our sending there, accompanied by a report that I was much worse than was really the case, reached Springfield, and Dr. and Mrs. Jayne came down post haste in about a day and a half. When they got here, I was downstairs. They only staid overnight and started back the next morning. They had heard that I was not expected to live.
In February, 1846, when Trumbull was in his thirty-third year, his friends presented his name to the Democratic State Convention for the office of governor of the state. A letter to his father gives the details of the balloting in the convention. Six candidates were voted for. On the first ballot he received 56 votes; the next highest candidate, Augustus C. French, had 47; and the third, John Calhoun, had 44. The historian, John Moses, says that "the choice, in accordance with a line of precedents which seemed almost to indicate a settled policy, fell upon him who had achieved least prominence as a party leader, and whose record had been least conspicuous—Augustus C. French."
A letter from Trumbull to his father says that his defeat was due to the influence of Governor Ford, whose first choice was Calhoun, but who turned his following over to French in order to defeat Trumbull. French was elected, and made a respectable governor. Calhoun subsequently went, in an official capacity, to Kansas, where he became noted as the chief ballot-box stuffer of the pro-slavery party in the exciting events of 1856-58.
A letter from Mrs. Trumbull to her father-in-law, May 4, 1846, mentions the birth of a second son (Walter), then two and a half months old. It informs him also that her husband has been nominated for Congress by the Democrats of the First District, the vote in the convention being, Lyman Trumbull, 24; John Dougherty, 5; Robert Smith, 8. The political issues in this campaign are obscure, but the result of the election was again adverse. The supporters of Robert Smith nominated him as a bolting candidate; the Whigs made no nomination, but supported Smith, who was elected.
A letter written by Mrs. Trumbull at Springfield, December 16, 1846, mentions the first election of Stephen A. Douglas as United States Senator. "A party is to be given in his name," she says, "at the State House on Friday evening under the direction of Messrs. Webster and Hickox. The tickets come in beautiful envelopes, and I understand that Douglas has authorized the gentlemen to expend $50 in music, and directed the most splendid entertainment that was ever prepared in Springfield."
A letter to Benjamin Trumbull, Sr., from his son of the same name, who was cultivating a small farm near Springfield, gives another glimpse of the family health record, saying that "both Lyman and George have had chills and fever two or three days this spring"; also, that "Lyman's child was feeble in consequence of the same malady; and that he [Benjamin] has been sick so much of the time that he could not do his Spring planting without hired help, for which Lyman had generously contributed $20, and offered more."
May 13, 1847, Trumbull writes to his father that he intends to go with his family and make the latter a visit for the purpose of seeing the members of the family in Michigan; also in the hope of escaping the periodical sickness which has afflicted himself and wife and little boy, and almost every one in Belleville, during several seasons past. As this periodical sickness was chills and fever, we may assume that it was due to the prevalence of mosquitoes, of the variety anopheles. Half a century was still to pass ere medical science made this discovery, and delivered civilized society from the scourge called "malaria."
The journey to Michigan was made. An account (dated Springfield, August 1, 1847) of the return journey is interesting by way of contrast with the facilities for traveling existing at the present time.
We left Cassopolis Monday about ten o'clock and came the first 48 miles, which brought us to within five miles of La Porte. The second night we passed at Battstown 45 miles on the road from La Porte towards Joliet. The third night we passed at Joliet, distance 40 miles. The fourth night we passed at Pontiac, having traveled 60 miles to get to a stopping place, and finding but a poor one at that. The fifth night we were at Bloomington, distance 40 miles. The sixth day we traveled 43 miles and to within 18 miles of this place; the route we came from Cassopolis to Springfield is 294 miles, and from Brother David's about 386 miles. Our expenses for tavern bills from David's to this place were $17.75. Pretty cheap, I think.
Among other items of interest it may be noted that the rate of postage had been reduced to ten cents per letter, but stamps had not yet come into use. The earnings of the Trumbull law firm (Lyman and George) for the year 1847 were $2300.
In 1847, a new constitution was adopted by the state of Illinois which reduced the number of judges of the supreme court from nine to three. The state was divided into three grand divisions, or districts, each to select one member of the court. After the first election one of the judges was to serve three years, one six years, and one nine years, at a compensation of $1200 per year each. These terms were to be decided by lot, and thereafter the term of each judge should be nine years. Trumbull was elected judge for the first or southern division in 1848. His colleagues, chosen at the same time, were Samuel H. Treat and John D. Caton. He drew the three years' term.
In the year 1849, Trumbull bought a brick house and three acres of ground, with an orchard of fruit-bearing trees, in the town of Alton, Madison County, and removed thither with his family. In announcing this fact to his father the only reason he assigns for his change of residence is that the inhabitants of Alton are mostly from the Eastern States. Its population at that time was about 3000; that of Upper Alton, three miles distant, was 1000. The cost of house and ground, with some additions and improvements, was $2500, all of which was paid in cash out of his savings. Incidentally he remarks that he has never borrowed money, never been in debt, never signed a promissory note, and that he hopes to pass through life without incurring pecuniary liabilities.[12]
From the tone of the letter in which his change of residence is announced, the inference is drawn that Trumbull had abandoned his law practice at Belleville with the expectation of remaining on the bench for an indefinite period. He accepted a reëlection as judge in 1852 for a term of nine years, yet he resigned a year and a half later because the salary was insufficient to support his family. Walter B. Scates was chosen as his successor on the supreme bench. Nearly forty-five years later, Chief Justice Magruder, of the Illinois supreme court, answering John M. Palmer's address presenting the memorial of the Chicago Bar Association on the life and services of Trumbull, recently deceased, said that no lawyer could read the opinions handed down by the dead statesman when on the bench, "without being satisfied that the writer of them was an able, industrious, and fair-minded judge. All his judicial utterances ... are characterized by clearness of expression, accuracy of statement, and strength of reasoning. They breathe a spirit of reverence for the standard authorities and abound in copious reference to those authorities.... The decisions of the court, when he spoke as its organ, are to-day regarded as among the most reliable of its established precedents."
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Stuart's Life of Jonathan Trumbull says that the family name was spelled "Trumble" until 1766, when the second syllable was changed to "bull."
[8] Joseph, the second son of the John above mentioned, who had settled in Suffield, Connecticut, in 1670, removed to Lebanon. He was the father of Jonathan Trumbull (1710-1785), who was governor of Connecticut during the Revolutionary War, and who was the original "Brother Jonathan," to whom General Washington gave that endearing title, which afterwards came to personify the United States as "John Bull" personifies England. (Stuart's Jonathan Trumbull, p. 697.) His son Jonathan (1740-1809) was a Representative in Congress, Speaker of the House, Senator of the United States, and Governor of Connecticut. John Trumbull (1756-1843), another son of "Brother Jonathan," was a distinguished painter of historical scenes and of portraits.
[9] Reynolds wrote a Pioneer History of Illinois from 1637 to 1818, and also a larger volume entitled My Own Times. The latter is the more important of the two. Although crabbed in style, it is an admirable compendium of the social, political, and personal affairs of Illinois from 1800 to 1850. Taking events at random, in short chapters, without connection, circumlocution, or ornament, he says the first thing that comes into his mind in the fewest possible words, makes mistakes of syntax, but never goes back to correct anything, puts down small things and great, tells about murders and lynchings, about footraces in which he took part, and a hundred other things that are usually omitted in histories, but which throw light on man in the social state, all interspersed with sound and shrewd judgments on public men and events.
[10] The following correspondence passed between them:
Springfield, March 4, 1843.
Lyman Trumbull, Esq.,Dear Sir: It is my desire, in pursuance of the expressed wish of the Democracy, to make a nomination of Secretary of State, and I hope you will enable me to do so without embarrassing myself. I am most respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
Thomas Ford.
Springfield, March 4, 1843.
To His Excellency, Thomas Ford:Sir,—In reply to your note of this date this moment handed me, I have only to state that I recognize fully your right, at any time, to make a nomination of Secretary of State.
Yours respectfully,
Lyman Trumbull.
[11] American Notes, chap. xiii. The reason why horses were more precious than human life was that when the frontier farmer lost his work-team, he faced starvation. Both murder and horse-stealing were then capital offenses, the latter by the court of Judge Lynch.
[12] Mr. Morris St. P. Thomas, a close friend of Trumbull in his latter years, a member of his law office, and administrator of his estate, made the following statement in an interview given at 107 Dearborn Street, Chicago, June 13, 1910: "Judge Trumbull once told me that he had never in his life given a promissory note. 'But you do not mean,' said I, 'that in every purchase of real estate you ever made you paid cash down!' 'I do mean just that,' the Judge replied. 'I never in my life gave a promissory note.'"
CHAPTER II
SLAVERY IN ILLINOIS
When the territory comprising the state of Illinois passed under control of the United States, negro slavery existed in the French villages situated on the so-called American Bottom, a strip of fertile land extending along the east bank of the Mississippi River from Cahokia on the north to Kaskaskia on the south, embracing the present counties of St. Clair, Monroe, and Randolph. The first European settlements had been made here about 1718, by colonists coming up the great river from Louisiana, under the auspices of John Law's Company of the Indies.
The earlier occupation of the country by French explorers and Jesuit priests from Canada had been in the nature of fur-trading and religious propagandism, rather than permanent colonies, although marriages had been solemnized in due form between French men and Indian women, and a considerable number of half-breed children had been born. Five hundred negro slaves from Santo Domingo were sent up the river in 1718, to work any gold and silver mines that might be found in the Illinois country. In fact, slavery of red men existed there to some extent, before the Africans arrived, the slaves being captives taken in war.
In 1784-85, Thomas Jefferson induced Rev. James Lemen, of Harper's Ferry, Virginia, to migrate to Illinois in order to organize opposition to slavery in the Northwest Territory and supplied him with money for that purpose. Mr. Lemen came to Illinois in 1786 and settled in what is now Monroe County. He was the founder of the first eight Baptist churches in Illinois, all of which were pledged to oppose the doctrine and practice of slavery. Governor William H. Harrison having forwarded petitions to Congress to allow slavery in the Northwest Territory, Jefferson wrote to Lemen to go, or send an agent, to Indiana, to get petitions signed in opposition to Harrison. Lemen did so. A letter of Lemen, dated Harper's Ferry, December 11, 1782, says that Jefferson then had the purpose to dedicate the Northwest Territory to freedom.[13]
In 1787, Congress passed an ordinance for the government of the territory northwest of the river Ohio which had been ceded to the United States by Virginia. The sixth article of this ordinance prohibited slavery in said territory. Inasmuch as the rights of persons and property had been guaranteed by treaties when this region had passed from France to Great Britain and later to the United States, this article was generally construed as meaning that no more slaves should be introduced, and that all children born after the passage of the ordinance should be free, but that slaves held there prior to 1787 should continue in bondage.
Immigration was mainly from the Southern States. Some of the immigrants brought slaves with them, and the territorial legislature passed an act in 1812 authorizing the relation of master and slave under other names. It declared that it should be lawful for owners of negroes above fifteen years of age to take them before the clerk of the court of common pleas, and if a negro should agree to serve for a specified term of years, the clerk should record him or her as an "indentured servant." If the negro was under the age of fifteen, the owner might hold him without an agreement till the age of thirty-five if male, or thirty-two if female. Children born of negroes owing service by indenture should serve till the age of thirty if male, and till twenty-eight if female. This was a plain violation of the Ordinance of 1787 and was a glaring fraud in other respects. The negroes generally did not understand what they were agreeing to, and in cases where they did not agree the probable alternative was a sale to somebody in an adjoining slave state, so that they really had no choice. The state constitution, adopted in 1818, prohibited slavery, but recognized the indenture system by providing that male children born of indentured servants should be free at the age of twenty-one and females at the age of eighteen. The upshot of the matter was that there was just enough of the virus of slavery left to keep the caldron bubbling there for two generations after 1787, although the Congress of the Confederation supposed that they had then made an end of it.
This arrangement did not satisfy either the incoming slave-owners or those already domiciled there. Persistent attempts were made while the country was still under territorial government, to procure from Congress a repeal of the sixth article of the Ordinance, but they were defeated chiefly by the opposition of John Randolph, of Roanoke, Virginia. After the state was admitted to the Union, the pro-slavery faction renewed their efforts. They insisted that Illinois had all the rights of the other states, and could lawfully introduce slavery by changing the constitution. They proposed, therefore, to call a new convention for this purpose. To do so would require a two-thirds vote of both branches of the legislature, and a majority vote of the people at the next regular election. A bill for this purpose was passed in the Senate by the requisite majority, but it lacked one vote in the House. To obtain this vote a member who had been elected and confirmed in his seat after a contest, and had occupied it for ten weeks, was unseated, and the contestant previously rejected was put in his place and gave the necessary vote. Reynolds, who was himself a convention man, says that "this outrage was a death-blow to the convention." He continues:
The convention question gave rise to two years of the most furious and boisterous excitement that ever was visited on Illinois. Men, women, and children entered the arena of party warfare and strife, and families and neighborhoods were so divided and furious and bitter against one another that it seemed a regular civil war might be the result. Many personal combats were indulged in on the question, and the whole country seemed to be, at times, ready and willing to resort to physical force to decide the contest. All the means known to man to convey ideas to one another were resorted to and practiced with energy. The press teemed with publications on the subject. The stump orators were invoked, and the pulpit thundered with anathemas against the introduction of slavery. The religious community coupled freedom and Christianity together, which was one of the most powerful levers used in the contest.
At this time all the frontier communities were anxious to gain additions to their population. Immigration was eagerly sought. The arrivals were mostly from the Southern States, the main channels of communication being the converging rivers Ohio, Mississippi, Cumberland, and Tennessee. Many of these brought slaves, and since there was no security for such property in Illinois, they went onward to Missouri. One of the strongest arguments used by the convention party was, that if slavery were permitted, this tide of immigration would pour a stream of wealth into Illinois.
Most of the political leaders and office-holders were convention men, but there were some notable exceptions, among whom were Edward Coles, governor of the state, and Daniel P. Cook, Representative in Congress, the former a native of Virginia, and the latter of Kentucky. Governor Coles was one of the Virginia abolitionists of early days, who had emancipated his own slaves and given them lands on which to earn their living. The governor gave the entire salary of his term of office ($4000) for the expenses of the anti-convention contest, and his unceasing personal efforts as a speaker and organizer. Mr. Cook was a brilliant lawyer and orator, and the sole Representative of Illinois in Congress, where he was chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, and where he cast the vote of Illinois for J. Q. Adams for President in 1824. Cook County, which contains the city of Chicago, takes its name from him. He was indefatigable on the side of freedom in this campaign. Another powerful reinforcement was found in the person of Rev. John M. Peck, a Baptist preacher who went through the state like John the Baptist crying in the wilderness. He made impassioned speeches, formed anti-slavery societies, distributed tracts, raised money, held prayer-meetings, addressed Sunday Schools, and organized the religious sentiment of the state for freedom. He was ably seconded by Hooper Warren, editor of the Edwardsville Spectator. The election took place August 2, 1824, and the vote was 4972 for the convention, and 6640 against it. In the counties of St. Clair and Randolph, which embraced the bulk of the French population, the vote was almost equally divided—765 for; 790 against.
In 1850, both Henry Clay and Daniel Webster contended that Nature had interposed a law stronger than any law of Congress against the introduction of slavery into the territory north of Texas which we had lately acquired from Mexico. From the foregoing facts, however, it is clear that no law of Nature prevented Illinois from becoming a slaveholding state, but only the fiercest kind of political fighting and internal resistance. John Reynolds (and there was no better judge) said in 1854: "I never had any doubt that slavery would now exist in Illinois if it had not been prevented by the famous Ordinance" of 1787. The law of human greed would have overcome every other law, including that of Congress, but for the magnificent work of Edward Coles, Daniel P. Cook, John Mason Peck, Hooper Warren, and their coadjutors in 1824.
The snake was scotched, not killed, by this election. There were no more attempts to legalize slavery by political agency, but persevering efforts were made to perpetuate it by judicial decisions resting upon old French law and the Territorial Indenture Act of 1812. Frequent law suits were brought by negroes, who claimed the right of freedom on the ground that their period of indenture had expired, or that they had never signed an indenture, or that they had been born free, or that their masters had brought them into Illinois after the state constitution, which prohibited slavery, had been adopted. In this litigation Trumbull was frequently engaged on the side of the colored people.
In 1842, a colored woman named Sarah Borders, with three children, who was held under the indenture law by one Andrew Borders in Randolph County, escaped and made her way north as far as Peoria County. She and her children were there arrested and confined in a jail as fugitive slaves. They were brought before a justice of the peace, who decided that they were illegally detained and were entitled to their freedom. An appeal was taken by Borders to the county court, which reversed the action of the justice. The case eventually went to the supreme court, where Lyman Trumbull and Gustave Koerner appeared for the negro woman in December, 1843, and argued that slavery was unlawful in Illinois and had been so ever since the enactment of the Ordinance of 1787. The court decided against them.[14]
Trumbull was not discouraged by the decision in this case. Shortly afterward he appeared before the supreme court again in the case of Jarrot vs. Jarrot, in which he won a victory which practically put an end to slavery in the state. Joseph Jarrot, a negro, sued his mistress, Julia Jarrot, for wages, alleging that he had been held in servitude contrary to law. The plaintiff's grandmother had been the slave of a Frenchman in the Illinois country before it passed under the jurisdiction of the United States. His mother and himself had passed by descent to Julia Jarrot, nobody objecting. Fifty-seven years had elapsed since the passage of the Ordinance of 1787 and twenty-six since the adoption of the state constitution, both of which had prohibited slavery in Illinois. The previous decisions in the court of last resort had generally sustained the claims of the owners of slaves held under the French régime and their descendants, and also those held under the so-called indenture system. Now, however, the court swept away the whole basis of slavery in the state, of whatever kind or description, declaring, as Trumbull had previously contended, that the Congress of the Confederation had full power to pass the Ordinance of 1787, that no person born since that date could be held as a slave in Illinois, and that any slave brought into the state by his master, or with the master's consent, since that date became at once free. It followed that such persons could sue and recover wages for labor performed under compulsion, as Joseph Jarrot did.
This decision, which abolished slavery in Illinois de facto, was received with great satisfaction by the substantial and sober-minded citizens. Although the number of aggressive anti-slavery men in the state was small and of out-and-out abolitionists still smaller, there was a widespread belief that the lingering snaky presence of the institution was a menace to the public peace and a blot upon the fair fame of the state, and that it ought to be expunged once for all. The growth of public opinion was undoubtedly potent in the minds of the judges, but the untiring activity of the leading advocates in the cases of Borders, Jarrot, etc., should not be overlooked. On this subject Mr. Dwight Harris, in the book already cited, says:
The period of greatest struggle and of greatest triumph for the anti-slavery advocates was that from 1840 to 1845. The contest during these five years was serious and stubbornly carried on. It involved talent, ingenuity, determination, and perseverance on both sides. The abolitionists are to be accredited with stirring up considerable interest over the state in some of the cases. Southern sympathizers and the holders of indentured servants in the southern portion of the state were naturally considerably concerned in the decisions of the supreme court. Still there seems to have been no widespread interest or universal agitation in the state over this contest in the courts. It was carried on chiefly through the benevolence of a comparatively small number of citizens who were actuated by a firm belief in the evils of slavery; while the brunt of the fray fell to a few able and devoted lawyers.
Among these were G. T. M. Davis, of Alton, Nathaniel Niles, of Belleville, Gustave Koerner, of Belleville, and Lyman Trumbull. James H. Collins, a noted abolition lawyer of Chicago, should also be highly praised for his work in the Lovejoy and Willard cases, but to the other men the real victory is to be ascribed. They were the most powerful friends of the negro, and lived where their assistance could be readily secured. They told the negroes repeatedly that they were free, urged them to leave their masters, and fought their cases in the lower courts time and time again, often without fees or remuneration. Chief among them was Lyman Trumbull, whose name should be written large in anti-slavery annals.
He was a lawyer of rare intellectual endowments, and of great ability. He had few equals before the bar in his day. In politics he was an old-time Democrat, with no leanings toward abolitionism, but possessing an honest desire to see justice done the negro in Illinois. It was a thankless task, in those days of prejudice and bitter partisan feelings, to assume the rôle of defender of the indentured slaves. It was not often unattended with great risk to one's person, as well as to one's reputation and business. But Trumbull did not hesitate to undertake the task, thankless, discouraging, unremunerative as it was, and to his zeal, courage, and perseverance, as well as to his ability, is to be ascribed the ultimate success of the appeal to the supreme court.
This disinterested and able effort, made in all sincerity of purpose, and void of all appearance of self-elevation, rendered him justly popular throughout the State, as well as in the region of his home. The people of his district showed their approval of his work and their confidence in his integrity by electing him judge of the supreme court in 1848, and Congressman from the Eighth District of Illinois by a handsome majority in 1854, when it was well known that he was opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Bill.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] These facts are detailed in a paper contributed to the Illinois State Historical Society in 1908 by Joseph B. Lemen, of O'Fallon, Illinois.
[14] Negro Servitude in Illinois, by N. Dwight Harris, p. 108.
CHAPTER III
FIRST ELECTION AS SENATOR
The repeal of the Missouri Compromise was the cause of Trumbull's return to an active participation in politics. The prime mover in that disastrous adventure was Stephen A. Douglas, who had been Trumbull's predecessor in the office of secretary of state and also one of his predecessors on the supreme bench. He was now a Senator of the United States, and a man of world-wide celebrity. Born at Brandon, Vermont, in 1813, he had lost his father before he was a year old. His mother removed with him to Canandaigua, New York, where he attended an academy and read law to some extent in the office of a local practitioner. At the age of twenty, he set out for the West to seek his fortune, and he found the beginnings of it at Winchester, Illinois, where he taught school for a living and continued to study law, as Trumbull was doing at the same time at Greenville, Georgia. He was admitted to the bar in 1834. In 1835, he was elected state's attorney. Two years later he was elected a member of the legislature by the Democrats of Morgan County, and resigned the office he then held in order to take the new one. In 1837, he was appointed by President Van Buren register of the land office at Springfield. In the same year he was nominated for Congress in the Springfield district before he had reached the legal age, but was defeated by the Whig candidate, John T. Stuart, by 35 votes in a total poll of 36,742.[15] In 1840, he was appointed secretary of state, and in 1841, elected a judge of the supreme court under the circumstances already mentioned. In 1843, he was elected to the lower house of Congress and was reëlected twice, but before taking his seat the third time he was chosen by the legislature, in 1846, Senator of the United States for the term beginning March 4, 1847, and was reëlected in 1852. In Congress he had taken an active part in the annexation of Texas, in the war with Mexico, in the Oregon Boundary dispute, and in the Land Grant for the Illinois Central Railway. In the Senate he held the position of Chairman of the Committee on Territories.
In the Democratic party he had forged to the front by virtue of boldness in leadership, untiring industry, boundless ambition, and self-confidence, and horse-power. He had a large head surmounted by an abundant mane, which gave him the appearance of a lion prepared to roar or to crush his prey, and not seldom the resemblance was confirmed when he opened his mouth on the hustings or in the Senate Chamber. As stump orator, senatorial debater, and party manager he never had a superior in this country. Added to these gifts, he had a very attractive personality and a wonderful gift for divining and anticipating the drift of public opinion. The one thing lacking to make him a man "not for an age but for all time," was a moral substratum. He was essentially an opportunist. Although his private life was unstained, he had no conception of morals in politics, and this defect was his undoing as a statesman.
On the 4th of January, 1854, Douglas reported from the Senate Committee on Territories a bill to organize the territory of Nebraska. It provided that said territory, or any portion of it, when admitted as a state or states, should be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their constitution might prescribe at the time of their admission. The Missouri Compromise Act of 1820, which applied to this territory, was not repealed by this provision, and it must have been plain to everybody that if slavery were excluded from the territory it would not be there when the people should come together to form a state.
Douglas did not at first propose to repeal the Missouri Compromise. He intended to leave the question of slavery untouched. He did not want to reopen the agitation, which had been mostly quieted by the Compromise of 1850; but it soon became evident that if he were willing to leave the question in doubt, others were not. Dixon, of Kentucky, successor of Henry Clay in the Senate and a Whig in politics, offered an amendment to the bill proposing to repeal the Missouri Compromise outright. Douglas was rather startled when this motion was made. He went to Dixon's seat and begged him to withdraw his amendment, urging that it would reopen the controversies settled by the Compromise of 1850 and delay, if not prevent, the passage of any bill to organize the new territory. Dixon was stubborn. He contended that the Southern people had a right to go into the new territory equally with those of the North, and to take with them anything that was recognized and protected as property in the Southern States. Dixon's motion received immediate and warm support in the South.
Two or three days later, Douglas decided to embody Dixon's amendment in his bill and take the consequences. His amended bill divided the territory in two parts, Kansas and Nebraska. The apparent object of this change was to give the Missourians a chance to make the southernmost one a slave state; but this intention has been controverted by Douglas's friends in recent years, who have brought forward a mass of evidence to show that he had other sufficient reasons for thus dividing the territory and hence that it must not be assumed that he intended that one of them should be a slave state. The evidence consists of a record of efforts put forth by citizens of western Iowa in 1853-54 to secure a future state on the opposite side of the Missouri River homogeneous with themselves, and to promote the building of a Pacific railway from some point near Council Bluffs along the line of the Platte River. These efforts were heartily seconded by Senators Dodge and Jones and Representative Henn, of Iowa. They labored with Douglas and secured his coöperation. So Douglas himself said when he announced the change in the bill dividing the territory into two parts.
Most people at the present day, including myself, would be glad to concur with this view, but we must interpret Douglas's acts not merely by what he said in 1854, but also by what he said and did afterwards. In 1856 he made an unjustifiable assault upon the New England Emigrant Aid Company, for sending settlers to Kansas, as they had a perfect right to do under the terms of the bill; and he apologized for, if he did not actually defend, the Missourian invaders who marched over the border in military array, took possession of the ballot boxes, elected a pro-slavery legislature, and then marched back boasting of their victory. Troubles multiplied in Douglas's pathway rapidly after he introduced his Nebraska Bill, and it is very likely that an equal division of the territory between the North and South seemed to him the safest way out of his difficulties. That was the customary way of settling disputes of this kind. We need not assume, however, that he intended to do more than give the Missourians a chance to make Kansas a slave state if they could, for Douglas was not a pro-slavery man at heart.
Senator Thompson, of Kentucky, once alluded to the division of the territory embraced in the original Nebraska Bill into two territories, Kansas and Nebraska, showing that his understanding was that one should be a free state and the other a slave state, if the South could make it such. He said:
When the bill was first introduced in 1854 it provided for the organization of but one territory. Whence it came or how it came scarcely anybody knows, but the senator from Illinois (Mr. Douglas) has always had the credit of its paternity. I believe he acted patriotically for what he thought best and right. In a short time, however, we found a provision for a division—for two territories—Nebraska, the larger one, to be a free state, and as to Kansas, the smaller one, repealing the Missouri Compromise, we of the South taking our chance for it. That was certainly a beneficial arrangement to the North and the bill was passed in that way.[16]
What were Douglas's reasons for repealing the Missouri Compromise? It was generally assumed that he did it in order to gain the support of the South in the next national convention of the Democratic party. In the absence of any other sufficient motive, this will probably be the verdict of posterity, although he always repelled that charge with heat and indignation. A more important question is whether there would have been any attempt to repeal it if Douglas had not led the way. This may be safely answered in the negative. The Southern Senators did not show any haste to follow Douglas at first. They generally spoke of the measure as a free-will offering of the North, both Douglas and Pierce being Northern men, and both being indispensable to secure its passage. Francis P. Blair, of Missouri, a competent witness, expressed the opinion that a majority of the Southern senators were opposed to the measure at first and were coerced into it by the fear that they would not be sustained at home if they refused an advantage offered to them by the North.[17]
The Nebraska Bill passed the Senate by a majority of 22, and the House by a majority of 13. The Democratic party of the North was cleft in twain, as was shown by the division of their votes in the House: 44 to 43. The bill would have been defeated had not the administration plied the party lash unmercifully, using the official patronage to coerce unwilling members. In this way did President Pierce redeem his pledge to prevent any revival of the slavery agitation during his term of office.
When the bill actually passed there was an explosion in every Northern State. The old parties were rent asunder and a new one began to crystallize around the nucleus which had supported Birney, Van Buren, and Hale in the elections of 1844, 1848, and 1852. Both Abraham Lincoln and Lyman Trumbull were stirred to new activities. Both took the stump in opposition to the Nebraska Bill.
Trumbull was now forty-one years of age. He had gained the confidence of the people among whom he lived to such a degree that his reëlection to the supreme bench in 1852 had been unanimous. He now joined with Gustave Koerner and other Democrats in organizing the Eighth Congressional District in opposition to Douglas and his Nebraska Bill. Although this district had been originally a slaveholding region, it contained a large infusion of German immigration, which had poured into it in the years following the European uprising of 1848. Of the thirty thousand Germans in Illinois in 1850, Reynolds estimated that fully eighteen thousand had settled in St. Clair County. These immigrants had at first attached themselves to the Democratic party, because its name signified government by the people. When, however, it became apparent to them that the Democratic party was the ally of slavery, they went over to the opposition in shoals, under the lead of Koerner and Hecker. Koerner was at that time lieutenant-governor of the state, and his separation from the party which had elected him made a profound impression on his fellow countrymen. Hecker was a fervid orator and political leader, and later a valiant soldier in the Union army.
The Eighth Congressional District then embraced the counties of Bond, Clinton, Jefferson, Madison, Marion, Monroe, Randolph, St. Clair, and Washington. It was the strongest Democratic district in the state, but political parties had been thrown into such disorder by the Nebraska Bill that no regular nominations for Congress were made by either Whigs or Democrats. Trumbull announced himself as an anti-Nebraska Democratic candidate. He had just recovered from the most severe and protracted illness of his life and was in an enfeebled condition in consequence, but he made a speaking campaign throughout the district, and was elected by 7917 votes against 5306 cast for Philip B. Fouke, who ran independently as a Douglas Democrat. This victory defeated so many of the followers of Douglas who were candidates for the legislature that it became possible to elect a Senator of the United States in opposition to the regular Democracy.
If political honors were awarded according to the rules of quantum meruit, Abraham Lincoln would have been chosen Senator as the successor of James Shields at this juncture, since he had contributed more than any other person to the anti-Nebraska victory in the state. He had been out of public life since his retirement from the lower house of Congress in 1848. Since then he had been a country lawyer with a not very lucrative practice, but a very popular story-teller. He belonged to the Whig party, and had followed Clay and Webster in supporting the Compromise measures of 1850, including the new Fugitive Slave Law, for, although a hater of slavery himself, he believed that the Constitution required the rendition of slaves escaping into the free states. He was startled by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Without that awakening, he would doubtless have remained in comparative obscurity. He would have continued riding the circuit in central Illinois, making a scanty living as a lawyer, entertaining tavern loungers with funny stories, and would have passed away unhonored and unsung. He was now aroused to new activity, and when Douglas came to Springfield at the beginning of October to defend his Nebraska Bill on the hustings, Lincoln replied to him in a great speech, one of the world's masterpieces of argumentative power and moral grandeur, which left Douglas's edifice of "Popular Sovereignty" a heap of ruins. This was the first speech made by him that gave a true measure of his qualities. It was the first public occasion that laid a strong hold upon his conscience and stirred the depths of his nature. It was also the first speech of his that the writer of this book, then twenty years of age, ever listened to. The impression made by it has lost nothing by the lapse of time. In Lincoln's complete writings it is styled the Peoria speech of October 16, 1854, as it was delivered at Peoria, after the Springfield debate, and subsequently written out by Lincoln himself for publication in the Sangamon Journal. The Peoria speech contained a few passages of rejoinder to Douglas's reply to his Springfield speech. In other respects they were the same.[18]
It was this speech that drew upon Lincoln the eyes of the scattered elements of opposition to Douglas. These elements were heterogeneous and in part discordant. The dividing line between Whigs and Democrats still ran through every county in the state, but there was a third element, unorganized as yet, known as "Free-Soilers," who traced their lineage back to James G. Birney and the campaign of 1844. These were numerous and active in the northern counties, but south of the latitude of Springfield they dwindled away rapidly. The Free-Soilers served as a nucleus for the crystallization of the Republican party two years later, but in 1854 the older organizations, although much demoralized, were still unbroken. Probably three fourths of the Whigs were opposed to the Nebraska Bill in principle, and half of the remainder were glad to avail themselves of any rift in the Democratic party to get possession of the offices. There was still a substantial fraction of the party, however, which feared any taint of abolitionism and was likely to side with Douglas in the new alignment.
The legislature consisted of one hundred members—twenty-five senators and seventy-five representatives. Twelve of the senators had been elected in 1852 for a four years' term, and thirteen were elected in 1854. Among the former were N. B. Judd, of Chicago, John M. Palmer, of Carlinville, and Burton C. Cook, of Ottawa, three Democrats who had early declared their opposition to the Nebraska Bill. The full Senate was composed of nine Whigs, thirteen regular Democrats, and three anti-Nebraska Democrats. A fourth holding-over senator (Osgood, Democrat) represented a district which had given an anti-Nebraska majority in this election. One of the Whig members (J. L. D. Morrison) of St. Clair County was elected simultaneously with Trumbull, but he was a man of Southern affiliations and his vote on the senatorial question was doubtful.
At this time there was no law compelling the two branches of a state legislature to unite in an election to fill a vacancy in the Senate of the United States. Accordingly, when one party controlled one branch of the legislature and the opposite party controlled the other, it was not uncommon for the minority to refuse to go into joint convention. This was the case now. In order to secure a joint meeting, it was necessary for at least one Democrat to vote with the anti-Nebraska members. Mr. Osgood did so.
In the House were forty-six anti-Nebraska men of all descriptions and twenty-eight Democrats. One member, Randolph Heath, of the Lawrence and Crawford District, did not vote in the election for Senator at any time. Two members from Madison County, Henry L. Baker and G. T. Allen, had been elected on the anti-Nebraska ticket with Trumbull.
In the chaotic condition of parties it was not to be expected that all the opponents of Douglas would coalesce at once. The Whig party was held together by the hope of reaping large gains from the division of the Democrats on the Nebraska Bill. This was a vain hope, because the Whigs were divided also; but while it existed it fanned the flame of old enmities. Moreover, the anti-Nebraska Democrats in the campaign had claimed that they were the true Democracy and that they were purifying the party in order to preserve and strengthen it. They could not instantly abandon that claim by voting for a Whig for the highest office to be filled.
The two houses met in the Hall of Representatives on February 8, 1855, to choose a Senator. Every inch of space on the floor and lobby was occupied by members and their political friends, and the gallery was adorned by well-dressed women, including Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Matteson, the governor's wife, and her fair daughters. The senatorial election had been the topic of chief concern throughout the state for many months, and now the interest was centred in a single room not more than one hundred feet square. The excitement was intense, for everybody knew the event was fraught with consequences of great pith and moment, far transcending the fate of any individual.
Mr. Lincoln had been designated as the choice of a caucus of about forty-five members, including all the Whigs and most of the Free-Soilers, with their leader, Rev. Owen Lovejoy, brother of the Alton martyr.
When the joint convention had been called to order, General James Shields was nominated by Senator Benjamin Graham, Abraham Lincoln by Representative Stephen T. Logan, and Lyman Trumbull by Senator John M. Palmer. The first vote resulted as follows:
| Lincoln | 45 |
| Shields | 41 |
| Trumbull | 5 |
| Scattering | 8 |
| — | |
| Total | 99 |
Several members of the House who had been elected as anti-Nebraska Democrats voted for Lincoln and a few for Shields. The vote for Trumbull consisted of Senators Palmer, Judd, and Cook and Representatives Baker and Allen.
On the second vote, Lincoln had 43 and Trumbull 6, and there were no other changes. A third roll-call resulted like the second. Thereupon Judge Logan moved an adjournment, but this was voted down by 42 to 56. On the fourth call, Lincoln's vote fell to 38 and Trumbull's rose to 11. On the sixth, Lincoln lost two more, and Trumbull dropped to 8.
It now became apparent by the commotion on the Democratic side of the chamber that a flank movement was taking place. There had been a rumor on the streets that if the reëlection of Shields was found to be impossible, the Democrats would change to Governor Matteson, under the belief that since he had never committed himself to the Nebraska Bill he would be able, by reason of personal and social attachments, to win the votes of several anti-Nebraska Democrats who had not voted for Shields. This scheme was developed on the seventh call, which resulted as follows:
| Matteson | 44 |
| Lincoln | 38 |
| Trumbull | 9 |
| Scattering | 7 |
| — | |
| Total | 98 |
On the eighth call, Matteson gained two votes, Lincoln fell to 27, and Trumbull received 18. On the ninth and tenth, Matteson had 47, Lincoln dropped to 15, and Trumbull rose to 35.
The excitement deepened, for it was believed that the next vote would be decisive. Matteson wanted only three of a majority, and the only way to prevent it was to turn Lincoln's fifteen to Trumbull, or Trumbull's thirty-five to Lincoln. Obviously the former was the only safe move, for none of Lincoln's men would go to Matteson in any kind of shuffle, whereas three of Trumbull's men might easily be lost if an attempt were made to transfer them to the Whig leader. Lincoln was the first to see the imminent danger and the first to apply the remedy. In fact he was the only one who could have done so, since the fifteen supporters who still clung to him would never have left him except at his own request. He now besought his friends to vote for Trumbull. Some natural tears were shed by Judge Logan when he yielded to the appeal. He said that the demands of principle were superior to those of personal attachment, and he transferred his vote to Trumbull. All of the remaining fourteen followed his example, and there was a gain of one vote that had been previously cast for Archibald Williams. So the tenth and final roll-call gave Trumbull fifty-one votes, and Matteson forty-seven. One member still voted for Williams and one did not vote at all. Thus the one hundred members of the joint convention were accounted for, and Trumbull became Senator by a majority of one.
This result astounded the Democrats. They were more disappointed by it than they would have been by the election of Lincoln. They regarded Trumbull as an arch traitor. That he and his fellow traitors Palmer, Judd, and Cook should have carried off the great prize was an unexpected dose; but they did not know how bitter it was until Trumbull took his seat in the Senate and opened fire on the Nebraska Bill.
Lincoln took his defeat in good part. Later in the evening there was a reception given at the house of Mr. Ninian Edwards, whose wife was a sister of Mrs. Lincoln. He had been much interested in Lincoln's success and was greatly surprised to hear, just before the guests began to arrive, that Trumbull had been elected. He and his family were easily reconciled to the result, however, since Mrs. Trumbull had been from girlhood a favorite among them. When she and Trumbull arrived, they were naturally the centre of attraction. Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln came in a little later. The hostess and her daughters greeted them most cordially, saying that they had wished for his success, and that while he must be disappointed, yet he should bear in mind that his principles had won. Mr. Lincoln smiled, moved toward the newly elected Senator, and saying, "Not too disappointed to congratulate my friend Trumbull," warmly shook his hand.
Lincoln's account of this election, in a letter to Hon. E. B. Washburne, concludes by saying:
I regret my defeat moderately, but I am not nervous about it. I could have headed off every combination and been elected had it not been for Matteson's double game—and his defeat now gives me more pleasure than my own gives me pain. On the whole, it was perhaps as well for our general cause that Trumbull is elected. The Nebraska men confess that they hate it worse than anything that could have happened. It is a great consolation to see them worse whipped than I am. I tell them it is their own fault—that they had abundant opportunity to choose between him and me, which they declined, and instead forced it on me to decide between him and Matteson.
There is no evidence that Trumbull took any steps whatever to secure his own election in this contest.[19]
If Lincoln had been chosen at this time, his campaign against Douglas for the Senate in 1858 would not have taken place. Consequently he would not have been the cynosure of all eyes in that spectacular contest. It was Douglas's prestige and prowess that drew him into the limelight at that important juncture, and made his nomination as President possible in 1860.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] The Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society for October, 1912, contains an autobiography of Stephen A. Douglas, of fifteen pages, dated September, 1838, which was recently found in his own handwriting by his son, Hon. Robert M. Douglas, of North Carolina. It terminates just before his first campaign for Congress.
[16] Cong. Globe, July, 1856, Appendix, p. 712.
[17] Letter to the Missouri Democrat, dated March 1, 1856, quoted in P. Ormon Ray's Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, p. 232.
[18] Some testimony as to the effect produced upon Douglas himself by this speech was supplied to me long afterwards from a trustworthy quarter in the following letter:—
New York, Dec. 7, 1908.
My dear Mr. White:In 1891, at his office in Chicago, Mr. W. C. Gowdy told me that Judge Douglas spent the night with him at his house preceding his debate with Mr. Lincoln; that after the evening meal Judge Douglas exhibited considerable restlessness, pacing back and forth upon the floor of the room, evidently with mental preoccupation. The attitude of Judge Douglas was so unusual that Mr. Gowdy felt impelled to address him, and said: "Judge Douglas, you appear to be ill at ease and under some mental agitation; it cannot be that you have any anxiety with reference to the outcome of the debate you are to have with Mr. Lincoln; you cannot have any doubt of your ability to dispose of him."
Whereupon Judge Douglas, stopping abruptly, turned to Mr. Gowdy and said, with great emphasis: "Yes, Gowdy, I am troubled over the progress and outcome of this debate. I have known Lincoln for many years, and I have continually met him in debate. I regard him as the most difficult and dangerous opponent that I have ever met and I have serious misgivings as to what may be the result of this joint debate."
These in substance, and almost in exact phraseology, are the words repeated to me by Mr. Gowdy. Faithfully yours,
Francis Lynde Stetson.
Mr. Gowdy was a state senator in 1854 and his home was at or near Peoria. There was no joint debate between Lincoln and Douglas at or near Gowdy's residence, except that of 1854.
[19] The following manuscript, written by one of Lincoln's supporters who was himself a member of the legislature, was found among the papers of William H. Herndon:
"In the contest for the United States Senate in the winter of 1854-55 in the Illinois Legislature, nearly all the Whigs and some of the 'anti-Nebraska Democrats' preferred Mr. Lincoln to any other man. Some of them (and myself among the number) had been candidates and had been elected by the people for the express purpose of doing all in their power for his election, and a great deal of their time during the session was taken up, both in caucus and out of it, in laboring to unite the anti-Nebraska party on their favorite, but there was from the first, as the result proved, an insuperable obstacle to their success. Four of the anti-Nebraska Democrats had been elected in part by Democrats, and they not only personally preferred Mr. Trumbull, but considered his election necessary to consolidate the union between all those who were opposed to repeal of the Missouri Compromise and to the new policy upon the subject of slavery which Mr. Douglas and his friends were laboring so hard to inaugurate. They insisted that the election of Mr. Trumbull to the Senate would secure thousands of Democratic votes to the anti-Nebraska party who would be driven off by the election of Mr. Lincoln—that the Whig party were nearly a unit in opposition to Mr. Douglas, so that the election of the favorite candidate of the majority would give no particular strength in that quarter, and they manifested a fixed purpose to vote steadily for Mr. Trumbull and not at all for Mr. Lincoln, and thus compel the friends of Mr. Lincoln to vote for their man to prevent the election of Governor Matteson, who, as was ascertained, could, after the first few ballots, carry enough anti-Nebraska men to elect him. These four men were Judd, of Cook, Palmer, of Macoupin, Cook, of LaSalle, and Baker, of Madison. Allen, of Madison, went with them, but was not inflexible, and would have voted for Lincoln cheerfully, but did not want to separate from his Democratic friends. These men kept aloof from the caucus of both parties during the winter. They would not act with the Democrats from principle, and would not act with the Whigs from policy.
"When the election came off, it was evident, after the first two or three ballots, that Mr. Lincoln could not be elected, and it was feared that if the balloting continued long, Governor Matteson would be elected. Mr. Lincoln then advised his friends to vote for Mr. Trumbull; they did so, and elected him.
"Mr. Lincoln was very much disappointed, for I think that at that time it was the height of his ambition to get into the United States Senate. He manifested, however, no bitterness towards Mr. Judd or the other anti-Nebraska Democrats, by whom practically he was beaten, but evidently thought that their motives were right. He told me several times afterwards that the election of Trumbull was the best thing that could have happened.
"There was a great deal of dissatisfaction throughout the state at the result of the election. The Whigs constituted a vast majority of the anti-Nebraska party. They thought they were entitled to the Senator and that Mr. Lincoln by his contest with Mr. Douglas had caused the victory. Mr. Lincoln, however, generously exonerated Mr. Trumbull and his friends from all blame in the matter. Trumbull's first encounter with Douglas in the Senate filled the people of Illinois with admiration for his abilities, and the ill-feeling caused by his election gradually faded away.
"Sam C. Parks."
CHAPTER IV
THE KANSAS WAR
Trumbull took his seat in the Senate at the first session of the Thirty-fourth Congress, December 3, 1855. His credentials were presented by Senator Crittenden, of Kentucky. Senator Cass, of Michigan, presented a protest from certain members of the legislature of Illinois reciting that the constitution of that state made the judges of the supreme and circuit courts ineligible to any other office in the state, or in the United States, during the terms for which they were elected and one year thereafter; affirming that Trumbull was elected judge of the supreme court June 7, 1852, for the term of nine years and entered upon the duties of that office June 24, 1852; that the said term of office would not expire until 1861; and that, therefore, he was not legally elected a Senator of the United States. The papers were eventually referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, but in the mean time Trumbull was sworn in. Before the question of reference was disposed of, however, Senator Seward contended that no state could fix or define the qualifications of a Senator of the United States. He instanced the case of N. P. Tallmadge, who had been elected a Senator from New York while serving as a member of the legislature of that state, although the constitution of New York disqualified him and all other members from such election. Tallmadge was nevertheless admitted to the Senate and served his full term. Trumbull's right to his seat was decided in accordance with that precedent by a vote of 35 to 8, on the 5th of March, 1856. Senator Douglas did not vote on this question, nor did he take part in the argument on it.
The subject of burning interest in Congress was the condition of affairs in Kansas Territory. When the bill repealing the Missouri Compromise was pending, the opinion had been generally expressed by its supporters that slavery never would or could go into that region. Several Southern Senators and most of the Northern Democrats had held this view. Hunter, of Virginia, considered it utterly hopeless to expect that either Kansas or Nebraska would ever be a slaveholding state. Badger, of North Carolina, said that he had no more idea of seeing a slave population in either of them than he had of seeing it in Massachusetts. Dixon, of Kentucky, held a similar view. Nor is there any reason to doubt the sincerity of these men. Apparently the only Southern Senator who then cherished a different belief was Atchison, of Missouri, whose home was on the border of Kansas and whose opinions were based upon personal knowledge and backed by self-interest.