Volume 1 — REMINISCENCES OF SIXTY YEARS IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS VOLUME I (continued 5)

His voice, whether in public speech or in private conversation, commanded sympathy by its tones, even when his words were not comprehended. In his oratory there was exaggeration in statement, a characteristic that is common to orators, but not more strongly marked in the speeches of Kossuth than in the speeches of those with whom he might be compared.

His powers of imagination were not extraordinary, and of word painting he has not left a single striking example,—not one passage that can be used for recitation or declamation in the schools. His cause was too pressing, his manner of life was too serious, for any indulgences in speech. In every speech he had an object in view; and even when he was without hope for Hungary in the near future, he yet announced and advocated doctrines and truths on which he relied for the political regeneration of Europe. He spoke to propositions,—clearly, concisely, convincingly.

In one oratorical art Kossuth was a adept; he deprecated all honors to himself, and with great tact he transferred them to his country and to the cause that he represented:

"As to me, indeed, it would be curious if the names of the great men who invented the plough and the alphabet, who changed the corn into flour and the flour into bread, should be forgotten, and my name remembered.

"But if in your expectations I should become a screen to divert, for a single moment, your attention from my country's cause and attract it to myself, I entreat you, even here, to forget me, and bestow all your attention and your generous sympathy upon the cause of my downtrodden fatherland."

Kossuth gave rise to just criticism in that he appealed too often and too elaborately to the local and national pride of his audiences. This criticism was applicable to his speeches in England and in America.

In every attempt to fix Kossuth's place in the list of historical orators,—and in that list he must have a conspicuous place,—certain considerations cannot be disregarded, viz.:

First, he spoke to England and American in a language that he acquired when he had already passed the middle period of life. The weight of this impediment he felt when he said, "Spirit of American eloquence, frown not at my boldness that I dare abuse Shakespeare's language in Faneuil Hall."

Second, we are to consider the amount of work performed in a brief period of time, and the conditions under which it was performed. Between the twenty-fifth day of April and the fourteenth day of May, 1852, Kossuth delivered thirty speeches in Massachusetts, containing, on an average, more than two thousand words in each speech, and not a sentence inappropriate to the occasion. These speeches were prepared and written in the intervals between the ceremonial proceedings, which occurred as often as every day.

Third, though his theme had many aspects, and these varying aspects Kossuth presented with such skill as to command the attention of his hearers, yet his theme was always the same,—the wrongs of Hungary.

On the twentieth, the twenty-fourth, and the twenty-fifth days of May, 1859, Kossuth delivered speeches in London, Manchester, and Bradford, England. The Lord Mayor presided at the meeting in London, and the meetings one and all were designed to aid the Liberal Party in the then pending general election. Kossuth's visit to England and the purpose of the visit were due to an arrangement with the Emperor Napoleon, from which Kossuth was led to expect the liberation of Hungary from the grasp of Austria as one of the essential purposes of the war in which France and Austria were engaged. As the result of an interview with the Emperor on the night of the 5th of May, Kossuth visited England in aid of the Liberal Party, and in the belief that the accession of that party to power would secure the neutrality of that country. Hence the wisdom and the duty of neutrality were the topics to which Kossuth devoted himself during his short stay in England. The Liberal Party triumphed, but the triumph was brief, and the disposition of the new ministry was not tested.

Kossuth's speeches of 1859 at the London Tavern, at a meeting presided over by the Lord Mayor, and at Manchester and at Bradford, present him at his best. He had received a pledge from Napoleon that if he could secure the neutrality of England, and would organize a Hungarian legion for service in the war with Austria, the liberation of Hungary should be regarded as a necessary condition of peace. Such, at least, was the interpretation which Kossuth put upon these words of the Emperor, spoken at the midnight meeting of May 5, 1859: "We beg you to proceed forthwith with your scheme; and be convinced that in securing the neutrality of England you will have removed the greatest obstacle that stands in the way of the realization of your patriotic hopes."

In a preliminary conversation with Prince Napoleon, held at the instance of the Emperor, Kossuth had stipulated that the Emperor should publish a proclamation to the Hungarian nation, announcing his confederation with the Hungarians as their friend and ally, and for the purpose of carrying into effect the Declaration of Independence of 1849. The obligations assumed by Kossuth were faithfully performed. General Klapka organized a legion in Italy of four thousand Hungarians. The overthrow of the Tory Party in England, which Kossuth had predicted and promised, was achieved, and thus the neutrality of Great Britain was secured.

Kossuth's speeches in England were delivered under the influence of the highest incentives by which an orator and patriot could be moved. With the utmost confidence in his ability to perform what he had promised, he had pledged his honor for the neutrality of England. As he then believed, the fate of Hungary was staked upon the fulfilment of that pledge. Hence it came to pass that his speeches in England in May, 1859, were on a higher plane than the speeches that he delivered in the years 1851 and 1852. At the former period he had no hope of immediate relief for Hungary; in 1859 he imagined that the day of the deliverance of his country was at hand, and that the neutrality of England was a prerequisite, or at least a coincident condition.

It is not too much to say that the following extract from his speech in the London Tavern justifies every claim that has been made in behalf of Kossuth as a patriot and an orator:

"The history of Italy during the last forty years is nothing but a record of groans, of evergrowing hatred and discontent, of ever- recurring commotions, conspiracies, revolts and revolutions, of scaffolds soaked in the blood of patriots, of the horrors of Spielberg and Mantua, and of the chafing anger with which the words, 'Out with the Austrians,' tremble on the lips of every Italian. These forty years are recorded in history as a standing protest against those impious treaties. The robbed have all the time loudly protested, by words, deeds, sufferings, and sacrifice of their lives, against the compact of the robbers. Yet, forsooth, we are still told that the treaties of 1815 are inviolable. Why, I have heard it reported that England rang with a merry peal when the stern inward judge, conscience, led the hand of Castlereagh to suicide; and shall we, in 1859, be offered the sight of England plunging into the incalculable calamities of a great war for no better purpose than to uphold the accursed work of the Castlereaghs, and from no better motive than to keep the House of Austria safe?

"Inviolable treaties, indeed. Why, my lord, the forty-four years that have since passed have riddled those treaties like a sieve. The Bourbons, whom they restored to the throne of France, have vanished, and the Bonapartes, whom they proscribed, occupy the place of the Bourbons on the throne of France. And how many changes have not been made in the state of Europe, in spite of those 'inviolable treaties'? Two of these changes—the transformation of Switzerland from a confederation of states into a confederated state, and the independence of Belgium—have been accomplished to the profit of liberty. But for the rest, the distinctive features through which those treaties have passed is this, that every poor plant of freedom which they had spared has been uprooted by the unsparing hand of despotism. From the republic of Cracow, poor remnant of Poland, swallowed by Austria, down to the freedom of the press guaranteed to Germany, but reduced to such a condition that, in the native land of Guttenberg, not one square yard of soil is left to set a free press upon, everything that was not evil in those inviolable treaties has been trampled down, to the profit of despotism, of concordats, of Jesuits, and of benighting darkness. And all these violations of the inviolable treaties were accomplished without England's once shaking her mighty trident to forbid them. And shall it be recorded in history that when the question is how to drive Austria from Italy, when the natural logic of this undertaking might present my own native country with a chance for that deliverance to which England bade God-speed with a mighty outcry of sympathy rolling like thunder from John O'Groat's to Land's End,—that deliverance for which prayers have ascended, and are ascending still, to the Father of mankind from millions of British hearts,—shall it be recorded in history that at such a time, that under such circumstances, England plunged into the horrors and calamities of war, nay, that she took upon herself to make this war prolonged and universal, for the mere purpose of upholding the inviolability of those rotten treaties in favor of Austria, good for nothing on earth except to spread darkness and to perpetuate servitude?

"There you have that Austria in Piedmont carrying on war in a manner that recalls to memory the horrors of the long gone-by ages of barbarism. You may read in the account furnished to the daily papers, by their special correspondents, that the rigorously disciplined soldiers of Austria were allowed to act the part of robbers let loose upon an unoffending population, to offer violence to unprotected families, to outrage daughters in the presence of their parents, and to revel in such other savage crimes as the blood of civilized men curdles at hearing and the tongue falters in relating. Such she was always—always. These horrors but faintly reflect what Hungary had to suffer from her in our late war. And shall it be said that England, the home of gentlemen, sent her brave sons to shed their blood and to stain their honor in fighting side by side with such a soldatesca for those highwayman compacts of 1815 to the profit of that Austria?"

With the treaty of Villafranca, July 11, 1859, Kossuth abandoned all hope of the independence of Hungary. There can be no doubt that, from the first, Napoleon intended to abandon Kossuth and his cause when he had made use of his influence in England and in Italy for his own purposes. The armistice and the peace with Austria were inaugurated by Napoleon; and when, at the last moment, Emperor Francis Joseph raised difficulties upon some points in the treaty, Prince Napoleon, who was a party to the conference, threatened him with a revolution in Italy and in Hungary. As to Kossuth, his only solace was in the reflection that he had stayed the tendency to revolution on the soil of Hungary, and thus his countrymen had been saved from new calamities.

Thenceforward Kossuth had before him only a life of exile; but he reserved for his children the right, and he set before them the duty, of returning to their native land.

I am giving large space to the visit of Kossuth in the belief that the country is moving away from the doctrines of self-government as a common right of mankind, as they were taught by him and as they were accepted generally until we approached the end of the nineteenth century.

In Faneuil Hall Kossuth made these striking remarks. Addressing himself to America, he said: "You have prodigiously grown by your freedom of seventy-five years; but what are seventy-five years to take for a charter of immortality! No, no, my humble tongue tells the record of eternal truth. A privilege never can be lasting. Liberty restricted to one nation never can be sure. You may say 'we are the prophets of God,' but you shall not say, 'God is only our God.' The Jews have said so and the pride of Jerusalem lies in the dust! Our Saviour taught all humanity to say 'Our Father in Heaven,' and his Jerusalem is 'lasting to the end of days.'"

His style was that of a scholar who had mastered the English language by the aid of books. His idiomatic expressions were few. In one of his speeches when urging his audience to demand active intervention in behalf of Hungary he attempted to use the phrase, "You should take time by the forelock." At the last word he came to a dead pause and substituted a twist of his own forelock with his right hand. He thus commanded the hearty cheers of his hearers. It is probable that the expedient was forced upon Kossuth, but the art of a skilled orator might have suggested such a device.

Kossuth was small in stature, not more than five feet seven inches in height, and weighing not more than one hundred and forty pounds. His eyes and hair were black, his complexion dark, giving the impression that he did not belong to the Caucasian race. His career was a meteoric display in political oratory, such as the world does not often witness. His integrity cannot be questioned, and for more than a third of a century he submitted to a life of exile rather than accept a home under a government which he thought was a usurpation. He gave to the country new ideas, and his name and fame will be traditional for a long period of time.

When Kossuth was in America he looked upon General Gorgey as a traitor and he was so regarded by the friends of Hungary generally. In the year 1885, however, a testimonial was presented to General Gorgey by about thirty of the survivors of the contest of 1848, in which they exonerated him from that charge. General Klapka was among the signers, but the name of Kossuth did not appear upon the memorial.

At the end of the nineteenth century neither Massachusetts nor any other State could or would accord to an exile for liberty the reception that was given to Kossuth in 1852.

The expenses of his reception in Massachusetts, and of the entertainment of his suite were paid by an appropriation from the public treasury. He was given a public reception by the Governor of the State, and a like reception was given to him by each House of the Legislature in suspended session.

He was further honored by a review on Boston Common of a fourth part of the organized militia of the commonwealth. The assemblages of citizens were as large in proportion to the population of the State as were ever gathered upon any other occasion.

Kossuth visited fifteen of the principal cities and towns of the State and in each of them he delivered one address or more. His theme was always the same, but his variety of argument and illustration seemed inexhaustible. At Cambridge he urged the students to so use their powers as to "promote their country's welfare and the rights of humanity."

The Legislature adopted a series of resolutions of sympathy and in condemnation of Austria and Russia. The opening resolution was in these words: "Resolved, That every nation has the right to adopt such form of government as may seem to it best calculated to advance those ends for which all governments are in theory established." Can this resolution command an endorsement at the beginning of the twentieth century?

The States of Maine, Rhode Island, and Vermont adopted resolutions of sympathy with Hungary and of arraignment of Austria and Russia.

[* This chapter was published substantially as it appears here in the New England Magazine. Copyright, 1903, by Warren F. Kellogg.]

XIX THE COALITION AND THE STATE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 1853

The controversy over slavery, which wrought a division in the Whig and Democratic parties as early as the year 1848, led to a reorganization of parties in 1849, under the names of Whig, Democratic, and Free-soil parties, respectively. Of these the Whig Party was the largest, but from 1849 to 1853 it was not able to command a majority vote in the State, and at that time a majority vote was required in all elections. There was a substantial agreement between the Democratic and Free-soil parties upon the leading questions of State politics. Of these questions a secret ballot law and the division of counties for the election of senators, and the division of cities for the election of representatives, were the chief. Under the law then existing the county of Middlesex, for example, elected six senators, and each year all were of the same party. Boston was a Whig city, and each year it chose forty-six members of the House on one ballot, and always of the Whig Party. What is now the system of elections was demanded by the Democratic and Free-soil parties. The change was resisted by the Whig Party. In 1849 I was nominated by the Democratic Party for the office of Governor, and a resolution was adopted denouncing the system of slavery. In that year coalitions were formed in counties and in cities and towns between Democrats and Free-soilers, which demonstrated the possibility of taking the State out of the hands of the Whig Party, if the coalitions could be made universal. This was accomplished in 1850, and in 1851 I became Governor by the vote of the Legislature, and Mr. Sumner was elected to the United States Senate. It was the necessity of the situation that the two offices should be filled, and the necessity was not less mandatory that one of the places should be filled by a Democrat, and the other by a member of the Free-soil Party. There were expectations and conjectures, no doubt, but until the Legislature assembled in 1851 no one knew what the arrangement would be. I am sure that I had no assurance that either place would be assigned to me. The leaders of the Free-soil Party were resolute in demanding the place in the Senate, so that their views on the subject of slavery might be there set forth, and there were many Democrats who preferred the control of the State.

The coalition had control of the State for the political years of 1851 and 1852. An act was passed which provided for a secret ballot, and by another act the question of a Constitutional Convention was submitted to the voters of the State. In March, 1853, an election was held for the choice of delegates. A majority of the delegates elected were members of the Democratic and Free-soil parties.

Although I had made a resolution to retire from active participation in politics at the end of my term as Governor, I was so much committed to the objects of the Convention, and so much interested in its success, that I could not avoid giving my time to the canvass for the election of members. It happened, however, that I gave no attention to my own town, and the Whig candidate, John G. Park, was elected. My defeat was due to my action upon the liquor bill, which was enacted at the session of 1852. The Legislature passed a prohibitory law, subject to its ratification by the people by the use of the open ballot. The question of the secret ballot was one of the prominent questions between the parties, and at the session of 1851 the coalition had passed an act requiring the votes to be deposited in envelopes of uniform character and to be furnished by the State. I vetoed the bill upon the ground that if the bill was to be submitted to the people the secret ballot should be used. Thereupon the Legislature passed a similar bill without a reference to the people. The bill was passed by the help of the Whig members from Boston, who were in fact opposed to the measure, and with the design of placing me in an unpleasant position. Contrary to their expectation, I signed the bill. As a temperance man, I could not have done otherwise, although I thought it proper to submit the question to the people by the use of the secret ballot.

Many members of the Democratic Party in Groton were users of liquor, and they voted for my opponent in the contest for a delegate to the Convention. Mr. Park was a Whig, but moderate in his feelings, an upright man, and a fair representative of the Conservative feeling of the time.

It was one of the peculiarities of the call for the Convention, that each constituency could elect a candidate from any part of the State. That feature added immensely to the ability of the Convention. Hon. Henry Wilson was the candidate of the coalition in the town of Natick, but as he was not confident of an election he was a candidate also in the town of Berlin. He was elected in both towns. Mr. Sumner was elected in Marshfield, the home of Mr. Webster, Mr. Burlingame was elected for Northboro, Mr. Hallett for Wilbraham, Mr. R. H. Dana, Jr., for Manchester, and others, not less than ten in all, were elected by towns in which they did not live. This circumstance gave occasion for a turn upon words that attracted much attention at the time. It came to be known that Mr. Burlingame had never been in Northboro. Upon some question, the nature of which I do not recall, Mr. Burlingame made an attack upon the rich men of Boston, and intimated that their speedy transfer to the Mount Auburn Cemetery would not be a public misfortune. Mr. Geo. S. Hillard, in reply, referred to Mr. Burlingame as the "member who represented a town he had not seen, and misrepresented one that he had seen." Unfortunately for Mr. Hillard he lost the value of his sharp rejoinder by a statement in the same speech. Referring to Boston, where he was a practising lawyer, he said that he "would not strike the hand that fed him."

Upon the meeting of the Convention in May, Mr. Wilson resigned his seat for Berlin, and I was unanimously elected in his place. It was my fortune also to represent a town that I had not seen.

I may mention the fact that my father received a unanimous vote for the Convention in Lunenburg, the town of his residence. There were two other cases of the election of father and son as members of the Convention. Marcus Morton and Marcus Morton, Jr.; Samuel French and Rodney French.

The two great subjects of debate and of anxious thought in the Convention were the representative system and the tenure of the judicial office. It was my earnest purpose to preserve town representation and in the debate I made two elaborate speeches. It was then and upon that subject that I encountered Mr. Choate for the first time. He was a supporter, and, of course, the leading advocate of the district system. The Convention adhered to town representation in a modified form. The proposition was defeated by the vote of Boston, which gave a majority against the new Constitution of about one thousand in excess of the negative majority of the entire State.

More serious difficulties, even, were encountered in the attempt to change the tenure of judges. No inconsiderable portion of the Convention favored an elective judiciary. To that project I was opposed. By the co-operation of a number of the members of the coalition party with the Whigs the proposition was defeated. Next, a proposition was submitted by Mr. Knowlton of Worcester, to continue the appointment in the Executive Department, limiting the tenure to seven years. After an amendment had been agreed to extending the term to ten years, the proposition was adopted. With some misgivings I assented to the compromise. The attempt to change the tenure of the judges was a grave mistake, and it was the efficient cause of the defeat of the work of the Convention. Beyond this error, the defeat of the new Constitution was made certain by the course of Bishop Fitzpatrick of the Catholic Church. For many years the Irish population of Boston had acted with the Democratic Party. Upon the question of calling a Convention the adverse majority in Suffolk had been 2,800 only, but upon the question of ratifying the work of the Convention the adverse majority was nearly six thousand. To this result the influence of Bishop Fitzpatrick had contributed essentially. His reason he did not disguise. Portions of Boston were under the control of the Irish. A division of the city would open to them seats in the House and the Senate. The Bishop deprecated their entrance into active, personal politics. Hence he used his influence against the new Constitution. Such was his frank statement when the contest was over.

About the twentieth of June, when I had been a member of the Convention for twenty days only, General Banks said to me that it was the wish of our friends that I should move for a committee to prepare the Constitution for submission to the people. At that time the thought of such a movement had not occurred to me. The committee was appointed upon my motion, and, according to usage, I was placed at the head of it, and from that time I had in my own hands, very largely, the direction of the business of the Convention. As is usual, the work of the committee fell upon a few members. In this case the working members were Richard H. Dana, Jr., and myself. Marcus Morton, Jr., a volunteer, was a valuable aid. After considerable experience in other places I can say that the preparation of the new Constitution was the most exacting labor of my life. The committee were to deal with the Constitution of 1780, with the thirteen amendments that had been adopted previous to 1853, and with thirty-five changes in the Constitution that had been agreed to by the Convention. The practical problem was this:—

(1) To eliminate from the Constitution of 1780 all that had been annulled by the thirteen amendments.

(2) To eliminate from the Constitution of 1780, and from each of the thirteen amendments, all the provisions that would be annulled by the adoption of the thirty-five changes that had been agreed to by the Convention.

(3) To furnish Constitutional language for the new features that were to be incorporated in the Constitution.

(4) To arrange the matter of the new Constitution, and to reproduce the instrument, divided upon topics and into chapters and articles.

All the work under the first two heads was done by myself. The language was so much the subject of criticism and of rewriting that the responsibility for item three cannot be put upon any one. The same may be said of the work under item four; although that work was unimportant comparatively. The copy of the Constitution which was used by me in making the eliminations is still in my possession.

It is to be observed that the Convention did not furnish language in which the amendments that had been agreed to were to be expressed in the Constitution.

The resolutions, as adopted, were in the form following:

"Resolved, That it is expedient so to alter and amend the Constitution as to provide for a periodical division of the Commonwealth into equal districts on the basis of population." This form was observed in all the results reached by the Convention. The Convention had named the first day of August as the day of adjournment, and the serious work of preparing the Constitution was entered upon about the 15th day of July. The committee as a body, consisting of thirteen members, took no part in the preparation of the Constitution. It sanctioned the work as it had been done by Mr. Dana, Mr. Morton, and myself.

As my constant presence in the Convention was required, the work imposed upon me as chairman of the committee was performed in the mornings, in the evenings, and during the recesses. Thus the days from the early morning until ten o'clock at night were given to labor and without thought of eating or drinking. At ten o'clock I ate a hearty supper and then retired, always getting a sound sleep, whatever might have been the work of the day preceding.

In the last fifteen days of the session the projet of the Constitution was printed for proof-reading and for corrections twenty- four times. The record shows that there were but few changes made by the Convention, and those were formal and unimportant; and never in the canvass that followed was the suggestion made that the proposed Constitution failed to represent the mind and purpose of the Convention.

The Address to the People of the State was written by me on the last day of the Convention, August 1, 1853, and, as I now recall the events of that day, it was not submitted to the committee, although the members, by individual action, authorized me to make the report. On the same day and upon the motion of Mr. Frank W. Bird, of Walpole, the Convention adopted the following order:—

"Ordered, That the resolves contained in Document No. 128, and the Address to the People signed by the president and secretaries, be printed in connection with the copies of the Revised Constitution ordered to be printed for distribution; and that thirty-five thousand additional copies of said Constitution, with the Resolves and Address, be printed for distribution, in accordance with the orders already adopted." The Convention adjourned at ten minutes before two o'clock on the morning of August 2. The work as a whole was rejected by the voters of the State, but the mind and purpose of the Convention have been expressed during the forty-four years now ended, in the many amendments that have been engrafted upon the Constitution of 1780.

My intimate acquaintance with Mr. Choate began in this Convention. I had known him as early as 1842, when he came to Groton and made a speech in defence of the Whig Party. He was then a member of the Senate and in the fullness of his powers both intellectual and physical. In 1853 his physical system was impaired, but his intellect was as supreme as it had ever been. When I held the office of Governor I made a visit to Mr. Choate at his house. My associate was Ellis Ames of Canton. The circumstances were these. The contest with Rhode Island in regard to the boundary line had reached a crisis. When I came to office I found upon the Statute Book a resolution directing the Governor to institute legal proceedings for the purpose of fixing the boundary unless Rhode Island should agree to proceed by a new commission. As Rhode Island had remained silent, I directed the Attorney-General to execute the statute. After some time he informed me that the preparation of the bill involved a good deal of labor and that some assistance should be had. He suggested Ellis Ames who had a reputation as an equity lawyer. Mr. Ames was employed. When the bill was prepared and submitted to me, I found that a claim was made to five towns that were originally in the Plymouth Colony, but which by a decree of the King in Council had been set over to Rhode Island in 1746. I objected to the presentation of this claim and said that we should only ask that the true line should be run agreeably to that decree. Soon after the Revolution the State of Rhode Island ran the line ex parte and encroached upon the territory of Massachusetts one-fourth to three-fourths of a mile.

From that time both parties had asserted and exercised jurisdiction which had resulted in a number of controversies in the local courts. The Attorney-General lived at New Bedford near the line. The people were constantly excited, and Mr. Clifford was unwilling to accept my proposed amendment. After some delay he suggested an interview with Mr. Choate, who had been counsel for the Town of Fall River in some one or more of the controversies involving the boundary. I assented to the suggestion, and an evening was fixed for a call upon Mr. Choate by Mr. Ames and myself. The evening was a stormy one, but we made our way to Mr. Choate's house. He was in his library in the second story. It consisted of two rooms that had been connected by making an arch in the partition. The shelves were filled, and the floor was covered with books. Ames said:

"Why, Mr. Choate, what a quantity of books you have!"

"Yes," said Mr. Choate, "I have a good many books, more than I have paid for, but that is the book-seller's business, not mine."

After some time had been spent in general conversation Ames introduced the subject for which we had met, and stated the question of the claim to the five towns, to which Choate said:

"The best way is to go for enough and get what we can."

I made no remark, and the business part of the interview ended. Before we left Mr. Choate ordered a bottle of wine and made the remark:

"I keep a little wine in my house, but as for myself, I don't drink a glass once in a thousand years."

One's first impressions of Mr. Choate were never disturbed by intimate acquaintance. Many distinguished persons become insignificant upon close inspection. With Mr. Choate those who knew him best, estimated him most highly. He had no malice in his nature, and there was a genial quality in his sharpest sallies of wit.

In the Convention we had end seats. Mr. Choate occupied the seat immediately in front of me. Thus I had an opportunity for two months to observe his ways, and to enjoy his conversation. Great as were his speeches, they did not transcend his exhibitions of power in private conversation. His great speech in the Convention was upon the Judiciary System, and his description of a good judge is one of the finest paragraphs in oratory, ancient or modern. His second, or perhaps his first great work in art is his sketch of Demosthenes in his lecture on the Eloquence of Revolutionary Periods. As a specimen of essay writing it is not surpassed by any passage to be found in Macaulay.

The Convention of 1853 was the ablest body of men that ever met in Massachusetts. The Convention of 1820 included Mr. Webster, an abler man than any of the members of the Convention of 1853, but the Convention as a whole was an inferior body of men. Mr. Choate was the first man in the Convention of 1853, and he must ever remain one of the great characters of Massachusetts.

Simon Greenleaf, the author of the work on Evidence, was a member of the Convention, and his influence was considerable. He was a dry, hard-headed lawyer. His influence was due to his reputation rather than to his power as a debater. Had he come to the Convention as an unknown person, his standing would have been in the second or third class.

Richard H. Dana, Jr., added to his reputation by his speeches in the Convention. His style was free from exaggeration, and he addressed himself to the question at issue and always with effect. My intimate acquaintance with Mr. Dana began during the session of the Convention. In 1854 and 1855 I visited him and his father, the poet, at their home in Manchester-by-the-Sea. Mr. Dana, Sr., was a genial man, but reserved, and not much given to conversation. My friendship with Mr. Dana continued until General Butler became a candidate for Congress in the Essex district, and Mr. Dana became the nominee of the dissenting Republicans. That year I placed myself in the hands of the State Committee for a limited number of speeches, and by direction of the Committee, I spoke twice in the Essex district in aid of General Butler, who was the regular nominee of the party. From that time Mr. Dana avoided me, and when we met he addressed me with the coldest formality. At a meeting in this canvass held in Gloucester, I combated the charge of the Democrats that there had been many and great defalcations under Republican rule, and among other things I said the greatest defalcation was by a man who had been identified with the Democratic Party. A man in the gallery said: "Name him." I answered: —"His name is ——." "Oh," said my questioner, "I don't care anything about that! I didn't know but it was General Butler."

When General Grant nominated Mr. Dana for the English mission, I was in the Senate, and I endeavored to secure his confirmation. General Butler appeared as his opponent. The case at first turned upon his manners and his responsibility in the matter of his edition of Wheaton's International Law. In the suit instituted by Beach Lawrence, the Court had found that Dana had violated the copyright of Mr. Lawrence. I made a careful study of the case, and I flattered myself that I had satisfied the Senate that Mr. Dana's offence was merely technical, and that it ought not to interfere with his confirmation. At that moment there appeared a letter from Mr. Dana which contained an attack upon General Cameron, then a member of the Senate, and Mr. Dana's case was rendered hopeless. He secured his own defeat when his enemies were powerless to accomplish it. He was, however, very grateful to me for my effort in his behalf. The result was a heavy blow to his ambition and he resolved to prepare a new work on International Law. For that purpose he took his residence in Europe, but death came too soon for the realization of his purpose.

Mr. Dana will be remembered by his tale of the sea, "Two Years Before the Mast." He was a learned lawyer, an aristocrat by nature, and a man of eminent power. He scorned the opinions of inferior men, and therein was the cause of his failure. By a hair's breadth he failed of success in all the public undertakings of his life, excepting only his tale of the sea.

Mr. Burlingame was then an enthusiastic young man. He had had some experience in public affairs, but it could not have been predicted that he would attain the distinction which he achieved subsequently, in the field of diplomacy. He made speeches in the Convention, but they produced little or no effect upon the opinions of others. When, on an occasion, he had made an elaborate speech, his father-in-law, Mr. Isaac Livermore, said he was glad it was delivered, as Anson had trodden down all the roses in the garden while reciting it to himself. His speeches were committed, and delivered without notes.

Mr. Sumner was a conspicuous figure in the Convention of 1853, but his influence upon its business was very limited. Indeed, he seemed not to aspire to leadership. His faculties were not adapted to legislative business. He was not only not practical, he was unpractical and impracticable. Nor did experience in affairs give him an education in that particular. Of his long career in the Senate only his speeches remain. During the period of my acquaintance with him there, he introduced a large number of bills, several of them upon matters of finance, but none, as far as I can recall them, stood the test either of logic or experience. From his seat in the Senate he was able to affect and perhaps even to control the opinions of the country upon the slavery question, and thus indirectly he helped to shape the policy of the Republican Party. His knowledge of European diplomacy was far greater than that of any other Senator and greater, probably than that of any other American, excepting only Mr. Bancroft Davis. It was his good fortune to live and act in a revolutionary period. Had he fallen upon quiet times, when the ordinary affairs of men and states are the only topics of thought and discussion, his career as a public man, if such a career should have been opened to him, would have been brief and valueless alike to himself and to the public. In all his life, he was a victim to authority in affairs, and a slave to note- and common-place books.

Henry Wilson, Sumner's future colleague in the Senate of the United States, had large influence in securing the adoption of measures, but his learning was inadequate to the preparation of specific provisions of a constitution. Indeed, in his later years, he was unequal to the work of composing and writing with even a fair degree of accuracy. But his judgment of the popular feeling was unequalled, and he had capacity for shaping public opinion, whenever it was found to be hostile or uncertain, far superior to that of any of his contemporaries. He was not an orator, but his style of speaking was effective, and his speeches, as they appeared in the columns of the newspapers, would bear the test of ordinary criticism. He was a thorough politician who aimed to have things right, but who would not hesitate to use doubtful methods if thereby the right could be attained. In the year 1854 he joined the Know Nothing Party in secret, while openly he was acting with the Free-soil Party, that had placed him in nomination for the office of Governor. The result was the election of Henry J. Gardner, the candidate of the Know Nothings, as Governor, and the election of Henry Wilson to the Senate of the United States.

Of Mr. Wilson it cannot be said that he was false to friends or unfaithful to the slave. Whatever criticisms may be made upon his career in politics, he kept himself true to the one idea—the overthrow of slavery. He often vacillated in opinion upon passing questions, but at the end his votes were sound usually. As a consequence, his votes and speeches were at times inconsistent. He had a long career in the Senate, but his great service to the country was performed among the people in the canvasses. It may be said of him that at the time of his death he had spoken to more people than any one of his contemporaries or predecessors. His influence was large, although he did not often introduce any new view of a public question. He was direct in speech and he comprehended the popular taste and judgment. He was regarded as a prophet in politics. He was accustomed to make predictions, and not infrequently his predictions were verified. At the end it is to be said that a satisfactory analysis of his character cannot be made. He was not learned, he was not eloquent, he was not logical in a high sense, he was not always consistent in his political actions, and yet he gained the confidence of the people, and he retained it to the end of his life. His success may have been due in part to the circumstance that he was not far removed from the mass of the people in the particulars named, and that he acted in a period when fidelity to the cause of freedom and activity in its promotion satisfied the public demand.

Francis W. Bird had been an active member of the Coalition on the Free-soil side, and an active supporter of the project for a Constitutional Convention. It cannot be said of Mr. Bird that he did anything so well that one might say "nobody could have done better," but his zeal never flagged and hence he did much to secure results. Like Mr. Wilson, he knew every member, and he never hesitated to set forth his views. He always had a following, and in those days it was safe to follow him. In 1872 he became alienated from General Grant and consequently from the Republican Party. His influence was potential with Mr. Sumner, and it is not an over estimate of that influence to assume that he was responsible in a large degree for the defection of Mr. Sumner. Following that election, Mr. Bird became a member of the Democratic Party, but upon what ground it is not easy to conjecture. His whole life had been a protest against that party, and much of his public career had been directed to its defeat. During the war and the period of reconstruction, he had been its earnest and even bitter antagonist. Mr. Bird was a public spirited man, and he was especially liberal towards men and causes in whose fortunes or fate he had become interested. Upon the close of the war there was a tendency in the public mind to advance the successful military men to posts of honor and power in civil life. Some were chosen to the Senate and the House, some were appointed to important diplomatic places, and General Grant was elected President. Many of the politicians were disturbed, and chief among them was Mr. Chase, who allowed the use of his name as a candidate for the Presidency in the Democratic Convention of 1868. From that time many persons who had been conspicuous as anti-slavery men before the war, separated from the Republican Party and joined the Democracy. Mr. Bird was one of many such.

There were a small number of men who had been members of the Convention of 1820 who were members of the Convention of 1853. Of these Mr. Robert Rantoul, of Beverly, was conspicuous, partly on account of his age, partly on account of his services and character, and partly as the father of Robert Rantoul, Jr. He was a noticeable figure in the Convention of 1853. Mr. Rantoul, Jr., had died at Washington the preceding year. His death was a public loss, and especially so to the anti-slavery wing of the Democratic Party to which he maintained his allegiance up to the time of his death. He had, however, taken issue with the party upon the Fugitive Slave Act, and for his hostility to that measure he was excluded from the Democratic Convention of 1852, although he had been duly elected by the Democrats of the county of Essex. There can be no doubt that he would have acted with the Republican Party had he lived to the period of its organization. He was one of the three distinguished persons who were born in the county of Essex early in the century—Cushing, Choate and Rantoul. In masterly ability Choate was the chief, unquestionably. In the profession, neither Cushing nor Rantoul could compare with Choate, although in learning Cushing may have been his rival. In knowledge of diplomacy and international law neither Choate nor Rantoul could be compared to Cushing. In the modern languages he was their superior also, although it is probable that in the knowledge of Latin and Greek he was inferior to Choate. In business matters they were alike defective. In Rantoul there was a lack of continuity of purpose. He was guided by his feelings and opinions. He had the temperament of a reformer. Indeed, he was a reformer. He abhorred slavery, he made war upon intemperance, he was an advocate of reform in prison discipline, and he championed the abolition of capital punishment. In neither of these movements did Cushing or Choate take an interest. They thought slavery an evil, but they had no disposition to attack it. Alike, they feared unpleasant consequences. Choate's devotion to the Constitution was akin to idolatry.

Cushing's support of the Constitution more nearly resembled professional duty. Indeed, that peculiarity could be discovered in much of his public conduct. In service to others he was liberal to a fault. In conversation, he would make suggestions to politicians and to lawyers in aid of their views or their causes with great freedom and without apparent concern as to the effect upon parties or men. Rantoul was not able to fix his attention upon any one branch of labor. He was first of all a politician with an interest in social questions. The profession of the law was not his mistress. His arguments were clear and direct, but they lacked the quality that is near to genius. This quality Choate possessed in a degree not elsewhere found in the life or history of the American Bar. Cushing's arguments were loaded with learning and heavy with suggestions upon the general subject rather than upon the case. This of his law arguments. As I never saw him before a jury I cannot speak of his quality as a nisi prius advocate; but I cannot imagine that he could have had eminent success, and certainly he could not have had success, in the later period of his career.

Mr. Rantoul died at the age of forty-seven. Had he lived to take part in the affairs of the war and of reconstruction, there can be no doubt that he would have achieved great distinction. He had convictions in which Cushing was deficient. He had courage in civil affairs, which Mr. Choate did not possess. Of Choate it can be said, that he lived long enough to establish his claim to the first place at the American bar, if he be judged by what he said, and by what he did. Mr. Cushing had a long career. As to him, there is no room for conjecture. He had great power for acquisition. As an aid to others less well equipped his society and counsels were invaluable. He had a vast fund of knowledge in law, in history, in diplomacy, and in general literature. It was his misfortune that he early lost the public confidence, and it was a continuing misfortune that he never regained it. While it cannot be claimed that either of these three persons is entitled to a place in general history, it may be said with truth, that the birth of Cushing, Choate and Rantoul in a single county and in a single decade was an unusual circumstance in the affairs of the world.

Mr. Robert Rantoul, Sr., as the oldest member, called the Convention to order and presided until the election of Mr. Banks as president. His administration of the duties of the chair commanded the approval of the Convention, and that without regard to personal or party feeling.

The election of General Pierce to the Presidency in 1852 was fatal to the coalition in Massachusetts. Upon his accession to the office, in March, 1853, General Cushing became Attorney-General of the United States, and in the summer or autumn of 1853 he wrote a letter to a gentleman in Worcester, which was interpreted as a declaration of hostility on the part of the administration against all Democrats who affiliated with Free-soil politicians. The election of 1852 had been favorable to the Whigs of Massachusetts, but the contest was fatal to the Whig Party in a national point of view. That party disappeared in the country, and after two elections in Massachusetts, that of 1852 and 1853, it ceased to have power in the State. For many years after, there were occasional attempts to revive it, but all such attempts were vain. It was led by intelligent and well-disposed men, but its principles were not accepted by the country, and it attempted to secure the recognition of its principles by a policy that was temporizing and expedient. It lacked the courage of the old Democratic Party.

Upon the defeat of the Constitution, I turned my attention to the profession in the office of Mr. Joel Giles, with whom I had studied. He had been a lecturer at Cambridge, a member of the House and the Senate, and of the Constitutional Convention. He was a bachelor, economical in his expenditures, rigid in his opinions, just in every thing, and a most careful student and conscientious practitioner. He was a patent lawyer, and as lawyer and mechanic he was the superior of any other person that I have known. As an advocate his services were not valuable. He seemed timid, and his style was not adapted to jury trials nor to hearings by the court. However, in patent cases he could make himself understood by the court, and he had influence resting upon the belief that he was free from deception which was the fact.

Mr. Giles was then attorney for Elias Howe, the inventor of the sewing machine. He had been counsel for Howe from the first, when Howe was in extreme poverty and unable to pay fees. In the early stages of the contest Mr. Giles conducted the case without present compensation, and at the end, when Howe's income was enormous for the period, Mr. Giles accepted only very moderate fees, and he was content therewith. Mr. Howe was a peculiar character: odd in his ways, but generous with his income:—so generous that at his death his fortune was very small. In my long acquaintance with Mr. Giles I never knew that he made charges for services against any one or that he ever presented a bill, although he sometimes spoke of the indifference and neglect of his clients in the matter of money. Some paid and others did not. Mr. Howe paid all that Mr. Giles required, but that was very little compared with the service rendered. The litigation over the Howe patent was severe and the questions in a mechanical point of view were nice questions. Mr. Giles began with the invention, and he became a master of the case. Mr. Howe was indebted to Mr. Giles for the success of his litigation which established his claim to the invention, secured to him as the proceeds what might have been an enormous fortune, and placed his name in the list of the names of great inventors. The patent-law practice is the most exhausting branch of the legal profession, and the lawyers and experts suffer from brain diseases in excess of the average of sufferers in other branches of the profession.

XX THE YEAR 1854

At the session of the Legislature, January, 1854, the town of Fitchburg, aided by towns and citizens of the vicinity, petitioned for a new county to be composed of towns to be taken from the counties of Middlesex and Worcester and to be called the county of Webster. Mr. Choate was retained for the new county, and I appeared for the county of Middlesex. The hearing by the committee occupied two weeks or more, for an hour or an hour and a half a day. The fees received seem now to have been very small. It was said that Mr. Choate received the sum of five hundred dollars, and my fee was two hundred and fifty dollars. Mr. Choate obtained a favorable report from the committee, but the project failed in the Legislature. It was renewed the succeeding year, when Emory Washburn appeared for the county of Worcester. In those two contests, covering a month of time in all, I had an opportunity to study Mr. Choate in his characteristics as an advocate and as an examiner of witnesses, a branch of the profession in which he had great skill.

Various witnesses were called for the purpose of gathering facts as to the inconveniences of which complaints were made and also for the purpose of showing the advantage to be derived from the proposed change. A witness of importance and altogether friendly, was Stuart J. Park, of Groton. He was a Scotchman by birth, his father having been employed upon the Argyle estates. The father came to America while the son was a minor. They were by trade stone masons. Stuart J. Park was then nearly seventy years of age. He had represented the county in the State Senate and for many years he had been a person of note, although his education was limited. He had, however, an abundance of sound sense and an excess of will power, even for a Scotchman. In his business he had had a large and successful experience. He was the master builder of the Boston Mill Dam, of the Charlestown Dry Dock, of the State prison buildings in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, of the track of the Lowell railway, which was laid originally on granite sleepers, and of many jails in New England. Experience proved that granite sleepers were too firm and sleepers of wood were substituted.

One of the county commissioners was John K. Going of Shirley. I had known him from my youth. He was my senior by about ten years. In my boyhood he called not infrequently at my father's house, driving an old horse in a second-hand, well worn sulky. His business was trading in horses and watches, and gambling, as was reported, for small sums of money. To myself and my brothers he was held up by my mother as a warning. Before he was twenty-one years of age he had induced his father to mortgage his small homestead for four hundred dollars which John lost in unwise or unfortunate ventures. Upon that experience he began to recover his fortunes. He became a dealer in better horses, then in hops, then in real estate, and to some extent he became an operator in Boston markets. At the age of fifty he was worth, probably, two hundred thousand dollars. With the improvement of his fortunes, his character improved. He was always temperate and his agreements were carefully kept. He made ample provision for his parents, and for a sister; was a representative in the general court and for many years he was a capable and acceptable county commissioner. He was one of a not numerous class of persons who escape from evil early associations and habits of life.

In 1854 the Know Nothing Party took possession of Massachusetts. Its secrecy made it attractive to many persons. Moreover, the then existing parties were unsatisfactory to the people. The Whigs, who had been out of power in 1851 and '52, had regained power, but the vitality of the party had disappeared forever. Many of the leaders had joined the Free-soil Party, and others were indifferent to its fortunes. The Democratic Party was dissatisfied with the national administration, and the Free-soil Party was without hope. The coalition could not be repeated. In the spring or summer of 1854 General Banks asked me whether I intended to join the Know Nothings. I said No, that I had left politics and that I intended to practice law. He said in reply, "I am in politics and I must go on." The success of the Know Nothing Party was without precedent. They carried every city and town in the State, elected all the members of the Legislature, unless there may have been an accidental exception, unseated all the members of Congress, elected Henry J. Gardner Governor by an immense majority, and elected Henry Wilson to the Senate of the United States.

Mr. Gardner was re-elected in 1855 by the momentum of the party, although it had fallen into discredit which would have led to its ruin in the face of a vigorous opposition. The Whig Party had disappeared and the Republican Party had not reached a period when it could command its forces. In 1856 the Know Nothing Party was yielding to the Republican Party and Governor Gardner was accepted for a third term.

In the year 1854 I made a trip to the Adirondack woods and mountains. The party was organized by Francis W. Bird, and it consisted of Mr. Bird, Henry W. Pierce, D. W. Alvord, a Mr. Hoyt and myself. We left our homes about the 20th of June and were absent about twenty days. We entered the woods from Amsterdam, N. Y. From that place we travelled by a wagon to Lake Pleasant, about fifty-four miles. We remained there two or three days at a hotel kept by a man named John C. Holmes, or rather by his wife, while Holmes retailed old stories to the few guests. The chief topic was the large trout caught in the lake and when and by whom. The ten largest of the season caught in Lake Pleasant and Round Lake weighed in the aggregate 154-1/2 pounds. A Mrs. Peters from New York was the champion; her prize having weighed something over 16 pounds.

We started for the woods on a Thursday taking with us eight guides, a donkey and a considerable quantity of provisions. As the protection was insufficient, the bread, salt, pepper, etc., were soon ruined. The salt pork was saved. At the end of three or four days we sent the donkey and three men back to Lake Pleasant. On this trip I had my first and indeed my only experience in sleeping on the ground. At the small lakes we found the hunters' camps, which were made by erecting poles and covering the scanty frame with the bark of cedar trees.

Saturday night we divided our force as the camp at the lake where we intended to stop was too small for the accommodation of our whole party. Consequently some of the guides went on about four miles to a lake where there was another camp of larger size. Hoyt was the enthusiast of the party, and it was his ambition to kill a deer, although the inhumane act was prohibited at that season of the year.

Our leading guide was called Aaron Burr Sturgis. Thursday evening Hoyt insisted upon going out deer hunting upon the lake. Burr took charge of him. Hoyt had a shot, but missed the deer. Friday evening the effort was renewed with the same result. Burr insisted that the game was in sight at a reasonable distance, and that Hoyt was a victim of the disease known as buck fever. When Saturday evening came there was a public sentiment in favor of changing the hunter as the party were becoming weary of salt pork and trout. Burr fixed upon me, and warmly advocated my selection. Hoyt was warm in advocacy of his own claim. Burr's partiality for me was due to the circumstance that at Lake Pleasant I had sent a buck-shot fifteen rods straight to the mark. Hoyt was finally driven from the field, his only consolation being my promise that I would fire but once, and whether successful or not, I would return to the camp.

The hunter's boat was a narrow, long, flat-bottomed craft, capable of carrying two persons if they were sober and careful. I took my place in the bow of the boat, behind and rather under the jack. I rested upon my knees, holding my gun in such a position that I could use it at short notice. While we were crossing the lake to the feeding ground, Burr gave me my instructions. He said that when I saw the deer in the light from the jack, he would look as though he were cut out of white paper. Such proved to be the fact. The light upon the deer gave him the appearance of being white as the background was black. He appeared in profile only. Next Burr said I must not fire until he gave me orders, as I could not judge of the distance.

After a time the light fell upon a deer. He raised his head and gazed upon the light. Burr moved with the boat without making a ripple and finally he held the boat with his oar and ordered me to fire. This I did, and the deer ran for the shore, Burr pushed his boat to the quag, took the jack, and followed the track. At the distance of about fifteen rods he found the deer unable to move. Burr applied his knife to the throat of the animal, and then dragged him to the boat and we lifted him in. As Burr turned the boat he said, "Did you her the deer whistle on the other side of the lake when you fired?" I said no. Burr said they whistled and he was going over to see if we couldn't get a shot. I referred to my promise to Hoyt, which Burr answered with an oath of disapproval. As I saw no reason for getting another deer I was disgusted with the new movement, and neglected to re-load the empty barrel. When we reached the other side, we could hear deer moving in the water among the tall grass, but we could not see them. After a time I became interested in the undertaking, and I raised myself upon my feet for the purpose of looking over the tall grass. At once I was seen by a deer, and he made for the shore without delay. In the excitement of the moment I discharged my remaining barrel. The deer stopped suddenly, raised his tail, and whistled. I thought that I had shot him, and that he would soon fall into the water. I said to Burr, "How am I to get that deer?" Burr said, "I don't know; you haven't hit him yet." The deer stood for a minute within good range and fully exposed. Luckily I had only an empty gun, or otherwise I might have killed a deer for which we had no use—for which there could have been no excuse. The whistle of the animal was a note of exultation and a notice that he was unharmed. Had he been wounded he would have run without waiting to explain his condition. This was the only success in deer hunting by any of the party. Hoyt went out several times, to return a disappointed man.

I spent the larger part of a night upon Louis Lake with a Canadian Frenchman, of whom the rumor was, as I learned afterwards, that he was a refugee charged with the murder of a woman. While one might not choose such a person for a guide upon a forest lake and in the night time, yet criminals of that sort are very often safer companions than many reckless persons not yet guilty of any great crime. Murders committed under the influence of passion do not lead to other murders by the same parties. On the Sunday following we arrived at a small lake where the camp was too limited for the accommodation of the entire party and those who had remained proceeded to join their companions. The day was rainy and when we reached our destination, we found that one end of the camp had been destroyed by fire and that the part standing furnished only inadequate room for the small party already occupying it. The building of a new and much larger camp was the work of the entire party. For a bed we cut great quantities of hemlock boughs and after shaking the water from them we laid them upon the ground and in our blankets we lay down with our feet to a rousing fire which extended along the entire front of the camp not less than twenty feet. None of the party suffered from the experience.

At that time fishing for brook trout was not an art. On one occasion I waded into the rapids of Racket River where the water was about two feet deep, and as often as my hook struck the water, I would get a bite. The fish were of uniform size and weighed about one pound each. We had equally good fishing upon the streams which connect the Eckford Lakes. At Racket Lake a controversy arose about the route to be taken. Alvord and Hoyt had a plan which Bird did not approve. Pierce and myself took no part in the debate; we had accepted Bird as leader and we chose to follow him.

We were quartered in a log house that had been built for the use of some railway surveyors, but it was then occupied by a man who went by the name of Wood. It was rumored that he was a refugee from Lowell, Mass. He had lost both legs to the knees by freezing, and he walked upon the stumps with considerable speed. He was able to walk to the settlement at Lake Pleasant, a distance of thirty-eight miles. He had a wife and one daughter, who were as ignorant as barbarians. After a warm and almost bitter debate between Hoyt and Bird, a separation was resolved upon. Hoyt and Alvord went northward and we resolved to return by the way of Indian and Louis Lakes to Lake Pleasant. Bird had incurred some expenses for our outfit, and Hoyt in his excitement resolved to pay his share at once. He had no money nor was there any money of consequence in the party. In this condition of affairs Hoyt exclaimed, "Who will give me the money for a check on the Greenfield Bank?"

Bird, Pierce, and myself, with three guides, turned our faces toward the Eckford Lakes and Mt. Emmons. From Eckford we made our way to Indian Lake. The day was warm and rainy in showers. The guides were ignorant of the route, having never passed over it, and the distance was estimated at twenty miles. We started in the morning in good spirits and confident of getting through to Forbes' Clearing on Indian Lake. We followed a road made by the lumbermen and about noon we crossed an upper branch of the Hudson and came upon a small dwelling where an Irishman and a boy were grinding an ax.

They were protected from flies and mosquitoes by a dull fire of chips and leaves called a smudge. We asked for dinner and the way to Indian Lake. They could not give us a dinner nor say definitely how we were to get to Indian Lake. The man said there was another house farther along where we might get something to eat, and he would follow in a short time and go with us to the lake. We soon reached the second dwelling where we found a woman and children; the husband having gone to the settlement for supplies. She gave us some ham and corn bread, to which we added tea from our own stock. When we were approaching the house, we saw a deer making for the thick forest. This was the only deer that I saw after my trip on the lake with Burr. When our meal was over, we followed the Irishman into the thick wood where there was no path, and where our way was often blocked by fallen trees. Many times in the course of an hour we heard the noise caused by the fall of a tree, and once when winding our way by the steep side of a mountain, we saved ourselves by fleeing towards the lake. The tree was a huge yellow birch and it was so much decayed that it was broken into thousands of pieces, trunk as well as branches.

When we began our trip, Pierce was unwell and the tramp of this day quite overcame him. He often sat down upon fallen trees, and deplored his folly in going into the woods. He amused us by his bids, offering first five dollars and then from time to time advancing his offer to anyone who would set him down at old John C.'s. When we came in sight of the lake we raised the sum of fifty cents for our guide and dismissed him. We then proceeded up the lake, keeping ourselves within sight of it for the most part. At about sunset we reached an opening where a small stream entered the lake. Pierce sat down upon the ground and announced that he would not walk another step that night. In that condition of affairs we sent guides forward with such luggage as they could take, and with directions to return with a boat as soon as they reached Forbes' Clearing. During twilight we saw a boat coming down the lake. The boatman proved to be James Sturgis with a small boat designed to carry two persons. We were four, and when we were seated the water was within an inch of the top of the gunwale. I told Sturgis to keep near the shore. In doing so he ran upon the limb of a fallen tree. The boat careened on one side and then the other, dipping water. At last we got off and after an hour's rowing, we reached the clearing, where we got a supper and the privilege of sleeping on the floor of the log house.

The next morning we obtained the use of a large flat-bottomed scow and paddled ourselves up the river which flows into the Indian Lake from Louis Lake. The distance was about nine miles and through an intervale from half a mile to two miles in width. This valley was studded with huge trees at such a distance from each other that it might well be called a park, and when in a state of nature it must have been not only beautiful, but magnificent. The curse of civilization was upon it, however. For lumbering purposes a dam had then been built across the outlet of Indian Lake, and the intervale had been overflowed until all the trees were dead. The grass was rich and we were told that it was a favorite feeding ground of the deer.

At Louis Lake I made an excuse to visit Burr Sturgis' mother who lived with her husband on the opposite side of the lake from our camp. I asked Burr to take me across that I might get from his mother some corn cakes. We found Mrs. Sturgis to be a woman about forty-five years of age with some of the freshness of youth in her appearance, and in conversation quite above her surroundings. She had had a large family of children all born in the woods. The rumor among the guides was that she was from Connecticut. There were rumors about all the inhabitants of the woods, but of authentic history there was but little. The imagination might sketch the history of Mrs. Sturgis.

NOTE.—Burr Sturgis and James Sturgis were brothers.

XXI ORGANIZATION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IN MASSACHUSETTS IN 1855—AND THE EVENTS PRECEDING THE WAR

In the month of August 1855, the Republican Party of Massachusetts was organized, and under the head of those who signed the call, a convention was held at Worcester, the eighteenth day of September, of that year. In Mr. Webster's time the Whig Party had been divided into two parts, known as Conscience Whigs and Cotton Whigs. The Conscience Whigs had become Free-soilers, and the Cotton Whigs upheld the flag of the party in the belief that trade would follow the flag. The death of Mr. Webster and the election of General Pierce ended the Whig Party in the State. In 1855 the Democratic Party was a nerveless organization, and without hope, except as the leaders looked to the supremacy of the party in the country as a guaranty of office-holding to the few who were in the ascendency in the commonwealth. In one short year of power the Know Nothing Party had destroyed its influence in the State. Thus was the way prepared for a new and formidable organization, destined to succeed under the declaration that slavery was not to be extended to the territories of the Union.

The first meeting of the men who led the organization of the Republican Party was held at the United States Hotel. By adjournment the second meeting was held at Chapman Hall. At this meeting a committee of twenty-seven persons was chosen, of which the Honorable Samuel Hoar was chairman. He had been a Whig of the Federalist school, he was a lawyer of eminence, ranking all but the few greatest leaders of the bar, he had had a career of useful public service, and he enjoyed the respect and the confidence of the commonwealth. His associates were Homer Bartlett, Charles Francis Adams, George S. Boutwell, Stephen C. Phillips, George Bliss, H. L. Dawes, John Brooks, Charles Allen, Moses Kimball, R. H. Dana, Jr., Marcus Morton, Jr., William H. Wood, W. S. Breckinridge, James H. Mitchell, George Grennell, D. W. Alvord, Increase Sumner, William Clark, Charles W. Slack, Thomas D. Elliot, Samuel Bowles, William Brigham, Ivers Phillips, George Cogswell of Bradford, John H. Shaw. At this date, June 12, 1900, three of the signers are living: H. L. Dawes, George Cogswell, and the writer of this volume. A very exact account of the proceedings of the Chapman Hall meeting may be found in the Boston Journal under the dates of August 16, 17, 22, 23, and 30.

Mr. Franklin Dexter, a son of Samuel Dexter, was named upon the committee. Mr. Dexter declined the appointment, and in a letter which is printed in the Journal under one of the dates named, he gave his reasons. The one controlling reason was the fear that the persons engaged in the movement would go too far and involve the country in troubles and evils greater than those which the nation was then experiencing. To these considerations, Mr. Winthrop, in a private interview, added objections of a personal nature.

A supplementary call, signed by more than a hundred citizens, including Senator Wilson, was subjoined to the call of the committee. The impetus which the Know Nothing Party had received in the election of 1854 was sufficient to secure the re-election of Governor Gardner over Julius Rockwell, the first candidate of the Republican Party in the State. In 1856 Governor Gardner was elected as the candidate of the Republican Party. Since the year 1856 the Republican Party has given direction to the policy of the State.

In 1858 my friends made an effort to secure my nomination for the United States House of Representatives. I was indifferent to the movement, although I did not decline to be considered for the nomination. Some of my best friends urged me to remain where I was, and my opponents were certain that no one else could perform the duties in a manner so acceptable. At the Convention I received sixty- three votes, and my opponent, Charles R. Train, received sixty-six votes. Train was declared the nominee, and as such he was elected. After the Convention was over, some person of an inquiring turn of mind found that if every portion of the district had been represented the total vote could not have exceeded one hundred and eighteen. This discovery led to some crimination, each party charging the other with fraud.

When in 1860 notices were posted in the town of Concord calling upon the Republicans to meet in caucus, to choose delegates to the State Convention, Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson called at the office of George M. Brooks, who was an active supporter of Mr. Train, and said:

"I see there is to be a caucus to choose delegates to the Convention, and I have called to make an inquiry about it, as Mr. Boutwell was cheated out of his nomination two years ago."

Mr. Brooks said in reply:

"This caucus is for delegates to the State Convention. The District Convention has not been called. But we thought the cheating was on the other side."

"Ah!" said Mr. Emerson. "I see that you are not for Mr. Boutwell. Do you know of anybody in the village who is for Mr. Boutwell?"

Mr. Brooks did not give him the information, and he went away. When the evening came for the district caucus, the leading men who managed the caucuses usually, went to the hall, and to their surprise they found the transcendentalists in force, surrounded by a deep fringe of farmers from all parts of the town. The meeting was organized. Four delegates were to be chosen. Upon the nomination of candidates the names were placed upon a sheet of paper, and then the citizens passed around and each one marked against four names. The friends of Train secured the lead, in making nominations, and my friend followed with four names. When this ceremony was over, Mr. Emerson rose and said:

"The first four names on that paper are for Mr. Train. The second four names are for Mr. Boutwell. We are for Mr. Boutwell, and our friends will be careful not to vote for the first four names, but to vote for the second four names."

Mr. Emerson's policy prevailed, and as far as I know, this was his only appearance in Concord politics. In that year I had a majority of the delegates to the convention, but I attended, withdrew my name, and nominated Mr. Train for election. When I was elected in 1862, Mr. Emerson gave me his support and during my term I received many letters from him in approval of my course, which to many others seemed extreme and unwise. My acquaintance with Mr. Emerson was never intimate, but it was always friendly and I rest in the belief that he so wished our relations to continue. It began in the Forties, when he honored me with his presence at the Concord Lyceum, where, for a period, I had an opportunity to speak. It was my better fortune to hear Mr. Emerson speak on many occasions. He was not an orator in a popular sense, but he had the capacity to make his auditors anxious to hear what he would say in his next sentence, which, not infrequently, was far removed from the preceding sentence.

In April, 1859, I presided at a dinner in honor of Jefferson. In the speech that I then made, I predicted the Rebellion, although at that time there were but few who expected an event more serious than a political struggle. I then said:

"The great issue with slavery is upon us. We cannot escape it. The policy of men may have precipitated the contest; but, from the first, it was inevitable. The result is not doubtful. The labor, the business, the wealth, the learning, the civilization, of the whole country, South as well as North, will ultimately be found on the side of freedom. The power of the North is not in injustice. We are bound to be just; we can afford to be generous. Concede to our brethren of the South every constitutional right without murmuring and without complaint. Under the Constitution and in the Union every difficulty will disappear, every obstacle will be overcome. But, rendering justice to others, let us secure justice for ourselves; and we of the North, not they of the South, shall be held responsible, if the slave- trade upon the high seas is openly pursued or covertly permitted, if new territory is consigned to slavery, or if the gigantic powers of this government are longer perverted to the support of an institution dangerous to the welfare of the people and hostile to the perpetuity of the Union."

A letter from Abraham Lincoln was read at the Jefferson dinner. As Mr. Lincoln's letter has more value, manifestly, in the year 1901, than it appeared to have in the year 1859, I reprint the important parts of that communication:

"Bearing in mind that about seventy years ago two great political parties were first formed in this country—that Jefferson was the head of one of them, and Boston the headquarters of the other, it is both curious and interesting that those supposed to descend politically from the party opposed to Jefferson should now be celebrating his birthday, in their own original seat of empire, while those claiming political descent from him have nearly ceased to breathe his name everywhere. But soberly, it is now no child's play to save the principles of Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation. One would state with great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the simpler propositions of Euclid are true; but nevertheless he would fail, utterly, with one who should deny the definitions and axioms.

"The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society. And yet they are denied and evaded, with no small show of success. One dashingly calls them 'evident lies.' And others insidiously argue that they apply only to 'superior races.'

"These expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and effect—the supplanting the principles of free government, and restoring those of classification, caste, and legitimacy. They would delight a convocation of crowned heads plotting against the people. They are the vanguard—the sappers and miners of returning despotism. We must repulse them, or they will subjugate us. This is a world of compensation; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves, and under a just God cannot long retain it. All honor to Jefferson—to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling block to the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression."

In the canvass of 1860 I made a speech at Cambridge in reply to a speech made in Faneuil Hall by Mr. Yancey. I again gave my opinion that war was impending. I then saw that the preliminary incidental conspiracy was in the Democratic Party, by which the party was to be divided, and by which the Republican Party was assured of success. Had the government been continued in the hands of the Democrats there could have been no pretext for rebellion. The first necessary step in the movement was the destruction of the Democratic Party. That step was taken, and thus the way was opened for the election of Mr. Lincoln. The secession of the States, beginning with South Carolina, was a recognition of the legitimacy of the Government, of which Mr. Lincoln became the head. This recognition was consummated beyond question, when Vice-President Breckinridge announced the election of Mr. Lincoln, in February, 1861.

The interests of the seceding States would have been promoted as the measures of the incoming administration would have been retarded, if the members from those States could have retained their seats in Congress. It is probably that in the excitement of the time, the States gave no thought to the question whether it would be wise to allow their members to remain in the old Congress, and there thwart the administration in its efforts to raise men and money. However that may have been, when the Southern members left their seats they surrendered to the Republican Party that absolute power by which in the end the Rebellion was suppressed. Upon the theory of many Democrats and of some Republicans, that the seceding States were never out of the Union, they might have kept a representation in Congress while the States themselves were carrying on a war for the destruction of the old Government. Happily for the country the logic of events was mightier than the logic of the schools. The larger number of men who went out haughtily in 1860 and 1861 never returned.

In 1861 I was invited to deliver an address at Charlestown, Mass., on the anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans. I said nothing of that battle, for my thoughts were directed too exclusively to the prospect of war in the near future, to allow me to deal with the past except for the purpose of warning or encouragement. That address gave great offence to Democrats generally, and it led many Republicans to denounce me as unwise, and to declare that my counsels were dangerous. Governor Andrew, who had just taken his seat as Governor, accepted the view that I expressed, as did his privy counsellor, Frank W. Bird, although they had disagreed with me in the National Convention, of June, 1860. They were the earnest supporters of Mr. Seward, I was opposed to his nomination, and as I would not pledge myself to his support, I barely escaped defeat at the State Convention, which elected the delegates at large to the Chicago Convention.

In my address at Charlestown, I made these remarks, which gave no inconsiderable offence:

"In this juncture of affairs, we anxiously ask, what more remains to be done? I infer, from what I see and hear, that most of my countrymen believe that the election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency is to be declared in the customary way, and that he is to be inaugurated at Washington on the 4th of March next. The intentions of men are hidden from our view; but the necessities of the seceders we can appreciate, and the logic of events we can comprehend. It is a necessity of the South to prevent the inauguration of Lincoln. If he is inaugurated at Washington on the 4th of March, the cause of the secessionists is lost for ever. In all their proceedings, they have been wise and logical, thus far; and I assume that resistance to the inauguration of Lincoln is a part of their well-laid scheme. No man can now tell whether this scheme will be abandoned, whether it will be tried and fail, or whether it will be tried with success. I believe it will be tried.

"True, the administration has put itself on the side of order; the city is alarmed for its existence, knowing full well that if it is given up to the military or the mob, and the representatives of eighteen free States are, for a single hour only, fugitives from the capital of the country, its re-occupation will be upon terms less agreeable to the inhabitants of the District and the neighboring States. The possession of Washington does, in a considerable degree, control the future of this country. Believing, as I do, in the stern purpose of these men; knowing, also, that Maryland and Virginia command on the instant the presence of large bodies of volunteers,—I deem it only an act of common prudence, for the free States, without menaces, without threats, with solemn and official declarations even that no offensive movement will be undertaken, to organize, and put upon a war footing, a force of one hundred thousand men, who may be moved at any moment when desired by the authorities of the country.

"What, then, will be our position? The way ought to be open for the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln; but there are those who demand a compromise as a step necessary and preliminary to that event. I do not now speak of the demand made upon States, in their sovereign capacity, to repeal certain laws, concerning personal liberty, alleged to be unconstitutional. . . .

"The compromises of which I speak are the various propositions, which proceed upon the idea that the election by the people of a President of the Republic, in constitutional ways and by constitutional means only, shall not be consummated by his peaceful inauguration, unless the character of the government is fundamentally changed previously, or pledges given that such changes shall be permitted. I see no great evidence that these demands are to be acceded to; but I see that the demands themselves attack the fundamental principles of republican liberty. If disappointed men, be they few or many, be they conspirators and traitors, or misguided zealots merely, can interpret their will, and arrest or divert or contravene the public judgment, constitutionally expressed, then our government is no longer one of laws, but a government of men."

XXII AS SECRETARY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BOARD OF EDUCATION

In the early autumn of 1855 the Board of Education elected me to the office of secretary of the board. The position was offered to Mr. George B. Emerson, who declined to accept it for the reason that he was unwilling to perform the necessary labor. My predecessor was Barnas Sears, who resigned to accept the presidency of Brown University. I made no effort to secure the appointment; indeed, I was doubtful as to the wisdom of accepting it. I had been a member of the board for several years, and I had had a limited acquaintance with Mr. Mann during his term of office. Mr. Mann had had a brilliant career. He entered upon his duties at a time when the public schools of Massachusetts were in a low condition, and under his administration there had been a revival of interest, whose force is felt, I imagine, to this day. He attacked the customs and ridiculed the prejudices of the people, made war upon the practice of corporal punishment, engaged in a controversy with the Boston schoolmasters, and in the end he either achieved a victory whenever a stand was made against him, or he laid the foundation of ultimate success.

Dr. Sears was a man of peace. He was a carefully educated scholar and progressive in his ideas, but he relied upon quiet labor and carefully prepared arguments. He was at the head of the school system for the long period of thirteen years, and in that time great progress was made. He supplemented Mr. Mann by a steady and sturdy effort to establish permanently the reforms which Mr. Mann had inaugurated. One obnoxious relic of the ancient ways remained—the district system. In 1840 Governor Morton had called the school districts of the State, "Little Democracies." They were in fact little nurseries of selfishness and intrigue. In the selection of teachers, in the erection and repairs of school houses, and even in the business of furnishing the firewood, there were little intrigues and arrangements by which interested parties secured the appointment of a son or daughter to the place of teacher, or a contract for wood or work. The election of the committee not infrequently turned upon the interest of some influential citizens.

The great evil was the inefficiency of the teachers. Even in cases where the committeeman was left free to act, he was usually incapable of forming a safe opinion as to the quality of teachers. To be sure the examination and approval of candidates were left to the superintending committee, but most frequently the examination was deferred to a time only one or two days prior to the day when the school was to be commenced and the committee would too often yield to the temptation to keep the candidate even though the qualifications were unsatisfactory. The contest with the district system fell upon me, and during my administration the system was abolished. The end was not accomplished without vigorous opposition.

The citizens of the town of Mansfield took the field and under a memorial to the Legislature they appeared before the Committee on Education. The hearings were public in the hall of the House of Representatives. They made personal attacks upon me—among other things alleging that my traveling expenses were greater than the law allowed. This charge was met successfully by an opinion that had been given by Attorney-General Clifford. I changed the defence to an attack upon the promoters of the movement, and they retreated after a contest of several days; one of the party admitting that they were wrong in their views and wrong in their actions. For the most part, they were well intentioned persons, but not informed, or rather they were misinformed upon the subject of education. They were unimportant in numbers, but for a time they strewed the State with handbills, placards and newspaper articles. They illustrated one half of the fable of the frog and the ox.