University of Virginia Library

PART II
POLITICAL LIFE

CHAPTER III
FROM JACKSON TO FILLMORE—1832-1851

MY arrival in this world took place at one of the stormy periods of American political history. It was on the third of the three election days which carried Andrew Jackson a second time into the Presidency. Since that period, the election, with its paralysis of business, ghastly campaign lying, and monstrous vilification of candidates, has been concentrated into one day; but at that time all the evil passions of a presidential election were allowed to ferment and gather vitriolic strength during three days.

I was born into a politically divided family. My grandfather, on my mother's side, whose name I was destined to bear, was an ardent Democrat; had, as such, represented his district in the State legislature, and other public bodies; took his political creed from Thomas Jefferson, and adored Andrew Jackson. My father, on the other hand, was in all his antecedents and his personal convictions, a devoted Whig, taking his creed from Alexander Hamilton, and worshiping Henry Clay.

This opposition between my father and grandfather did not degenerate into personal bitterness; but it was very earnest, and, in later years, my mother told me that when Hayne, of South Carolina, made his famous speech, charging the North with ill-treatment of the South, my grandfather sent a copy of it to my father, as unanswerable; but that, shortly afterward, my father sent to my grandfather the speech of Daniel Webster, in reply, and

that, when this was read, the family allowed that the latter had the better of the argument. I cannot help thinking that my grandfather must have agreed with them, tacitly, if not openly. He loved the Hampshire Hills of Massachusetts, from which he came. Year after year he took long journeys to visit them, and Webster's magnificent reference to the "Old Bay State'' must have aroused his sympathy and pride.

Fortunately, at that election, as at so many others since, the good sense of the nation promptly accepted the result, and after its short carnival of political passion, dismissed the whole subject; the minority simply leaving the responsibility of public affairs to the majority, and all betaking themselves again to their accustomed vocations.

I do not remember, during the first seven years of my life, ever hearing any mention of political questions. The only thing I heard during that period which brings back a chapter in American politics, was when, at the age of five years, I attended an infant school and took part in a sort of catechism, all the children rising and replying to the teacher's questions. Among these were the following:

Q. Who is President of the United States?

A. Martin Van Buren.

Q. Who is governor of the State of New York?

A. William L. Marcy.

This is to me somewhat puzzling, for I was four years old when Martin Van Buren was elected, and my father was his very earnest opponent, yet, though I recall easily various things which occurred at that age and even earlier, I have no remembrance of any general election before 1840, and my only recollection of the first New York statesman elected to the Presidency is this mention of his name, in a child's catechism.

My recollections of American polities begin, then, with the famous campaign of 1840, and of that they are vivid. Our family had, in 1839, removed to Syracuse, which, although now a city of about one hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants, was then a village of fewer than six

thousand; but, as the central town of the State, it was already a noted gathering-place for political conventions and meetings. The great Whig mass-meeting held there, in 1840, was long famous as the culmination of the campaign between General Harrison and Martin Van Buren.

As a President, Mr. Van Buren had fallen on evil times. It was a period of political finance; of demagogical methods in public business; and the result was "hard times,'' with an intense desire throughout the nation for a change. This desire was represented especially by the Whig party. General Harrison had been taken up as its candidate, not merely because he had proved his worth as governor of the Northwestern Territory, and as a senator in Congress, but especially as the hero of sundry fights with the Indians, and, above all, of the plucky little battle at Tippecanoe. The most popular campaign song, which I soon learned to sing lustily, was "Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too,'' and sundry lines of it expressed, not only my own deepest political convictions and aspirations, but also those cherished by myriads of children of far larger growth. They ran as follows:

The campaign was an apotheosis of tom-foolery. General Harrison had lived the life, mainly, of a Western farmer, and for a time, doubtless, exercised amid his rude surroundings the primitive hospitality natural to sturdy Western pioneers. On these facts the changes were rung. In every town and village a log cabin was erected where the Whigs held their meetings; and the bringing of logs, with singing and shouting, to build it, was a great event;

its front door must have a wooden latch on the inside; but the latch-string must run through the door; for the claim which the friends of General Harrison especially insisted upon was that he not only lived in a log cabin, but that his latch-string was always out, in token that all his fellow-citizens were welcome at his fireside.

Another element in the campaign was hard cider. Every log cabin must have its barrel of this acrid fluid, as the antithesis of the alleged beverage of President Van Buren at the White House. He, it was asserted, drank champagne, and on this point I remember that a verse was sung at log-cabin meetings which, after describing, in a prophetic way the arrival of the "Farmer of North Bend'' at the White House, ran as follows:

"Prince John'' was President Van Buren's brilliant son; famous for his wit and eloquence, who, in after years, rose to be attorney-general of the State of New York, and who might have risen to far higher positions had his principles equaled his talents.

Another feature at the log cabin, and in all political processions, was at least one raccoon; and if not a live raccoon in a cage, at least a raccoon skin nailed upon the outside of the cabin. This gave local color, but hence came sundry jibes from the Democrats, for they were wont to refer to the Whigs as "coons,'' and to their log cabins as "coon pens.'' Against all these elements of success, added to promises of better times, the Democratic party could make little headway. Martin Van Buren, though an admirable public servant in many ways, was discredited. M. de Bacourt, the French Minister at Washington, during his administration, was, it is true, very fond of him, and this cynical scion of French nobility

wrote in a private letter, which has been published in these latter days, "M. Van Buren is the most perfect imitation of a gentleman I ever saw.'' But this commendation had not then come to light, and the main reliance of the Democrats in capturing the popular good-will was their can-didate for the Vice-Presidency, Colonel Richard M. John-son, of Kentucky. He, too, had fought in the Indian wars, and bravely. Therefore it was that one of the Whig songs which especially rejoiced me, ran:

Among the features of that period which excited my imagination were the enormous mass meetings, with processions, coming in from all points of the compass, miles in length, and bearing every patriotic device and political emblem. Here the Whigs had infinitely the advantage. Their campaign was positive and aggressive. On platform-wagons were men working at every trade which ex-pected to be benefited by Whig success; log cabins of all sorts and sizes, hard-cider barrels, coon pens, great canvas balls, which were kept "a-rolling on,'' canoes, such as General Harrison had used in crossing Western rivers, eagles that screamed in defiance, and cocks that crowed for victory. The turning ball had reference to sundry lines in the foremost campaign song. For the October election in Maine having gone Whig by a large majority, clearly indicating what the general result was to be in November, the opening lines ran as follows:

Against all this the Democrats, with their negative and defensive platform, found themselves more and more at

a disadvantage; they fought with desperation, but in vain, and one of their most unlucky ventures to recover their position was an effort to undermine General Harrison's military reputation. For this purpose they looked about, and finally found one of their younger congressional representatives, considered to be a rising man, who, having gained some little experience in the Western militia, had received the honorary title of "General,'' Isaac M. Crary, of Michigan; him they selected to make a speech in Congress exhibiting and exploding General Harrison's mili-tary record. He was very reluctant to undertake it, but at last yielded, and, after elaborate preparation, made an argument loud and long, to show that General Harrison was a military ignoramus. The result was both comic and pathetic. There was then in Congress the most famous stump-speaker of his time, and perhaps of all times, a man of great physical, intellectual, and moral vigor; powerful in argument, sympathetic in manner, of infinite wit and humor, and, unfortunately for General Crary, a Whig,—Thomas Corwin, of Ohio. Mr. Crary's heavy, tedious, perfunctory arraignment of General Harrison being ended, Corwin rose and began an offhand speech on "The Military Services of General Isaac M. Crary.'' In a few minutes he had as his audience, not only the House of Representatives, but as many members of the Senate, of the Supreme Court, and visitors to the city, as could be crowded into the congressional chamber, and, of all humorous speeches ever delivered in Congress, this of Corwin has come down to us as the most successful. Long afterward, parts of it lingered in our "speakers' manuals'' and were declaimed in the public schools as ex-amples of witty oratory. Many years later, when the House of Representatives left the old chamber and went into that which it now occupies, Thurlow Weed wrote an interesting article on scenes he had witnessed in the old hall, and most vivid of all was his picture of this speech by Corwin. His delineations of Crary's brilliant exploits, his portrayal of the valiant charges made by Crary's troops on muster days upon the watermelon patches of Michigan, not only convulsed his audience, but were echoed throughout the nation, Whigs and Democrats laughing alike; and when John Quincy Adams, in a speech shortly afterward, referred to the man who brought on this tempest of fun as "the late General Crary,'' there was a feeling that the adjective indicated a fact. It really was so; Crary, although a man of merit, never returned to Congress, but was thenceforth dropped from political life. More than twenty years afterward, as I was passing through Western Michigan, a friend pointed out to me his tombstone, in a little village cemetery, with comments, half comic, half pathetic; and I also recall a mournful feeling when one day, in going over the roll of my students at the University of Michigan, I came upon one who bore the baptismal name of Isaac Crary. Evidently, the blighted young statesman had a daughter who, in all this storm of ridicule and contempt, stood by him, loved him, and proudly named her son after him.

Another feature in the campaign also impressed me. A blackguard orator, on the Whig side, one of those whom great audiences applaud for the moment and ever afterward despise,—a man named Ogle,—made a speech which depicted the luxury prevailing at the White House, and among other evidences of it, dwelt upon the "gold spoons'' used at the President's table, denouncing their use with such unction that, for the time, unthinking people regarded Martin Van Buren as a sort of American Vitellius. As a matter of fact, the scanty silver-gilt table utensils at the White House have been shown, in these latter days, in some very pleasing articles written by General Harrison's grandson, after this grandson had himself retired from the Presidency, to have been, for the most part, bought long before;—and by order of General Washington.

The only matter of political importance which, as a boy eight years old, I seized upon, and which dwells in my memory, was the creation of the "Sub-Treasury.'' That

this was a wise measure seems now proven by the fact that through all the vicissitudes of politics, from that day to this, it has remained and rendered admirable service. But at that time it was used as a weapon against the Democratic party, and came to be considered by feather-brained partizans, young and old, as the culmination of human wickedness. As to what the "Sub-Treasury'' really was I had not the remotest idea; but this I knew;— that it was the most wicked outrage ever committed by a remorseless tyrant upon a long-suffering people.

In November of 1840 General Harrison was elected. In the following spring he was inaugurated, and the Whigs being now for the first time in power, the rush for office was fearful. It was undoubtedly this crushing pressure upon the kindly old man that caused his death. What British soldiers, and Indian warriors, and fire, flood, and swamp fevers could not accomplish in over sixty years, was achieved by the office-seeking hordes in just one month. He was inaugurated on the fourth of March and died early in April.

I remember, as if it were yesterday, my dear mother coming to my bedside, early in the morning, and saying to me, "President Harrison is dead.'' I wondered what was to become of us. He was the first President who had died during his term of service, and a great feeling of relief came over me when I learned that his high office had devolved upon the Vice-President.

But now came a new trouble, and my youthful mind was soon sadly agitated. The Whig papers, especially the "New York Express'' and "Albany Evening Journal,'' began to bring depressing accounts of the new President, —tidings of extensive changes in the offices throughout the country, and especially in the post-offices. At first the Whig papers published these under the heading "Appointments by the President.'' But soon the heading changed; it became "Appointments by Judas Iscariot,'' or "Appointments by Benedict Arnold,'' and war was declared against President Tyler by the party that elected

him. Certain it is that no party ever found itself in a worse position than did the Whigs, when their Vice-President came into the Chief Magistracy; and equally certain is it that this position was the richly earned punishment of their own folly.

I have several times since had occasion to note the carelessness of National and State conventions in nominating a candidate for the second place upon the ticket—whether Vice-President or Lieutenant-Governor. It would seem that the question of questions—the nomination to the first office—having been settled, there comes a sort of collapse in these great popular assemblies, and that then, for the second office, it is very often anybody's race and mainly a matter of chance. In this way alone can be explained several nominations which have been made to second offices, and above all, that of John Tyler. As a matter of fact, he was not commended to the Whig party on any solid grounds. His whole political life had shown him an opponent of their main ideas; he was, in fact, a Southern doctrinaire, and frequently suffered from acute attacks of that very troublesome political disease, Virginia metaphysics. As President he attempted to enforce his doctrines, and when Whig leaders, and above all Henry Clay attempted, not only to resist, but to crush him, he asserted his dignity at the cost of his party, and finally tried that which other accidental Presidents have since tried with no better success, namely, to build up a party of his own by a new distribution of offices. Never was a greater failure. Mr. Tyler was dropped by both parties and disappeared from American political life forever. I can now see that he was a man obedient to his convictions of duty, such as they were, and in revolt against attempts of Whig leaders to humiliate him; but then, to my youthful mind, he appeared the very incarnation of evil.

My next recollections are of the campaign of 1844. Again the Whig party took courage, and having, as a boy of twelve years, acquired more earnest ideas regarding

the questions at issue, I helped, with other Whig boys, to raise ash-poles, and to hurrah lustily for Clay at public meetings. On the other hand, the Democratic boys hurrahed as lustily around their hickory poles and, as was finally proved, to much better purpose. They sang doggerel which, to me, was blasphemous, and especially a song with the following refrain: The ash-poles had reference to Ashland, Clay's Kentucky estate; and the hickory poles recalled General Jackson's sobriquet, "Old Hickory.'' For the Democratic candidate in 1844, James Knox Polk, was considered heir to Jackson's political ideas. The campaign of 1844 was not made so interesting by spectacular outbursts of tom-foolery as the campaign of 1840 had been. The sober second thought of the country had rather sickened people of that sort of thing; still, there was quite enough of it, especially as shown in caricatures and songs. The poorest of the latter was perhaps one on the Democratic side, for as the Democratic candidates were Polk of Tennessee and Dallas of Pennsylvania, one line of the song embraced probably the worst pun ever made, namely—

It was at this period that the feeling against the extension of slavery, especially as indicated in the proposed annexation of Texas, began to appear largely in politics, and though Clay at heart detested slavery and always refused to do the bidding of its supporters beyond what he thought absolutely necessary in preserving the Union, an unfortunate letter of his led great numbers of anti-slavery men to support a separate anti-slavery ticket, the candidate being James G. Birney. The result was that the election of Clay became impossible. Mr. Polk was

elected, and under him came the admission of Texas, which caused the Mexican War, and gave slavery a new lease of life. The main result, in my own environment, was that my father and his friends, thenceforward for a considerable time, though detesting slavery, held all abolitionists and anti-slavery men in contempt,—as unpatriotic because they had defeated Henry Clay, and as idiotic because they had brought on the annexation of Texas and thereby the supremacy of the slave States.

But the flame of liberty could not be smothered by friends or blown out by enemies; it was kept alive by vigorous counterblasts in the press, and especially fed by the lecture system, which was then at the height of its efficiency. Among the most powerful of lecturers was John Parker Hale, senator of the United States from New Hampshire, his subject being, "The Last Gladiatorial Combat at Rome.'' Taking from Gibbon the story of the monk Telemachus, who ended the combats in the arena by throwing himself into them and sacrificing his life, Hale suggested to his large audiences an argument that if men wished to get rid of slavery in our country they must be ready to sacrifice themselves if need be. His words sank deep into my mind, and I have sometimes thought that they may have had something to do in leading John Brown to make his desperate attempt on slavery at Harper's Ferry.

How blind we all were! Henry Clay, a Kentucky slaveholder, would have saved us. Infinitely better than the violent solutions proposed to us was his large statesmanlike plan of purchasing the slave children as they were born and setting them free. Without bloodshed, and at cost of the merest nothing as compared to the cost of the Civil War, he would thus have solved the problem; but it was not so to be. The guilt of the nation was not to be so cheaply atoned for. Fanatics, North and South, opposed him and, as a youth, I yielded to their arguments.

Four years later, in 1848, came a very different sort of election. General Zachary Taylor, who had shown sterling

qualities in the Mexican War, was now the candidate of the Whigs, and against him was nominated Mr. Cass, a general of the War of 1812, afterward governor of the Northwestern Territory, and senator from Michigan. As a youth of sixteen, who by that time had become earnestly interested in politics, I was especially struck by one event in this campaign. The Democrats of course realized that General Taylor, with the prestige gained in the Mexican War, was a very formidable opponent. Still, if they could keep their party together, they had hopes of beating him. But a very large element in their party had opposed the annexation of Texas and strongly disliked the extension of slavery;—this wing of the party in New York being known as the "Barn Burners,'' because it was asserted that they "believed in burning the barn to drive the rats out.'' The question was what these radical gentlemen would do. That question was answered when a convention, controlled largely by the anti-slavery Democrats of New York and other States, met at Buffalo and nominated Martin Van Buren to the Presidency. For a time it was doubtful whether he would accept the nomination. On one side it was argued that he could not afford to do so, since he had no chance of an election, and would thereby forever lose his hold upon the Democratic party; but, on the other hand, it was said that he was already an old man; that he realized perfectly the impossibility of his reêlection, and that he had a bitter grudge against the Democratic candidate, General Cass, who had voted against confirming him when he was sent as minister to Great Britain, thus obliging him to return home ingloriously. He accepted the nomination.

On the very day which brought the news of this acceptance, General Cass arrived in Syracuse, on his way to his home at Detroit. I saw him welcomed by a great procession of Democrats, and marched under a broiling sun, through dusty streets, to the City Hall, where he was forced to listen and reply to fulsome speeches prophesying his election, which he and all present knew to be impossible

For Mr. Van Buren's acceptance of the "free soil'' nomination was sure to divide the Democratic vote of the State of New York, thus giving the State to the Whigs; and in those days the proverb held good, "As New York goes, so goes the Union.''

For years afterward there dwelt vividly in my mind the picture of this old, sad man marching through the streets, listening gloomily to the speeches, forced to appear confident of victory, yet evidently disheartened and disgusted.

Very vivid are my recollections of State conventions at this period. Syracuse, as the "Central City,'' was a favorite place for them, and, as they came during the summer vacations, boys of my age and tastes were able to admire the great men of the hour,—now, alas, utterly forgotten. We saw and heard the leaders of all parties. Many impressed me; but one dwells in my memory, on account of a story which was told of him. This was a very solemn, elderly gentleman who always looked very wise but said nothing,—William Bouck of Schoharie County. He had white hair and whiskers, and having been appointed canal commissioner of the State, had discharged his duties by driving his old white family nag and buggy along the towing-path the whole length of the canals, keeping careful watch of the contractors, and so, in his simple, honest way, had saved the State much money. The result was the nickname of the "Old White Hoss of Schoharie,'' and a reputation for simplicity and honesty which made him for a short time governor of the State.

A story then told of him reveals something of his character. Being informed that Bishop Hughes of New York was coming to Albany, and that it would be well to treat him with especial courtesy, the governor prepared himself to be more than gracious, and, on the arrival of the bishop, greeted him most cordially with the words, "How do you do, Bishop; I hope you are well. How did you leave Mrs. Hughes and your family?'' To this the bishop answered, "Governor, I am very well, but there is no

Mrs. Hughes; bishops in our church don't marry.'' "Good gracious,'' answered the governor, "you don't say so; how long has that been?'' The bishop must have thoroughly enjoyed this. His Irish wit made him quick both at comprehension and repartee. During a debate on the school question a leading Presbyterian merchant of New York, Mr. Hiram Ketchum, made a very earnest speech against separate schools for Roman Catholics, and presently, turning to Bishop Hughes, said, "Sir, we respect you, sir, but, sir, we can't go your purgatory, sir.'' To this the bishop quietly replied, "You might go further and fare worse.''

Another leading figure, but on the Whig side, was a State senator, commonly known as "Bray'' Dickinson, to distinguish him from D. S. Dickinson who had been a senator of the United States, and a candidate for the Presidency. "Bray'' Dickinson was a most earnest supporter of Mr. Seward; staunch, prompt, vigorous, and really devoted to the public good. One story regarding him shows his rough-and-readiness.

During a political debate in the old Whig days, one of his Democratic brother senators made a long harangue in favor of Martin Van Buren as a candidate for the Presidency, and in the course of his speech referred to Mr. Van Buren as "the Curtius of the Republic.'' Upon this Dickinson jumped up, went to some member better educated in the classics than himself, and said, "Who in thunder is this Curtis that this man is talking about?'' "It is n't Curtis, it 's Curtius, "was the reply. "Well, now, " said Dickinson, "what did Curtius do?'' "Oh,'' said his informant, "he threw himself into an abyss to save the Roman Republic.'' Upon this Dickinson returned to his seat, and as soon as the Democratic speaker had finished, arose and said: "Mr. President, I deny the justice of the gentleman's reference to Curtius and Martin Van Buren. What did Curtius do? He threw himself, sir, into an abyss to save his country. What, sir, did Martin Van Buren do? He threw his country into an abyss to save himself.''

Rarely, if ever, has any scholar used a bit of classical knowledge to better purpose.

Another leading figure, at a later period, was a Democrat, Fernando Wood, mayor of New York, a brilliant desperado; and on one occasion I saw the henchmen whom he had brought with him take possession of a State convention and deliberately knock its president, one of the most respected men in the State, off the platform. It was an unfortunate performance for Mayor Wood, since the disgust and reaction thereby aroused led all factions of the Democratic party to unite against him.

Other leading men were such as Charles O'Conor and John Van Buren; the former learned and generous, but impracticable; the latter brilliant beyond belief, but not considered as representing any permanent ideas or principles.

During the campaign of 1848, as a youth of sixteen, I took the liberty of breaking from the paternal party; my father voting for General Taylor, I hurrahing for Martin Van Buren. I remember well how one day my father earnestly remonstrated against this. He said, "My dear boy, you cheer Martin Van Buren's name because you believe that if he is elected he will do something against slavery: in the first place, he cannot be elected; and in the second place, if you knew him as we older people do, you would not believe in his attachment to any good cause whatever.''

The result of the campaign was that General Taylor was elected, and I recall the feeling of awe and hope with which I gazed upon his war-worn face, for the first and last time, as he stopped to receive the congratulations of the citizens of Syracuse;—hope, alas, soon brought to naught, for he, too, soon succumbed to the pressure of official care, and Millard Fillmore of New York, the Vice-President, reigned in his stead.

I remember Mr. Fillmore well. He was a tall, large, fine-looking man, with a face intelligent and kindly, and he was noted both as an excellent public servant and an effective public speaker. He had been comptroller of

the State of New York,—then the most important of State offices, had been defeated as Whig candidate for governor, and had been a representative in Congress. He was the second of the accidental Presidents, and soon felt it his duty to array himself on the side of those who, by compromise with the South on the slavery question, sought to maintain and strengthen the Federal Union. Under him came the compromise measures on which our great statesmen of the middle period of the nineteenth century, Clay, Webster, Calhoun, and Benton, made their last speeches. Mr. Fillmore was undoubtedly led mainly by patriotic motives, in promoting the series of measures which were expected to end all trouble between the North and South, but which, unfortunately, embraced the Fugitive Slave Law; yet this, as I then thought, rendered him accursed. I remember feeling an abhorrence for his very name, and this feeling was increased when there took place, in the city of Syracuse, the famous "Jerry Rescue.''

4. CHAPTER IV
EARLY MANHOOD—1851-1857

ON the first day of October, 1851, there was shuffling about the streets of Syracuse, in the quiet pursuit of his simple avocations, a colored person, as nearly "of no account'' as any ever seen. So far as was known he had no surname, and, indeed, no Christian name, save the fragment and travesty,—"Jerry.''

Yet before that day was done he was famous; his name, such as it was, resounded through the land; and he had become, in all seriousness, a weighty personage in American history.

Under the law recently passed, he was arrested, openly and in broad daylight, as a fugitive slave, and was carried before the United States commissioner, Mr Joseph Sabine, a most kindly public officer, who in this matter was sadly embarrassed by the antagonism between his sworn duty and his personal convictions.

Thereby, as was supposed, were fulfilled the Law and the Prophets—the Law being the fugitive slave law recently enacted, and the Prophets being no less than Henry Clay and Daniel Webster.

For, as if to prepare the little city to sacrifice its cherished beliefs, Mr. Clay had some time before made a speech from the piazza of the Syracuse House, urging upon his fellow-citizens the compromises of the Constitution; and some months later Mr. Webster appeared, spoke from a balcony near the City Hall, and to the same purpose; but more so. The latter statesman was prophetic, not only in the hortatory, but in the predictive

sense; for he declared not only that the Fugitive Slave Law must be enforced, but that it would be enforced, and he added, in substance: "it will be enforced throughout the North in spite of all opposition—even in this city— even in the midst of your abolition conventions.'' This piece of prophecy was accompanied by a gesture which seemed to mean much; for the great man's hand was waved toward the City Hall just across the square—the classic seat and center of abolition conventions.

How true is the warning, "Don't prophesy unless you know!'' The arrest of Jerry took place within six months after Mr. Webster's speech, and indeed while an abolition convention was in session at that same City Hall; but when the news came the convention immediately dissolved, the fire-bells began to ring, a crowd moved upon the commissioner's office, surged into it, and swept Jerry out of the hands of the officers. The authorities having rallied, re-arrested the fugitive, and put him in confinement and in irons. But in the evening the assailants returned to the assault, carried the jail by storm, rescued Jerry for good, and spirited him off safe and sound to Canada, thus bringing to nought the fugitive slave law, as well as the exhortations of Mr. Clay and the predictions of Mr. Webster.

This rescue produced great excitement throughout the nation. Various persons were arrested for taking part in it, and their trials were adjourned from place to place, to the great hardship of all concerned. During a college vacation I was present at one of these trials at Canandaigua, the United States Judge, before whom it was held, being the Hon. N. K. Hall, who had been Mr. Fillmore's law partner in Buffalo. The evening before the trial an anti-slavery meeting was held, which I attended. It was opened with prayer by a bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Loguen, and of all prayers I have ever heard, this dwells in my mind as perhaps the most impressive. The colored minister's petitions for his race, bond and free, for Jerry and for those who had sought

to rescue him, for the souls of the kidnappers, and for the country which was to his people a land of bondage, were most pathetic. Then arose Gerrit Smith. Of all Tribunes of the People I have ever known he dwells in my memory as possessing the greatest variety of gifts. He had the prestige given by great wealth, by lavish generosity, by transparent honesty, by earnestness of purpose, by advocacy of every good cause, by a superb presence, and by natural eloquence of a very high order. He was very tall and large, with a noble head, an earnest, yet kindly face, and of all human voices I have ever heard his was the most remarkable for its richness, depth, and strength. I remember seeing and hearing him once at a Republican State Convention in the City Hall at Syracuse, when, having come in for a few moments as a spec-tator, he was recognized by the crowd and greeted with overwhelming calls for a speech. He was standing at the entrance door, towering above all about him, and there was a general cry for him to come forward to the platform. He declined to come forward; but finally observed to those near him, in his quiet, natural way, with the utmost simplicity, "Oh, I shall be heard.'' At this a shout went up from the entire audience; for every human being in that great hall had heard these words perfectly, though uttered in his usual conversational voice.

I also remember once entering the old Delavan House at Albany, with a college friend of mine, afterward Bishop of Maine, and seeing, at the other end of a long hall, Gerrit Smith in quiet conversation. In a moment we heard his voice, and my friend was greatly im-pressed by it, declaring he had never imagined such an utterance possible. It was indeed amazing; it was like the deep, clear, rich tone from the pedal bass of a cathedral organ. During his career in Congress, it was noted that he was the only speaker within remembrance who without effort made himself heard in every part of the old chamber of the House of Representatives,

which was acoustically one of the worst halls ever devised. And it was not a case of voice and nothing else; his strength of argument, his gift of fit expression, and his wealth of illustration were no less extraordinary.

On this occasion at Canandaigua he rose to speak, and every word went to the hearts of his audience. "Why,'' he began, "do they conduct these harassing proceedings against these men? If any one is guilty, I am guilty. With Samuel J. May I proposed the Jerry Rescue. We are responsible for it; why do they not prosecute us?'' And these words were followed by a train of cogent reasoning and stirring appeal.

The Jerry Rescue trials only made matters worse. Their injustice disgusted the North, and their futility angered the South. They revealed one fact which especially vexed the Southern wing of the Democratic party, and this was, that their Northern allies could not be depended upon to execute the new compromise. In this Syracuse rescue one of the most determined leaders was a rough burly butcher, who had been all his life one of the loudest of pro-slavery Democrats, and who, until he saw Jerry dragged in manacles through the streets, had been most violent in his support of the fugitive slave law. The trials also stimulated the anti-slavery leaders and orators to new vigor. Garrison, Phillips, Gerrit Smith, Sumner, and Seward aroused the anti-slavery forces as never before, and the "Biglow Papers'' of James Russell Lowell, which made Northern pro-slavery men ridiculous, were read with more zest than ever.

But the abolition forces had the defects of their qualities, and their main difficulty really arose from the stimulus given to a thin fanaticism. There followed, in the train of the nobler thinkers and orators, the "Fool Reformers,''—sundry long-haired men and short-haired women, who thought it their duty to stir good Christian people with blasphemy, to deluge the founders of the Republic with blackguardism, and to invent ever more and more ingenious ways for driving every sober-minded

man and woman out of the anti-slavery fold. More than once in those days I hung my head in disgust as I listened to these people, and wondered, for the moment, whether, after all, even the supremacy of slaveholders might not be more tolerable than the new heavens and the new earth, in which should dwell such bedraggled, screaming, denunciatory creatures.

At the next national election the Whigs nominated General Scott, a man of extraordinary merit and of grandiose appearance; but of both these qualities he was himself unfortunately too well aware; as a result the Democrats gave him the name of "Old Fuss and Feathers,'' and a few unfortunate speeches, in one of which he expressed his joy at hearing that "sweet Irish brogue,'' brought the laugh of the campaign upon him.

On the other hand the Democrats nominated Franklin Pierce; a man greatly inferior to General Scott in military matters, but who had served well in the State politics of New Hampshire and in Congress, was widely beloved, of especially attractive manners, and of high personal character.

He also had been in the Mexican War, but though he had risen to be brigadier-general, his military record amounted to very little. There was in him, no doubt, some alloy of personal with public motives, but it would be unjust to say that selfishness was the only source of his political ideas. He was greatly impressed by the necessity of yielding to the South in order to save the Union, and had shown this by his utterances and votes in Congress: the South, therefore, accepted him against General Scott, who was supposed to have moderate anti-slavery views.

General Pierce was elected; the policy of his administration became more and more deeply pro-slavery; and now appeared upon the scene Stephen Arnold Douglas— senator from Illinois, a man of remarkable ability,—a brilliant thinker and most effective speaker, with an extraordinary power of swaying men. I heard him at various

times; and even after he had committed what seemed to me the unpardonable sin, it was hard to resist his eloquence. He it was who, doubtless from a mixture of motives, personal and public, had proposed the abolition of the Missouri Compromise, which since the year 1820 had been the bulwark of the new territories against the encroachments of slavery. The whole anti-slavery sentiment of the North was thereby intensified, and as the establishment of north polarity at one end of the magnet excites south polarity at the other, so Southern feeling in favor of slavery was thereby increased. Up to a recent period Southern leaders had, as a rule, deprecated slavery, and hoped for its abolition; now they as generally advocated it as good in itself;—the main foundation of civil liberty; the normal condition of the working classes of every nation; and some of them urged the revival of the African slave-trade. The struggle became more and more bitter. I was during that time at Yale, and the general sentiment of that university in those days favored almost any concession to save the Union. The venerable Silliman, and a great majority of the older professors spoke at public meetings in favor of the pro-slavery compromise measures which they fondly hoped would settle the difficulty between North and South and reêstablish the Union on firm foundations. The new compromise was indeed a bitter dose for them, since it contained the fugitive slave law in its most drastic form; and every one of them, with the exception of a few theological doctrinaires who found slavery in the Bible, abhorred the whole slave system. The Yale faculty, as a rule, took ground against anti-slavery effort, and, among other ways of propagating what they considered right opinions, there was freely distributed among the students a sermon by the Rev. Dr. Boardman of Philadelphia, which went to extremes in advocating compromise with slavery and the slave power.

The great body of the students, also, from North and South, took the same side. It is a suggestive fact that

whereas European students are generally inclined to radicalism, American students have been, since the war of the Revolution, eminently conservative.

To this pro-slavery tendency at Yale, in hope of saving the Union, there were two remarkable exceptions, one being the beloved and respected president of the university, Dr. Theodore Dwight Woolsey, and the other his classmate and friend, the Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon, pastor of the great Center Church of New Haven, and frequently spoken of as the "Congregational Pope of New England.'' They were indeed a remarkable pair; Woolsey, quiet and scholarly, at times irascible, but always kind and just; Bacon a rugged, leonine sort of man who, when he shook his mane in the pulpit and addressed the New England conscience, was heard throughout the nation. These two, especially, braved public sentiment, as well as the opinion of their colleagues, and were supposed, at the time, to endanger the interests of Yale by standing against the fugitive slave law and other concessions to slavery and its extension. As a result Yale fell into disrepute in the South, which had, up to that time, sent large bodies of students to it, and I remember that a classmate of mine, a tall, harum-scarum, big-hearted, sandy-haired Georgian known as "Jim'' Hamilton, left Yale in disgust, returned to his native heath, and was there welcomed with great jubilation. A poem was sent me, written by some ardent admirer of his, beginning with the words:

On the other hand I was one of the small minority of students who remained uncompromisingly anti-slavery, and whenever I returned from Syracuse, my classmates and friends used to greet me in a jolly way by asking me "How are you, Gerrit; how did you leave the Rev. Antoinette Brown and brother Fred Douglas?'' In consequence I came very near being, in a small way, a martyr to my principles. Having had some success in winning

essay prizes during my sophomore and junior years, my name was naturally mentioned in connection with the election of editors for the "Yale Literary Magazine.'' At this a very considerable body of Southern students and their Northern adherents declared against me. I neither said nor did anything in the premises, but two of my most conservative friends wrought valiantly in my behalf. One was my dear old chum, Davies, the present Bishop of Michigan, at the very antipodes from myself on every possible question; and the other my life-long friend, Randall Lee Gibson of Kentucky, himself a large slaveholder, afterward a general in the Confederate service, and finally, at his lamented death a few years since, United States senator from Louisiana. Both these friends championed my cause, with the result that they saved me by a small majority.

As editor of the "Yale Literary Magazine,'' through my senior year, I could publish nothing in behalf of my cherished anti-slavery ideas, since a decided majority of my fellow-editors would have certainly refused admission to any obnoxious article, and I therefore confined myself, in my editorial capacity, to literary and abstract matters; but with my college exercises it was different. Professor Larned, who was charged with the criticism of our essays and speeches, though a very quiet man, was at heart deeply anti-slavery, and therefore it was that in sundry class-room essays, as well as in speeches at the junior exhibition and at commencement, I was able to pour forth my ideas against what was stigmatized as the "sum of human villainies.''

I was not free from temptation to an opposite course. My experience at the college election had more than once suggested to my mind the idea that possibly I might be wrong, after all; that perhaps the voice of the people was really the voice of God; that if one wishes to accomplish anything he must work in harmony with the popular will; and that perhaps the best way would be to conform to the general opinion. To do so seemed, certainly, the only

road to preferment of any kind. Such were the temptations which, in those days, beset every young man who dreamed of accomplishing something in life, and they beset me in my turn; but there came a day when I dealt with them decisively. I had come up across New Haven Green thinking them over, and perhaps paltering rather contemptibly with my conscience; but arriving at the door of North College, I stopped a moment, ran through the whole subject in an instant, and then and there, on the stairway leading to my room, silently vowed that, come what might, I would never be an apologist for slavery or for its extension, and that what little I could do against both should be done.

I may add that my conscience was somewhat aided by a piece of casuistry from the most brilliant scholar in the Yale faculty of that time, Professor James Hadley. I had been brought up with a strong conviction of the necessity of obedience to law as the first requirement in any State, and especially in a Republic; but here was the fugitive slave law. What was our duty regarding it? This question having come up in one of our division-room debates, Professor Hadley, presiding, gave a decision to the following effect: "On the statute books of all countries are many laws, obsolete and obsolescent; to disobey an obsolete law is frequently a necessity and never a crime. As to disobedience to an obsolescent law, the question in every man's mind must be as to the degree of its obsolescence. Laws are made obsolescent by change of circumstances, by the growth of convictions which render their execution impossible, and the like. Every man, therefore, must solemnly decide for himself at what period a law is virtually obsolete.''

I must confess that the doctrine seems to me now rather dangerous, but at that time I welcomed it as a very serviceable piece of casuistry, and felt that there was indeed, as Mr. Seward had declared, a "higher law'' than the iniquitous enactment which allowed the taking of a peaceful citizen back into slavery, without any of the

safeguards which had been developed under Anglo-Saxon liberty.

Though my political feelings throughout the senior year grew more and more intense, there was no chance for their expression either in competition for the Clarke Essay Prize or for the De Forest Oration Gold Medal, the subjects of both being assigned by the faculty; and though I afterward had the satisfaction of taking both these, my exultation was greatly alloyed by the thought that the ideas I most cherished could find little, if any, expression in them.

But on Commencement Day my chance came. Then I chose my own theme, and on the subject of "Modern Oracles'' poured forth my views to a church full of people; many evidently disgusted, but a few as evidently pleased. I dwelt especially upon sundry utterances of John Quincy Adams, who had died not long before, and who had been, during all his later years, a most earnest opponent of slavery, and I argued that these, with the declarations of other statesmen of like tendencies, were the oracles to which the nation should listen.

Curiously enough this commencement speech secured for me the friendship of a man who was opposed to my ideas, but seemed to like my presenting them then and there—the governor of the State, Colonel Thomas Seymour. He had served with distinction in the Mexican War, had been elected and reêlected, again and again, governor of Connecticut, was devotedly pro-slavery, in the interest, as he thought, of preserving the Union; but he remembered my speech, and afterward, when he was made minister to Russia, invited me to go with him, attached me to his Legation, and became one of the dearest friends I have ever had.

Of the diplomatic phase of my life into which he initiated me, I shall speak in another chapter; but, as regards my political life, he influenced me decidedly, for his conversation and the reading he suggested led me to study closely the writings of Jefferson. The impulse

thus given my mind was not spent until the Civil War, which, betraying the ultimate results of sundry Jeffersonian ideas, led me to revise my opinions somewhat and to moderate my admiration for the founder of American "Democracy,'' though I have ever since retained a strong interest in his teaching.

But deeply as both the governor and myself felt on the slavery question, we both avoided it in our conversation. Each knew how earnestly the other felt regarding it, and each, as if by instinct, kept clear of a discussion which could not change our opinions, and might wreck our friendship. The result was, that, so far as I remember, we never even alluded to it during the whole year we were together. Every other subject we discussed freely but this we never touched. The nearest approach to a discussion was when one day in the Legation Chancery at St. Petersburg, Mr. Erving, also a devoted Union pro-slavery Democrat, pointing to a map of the United States hanging on the wall, went into a rhapsody over the extension of the power and wealth of our country. I answered, "If our country could get rid of slavery in all that beautiful region of the South, such a riddance would be cheap at the cost of fifty thousand lives and a hundred millions of dollars.'' At this Erving burst forth into a torrent of brotherly anger. "There was no conceivable cause,'' he said, "worth the sacrifice of fifty thousand lives, and the loss of a hundred millions of dollars would mean the blotting out of the whole prosperity of the nation.'' His deep earnestness showed me the impossibility of converting a man of his opinions, and the danger of wrecking our friendship by attempting it. Little did either of us dream that within ten years from that day slavery was to be abolished in the United States, at the sacrifice not of fifty thousand, but of nearly a million lives, and at the cost not merely of a hundred millions, but, when all is told, of at least ten thousand millions of dollars!

I may mention here that it was in this companionship,

at St. Petersburg, that I began to learn why newspaper criticism has, in our country, so little permanent effect on the reputation of eminent men. During four years before coming abroad I had read, in leading Republican journals of New York and New Haven, denunciations of Governor Thomas Hart Seymour as an ignoramus, a pretender, a blatant demagogue, a sot and companion of sots, an associate, and fit associate, for the most worthless of the populace. I had now found him a man of real convictions, thoroughly a gentleman, quiet, conscientious, kindly, studious, thoughtful, modest, abstemious, hardly ever touching a glass of wine, a man esteemed and beloved by all who really knew him. Thus was first revealed to me what, in my opinion, is the worst evil in American public life,—that facility for unlimited slander, of which the first result is to degrade our public men, and the second result is to rob the press of that confidence among thinking people, and that power for good and against evil which it really ought to exercise. Since that time I have seen many other examples strengthening the same conviction.

Leaving St. Petersburg, I followed historical and, to some extent, political studies at the University of Berlin, having previously given attention to them in France; and finally, traveling in Italy, became acquainted with a man who made a strong impression upon me. This was Mr. Robert Dale Owen, then the American minister at Naples, whose pictures of Neapolitan despotism, as it then existed, made me even a stronger Republican than I had been before.

Returning to America I found myself on the eve of the new presidential election. The Republicans had nominated John C. Frémont, of whom all I knew was gathered from his books of travel. The Democrats had nominated James Buchanan, whom I, as an attaché of the legation at St. Petersburg, had met while he was minister of the United States at London. He was a most kindly and impressive old gentleman, had welcomed me cordially at his legation, and at a large dinner given by Mr. George

Peabody, at that time the American Amphitryon in the British metropolis, discussed current questions in a way that fascinated me. Of that I may speak in another chapter; suffice it here that he was one of the most attractive men in conversation I have ever met, and that is saying much.

I took but slight part in the campaign; in fact, a natural diffidence kept me aloof from active politics. Having given up all hope or desire for political preferment, and chosen a university career, I merely published a few newspaper and magazine articles, in the general interest of anti-slavery ideas, but made no speeches, feeling myself, in fact, unfit to make them.

But I shared more and more the feelings of those who supported Frémont.

Mr. Buchanan, though personal acquaintance had taught me to like him as a man, and the reading of his despatches in the archives of our legation at St. Petersburg had forced me to respect him as a statesman, represented to me the encroachments and domination of American slavery, while Frémont represented resistance to such encroachments, and the perpetuity of freedom upon the American Continent.

On election day, 1856, I went to the polls at the City Hall of Syracuse to cast my first vote. There I chanced to meet an old schoolmate who had become a brilliant young lawyer, Victor Gardner, with whom, in the old days, I had often discussed political questions, he being a Democrat and I a Republican. But he had now come upon new ground, and, wishing me to do the same, he tendered me what was known as "The American Ticket,'' bearing at its head the name of Millard Fillmore. He claimed that it represented resistance to the encroachments and dangers which he saw in the enormous foreign immigration of the period, and above all in the increasing despotism of the Roman Catholic hierarchy controlling the Irish vote. Most eloquently did my old friend discourse on the dangers from this source. He

insisted that Roman Catholic bishops and priests had wrecked every country in which they had ever gained control; that they had aided in turning the mediæval republics into despotisms; that they had ruined Spain and the South American republics; that they had rendered Poland and Ireland unable to resist oppression; that they had hopelessly enfeebled Austria and Italy; that by St. Bartholomew massacres and clearing out of Huguenots they had made, first, terrorism, and, finally, despotism necessary in France; that they had rendered every people they had controlled careless of truth and inclined to despotism,—either of monarchs or "bosses'';—that our prisons were filled with the youth whom they had trained in religion and morals; that they were ready to ravage the world with fire and sword to gain the slightest point for the Papacy; that they were the sworn foes of our public-school system, without which no such thing as republican government could exist among us; that, in fact, their bishops and priests were the enemies of everything we Americans should hold dear, and that their church was not so much a religious organization as a political conspiracy against the best that mankind had achieved.

"Look at the Italians, Spanish, French to-day, "he said. "The Church has had them under its complete control fifteen hundred years, and you see the result. Look at the Irish all about us;—always screaming for liberty, yet the most abject slaves of their passions and of their priesthood.''

He spoke with the deepest earnestness and even eloquence; others gathered round, and some took his tickets. I refused them, saying, "No. The question of all questions to me is whether slavery or freedom is to rule this Republic,'' and, having taken a Republican ticket, I went up-stairs to the polls. On my arrival at the ballot-box came a most exasperating thing. A drunken Irish Democrat standing there challenged my vote. He had, per-haps, not been in the country six months; I had lived in that very ward since my childhood, knew and was

known by every other person present; and such was my disgust that it is not at all unlikely that if one of Gardner's tickets had been in my pocket, it would have gone into the ballot-box. But persons standing by,—Democrats as well as Republicans,—having quieted this per-fervid patriot, and saved me from the ignominy of swearing in my vote, I carried out my original intention, and cast my first vote for the Republican candidate.

Certainly Providence was kind to the United States in that contest. For Frémont was not elected. Looking back over the history of the United States I see, thus far, no instant when everything we hold dear was so much in peril as on that election day.

We of the Republican party were fearfully mistaken, and among many evidences in history that there is "a Power in the universe, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness,'' I think that the non-election of Frémont is one of the most convincing. His election would have precipitated the contest brought on four years later by the election of Lincoln. But the Northern States had in 1856 no such preponderance as they had four years later. No series of events had then occurred to arouse and consolidate anti-slavery feeling like those between 1856 and 1860. Moreover, of all candidates for the Presidency ever formally nominated by either of the great parties up to that time, Frémont was probably the most unfit. He had gained credit for his expedition across the plains to California, and deservedly; his popular name of "Pathfinder'' might have been of some little use in a political campaign, and some romantic interest attached to him on account of his marriage with Jessie Benton, daughter of the burly, doughty, honest-purposed, headstrong senator from Missouri. But his earlier career, when closely examined, and, even more than that, his later career, during the Civil War, showed doubtful fitness for any duties demanding clear purpose, consecutive thought, adhesion to a broad policy, wisdom in counsel, or steadiness in action. Had he been elected in 1856 one of two things would undoubtedly

have followed: either the Union would have been permanently dissolved, or it would have been re-established by anchoring slavery forever in the Constitution. Never was there a greater escape.

On March 1, 1857, I visited Washington for the first time. It was indeed the first time I had ever trodden the soil of a slave State, and, going through Baltimore, a sense of this gave me a feeling of horror. The whole atmosphere of that city seemed gloomy, and the city of Washington no better. Our little company established itself at the National Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, then a famous hostelry. Henry Clay had died there not long before, and various eminent statesmen had made it, and were then making it, their headquarters.

On the evening of my arrival a curious occurrence showed me the difference between Northern and Southern civilization. As I sat in the reading-room, there rattled upon my ear utterances betokening a vigorous dispute in the adjoining bar-room, and, as they were loud and long, I rose and walked toward the disputants, as men are wont to do on such occasions in the North; when, to my surprise I found that, though the voices were growing steadily louder, people were very generally leaving the room; presently, the reason dawned upon me: it was a case in which revolvers might be drawn at any moment, and the bystanders evidently thought life and limb more valuable than any information they were likely to obtain by remaining.

On the evening of the third of March I went with the crowd to the White House. We were marshalled through the halls, President Pierce standing in the small chamber adjoining the East Room to receive the guests, around him being members of the Cabinet, with others distinguished in the civil, military, and naval service, and, among them, especially prominent, Senator Douglas, then at the height of his career. Persons in the procession were formally presented, receiving a kindly handshake, and then allowed to pass on. My abhorrence of the President

and of Douglas was so bitter that I did a thing for which the only excuse was my youth:—I held my right hand by my side, walked by and refused to be presented.

Next morning I was in the crowd at the east front of the Capitol, and, at the time appointed, Mr. Buchanan came forth and took the oath administered to him by the Chief Justice, Roger Brooke Taney of Maryland. Though Taney was very decrepit and feeble, I looked at him much as a Spanish Protestant in the sixteenth century would have looked at Torquemada; for, as Chief Justice, he was understood to be in the forefront of those who would fasten African slavery on the whole country; and this view of him seemed justified when, two days after the inauguration, he gave forth the Dred Scott decision, which interpreted the Constitution in accordance with the ultra pro-slavery theory of Calhoun.

Having taken the oath, Mr. Buchanan delivered the inaugural address, and it made a deep impression upon me. I began to suspect then, and I fully believe now, that he was sincere, as, indeed, were most of those whom men of my way of thinking in those days attacked as pro-slavery tools and ridiculed as "doughfaces.'' We who had lived remote from the scene of action, and apart from pressing responsibility, had not realized the danger of civil war and disunion. Mr. Buchanan, and men like him, in Congress, constantly associating with Southern men, realized both these dangers. They honestly and patriotically shrank from this horrible prospect; and so, had we realized what was to come, would most of us have done. I did not see this then, but looking back across the abyss of years I distinctly see it now. The leaders on both sides were honest and patriotic, and, as I firmly believe, instruments of that "Power in the universe, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness.''

There was in Mr. Buchanan's inaugural address a tone of deep earnestness. He declared that all his efforts should be given to restore the Union, and to reêstablish it upon permanent foundations; besought his fellow-citizens

throughout the Union to second him in this effort, and promised that under no circumstances would he be a candidate for reêlection. My anti-slavery feelings remained as deep as ever, but, hearing this speech, there came into my mind an inkling of the truth: "Hinter dem Berge sind auch Leute.''

During my stay in Washington I several times visited the Senate and the House, in the old quarters which they shortly afterward vacated in order to enter the more commodious rooms of the Capitol, then nearly finished. The Senate was in the room at present occupied by the Supreme Court, and from the gallery I looked down upon it with mingled feelings of awe, distrust, and aversion. There, as its president, sat Mason of Virginia, author of the fugitive slave law; there, at the desk in front of him, sat Cass of Michigan, who, for years, had been especially subservient to the slave power; Douglas of Illinois, who had brought about the destruction of the Missouri Compromise; Butler of South Carolina, who represented in perfection the slave-owning aristocracy; Slidell and Benjamin of Louisiana, destined soon to play leading parts in the disruption of the Union.

But there were others. There was Seward, of my own State, whom I had been brought up to revere, and who seemed to me, in the struggle then going on, the incarnation of righteousness; there was Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, just recovering from the murderous blows given him by Preston Brooks of South Carolina, —a martyr, as I held, to his devotion to freedom; there was John Parker Hale of New Hampshire, who had been virtually threatened with murder, as a penalty for his opposition to slavery; and there was bluff Ben Wade of Ohio, whose courage strengthened the whole North.

The House of Representatives interested me less. In it there sat various men now mainly passed out of human memory; and, unfortunately, the hall, though one of the finest, architecturally, in the world, was one of the least suited to its purpose. To hear anything

either in the galleries or on the floor was almost an impossibility.

The Supreme Court, though sitting in a wretched room in the basement, made a far deeper impression upon me. The judges, seated in a row, and wearing their simple, silken gowns, seemed to me, in their quiet dignity, what the highest court of a great republic ought to be; though I looked at Chief Justice Taney and his pro-slavery associates much as a Hindoo regards his destructive gods.

The general impression made upon me at Washington was discouraging. It drove out from my mind the last lingering desire to take any part in politics. The whole life there was repulsive to me, and when I reflected that a stay of a few years in that forlorn, decaying, reeking city was the goal of political ambition, the whole thing seemed to me utterly worthless. The whole life there bore the impress of the slipshod habits engendered by slavery, and it seemed a civilization rotting before ripeness. The city was certainly, at that time, the most wretched capital in Christendom. Pennsylvania Avenue was a sort of Slough of Despond,—with ruts and mud-holes from the unfinished Capitol, at one end, to the unfinished Treasury building, at the other, and bounded on both sides with cheap brick tenements. The extensive new residence quarter and better hotels of these days had not been dreamed of. The "National,'' where we were living, was esteemed the best hotel, and it was abominable. Just before we arrived, what was known as the "National Hotel Disease'' had broken out in it;— by some imputed to an attempt to poison the incoming President, in order to bring the Vice-President into his place. But that was the mere wild surmise of a political pessimist. The fact clearly was that the wretched sewage of Washington, in those days, which was betrayed in all parts of the hotel by every kind of noisome odor, had at last begun to do its work. Curiously enough there was an interregnum in the reign of sickness and death,

probably owing to some temporary sanitary efforts, and that interregnum, fortunately for us, was coincident with our stay there. But the disease set in again shortly afterward, and a college friend of mine, who arrived on the day of our departure, was detained in the hotel for many weeks with the fever then contracted. The number of deaths was considerable, but, in the interest of the hotel, the matter was hushed up, as far as possible.

The following autumn I returned to New Haven as a resident graduate, and, the popular lecture system being then at its height, was invited to become one of the lecturers in the course of that winter. I prepared my discourse with great care, basing it upon studies and observations during my recent stay in the land of the Czar, and gave it the title of "Civilization in Russia.''

I remember feeling greatly honored by the fact that my predecessor in the course was Theodore Parker, and my successor Ralph Waldo Emerson. Both talked with me much about my subject, and Parker surprised me. He was the nearest approach to omniscience I had ever seen. He was able to read, not only Russian, but the Old Slavonic. He discussed the most intimate details of things in Russia, until, at last, I said to him, "Mr. Parker, I would much rather sit at your feet and listen to your information regarding Russia, than endeavor to give you any of my own. "He was especially interested in the ethnology of the empire, and had an immense knowledge of the different peoples inhabiting it, and of their characteristics. Finally, he asked me what chance I thought there was for the growth of anything like free institutions in Russia. To this I answered that the best thing they had was their system of local peasant meetings for the repartition of their lands, and for the discussion of subjects connected with them, and that this seemed to me something like a germ of what might, in future generations, become a sort of town-meeting system, like that of New England. This let me out of the discussion very satisfactorily, for

Parker told me that he had arrived at the same conclusion, after talking with Count Gurowski, who was, in those days, an especial authority.

In due time came the evening for my lecture. As it was the first occasion since leaving college that I had appeared on any stage, a considerable number of my old college associates and friends, including Professor (afterward President) Porter, Dr. Bacon, and Mr. (afterward Bishop) Littlejohn, were there among the foremost, and after I had finished they said some kindly things, which encouraged me.

In this lecture I made no mention of American slavery, but into an account of the events of my stay at St. Petersburg and Moscow during the Crimean War, and of the death and funeral of the Emperor Nicholas, with the accession and first public address of Alexander II, I sketched, in broad strokes, the effects of the serf system,—effects not merely upon the serfs, but upon the serf owners, and upon the whole condition of the empire. I made it black indeed, as it deserved, and though not a word was said regarding things in America, every thoughtful man present must have felt that it was the strongest indictment against our own system of slavery which my powers enabled me to make.

Next day came a curious episode. A classmate of mine, never distinguished for logical acuteness, came out in a leading daily paper with a violent attack upon me and my lecture. He lamented the fact that one who, as he said, had, while in college, shown much devotion to the anti-slavery cause, had now faced about, had no longer the courage of his opinions, and had not dared say a word against slavery in the United States. The article was laughable. It would have been easy to attack slavery and thus at once shut the minds and hearts of a large majority of the audience. But I felt then, as I have generally felt since, that the first and best thing to do is to set people at thinking, and to let them discover, or think that they discover, the truth for themselves. I made no reply, but an

eminent clergyman of New Haven took up the cudgels in my favor, covered my opponent with ridicule, and did me the honor to declare that my lecture was one of the most effective anti-slavery arguments ever made in that city. With this, I retired from the field well satisfied.

The lecture was asked for in various parts of the country, was delivered at various colleges and universities, and in many cities of western New York, Michigan, and Ohio; and finally, after the emancipation of the serfs, was recast and republished in the "Atlantic Monthly'' under the title of "The Rise and Decline of the Serf System in Russia.''

And now occurred a great change in my career which, as I fully believed, was to cut me off from all political life thoroughly and permanently. This was my election to the professorship of history and English literature in the University of Michigan.

CHAPTER V
THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD—1857-1864

ARRIVING at the University of Michigan in October, 1857, I threw myself into my new work most hear-tily. Though I felt deeply the importance of the ques-tions then before the country, it seemed to me that the only way in which I could contribute anything to their solution was in aiding to train up a new race of young men who should understand our own time and its problems in the light of history.

It was not difficult to point out many things in the past that had an important bearing upon the present, and my main work in this line was done in my lecture-room. I made no attempts to proselyte any of my hearers to either political party, my main aim being then, as it has been through my life, when dealing with students and the public at large, to set my audience or my readers at thinking, and to give them fruitful historical subjects to think upon. Among these subjects especially brought out in dealing with the middle ages, was the origin, growth, and decline of feudalism, and especially of the serf system, and of municipal liberties as connected with it. This, of course, had a general bearing upon the important problem we had to solve in the United States during the second half of that century.

In my lectures on modern history, and especially on the Reformation period, and the events which led to the French Revolution, there were various things throwing light upon our own problems, which served my purpose of arousing thought. My audiences were large and attentive, and I have never, in the whole course of my life,

enjoyed any work so much as this, which brought me into hearty and close relations with a large body of active-minded students from all parts of our country, and especially from the Northwest. More and more I realized the justice of President Wayland's remark, which had so impressed me at the Yale Alumni meeting just after my return from Europe: that the nation was approaching a "switching-off place''; that whether we were to turn toward evil or good in our politics would be decided by the great Northwest, and that it would be well for young Americans to cast in their lot with that part of the country.

In the intervals of my university work many invitations came to me from associations in various parts of Michigan and neighboring States to lecture before them, and these I was glad to accept. Such lectures were of a much more general character than those given in the university, but by them I sought to bring the people at large into trains of thought which would fit them to grapple with the great question which was rising more and more portentously before us.

Having accepted, in one of my vacations, an invitation to deliver the Phi Beta Kappa Commencement Address at Yale, I laid down as my thesis, and argued it from history, that in all republics, ancient or modern, the worst foe of freedom had been a man-owning aristocracy—an aristocracy based upon slavery. The address was circulated in printed form, was considerably discussed, and, I trust, helped to set some few people thinking.

For the same purpose I also threw some of my lectures into the form of magazine articles for the "Atlantic Monthly,'' and especially one entitled "The Statesmanship of Richelieu,'' my effort in this being to show that the one great error of that greatest of all French statesmen was in stopping short of rooting out the serf system in France when he had completely subjugated the serf owners and had them at his mercy.

As the year 1860 approached, the political struggle became more and more bitter. President Buchanan in redeeming

his promise to maintain the Union had gone to lengths which startled and disappointed many of his most devoted supporters. Civil war had broken out in Kansas and Nebraska, with murder and massacre: desperate attempts were made to fasten the hold of the pro-slavery party permanently upon the State, and as desperately were these efforts repelled. A certain John Brown, who requited assassination of free-state men by the assassination of slave-state men,—a very ominous appearance,—began to be heard of; men like Professor Silliman, who, during my stay at Yale had spoken at Union meetings in favor of the new compromise measures, even including the fugitive slave law, now spoke publicly in favor of sending rifles to the free-state men in Kansas; and, most striking symptom of all, Stephen A. Douglas himself, who had led the Democratic party in breaking the Missouri Compromise, now recoiled from the ultra pro-slavery propaganda of President Buchanan. Then, too, came a new incitement to bitterness between North and South. John Brown, the man of Scotch-Covenanter type, who had imbibed his theories of political methods from the Old-Testament annals of Jewish dealings with the heathen, and who had in Kansas solemnly slaughtered in cold blood, as a sort of sacrifice before the Lord, sundry Missouri marauders who had assassinated free-state men, suddenly appeared in Virginia, and there, at Harper's Ferry, with a handful of fanatics subject to his powerful will, raised the standard of revolution against the slave-power. Of course he was easily beaten down, his forces scattered, those dearest to him shot, and he himself hanged. But he was a character of antique mold, and this desperate effort followed by his death, while it exasperated the South, stirred the North to its depths.

Like all such efforts, it was really mistaken and unfortunate. It helped to obscure Henry Clay's proposal to extinguish slavery peaceably, and made the solution of the problem by bloodshed more and more certain. And in the execution of John Brown was lost a man who, had he

lived until the Civil War, might have rendered enormous services as a partizan leader. Of course, his action aroused much thought among my students, and their ideas came out in their public discussions. It was part of my duty, once or twice a week, to preside over these discussions, and to decide between the views presented. In these decisions on the political questions now arising I became deeply interested, and while I was careful not to give them a partizan character, they were, of course, opposed to the dominance of slavery.

In the spring of 1860, the Republican National Convention was held at Chicago, and one fine morning I went to the railway station to greet the New York delegation on its way thither. Among the delegates whom I especially recall were William M. Evarts, under whose Secretaryship of State I afterward served as minister at Berlin, and my old college friend, Stewart L. Woodford, with whom I was later in close relations during his term as lieutenant-governor of New York and minister to Spain. The candidate of these New York delegates was of course Mr. Seward, and my most devout hopes were with him, but a few days later came news that the nomination had been awarded to Mr. Lincoln. Him we had come to know and admire during his debates with Douglas while the senatorial contest was going on in the State of Illinois; still the defeat of Mr. Seward was a great disappointment, and hardly less so in Michigan than in New York. In the political campaign which followed I took no direct part, though especially aroused by the speeches of a new man who had just appeared above the horizon,—Carl Schurz. His arguments seemed to me by far the best of that whole campaign—the broadest, the deepest, and the most convincing.

My dear and honored father, during the months of July, August, and the first days of September, was slowly fading away on his death-bed. Yet he was none the less interested in the question at issue, and every day I sat by his bedside and read to him the literature bearing upon

the contest; but of all the speeches he best liked those of this new orator—he preferred them, indeed, to those of his idol Seward.

I have related in another place how, years afterward, Bismarck asked me, in Berlin, to what Carl Schurz's great success in America was due, and my answer to this question.

Mr. Lincoln having been elected, I went on with my duties as before, but the struggle was rapidly deepening. Soon came premonitions of real conflict, and, early in the following spring, civil war was upon us. My teaching went on, as of old, but it became more direct. In order to show what the maintenance of a republic was worth, and what patriots had been willing to do for their country in a struggle not unlike ours, I advised my students to read Motley's "History of the Dutch Republic,'' and I still think it was good advice. Other works, of a similar character, showing how free peoples have conducted long and desperate wars for the maintenance of their national existence and of liberty, I also recommended, and with good effect.

Reverses came. During part of my vacation, in the summer of 1861, I was at Syracuse, and had, as my guest, Mr. George Sumner, younger brother of the eminent senator from Massachusetts, a man who had seen much of the world, had written magazine articles and reviews which had done him credit, and whose popular lectures were widely esteemed. One Sunday afternoon in June my uncle, Mr. Hamilton White, dropped in at my house to make a friendly call. He had just returned from Washington, where he had seen his old friend Seward, Mr. Lin-coln's Secretary of State, and felt able to give us a forecast of the future. This uncle of mine was a thoughtful man of affairs; successful in business, excellent in judgment, not at all prone to sanguine or flighty views, and on our asking him how matters looked in Washington he said, "Depend upon it, it is all right: Seward says that they have decided to end the trouble at once, even if it is

necessary to raise an army of fifty thousand men;—that they will send troops immediately to Richmond and finish the whole thing at once, so that the country can go on quietly about its business.''

There was, of course, something reassuring in so favorable a statement made by a sensible man fresh from the most accredited sources, and yet I could not resist grave doubts. Such historical knowledge as I possessed taught me that a struggle like that just beginning between two great principles, both of which had been gathering force for nearly a century, and each of which had drawn to its support millions of devoted men, was not to be ended so easily; but I held my peace.

Next day I took Mr. Sumner on an excursion up the beautiful Onondaga Valley. As we drove through the streets of Syracuse, noticing knots of men gathered here and there in discussion, and especially at the doors of the news offices, we secured an afternoon newspaper and drove on, engaged in earnest conversation. It was a charming day, and as we came to the shade of some large trees about two miles from the city we rested and I took out the paper. It struck me like death. There, displayed in all its horrors, was the first account of the Battle of Bull Run,— which had been fought the previous afternoon,—exactly at the time when my uncle was assuring us that the United States Army was to march at once to Richmond and end the war. The catastrophe seemed fatal. The plans of General McDowell had come utterly to nought; our army had been scattered to the four winds; large numbers of persons, including sundry members of Congress who had airily gone out with the army to "see the fun,'' among them one from our own neighborhood, Mr. Alfred Ely, of Rochester, had been captured and sent to Richmond, and the rebels were said to be in full march on the National Capital.

Sumner was jubilant. "This,'' he said, "will make the American people understand what they have to do; this will stop talk such as your uncle gave us yesterday after

noon.'' But to me it was a fearful moment. Sumner's remarks grated horribly upon my ears; true as his view was, I could not yet accept it.

And now preparations for war, and, indeed, for repelling invasion, began in earnest. My friends all about me were volunteering, and I also volunteered, but was rejected with scorn; the examining physician saying to me, "You will be a burden upon the government in the first hospital you reach; you have not the constitution to be of use in carrying a musket; your work must be of a different sort.''

My work, then, through the summer was with those who sought to raise troops and to provide equipments for them. There was great need of this, and, in my opinion, the American people have never appeared to better advantage than at that time, when they began to realize their duty, and to set themselves at doing it. In every city, village, and hamlet, men and women took hold of the work, feeling that the war was their own personal business. No other country since the world began has ever seen a more noble outburst of patriotism or more efficient aid by individuals to their government. The National and State authorities of course did everything in their power; but men and women did not wait for them. With the exception of those whose bitter partizanship led them to oppose the war in all its phases, men, women, and children engaged heartily and efficiently in efforts to aid the Union in its struggle.

Various things showed the depths of this feeling. I remember meeting one day, at that period, a man who had risen by hard work from simple beginnings to the head of an immense business, and had made himself a multi-millionaire. He was a hard, determined, shrewd man of affairs, the last man in the world to show anything like sentimentalism, and as he said something advising an investment in the newly created National debt, I answered, "You are not, then, one of those who believe that our new debt will be repudiated?'' He answered: "Repudiation

or no repudiation, I am putting everything I can rake and scrape together into National bonds, to help this government maintain itself; for, by G—d, if I am not to have any country, I don't want any money.'' It is to be hoped that this oath, bursting forth from a patriotic heart, was, like Uncle Toby's, blotted out by the recording angel. I have quoted it more than once to show how the average American—though apparently a crude materialist— is, at heart, a thorough idealist.

Returning to the University of Michigan at the close of the vacation, I found that many of my students had enlisted, and that many more were preparing to do so. With some it was hard indeed. I remember two especially, who had for years labored and saved to raise the money which would enable them to take their university course; they had hesitated, for a time, to enlist; but very early one morning I was called out of bed by a message from them, and, meeting them, found them ready to leave for the army. They could resist their patriotic convictions no longer, and they had come to say good-bye to me. They went into the war; they fought bravely through the thickest of it; and though one was badly wounded, both lived to return, and are to-day honored citizens. With many others it was different; many, very many of them, alas, were among the "unreturning brave!'' and loveliest and noblest of all, my dear friend and student, Frederick Arne, of Princeton, Illinois, killed in the battle of Shiloh, at the very beginning of the war, when all was blackness and discouragement. Another of my dearest students at that time was Albert Nye. Scholarly, eloquent, noble-hearted, with every gift to ensure success in civil life, he went forth with the others, rose to be captain of a company, and I think major of a regiment. He sent me most kindly messages, and at one time a bowie-knife captured from a rebel soldier. But, alas! he was not to return.

I may remark, in passing, that while these young men from the universities, and a vast host of others from different walks of life, were going forth to lay down their

lives for their country, the English press, almost without exception, from the "Times'' down, was insisting that we were fighting our battles with "mercenaries.''

One way in which those of us who remained at the university helped the good cause was in promoting the military drill of those who had determined to become soldiers. It was very difficult to secure the proper military instruction, but in Detroit I found a West Point graduate, engaged him to come out a certain number of times every week to drill the students, and he cheered us much by saying that he had never in his life seen soldiers so much in earnest, and so rapid in making themselves masters of the drill and tactics.

One of my advisers at this period, and one of the noblest men I have ever met, was Lieutenant Kirby Smith, a graduate of West Point, and a lieutenant in the army. His father, after whom he was named, had been killed at the Battle of Molino del Rey, in the Mexican War. His uncle, also known as Kirby Smith, was a general in the Confederate service. His mother, one of the dearest friends of my family, was a woman of extraordinary abilities, and of the noblest qualities. Never have I known a young officer of more promise. With him I discussed from time to time the probabilities of the war. He was full of devotion, quieted my fears, and strengthened my hopes. He, too, fought splendidly for his country, and like his father, laid down his life for it.

The bitterest disappointment of that period, and I regret deeply to chronicle it, was the conduct of the government and ruling classes in England. In view of the fact that popular sentiment in Great Britain, especially as voiced in its literature, in its press, and from its pulpit, had been against slavery, I had never doubted that in this struggle, so evidently between slavery and freedom, Great Britain would be unanimously on our side. To my amazement signs soon began to point in another direction. More and more it became evident that British feeling was against us. To my students, who inquired how this could possibly

be, I said, "Wait till Lord John Russell speaks.'' Lord John Russell spoke, and my heart sank within me. He was the solemnly constituted impostor whose criminal carelessness let out the Alabama to prey upon our commerce, and who would have let out more cruisers had not Mr. Charles Francis Adams, the American minister, brought him to reason.

Lord John Russell was noted for his coolness, but in this respect Mr. Adams was more than his match. In after years I remember a joke based upon this characteristic. During a very hot summer in Kansas, when the State was suffering with drought, some newspaper proposed, and the press very generally acquiesced in the suggestion, that Mr. Charles Francis Adams should be asked to take a tour through the State, in order, by his presence, to reduce its temperature.

When, therefore, Lord John Russell showed no signs of interfering with the sending forth of English ships,— English built, English equipped, and largely English manned,—against our commerce, Mr. Adams, having summed up to his Lordship the conduct of the British Government in the matter, closed in his most icy way with the words: "My lord, I need hardly remind you that this is war.''

The result was, that tardily,—just in time to prevent war between the two nations,—orders were given which prevented the passing out of more cruisers.

Goldwin Smith, who in the days of his professorship at Oxford, saw much of Lord John Russell, once told me that his lordship always made upon him the impression of "an eminent corn-doctor.''

During the following summer, that of 1863, being much broken down by overwork, and threatened, as I supposed, with heart disease, which turned out to be the beginning of a troublesome dyspepsia, I was strongly recommended by my physician to take a rapid run to Europe, and though very reluctant to leave home, was at last persuaded to go to New York to take my passage. Arrived there, bad news

still coming from the seat of war, I could not bring myself at the steamer office to sign the necessary papers, finally refused, and having returned home, took part for the first time in a political campaign as a speaker, going through central New York, and supporting the Republican candidate against the Democratic. The election seemed of vast importance. The Democrats had nominated for the governorship, Mr. Horatio Seymour, a man of the highest personal character, and, so far as the usual duties of governor were concerned, admirable; but he had been bitterly opposed to the war, and it seemed sure that his election would encourage the South and make disunion certain; therefore it was that I threw myself into the campaign with all my might, speaking night and day; but alas! the election went against us.

At the close of the campaign, my dyspepsia returning with renewed violence, I was thinking what should be done, when I happened to meet my father's old friend, Mr. Thurlow Weed, a devoted adherent of Mr. Seward through his whole career, and, at that moment, one of the main supports of the Lincoln Administration. It was upon the deck of a North River steamer, and on my mentioning my dilemma he said: "You can just now do more for us abroad than at home. You can work in the same line with Archbishop Hughes, Bishop McIlvaine, and myself; everything that can be done, in the shape of contributions to newspapers, or speeches, even to the most restricted audiences abroad, will help us: the great thing is to gain time, increase the number of those who oppose European intervention in our affairs, and procure takers for our new National bonds.''

The result was that I made a short visit to Europe, stopping first in London. Political feeling there was bitterly against us. A handful of true men, John Bright and Goldwin Smith at the head of them, were doing heroic work in our behalf, but the forces against them seemed overwhelming. Drawing money one morning in one of the large banks of London, I happened to exhibit a few

of the new National greenback notes which had been recently issued by our Government. The moment the clerk saw them he called out loudly, "Don't offer us any of those things; we don't take them; they will never be good for anything.'' I was greatly vexed, of course, but there was no help for it. At another time I went into a famous book-shop near the Haymarket to purchase a rare book which I had long coveted. It was just after the Battle of Fredericksburg. The book-seller was chatting with a customer, and finally, with evident satisfaction, said to him: "I see the Yankees have been beaten again.'' "Yes,'' said the customer, "and the papers say that ten thousand of them have been killed.'' "Good,'' said the shop-keeper, "I wish it had been twice as many.'' Of course it was impossible for me to make any purchase in that place.

In order to ascertain public sentiment I visited certain "discussion forums,'' as they are called, frequented by contributors to the press and young lawyers from the Temple and Inns of Court. In those places there was, as a rule, a debate every night, and generally, in one form or another, upon the struggle then going on in the United States. There was, perhaps, in all this a trifle too much of the Three Tailors of Tooley Street; still, excellent speeches were frequently made, and there was a pleasure in doing my share in getting the company on the right side. On one occasion, after one of our worst reverses during the war, an orator, with an Irish brogue, thickened by hot whisky, said, "I hope that Republic of blackguards is gone forever.'' But, afterward, on learning that an American was present, apologized to me in a way effusive, laudatory, and even affectionate.

But my main work was given to preparing a pamphlet, in answer to the letters from America by Dr. Russell, correspondent of the London "Times.'' Though nominally on our side, he clearly wrote his letters to suit the demands of the great journal which he served, and which was most bitterly opposed to us. Nothing could exceed its virulence against everything American. Every occurrence was

placed in the worst light possible as regarded our interests, and even the telegraphic despatches were manipulated so as to do our cause all the injury possible. I therefore prepared, with especial care, an answer to these letters of Dr. Russell, and published it in London. Its fate was what might have been expected. Some papers discussed it fairly, but, on the whole, it was pooh-poohed, explained away, and finally buried under new masses of slan-der. I did, indeed, find a few friends of my country in Great Britain. In Dublin I dined with Cairnes, the political economist, who had earnestly written in behalf of the Union against the Confederates; and in London, with Professor Carpenter, the eminent physiologist, who, being devoted to anti-slavery ideas, was mildly favorable to the Union side. But I remember him less on account of anything he said relating to the struggle in America, than for a statement bearing upon the legitimacy of the sovereign then ruling in France, who was at heart one of our most dangerous enemies. Dr. Carpenter told me that some time previously he had been allowed by Nassau Senior, whose published conversations with various men of importance throughout Europe had attracted much attention, to look into some of the records which Mr. Senior had not thought it best to publish, and that among them he had read the following:

"— showed me to-day an autograph letter written by Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, not far from the time of the birth of his putative son, now Napoleon III. One passage read as follows: `J'ai le malheur d'avoir pour femme une Messalene. Elle a des amants partout, et partout elle laise des enfants.' ''

I could not but think of this a few weeks later when I saw the emperor, who derived his title to the throne of France from his nominal father, poor King Louis, but whose personal appearance, like that of his brother, the Duc de Morny, was evidently not derived from any Bonaparte. All the Jérome Napoleons I have ever seen, including old King Jérome of Westphalia, and Prince Napoleon

Jérome, otherwise known as "Plon-Plon,'' whom I saw during my student life at Paris, and the eldest son of the latter, the present Bonaparte pretender to the Napoleonic crown of France, whom I saw during my stay as minister at St. Petersburg, very strikingly resembled the first Napoleon, though all were of much larger size. But the Louis Napoleons, that is, the emperor and his brother the Duc de Morny, had no single Napoleonic point in their features or bearing.

I think that the most startling inspiration during my life was one morning when, on walking through the Garden of the Tuileries, I saw, within twenty feet of me, at a window, in the old palace, which afterward disappeared under the Commune, the emperor and his minister of finance, Achille Fould, seated together, evidently in earnest discussion. There was not at that time any human being whom I so hated and abhorred as Napoleon III. He had broken his oath and trodden the French republic under his feet, he was aiding to keep down the aspirations of Italy, and he was doing his best to bring on an intervention of Europe, in behalf of the Confederate States, to dissolve our Union. He was then the arbiter of Europe. The world had not then discovered him to be what Bismarck had already found him—"a great unrecognized in-capacity,'' and, as I looked up and distinctly saw him so near me, there flashed through my mind an understanding of some of the great crimes of political history, such as I have never had before or since.[1]

In France there was very little to be done for our cause. The great mass of Frenchmen were either indifferent or opposed to us. The only exception of importance was Laboulaye, professor at the Collège de France, and his lecture-room was a center of good influences in favor of the American cause; in the midst of that frivolous Napoleonic France he seemed by far "the noblest Roman of them all.''

The main effort in our behalf was made by Mr. John Bigelow, at that time consul-general, but afterward minister of the United States,—to supply with arguments the very small number of Frenchmen who were inclined to favor the Union cause, and this he did thoroughly well.

Somewhat later there came a piece of good fortune. Having been sent by a physician to the baths at Homburg, I found as our consul-general, at the neighboring city of Frankfort-on-the-Main, William Walton Murphy of Michigan, a life-long supporter of Mr. Seward, a most devoted and active American patriot;—a rough diamond; one of the most uncouth mortals that ever lived; but big-hearted, shrewd, a general favorite, and prized even by those who smiled at his oddities. He had labored hard to induce the Frankfort bankers to take our government bonds, and to recommend them to their customers, and had at last been successful. In order to gain and maintain this success he had established in Frankfort a paper called "L'Europe,'' for which he wrote and urged others to write. To this journal I became a contributor, and among my associates I especially remember the Rev. Dr. John McClintock, formerly president of Dickinson College, and Dr. E. H. Chapin, of New York, so eminent in those days as a preacher. Under the influence of Mr. Murphy, Frankfort-on-the-Main became, and has since remained, a center of American ideas. Its leading journal was the only influential daily paper in Germany which stood by us during our Spanish War.

I recall a story told me by Mr. Murphy at that period. He had taken an American lady on a business errand to the bank of Baron Rothschild, and, after their business was over, presented her to the great banker. It happened that the Confederate loan had been floated in Europe by Baron Erlanger, also a Frankfort financial magnate, and by birth a Hebrew. In the conversation that ensued between this lady and Baron Rothschild, the latter said: "Madam, my sympathies are entirely with your country; but is it not disheartening to think that there are men in Europe who

are lending their money and trying to induce others to lend it for the strengthening of human slavery? Madam, none but a converted Jew would do that.''

On the Fourth of July of that summer, Consul-General Murphy—always devising new means of upholding the flag of his country—summoned Americans from every part of Europe to celebrate the anniversary of our National Independence at Heidelberg, and at the dinner given at the Hotel Schreider seventy-four guests assembled, including two or three professors from the university, as against six guests from the Confederate States, who had held a celebration in the morning at the castle. Mr. Murphy presided and made a speech which warmed the hearts of us all. It was a thorough-going, old-fashioned, Western Fourth of July oration. I had jeered at Fourth of July orations all my life, but there was something in this one which showed me that these discourses, so often ridiculed, are not without their uses. Certain it is that as the consul-general repeated the phrases which had more than once rung through the Western clearings, in honor of the defenders of our country, the divine inspiration of the Constitution, our invincibility in war and our superiority in peace, all of us were encouraged and cheered most lustily. Pleasing was it to note various British tourists standing at the windows listening to the scream of the American eagle and evidently wondering what it all meant.

Others of us spoke, and especially Dr. McClintock, one of the foremost thinkers, scholars, and patriots that the Methodist Episcopal church has ever produced. His speech was in a very serious vein, and well it might be. In the course of it he said: "According to the last accounts General Lee and his forces are near the town where I live, and are marching directly toward it. It is absolutely certain that, if they reach it, they will burn my house and all that it contains, but I have no fear; I believe that the Almighty is with us in this struggle, and though we may suffer much before its close, the Union is to endure and slavery is to go down before the forces of freedom.'' These

words, coming from the heart of a strong man, made a deep impression upon us all.

About two weeks later I left Frankfort for America, and at my parting from Consul-General Murphy at the hotel, he said: "Let me go in the carriage with you; this is steamer-day and we shall probably meet the vice-consul coming with the American mail.'' He got in, and we drove along the Zeil together. It was at the busiest time of the day, and we had just arrived at the point in that main street of Frankfort where business was most active, when the vice-consul met us and handed Mr. Murphy a newspaper. The latter tore it open, read a few lines, and then instantly jumped out into the middle of the street, waved his hat and began to shout. The public in general evidently thought him mad; a crowd assembled; but as soon as he could get his breath he pointed out the headlines of the newspaper. They indicated the victories of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, and the ending of the war. It was, indeed, a great moment for us all.

Arriving in America, I found that some friends had republished from the English edition my letter to Dr. Russell, that it had been widely circulated, and that, at any rate, it had done some good at home.

Shortly afterward, being on a visit to my old friend, James T. Fields of Boston, I received a telegram from Syracuse as follows: "You are nominated to the State senate: come home and see who your friends are.'' I have received, in the course of my life, many astonishing messages, but this was the most unexpected of all. I had not merely not been a candidate for any such nomination, but had forgotten that any nomination was to be made; I had paid no attention to the matter whatever; all my thoughts had been given to other subjects; but on returning to Syracuse I found that a bitter contest having arisen between two of the regular candidates, each representing a faction, the delegates had suddenly turned away from both and nominated me. My election followed and so began the most active phase of my political life.

CHAPTER VI
SENATORSHIP AT ALBANY—1864-1865

ON the evening of New Year's Day, 1864, I arrived in Albany to begin my duties in the State Senate, and certainly, from a practical point of view, no member of the legislature was more poorly equipped. I had, indeed, received a university education, such as it was, in those days, at home and abroad, and had perhaps read more than most college-bred men of my age, but all my education, study, and reading were remote from the duties now assigned me. To history, literature, and theoretical politics, I had given considerable attention, but as regarded the actual necessities of the State of New York, the relations of the legislature to the boards of supervisors of counties, to the municipal councils of cities, to the boards of education, charity, and the like, indeed, to the whole system throughout the Commonwealth, and to the modes of conducting public and private business, my ignorance was deplorable. Many a time have I envied some plain farmer his term in a board of supervisors, or some country schoolmaster his relations to a board of education, or some alderman his experience in a common council, or some pettifogger his acquaintance with justices' courts. My knowledge of law and the making of law was wretchedly deficient, and my ignorance of the practical administration of law was disgraceful. I had hardly ever been inside a court-house, and my main experience of legal procedure was when one day I happened to step into court at Syracuse, and some old friends of mine thought it a good joke to put a university professor as a talesman upon

a jury in a horse case. Although pressed with business I did not flinch, but accepted the position, discharged its duties, and learned more of legal procedure and of human nature in six hours than I had ever before learned in six months. Ever afterward I advised my students to get themselves drawn upon a petit jury. I had read some Blackstone and some Kent and had heard a few law lectures, but my knowledge was purely theoretical: in constitutional law it was derived from reading scattered essays in the "Federalist,'' with extracts here and there from Story. Of the State charitable and penal institutions I knew nothing. Regarding colleges I was fairly well informed, but as to the practical working of our system of public instruction I had only the knowledge gained while a scholar in a public school.

There was also another disadvantage. I knew nothing of the public men of the State. Having lived outside of the Commonwealth, first, as a student at Yale, then during nearly three years abroad, and then nearly six years as a professor in another State, I knew only one of my colleagues, and of him I had only the knowledge that came from an introduction and five minutes' conversation ten years before. It was no better as regarded my acquaintance with the State officers; so far as I now remember, I had never seen one of them, except at a distance,—the governor, Mr. Horatio Seymour.

On the evening after our arrival the Republican majority of the Senate met in caucus, partly to become acquainted, partly to discuss appointments to committees, and partly to decide on a policy regarding State aid to the prosecution of the war for the Union. I found myself the youngest member of this body, and, indeed, of the entire Senate, but soon made the acquaintance of my colleagues and gained some friendships which have been among the best things life has brought me.

Foremost in the State Senate, at that period, was Charles James Folger, its president. He had served in

the Senate several years, had been a county judge, and was destined to become assistant treasurer of the United States at New York, chief justice of the highest State court, and finally, to die as Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, after the most crushing defeat which any candidate for the governorship of New York had ever known. He was an excellent lawyer, an impressive speaker, earnestly devoted to the proper discharge of his duties, and of extraordinarily fine personal appearance. His watch upon legislation sometimes amused me, but always won my respect. Whenever a bill was read a third time he watched it as a cat watches a mouse. His hatred of doubtful or bad phraseology was a passion. He was greatly beloved and admired, yet, with all his fine and attractive qualities, modest and even diffident to a fault.

Another man whom I then saw for the first time interested me much as soon as his name was called, and he would have interested me far more had I known how closely my after life was to be linked with his. He was then about sixty years of age, tall, spare, and austere, with a kindly eye, saying little, and that little dryly. He did not appear unamiable, but there seemed in him a sort of aloofness: this was Ezra Cornell.

Still another senator was George H. Andrews, from the Otsego district, the old Palatine country. He had been editor of one of the leading papers in New York, and had been ranked among the foremost men in his profession, but he had retired into the country to lead the life of a farmer. He was a man to be respected and even beloved. His work for the public was exceedingly valuable, and his speeches of a high order. Judge Folger, as chairman of the judiciary committee, was most useful to the State at large in protecting it from evil legislation. Senator Andrews was not less valuable to the cities, and above all to the city of New York, for his intelligent protection of every good measure, and his unflinching opposition to every one of the many doubtful projects constantly brought in by schemers and dreamers.

Still another senator was James M. Cook of Saratoga. He had been comptroller of the State and, at various times, a member of the legislature. He was the faithful "watch-dog of the treasury,''—bitter against every scheme for taking public money for any unworthy purpose, and, indeed, against any scheme whatever which could not assign for its existence a reason, clear, cogent, and honest.

Still another member, greatly respected, was Judge Bailey of Oneida County. His experience upon the bench made him especially valuable upon the judiciary and other committees.

Yet another man of mark in the body was one of the younger men, George G. Munger of Rochester. He had preceded me by a few years at Yale, had won respect as a county judge, and had a certain lucid way of presenting public matters which made him a valuable public servant.

Another senator of great value was Henry R. Low. He, too, had been a county judge and brought not only legal but financial knowledge to the aid of his colleagues. He was what Thomas Carlyle called a "swallower of formulas.'' That a thing was old and revered mattered little with him: his question was what is the best thing now.

From the city of New York came but one Republican, William Laimbeer, a man of high character and large business experience; impulsive, but always for right against wrong; kindly in his nature, but most bitter against Tammany and all its works.

From Essex County came Senator Palmer Havens, also of middle age, of large practical experience, with a clear, clean style of thinking and speaking, anxious to make a good record by serving well, and such a record he certainly made.

And, finally, among the Republican members of that session I may name the senator from Oswego, Mr. Cheney Ames. Perhaps no one in the body had so large a practical

knowledge of the commercial interests of the State, and especially of the traffic upon its lakes and inland waterways; on all questions relating to these his advice was of the greatest value; he was in every respect a good public servant.

On the Democratic side the foremost man by far was Henry C. Murphy of Brooklyn, evidently of Irish ancestry, though his immediate forefathers had been long in the United States. He was a graduate of Columbia College, devoted to history and literature, had produced sundry interesting books on the early annals of the State, had served with distinction in the diplomatic service as minister to The Hague, was eminent as a lawyer, and had already considerable legislative experience.

From New York City came a long series of Democratic members, of whom the foremost was Thomas C. Fields. He had considerable experience as a lawyer in the city courts, had served in the lower house of the legislature, and was preternaturally acute in detecting the interests of Tammany which he served. He was a man of much humor, with occasional flashes of wit, his own worst enemy, evidently, and his career was fitly ended when upon the fall of Tweed he left his country for his country's good and died in exile.

There were others on both sides whom I could mention as good men and true, but those I have named took a leading part as heads of committees and in carrying on public business.

The lieutenant-governor of the State who presided over the Senate was Mr. Floyd-Jones, a devoted Democrat of the old school who exemplified its best qualities; a gentleman, honest, courteous, not intruding his own views, ready always to give the fullest weight to those of others without regard to party.

Among the men who, from their constant attendance, might almost be considered as officers of the Senate were sundry representatives of leading newspapers. Several of them were men of marked ability, and well known

throughout the State, but they have long since been forgotten with one exception: this was a quiet reporter who sat just in front of the clerk's chair, day after day, week after week, throughout the entire session; a man of very few words, and with whom I had but the smallest acquaintance. Greatly surprised was I in after years when he rose to be editor of the leading Democratic organ in the State, and finally, under President Cleveland, a valuable Secretary of the Treasury of the United States: Daniel Manning.

In the distribution of committees there fell to me the chairmanship of the committee on education, or, as it was then called, the committee on literature. I was also made a member of the committee on cities and villages, afterward known as the committee on municipal affairs, and of the committee on the library. For the first of these positions I was somewhat fitted by my knowledge of the colleges and universities of the State, but in other respects was poorly fitted. For the second of these positions, that of the committee on cities and villages, I am free to confess that no one could be more wretchedly equipped; for the third, the committee on the library, my qualifications were those of a man who loved both to collect books and to read them.

But from the beginning I labored hard to fit myself, even at that late hour, for the duties pressing upon me, and gradually my practical knowledge was increased. Still there were sad gaps in it, and more than once I sat in the committee-room, looking exceedingly wise, no doubt, but with an entirely inadequate appreciation of the argument made before me.

During this first session my maiden speech was upon the governor's message, and I did my best to show what I thought His Excellency's shortcomings. Governor Seymour was a patriotic man, after his fashion, but the one agency which he regarded as divinely inspired was the Democratic party; his hatred of the Lincoln Administration was evidently deep, and it was also clear that he

did not believe that the war for the Union could be brought to a successful termination.

With others I did my best against him; but while condemning his political course as severely as was possible to me, I never attacked his personal character or his motives. The consequence was that, while politically we were enemies, personally a sort of friendship remained, and I recall few things with more pleasure than my journeyings from Albany up the Mohawk Valley, sitting at his side, he giving accounts to me of the regions through which we passed, and the history connected with them, regarding which he was wonderfully well informed. If he hated New England as the breeding bed of radicalism, he loved New York passionately.

The first important duty imposed upon me as chairman of the committee on education was when there came up a bill for disposing of the proceeds of public lands appropriated by the government of the United States to institutions for scientific and technical education, under what was then known as the Morrill Act of 1862. Of these lands the share which had come to New York was close upon a million acres—a fair-sized European principality. Here, owing to circumstances which I shall detail in another chapter, I found myself in a contest with Mr. Cornell. I favored holding the fund together, letting it remain with the so-called "People's College,'' to which it had been already voted, and insisted that the matter was one to be referred to the committee on education. Mr. Cornell, on the other hand, favored the divi-sion of the fund, and proposed a bill giving one half of it to the "State Agricultural College'' recently established at Ovid on Seneca Lake. The end was that the matter was referred to a joint committee composed of the committees on literature and agriculture, that is, to Mr. Cornell's committee and my own, and as a result no meeting to consider the bill was held during that session.

Gradually I accumulated a reasonable knowledge of the educational interests intrusted to us, but ere long

there came in from the superintendent of public instruction; Mr. Victor Rice, a plan for codifying the educational laws of the State. This necessitated a world of labor on my part. Section by section, paragraph by paragraph, phrase by phrase, I had to go through it, and night after night was devoted to studying every part of it in the light of previous legislation, the laws of other States, and such information as could be obtained from general sources. At last, after much alteration and revision, I brought forward the bill, secured its passage, and I may say that it was not without a useful influence upon the great educational interests of the State.

I now brought forward another educational bill. Various persons interested in the subject appeared urging the creation of additional State normal schools, in order to strengthen and properly develop the whole State school system. At that time there was but one; that one at Albany; and thus our great Commonwealth was in this respect far behind many of her sister States. The whole system was evidently suffering from the want of teachers thoroughly and practically equipped. Out of the multitude of projects presented, I combined what I thought the best parts of three or four in a single bill, and although at first there were loud exclamations against so lavish a use of public money, I induced the committee to report my bill, argued it in the Senate, overcame much opposition, and thus finally secured a law establishing four State normal schools.

Still another duty imposed upon me necessitated much work for which almost any other man in the Senate would have been better equipped by experience and knowledge of State affairs. The condition of things in the city of New York had become unbearable; the sway of Tam-many Hall had gradually brought out elements of oppo-sition such as before that time had not existed. Tweed was already making himself felt, though he had not yet assumed the complete control which he exercised afterward. The city system was bad throughout; but at the

very center of evil stood what was dignified by the name of the "Health Department.'' At the head of this was a certain Boole, who, having gained the title of "city inspector,'' had the virtual appointment of a whole army of so-called "health inspectors,'' "health officers,'' and the like, charged with the duty of protecting the public from the inroads of disease; and never was there a greater outrage against a city than the existence of this body of men, absolutely unfit both as regarded character and education for the duties they pretended to discharge.

Against this state of things there had been developed a "citizens' committee,'' representing the better elements of both parties,—its main representatives being Judge Whiting and Mr. Dorman B. Eaton,—and the evidence these gentlemen exhibited before the committee on municipal affairs, at Albany, as to the wretched condition of the city health boards was damning. Whole districts in the most crowded wards were in the worst possible sanitary condition. There was probably at that time nothing to approach it in any city in Christendom save, possibly, Naples. Great blocks of tenement houses were owned by men who kept low drinking bars in them, each of whom, having secured from Boole the position of "health officer,'' steadily resisted all sanitary improvement or even inspection. Many of these tenement houses were known as "fever nests''; through many of them small-pox frequently raged, and from them it was constantly communicated to other parts of the city.

Therefore it was that one morning Mr. Laimbeer, the only Republican member from the city, rose, made an impassioned speech on this condition of things, moved a committee to examine and report, and named as its members Judge Munger, myself, and the Democratic senator from the Buffalo district, Mr. Humphrey.

As a result, a considerable part of my second winter as senator was devoted to the work of this special committee in the city of New York. We held a sort of court, had with us the sergeant-at-arms, were empowered to send

for persons and papers, summoned large numbers of witnesses, and brought to view a state of things even worse than anything any of us had suspected.

Against the citizens' committee, headed by Judge Whiting and Mr. Eaton, Boole, aided by a most successful Tammany lawyer of the old sort, John Graham, fought with desperation. In order to disarm his assailants as far as possible, he brought before the committee a number of his "health officers'' and "sanitary inspectors,'' whom he evidently thought best qualified to pass muster; but as one after another was examined and cross-examined, neither the cunning of Boole nor the skill of Mr. Graham could prevent the revelation of their utter unfitness. In the testimony of one of them the whole monstrous absurdity culminated. Judge Whiting examining him before the commission with reference to a case of small-pox which had occurred within his district, and to which, as health officer it was his duty to give attention, and asking him if he remembered the case, witness answered that he did. The following dialogue then ensued:

Q. Did you visit this sick person?

A. No, sir.

Q. Why did you not?

A. For the same reason that you would not.

Q. What was that reason?

A. I did n't want to catch the disease myself.

Q. Did the family have any sort of medical aid?

A. Yes.

Q. From whom did they have it?

A. From themselves; they was "highjinnicks'' (hygienics).

Q. What do you mean by "highjinnicks''?

A. I mean persons who doctor themselves.

After other answers of a similar sort the witness departed; but for some days afterward Judge Whiting edified the court, in his examination of Boole's health officers and inspectors, by finally asking each one whether he had any "highjinnicks'' in his health district. Some

answered that they had them somewhat; some thought that they had them "pretty bad,'' others thought that there was "not much of it,'' others claimed that they were "quite serious''; and, finally, in the examination of a certain health officer who was very anxious to show that he had done his best, there occurred the following dialogue which brought down the house:

Q. (By Judge Whiting.) Mr. Health Officer, have you had any "highjinnicks'' in your district?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Much?

A. Yes, sir, quite a good deal.

Q. Have you done anything in regard to them?

A. Yes, sir; I have done all that I could.

Q. Witness, now, on your oath, do you know what the word "highjinnicks'' means?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. What does it mean?

A. It means the bad smells that arise from standing water.

At this the court was dissolved in laughter, but Mr. Graham made the best that he could of it by the following questions and answers:

Q. Witness, have you ever learned Greek?

A. No, sir.

Q. Can you speak Greek?

A. No, sir.

Q. Do you understand Greek?

A. No, sir.

"Then you may stand down.''

The examination was long and complicated, so that with various departments to be examined there was no time to make a report before the close of the session, and the whole matter had to go over until the newly elected senate came into office the following year.

Shortly after the legislature had adjourned I visited the city of New York, and on arriving took up the evening paper which, more than any other, has always been supposed

to represent the best sentiment of the city;—the "New York Evening Post.'' The first article on which my eye fell was entitled "The New York Senate Trifling,'' and the article went on to say that the Senate of the State had wasted its time, had practically done nothing for the city, had neglected its interests, had paid no attention to its demands, and the like. That struck me as ungrateful, for during the whole session we had worked early and late on questions relating to the city, had thwarted scores of evil schemes, and in some cases, I fear, had sacrificed the interests of the State at large to those of the city. Thus there dawned on me a knowledge of the reward which faithful legislators are likely to obtain.

Another of these city questions also showed the sort of work to be done in this thankless protection of the metropolis. During one of the sessions there had appeared in the lobby an excellent man, Dr. Levi Silliman Ives, formerly Protestant Episcopal Bishop of North Carolina, who, having been converted to Roman Catholicism, had become a layman and head of a protectory for Catholic children. With him came a number of others of his way of thinking, and a most determined effort was made to pass a bill sanctioning a gift of one half of the great property known as Ward's Island, adjacent to the city of New York, to this Roman Catholic institution.

I had strong sympathy with the men who carried on the protectory, and was quite willing to go as far as possible in aiding them, but was opposed to voting such a vast landed property belonging to the city into the hands of any church, and I fought the bill at all stages. In committee of the whole, and at first reading, priestly influence led a majority to vote for it, but at last, despite all the efforts of Tammany Hall, it was defeated.

It was during this first period of my service that the last and most earnest effort of the State was made for the war. Various circumstances had caused discouragement.

It had become difficult to raise troops, yet it was most important to avoid a draft. In the city of New York, at the prospect of an enforced levy of troops, there had been serious uprisings which were only suppressed after a considerable loss of life. It was necessary to make one supreme effort, and the Republican members of the legislature decided to raise a loan of several millions for bounties to those who should volunteer. This decision was not arrived at without much opposition, and, strange to say, its most serious opponent was Horace Greeley, who came to Albany in the hope of defeating it. Invaluable as his services had been during the struggle which preceded the war, it must be confessed, even by his most devoted friends, that during the war he was not unfrequently a stumbling block. His cry "on to Richmond'' during the first part of the struggle, his fearful alarm when, like the heroes in the "Biglow Papers,'' he really discovered "why baggonets is peaked,'' his terror as the conflict deepened, his proposals for special peace negotiations later—all these things were among the serious obstacles which President Lincoln had to encounter; and now, fearing burdens which, in his opinion, could not and would not be borne by the State, and conjuring up specters of trouble, he came to Albany and earnestly advised members of the legislature against the passage of the bounty bill. Fortunately, common sense triumphed, and the bill was passed.

Opposition came also from another and far different source. There was then in the State Senate a Democrat of the oldest and strongest type; a man who believed most devoutly in Jefferson and Jackson, and abhorred above all things, abolitionists and protectionists,—Dr. Allaben of Schoharie. A more thoroughly honest man never lived; he was steadily on the side of good legislation; but in the midst of the discussion regarding this great loan for bounties he arose and began a speech which, as he spoke but rarely, received general attention. He was deeply in earnest. He said (in substance), "I

shall vote for this loan; for of various fearful evils it seems the least. But I wish, here and now, and with the deepest sorrow, to record a prediction: I ask you to note it and to remember it, for it will be fulfilled, and speedily. This State debt which you are now incurring will never be paid. It cannot be paid. More than that, none of the vast debts incurred for military purposes, whether by the Nation or by the States, will be paid; the people will surely repudiate them. Nor is this all. Not one dollar of all the treasury notes issued by the United States will ever be redeemed. Your paper currency has already depreciated much and will depreciate more and more; all bonds and notes, State and National, issued to continue this fratricidal war will be whirled into the common vortex of repudiation. I say this with the deepest pain, for I love my country, but I cannot be blind to the teachings of history.'' He then went on to cite the depreciation of our revolutionary currency, and, at great length pictured the repudiation of the assignats during the French Revolution. He had evidently read Alison and Thiers carefully, and he spoke like an inspired prophet.

As Senator Allaben thus spoke, Senator Fields of New York quietly left his seat and came to me. He was a most devoted servant of Tammany, but was what was known in those days as a War Democrat. His native pugnacity caused him to feel that the struggle must be fought out, whereas Democrats of a more philosophic sort, like Allaben, known in those days as "Copperheads,'' sought peace at any price. Therefore it was that, while Senator Allaben was pouring out with the deepest earnestness these prophecies of repudiation, Mr. Fields came round to my desk and said to me: "You have been a professor of history; you are supposed to know something about the French Revolution; if your knowledge is good for anything, why in h—l don't you use it now?''

This exhortation was hardly necessary, and at the close of Senator Allaben's remarks I arose and presented another view of the case. It happened by a curious coincidence

that, having made a few years before a very careful study of the issues of paper money during the French Revolution, I had a portion of my very large collection of assignats, mandats, and other revolutionary currency in Albany, having brought it there in order to show it to one or two of my friends who had expressed an interest in the subject.

Holding this illustrative material in reserve I showed the whole amount of our American paper currency in circulation to be about eight hundred million dollars, of which only about one half was of the sort to which the senator referred. I then pointed to the fact that, although the purchasing power of the French franc at the time of the Revolution was fully equal to the purchasing power of the American dollar of our own time, the French revolutionary government issued, in a few months, forty-five thousand millions of francs in paper money, and had twenty-five thousand millions of it in circulation at the time when the great depression referred to by Dr. Allaben had taken place.

I also pointed out the fact that our American notes were now so thoroughly well engraved that counterfeiting was virtually impossible, so that one of the leading European governments had its notes engraved in New York, on this account, whereas, the French assignats could be easily counterfeited, and, as a matter of fact, were counterfeited in vast numbers, the British government pouring them into France through the agency of the French royalists, especially in Brittany, almost by shiploads, and to such purpose, that the French government officials themselves were at last unable to discriminate between the genuine money and the counterfeit. I also pointed out the connection of our national banking system with our issues of bonds and paper, one of the happiest and most statesmanlike systems ever devised, whereas, in France there was practically no redemption for the notes, save as they could be used for purchasing from the government the

doubtful titles to the confiscated houses and lands of the clergy and aristocracy.

The speech of Senator Allaben had exercised a real effect, but these simple statements, which I supported by evidence, and especially by exhibiting specimens of the assignats bearing numbers showing that the issues had risen into the thousands of millions, and in a style of engraving most easily counterfeited, sufficed to convince the Senate that no such inference as was drawn by the senator was warranted by the historical facts in the case.

A vote was taken, the bill was passed, the troops were finally raised, and the debt was extinguished not many years afterward.

It is a pleasure for me to remember that at the close of my remarks, which I took pains to make entirely courteous to Dr. Allaben, he came to me, and strongly opposed as we were in politics, he grasped me by the hand most heartily, expressed his amazement at seeing these assignats, mandats, and other forms of French revolutionary issues, of which he had never before seen one, and thanked me for refuting his arguments. It is one of the very few cases I have ever known, in which a speech converted an opponent.

Perhaps a word more upon this subject may not be without interest. My attention had been drawn to the issues of paper money during the French Revolution, by my studies of that period for my lectures on modern history at the University of Michigan, about five years before. In taking up this special subject I had supposed that a few days would be sufficient for all the study needed; but I became more and more interested in it, obtained a large mass of documents from France, and then and afterward accumulated by far the largest collection of French paper money, of all the different issues, sorts, and amounts, as well as of collateral newspaper reports and financial documents, ever brought into our country. The study of the subject for my class, which I had hoped

to confine to a few days, thus came to absorb my leisure for months, and I remember that, at last, when I had given my lecture on the subject to my class at the university, a feeling of deep regret, almost of remorse, came over me, as I thought how much valuable time I had given to a subject that, after all, had no bearing on any present problem, which would certainly be forgotten by the majority of my hearers, and probably by myself.

These studies were made mainly in 1859. Then the lectures were laid aside, and though, from time to time, when visiting France, I kept on collecting illustrative materials, no further use was made of them until this debate during the session of the State Senate of 1864.

Out of this offhand speech upon the assignats grew a paper which, some time afterward, I presented in Washington before a number of members of the Senate and House, at the request of General Garfield, who was then a representative, and of his colleague, Mr. Chittenden of Brooklyn. In my audience were some of the foremost men of both houses, and among them such as Senators Bayard, Stevenson, Morrill, Conkling, Edmunds, Gibson, and others. This speech, which was the result of my earlier studies, improved by material acquired later, and most carefully restudied and verified, I repeated before a large meeting of the Union League Club at New York, Senator Hamilton Fish presiding. The paper thus continued to grow and, having been published in New York by Messrs. Appleton, a cheap edition of it was circulated some years afterward, largely under the auspices of General Garfield, to act as an antidote to the "Greenback Craze'' then raging through Ohio and the Western States.

Finally, having been again restudied, in the light of my ever-increasing material, it was again reprinted and circulated as a campaign document during the struggle against Mr. Bryan and the devotees of the silver standard in the campaign of 1896, copies of it being spread very widely, especially through the West, and placed,

above all, in nearly every public library, university, college, and normal school in the Union.

I allude to this as showing to any young student who may happen to read these recollections, the value of a careful study of any really worthy subject, even though, at first sight, it may seem to have little relation to present affairs.

In the spring of 1864, at the close of my first year in the State Senate, came the national convention at Baltimore for the nomination of President and Vice-President, and to that convention I went as a substitute delegate. Although I have attended several similar assemblages since, no other has ever seemed to me so interesting. It met in an old theater, on one of the noisiest corners in the city, and, as it was June, and the weather already very warm, it was necessary, in order to have as much air as possible, to remove curtains and scenery from the stage and throw the back of the theater open to the street. The result was, indeed, a circulation of air, but, with this, a noise from without which confused everything within.

In selecting a president for the convention a new departure was made, for the man chosen was a clergyman; one of the most eminent divines in the Union,—the Rev. Dr. Robert Breckinridge of Kentucky, who, on the religious side, had been distinguished as moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly, and on the political side was revered for the reason that while very nearly all his family, and especially his sons and nephews, including the recent Vice-President, had plunged into the Confederate service, he still remained a staunch and sturdy adherent of the Union and took his stand with the Repub-lican party. He was a grand old man, but hardly suited to the presidency of a political assemblage.

The proceedings were opened with a prayer by a delegate, who had been a colonel in the Union army, and was now a Methodist clergyman. The heads of all were bowed, and the clergyman-soldier began with the words of the Lord's Prayer; but when he had recited about one half

of it he seemed to think that he could better it, and he therefore substituted for the latter half a petition which began with these words: "Grant, O Lord, that the ticket here to be nominated may command a majority of the suffrages of the American people.'' To those accustomed to the more usual ways of conducting service this was something of a shock; still there was this to be said in favor of the reverend colonel's amendment,—he had faith to ask for what he wanted.

This opening prayer being ended, there came a display of parliamentary tactics by leaders from all parts of the Union: one after another rose in this or that part of the great assemblage to move this or that resolution, and the confusion which soon prevailed was fearful, the noise of the street being steadily mingled with the tumult of the house. But good Dr. Breckinridge did his best, and in each case put the motion he had happened to hear. Thereupon each little group, supposing that the resolution which had been carried was the one it had happened to hear, moved additional resolutions based upon it. These various resolutions were amended in all sorts of ways, in all parts of the house, the good doctor putting the resolutions and amendments which happened to reach his ear, and declaring them "carried'' or "lost,'' as the case might be. Thereupon ensued additional resolutions and amendments based upon those which their movers supposed to have been passed, with the result that, in about twenty minutes no one in the convention, and least of all its president, knew what we had done or what we ought to do. Each part of the house firmly believed that the resolutions which it had heard were those which had been carried, and the clash and confusion between them all seemed hopeless.

Various eminent parliamentarians from different parts of the Union arose to extricate the convention from this welter, but generally, when they resumed their seats, left the matter more muddled than when they arose.

A very near approach to success was made by my dear

friend George William Curtis of New York, who, in admirable temper, and clear voice, unraveled the tangle, as he understood it, and seemed just about to start the convention fairly on its way, when some marplot arose to suggest that some minor point in Mr. Curtis's exposition was not correct, thus calling out a tumult of conflicting statements, the result of which was yet greater confusion, so that we seemed fated to adjourn pell-mell into the street and be summoned a second time into the hall, in order to begin the whole proceedings over again.

But just at this moment arose Henry J. Raymond, editor of the "New York Times.'' His parliamentary training had been derived not only from his service as lieutenant-governor of the State, but from attendance on a long series of conventions, State and National. He had waited for his opportunity, and when there came a lull of despair, he arose and, in a clear, strong, pleasant voice, made an alleged explanation of the situation. As a piece of parliamentary tactics, it was masterly though from another point of view it was comical. The fact was that he developed a series of motions and amendments:—a whole line of proceedings,—mainly out of his own interior consciousness. He began somewhat on this wise: "Mr. President: The eminent senator from Vermont moved a resolution to such an effect; this was amended as follows, by my distinguished friend from Ohio, and was passed as amended. Thereupon the distinguished senator from Iowa arose and made the following motion, which, with an amendment from the learned gentleman from Massachusetts, was passed; thereupon a resolution was moved by the honorable gentleman from Pennsylvania, which was declared by the chair to be carried; and now, sir, I submit the following motion,'' and he immediately followed these words by moving a procedure to business and the appointment of committees. Sundry marplots, such as afflict all public bodies did, indeed, start to their feet, but a universal cry of "question'' drowned all their

efforts, and Mr. Raymond's motion was carried, to all appearance unanimously.

Never was anything of the kind more effectual. Though most, if not all, the proceedings thus stated by Mr. Raymond were fictions of his own imagination, they served the purpose; his own resolution started the whole machinery and set the convention prosperously on its way.

The general opinion of the delegates clearly favored the renomination of Mr. Lincoln. It was an exhibition not only of American common sense, but of sentiment. The American people and the public bodies which represent them are indeed practical and materialistic to the last degree, but those gravely err who ignore a very different side of their character. No people and no public bodies are more capable of yielding to deep feeling. So it was now proven. It was felt that not to renominate Mr. Lincoln would be a sort of concession to the enemy. He had gained the confidence and indeed the love of the entire Republican party. There was a strong conviction that, having suffered so much during the terrible stress and strain of the war, he ought to be retained as President after the glorious triumph of the Nation which was felt to be approaching.

But in regard to the second place there was a different feeling. The Vice-President who had served with Mr. Lincoln during his first term, Mr. Hamlin of Maine, was a steadfast, staunch, and most worthy man, but it was felt that the loyal element in the border States ought to be recognized, and, therefore it was that, for the Vice-Presidency was named a man who had begun life in the lowest station, who had hardly learned to read until he had become of age, who had always shown in Congress the most bitter hatred of the slave barons of the South, whom he considered as a caste above his own, but who had distinguished himself, as a man, by high civic courage, and as a senator by his determined speeches in behalf of the Union. This was Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, a

man honest, patriotic, but narrow and crabbed, who turned out to be the most unfortunate choice ever made, with the possible exception of John Tyler, twenty-four years before.

The convention having adjourned, a large number of delegates visited Washington, to pay their respects to the President, and among them myself. The city seemed to me hardly less repulsive than at my first visit eight years before; it was still unkempt and dirty,—made indeed all the more so by the soldiery encamped about it, and marching through it.

Shortly after our arrival our party, perhaps thirty in number, went to the White House and were shown into the great East Room. We had been there for about ten minutes when one of the doors nearest the street was opened, and a young man entered who held the door open for the admission of a tall, ungainly man dressed in a rather dusty suit of black. My first impression was that this was some rural tourist who had blundered into the place; for, really, he seemed less at home there than any other person present, and looked about for an instant, as if in doubt where he should go; but presently he turned toward our group, which was near the southwestern corner of the room, and then I saw that it was the President. As he came toward us in a sort of awkward, perfunctory manner his face seemed to me one of the saddest I had ever seen, and when he had reached us he held out his hand to the first stranger, then to the second, and so on, all with the air of a melancholy automaton. But, suddenly, some one in the company said something which amused him, and instantly there came in his face a most marvelous transformation. I have never seen anything like it in any other human being. His features were lighted, his eyes radiant, he responded to sundry remarks humorously, though dryly, and thenceforward was cordial and hearty. Taking my hand in his he shook it in the most friendly way, with a kindly word, and so passed cheerily on to the others until the ceremony was finished.

Years afterward, noticing in the rooms of his son, Mr. Robert Lincoln, our minister at London, a portrait of his father, and seeing that it had the same melancholy look noticeable in all President Lincoln's portraits, I alluded to this change in his father's features, and asked if any artist had ever caught the happier expression. Mr. Robert Lincoln answered that, so far as he knew, no portrait of his father in this better mood had ever been taken; that when any attempt was made to photograph him or paint his portrait, he relapsed into his melancholy mood, and that this is what has been transmitted to us by all who have ever attempted to give us his likeness.

In the campaign which followed this visit to Washington I tried to do my duty in speaking through my own and adjacent districts, but there was little need of speeches; the American people had made up their minds, and they reêlected Mr. Lincoln triumphantly.

CHAPTER VII
SENATORSHIP AT ALBANY—1865-1867

DURING my second year in the State Senate, 1865, came the struggle for the charter of Cornell University, the details of which will be given in another chapter.

Two things during this session are forever stamped into my memory. The first was the news of Lee's surrender on April 9, 1865: though it had been daily expected, it came as a vast relief.

It was succeeded by a great sorrow. On the morning of April 15, 1865, coming down from my rooms in the Delavan House at Albany, I met on the stairway a very dear old friend, the late Charles Sedgwick, of Syracuse, one of the earliest and most devoted of Republicans, who had served with distinction in the House of Representatives, and had more than once been widely spoken of for the United States Senate. Coming toward me with tears in his eyes and voice, hardly able to speak, he grasped me by the hand and gasped the words, "Lincoln is murdered.'' I could hardly believe myself awake: the thing seemed impossible;—too wicked, too monstrous, too cruel to be true; but alas! confirmation of the news came speedily and the Presidency was in the hands of Andrew Johnson.

Shortly afterward the body of the murdered President, borne homeward to Illinois, rested overnight in the State Capitol, and preparations were made for its reception. I was one of the bearers chosen by the Senate and was also

elected to pronounce one of the orations. Rarely have I felt an occasion so deeply: it has been my lot during my life to be present at the funerals of various great rulers and magnates; but at none of these was so deep an impression made upon me as by the body of Lincoln lying in the assembly chamber at Albany, quiet and peaceful at last.

Of the speeches made in the Senate on the occasion, mine being the only one which was not read or given from memory, attracted some attention, and I was asked especially for the source of a quotation which occurred in it, and which was afterward dwelt upon by some of my hearers. It was the result of a sudden remembrance of the lines in Milton's "Samson Agonistes,'' beginning:

The funeral was conducted with dignity and solemnity. When the coffin was opened and we were allowed to take one last look at Lincoln's face, it impressed me as having the same melancholy expression which I had seen upon it when he entered the East Room at the White House. In its quiet sadness there seemed to have been no change. There was no pomp in the surroundings; all, though dignified, was simple. Very different was it from the show and ceremonial at the funeral of the Emperor Nicholas which I had attended ten years before;—but it was even more impressive. At the head of the coffin stood General Dix, who had served so honorably in the War of 1812, in the Senate of the United States, in the Civil War, and who was afterward to serve with no less fidelity as governor of the State. Nothing could be more fitting than such a chieftaincy in the guard of honor.

In the following autumn the question of my renomination came.

It had been my fortune to gain, first of all, the ill will of Tammany Hall, and the arms of Tammany were long. Its power was exercised strongly through its henchmen not only in the Democratic party throughout the State, but especially in the Republican party, and, above all, among sundry contractors of the Erie Canal, many of whose bills I had opposed, and it was understood that they and their friends were determined to defeat me.

Moreover, it was thought by some that I had mortally offended sundry Catholic priests by opposing their plan for acquiring Ward's Island, and that I had offended various Protestant bodies, especially the Methodists, by defeating their efforts to divide up the Land Grant Fund between some twenty petty sectarian colleges, and by exerting myself to secure it for Cornell University, which, because it was unsectarian, many called "godless.''

Though I made speeches through the district as formerly, I asked no pledges of any person, but when the nominating convention assembled I was renominated in spite of all opposition, and triumphantly:—a gifted and honorable man, the late David J. Mitchell, throwing himself heartily into the matter, and in an eloquent speech absolutely silencing the whole Tammany and canal combination. He was the most successful lawyer in the district before juries, and never did his best qualities show themselves more fully than on this occasion. My majority on the first ballot was overwhelming, the nomination was immediately made unanimous, and at the election I had the full vote.

Arriving in Albany at the beginning of my third year of service—1866—I found myself the only member of the committee appointed to investigate matters in the city of New York who had been reêlected. Under these circumstances no report from the committee was possible; but the committee on municipal affairs, having brought in a bill to legislate out of office the city inspector and all his

associates, and to put in a new and thoroughly qualified health board, I made a carefully prepared speech, which took the character of a report. The facts which I brought out were sufficient to condemn the whole existing system twenty times over. By testimony taken under oath the monstrosities of the existing system were fully revealed, as well as the wretched character of the "health officers,'' "inspectors,'' and the whole army of underlings, and I exhibited statistics carefully ascertained and tabulated, showing the absurd disproportion of various classes of officials to each other, their appointment being made, not to preserve the public health, but to carry the ward caucuses and elections. During this exposure Boole, the head of the whole system, stood not far from me on the floor, his eyes fastened upon me, with an expression in which there seemed to mingle fear, hatred, and something else which I could hardly divine. His face seemed to me, even then, the face of a madman. So it turned out. The new bill drove him out of office, and, in a short time, into a madhouse.

I have always thought upon the fate of this man with a sort of sadness. Doubtless in his private relations he had good qualities, but to no public service that I have ever been able to render can I look back with a stronger feeling that my work was good. It unquestionably resulted in saving the lives of hundreds, nay thousands, of men, women, and children; and yet it is a simple fact that had I, at any time within a year or two afterward, visited those parts of the city of New York which I had thus benefited, and been recognized by the dwellers in the tenement houses as the man who had opposed their dramshop-keepers and brought in a new health board, those very people whose lives and the lives of whose children I had thus saved would have mobbed me, and, if possible, would have murdered me.

Shortly after the close of the session I was invited to give the Phi Beta Kappa address at the Yale commencement, and as the question of the reconstruction of the

Union at the close of the war was then the most important subject before the country, and as it seemed to me best to strike while the iron was hot, my subject was "The Greatest Foe of Republics.'' The fundamental idea was that the greatest foe of modern states, and especially of republics, is a political caste supported by rights and privileges. The treatment was mainly historical, one of the main illustrations being drawn from the mistake made by Richelieu in France, who, when he had completely broken down such a caste, failed to destroy its privileges, and so left a body whose oppressions and assumptions finally brought on the French Revolution. Though I did not draw the inference, I presume that my auditors drew it easily: it was simply that now, when the slave power in the Union was broken down, it should not be allowed to retain the power which had cost the country so dear.

The address was well received, and two days later there came to me what, under other circumstances, I would have most gladly accepted, the election to a professorship at Yale, which embraced the history of art and the direction of the newly founded Street School of Art. The thought of me for the place no doubt grew out of the fact that, during my stay in college, I had shown an interest in art, and especially in architecture, and that after my return from Europe I had delivered in the Yale chapel an address on "Cathedral Builders and Mediæval Sculptors'' which was widely quoted.

It was with a pang that I turned from this offer. To all appearance, then and now, my life would have been far happier in such a professorship, but to accept it was clearly impossible. The manner in which it was tendered me seemed to me almost a greater honor than the professorship itself. I was called upon by a committee of the governing body of the university, composed of the man whom of all in New Haven I most revered, Dr. Bacon, and the governor of the State, my old friend Joseph R. Hawley, who read to me the resolution of the governing

body and requested my acceptance of the election. Nothing has ever been tendered me which I have felt to be a greater honor.

A month later, on the 28th of August, 1866, began at Albany what has been very rare in the history of New York, a special session of the State Senate:—in a sense, a court of impeachment.

Its purpose was to try the county judge of Oneida for complicity in certain illegal proceedings regarding bounties. "Bounty jumping'' had become a very serious evil, and it was claimed that this judicial personage had connived at it.

I must confess that, as the evidence was developed, my feelings as a man and my duties as a sworn officer of the State were sadly at variance. It came out that this judge was endeavoring to support, on the wretched salary of $1800 a year allowed by the county, not only his own family, but also the family of his brother, who, if I remember rightly, had lost his life during the war, and it seemed to me a great pity that, as a penalty upon the people of the county, he could not be quartered upon them as long as he lived. For they were the more culpable criminals. Belonging to one of the richest divisions of the State, with vast interests at stake, they had not been ashamed to pay a judge this contemptible pittance, and they deserved to have their law badly administered. This feeling was undoubtedly wide-spread in the Senate; but, on the other hand, there was the duty we were sworn to perform, and the result was that the judge was removed from office.

During this special session of the State Senate it was entangled in a curious episode of national history. The new President, Mr. Andrew Johnson, had been induced to take an excursion into the north and especially into the State of New York. He was accompanied by Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State; General Grant, with his laurels fresh from the Civil War; Admiral Farragut, who had so greatly distinguished himself during the same epoch,

and others of great merit. It was clear that Secretary Seward thought that he could establish the popularity of the new administration in the State of New York by means of his own personal influence; but this proved the greatest mistake of his life.

On the arrival of the presidential party in New York City, various elements there joined in a showy reception to them, and all were happy. But the scene soon changed. From the city Mr. Seward, with the President, his associates, and a large body of citizens more or less distinguished, came up the Hudson River in one of the finest steamers, a great banquet being given on board. But on approaching Albany, Mr. Seward began to discover his mistake; for the testimonials of admiration and respect toward the President grew less and less hearty as the party moved northward. This was told me afterward by Mr. Thurlow Weed, Mr. Seward's lifelong friend, and probably the most competent judge of such matters in the United States. At various places where the President was called out to speak, he showed a bitterness toward those who opposed his policy which more and more displeased his audiences. One pet phrase of his soon excited derision. The party were taking a sort of circular tour, going northward by the eastern railway and steamer lines, turning westward at Albany, and returning by western lines; hence the President, in one of his earlier speeches, alluded to his journey as "swinging round the circle.'' The phrase seemed to please him, and he constantly repeated it in his speeches, so that at last the whole matter was referred to by the people at large, contemptuously, as "swinging round the circle,'' reference being thereby made, not merely to the President's circular journey, but to the alleged veering of his opinions from those he professed when elected.

As soon as the State Senate was informed of the probable time when the party would arrive at Albany, a resolution was introduced which welcomed in terms: "The President of the United States, Andrew Johnson; the

Secretary of State, William H. Seward; the General of the Army, Ulysses S. Grant; and the Admiral of the Navy, David G. Farragut.'' The feeling against President Johnson and his principal adviser, Mr. Seward, on account of the break which had taken place between them and the majority of the Republican party, was immediately evident, for it was at once voiced by amending the resolution so that it left out all names, and merely tendered a respectful welcome, in terms, to "The President of the United States, the Secretary of State, the General of the Army, and the Admiral of the Navy.'' But suddenly came up a second amendment which was little if anything short of an insult to the President and Secretary. It extended the respectful welcome, in terms, to "The President of the United States; to the Secretary of State; to Ulysses S. Grant, General of the Army; and to David G. Farragut, Admiral of the Navy''; thus making the first part, relating to the President and the Secretary of State, merely a mark of respect for the offices they held, and the latter part a tribute to Grant and Farragut, not only official, but personal. Most earnest efforts were made to defeat the resolution in this form. It was pathetic to see old Republicans who had been brought up to worship Mr. Seward plead with their associates not to put so gross an insult upon a man who had rendered such services to the Republican party, to the State, and to the Nation. All in vain! In spite of all our opposition, the resolution, as amended in this latter form, was carried, indicating the clear purpose of the State Senate to honor simply and solely the offices of the President and of the Secretary of State, but just as distinctly to honor the persons of the General of the Army and the Admiral of the Navy.

On the arrival of the party in Albany they came up to the State House, and were received under the portico by Governor Fenton and his staff. It was perfectly understood that Governor Fenton, though a Republican, was in sympathy with the party in the Senate which had put this slight upon the President and Secretary of State

and Mr. Seward's action was characteristic. Having returned a curt and dry reply to the guarded phrases of the governor, he pressed by him with the President and his associates to the "Executive Chamber'' near the entrance, the way to which he, of all men, well knew. In that room the Senate were assembled and, on the entrance of the visitors, Governor Fenton endeavored to introduce them in a formal speech; but Mr. Seward was too prompt for him; he took the words out of the governor's mouth and said, in a way which thrilled all of us who had been brought up to love and admire him, "In the Executive Chamber of the State of New York I surely need no introduction. I bring to you the President of the United States; the chief magistrate who is restoring peace and prosperity to our country.''

The whole scene impressed me greatly; there rushed upon me a strong tide of recollection as I contrasted what Governor Fenton had been and was, with what Governor Seward had been and was: it all seemed to me a ghastly mistake. There stood Fenton, marking the lowest point in the choice of a State executive ever reached in our Commonwealth by the Republican party: there stood Seward who, from his boyhood in college, had fought courageously, steadily, powerfully, and at last triumphantly, against the domination of slavery; who, as State senator, as governor, as the main founder of the Republican party, as senator of the United States and finally as Secretary of State, had rendered service absolutely inestimable; who for years had braved storms of calumny and ridicule and finally the knife of an assassin; and who was now adhering to Andrew Johnson simply because he knew that if he let go his hold, the President would relapse into the hands of men opposed to any rational set-tlement of the questions between the North and South. I noticed on Seward's brow the deep scar made by the assassin's knife when Lincoln was murdered; all the others, greatly as I admired Grant and Farragut, passed with me at that time for nothing; my eyes were fixed upon the Secretary of State.

After all was over I came out with my colleague, Judge Folger, and as we left the Capitol he said: "What was the matter with you in the governor's room?'' I answered: "Nothing was the matter with me; what do you mean?'' He said: "The moment Seward began to speak you fastened your eyes intently upon him, you turned so pale that I thought you were about to drop, and I made ready to seize you and prevent your falling.'' I then confessed to him the feeling which was doubtless the cause of this change of countenance.

As one who cherishes a deep affection for my native State and for men who have made it great, I may be allowed here to express the hope that the day will come when it will redeem itself from the just charge of ingratitude, and do itself honor by honoring its two greatest governors, De Witt Clinton and William H. Seward. No statue of either of them stands at Albany, the place of all others where such memorials should be erected, not merely as an honor to the two statesmen concerned, but as a lesson to the citizens of the State;—pointing out the qualities which ought to ensure public gratitude, but which, thus far, democracies have least admired.

CHAPTER VIII
ROSCOE CONKLING AND JUDGE FOLGER—1867-1868

AT the beginning of my fourth year at Albany, in 1867, came an election to the Senate of the United States. Of the two senators then representing the State, one, Edwin D. Morgan, had been governor, and combined the qualities of a merchant prince and of a shrewd politician; the other, Ira Harris, had been a highly respected judge, and was, from every point of view, a most worthy man: but unfortunately neither of these gentlemen seemed to exercise any adequate influence in solving the main questions then before Congress.

No more important subjects have ever come before that body than those which arose during the early years of the Civil War, and it was deeply felt throughout the State that neither of the senators fitly uttered its voice or exercised its influence.

Mr. Cornell, with whom I had then become intimate, was never censorious; rarely did he say anything in disapproval of any man; he was charitable in his judgments, and generally preferred to be silent rather than severe; but I remember that on his return from a stay in Washington, he said to me indignantly: "While at the Capitol I was ashamed of the State of New York: one great question after another came up; bills of the highest importance were presented and discussed by senators from Ohio, Vermont, Missouri, Indiana, Iowa, and the rest; but from New York never a word!''

The question now was, who should succeed Senator

Harris? He naturally desired a second term, and it would have given me pleasure to support him, for he was an old and honored friend of my father and mother, they having been, in their early life, his neighbors and schoolmates, and their friendship having descended to me; but like others I was disappointed that Senator Harris had not taken a position more fitting. His main efforts seemed to be in the line of friendly acts for his constituents. In so far as these were done for soldiers in the army they were praiseworthy; though it was generally felt that while arising primarily from a natural feeling of benevolence, they were mainly devoted to securing a body of friends throughout the State, who would support him when the time should come for his reêlection. Apparently with the same object, he was a most devoted supporter of New York office-seekers of all sorts. He had pleasing personal characteristics, but it was reported that Mr. Lincoln, referring to the senator's persistency in pressing candidates for office, once said: "I never think of going to sleep now without first looking under my bed to see if Judge Harris is not there wanting something for somebody.''

Another candidate was Judge Noah Davis, then of Lockport, also a man of high character, of excellent legal abilities, a good speaker, and one who, had he been elected, would have done honor to the State. But on looking about I discovered, as I thought, a better candidate. Judge Bailey, of Oneida County, had called my attention to the claims of Mr. Roscoe Conkling, then a member of Congress from the Oneida district, who had distinguished himself as an effective speaker, a successful lawyer, and an honest public servant. He had, to be sure, run foul of Mr. Blaine of Maine, and had received, in return for what Mr. Blaine considered a display of offensive manners, a very serious oratorical castigation; but he had just fought a good fight which had drawn the attention of the whole State to him. A coalition having been formed between the anti-war Democrats and a number of disaffected Republicans in his district to defeat his reêlection to Congress, it

had seemed likely to overwhelm him and drive him out of public life, and one thing seemed for a time likely to prove fatal to him:—the "New York Tribune,'' the great organ of the party, edited by Horace Greeley, gave him no effective support. But the reason was apparent later when it became known that Mr. Greeley was to be a candidate for the senatorship, and it was evidently felt that should Mr. Conkling triumph in such a struggle, he would be a very serious competitor. The young statesman had shown himself equal to the emergency. He had fought his battle without the aid of Mr. Greeley and the "Tribune,'' and won it, and, as a result, had begun to be thought of as a promising candidate for the United States senatorship. I had never spoken with him; had hardly seen him; but I had watched his course closely, and one thing especially wrought powerfully with me in his favor. The men who had opposed him were of the same sort with those who had opposed me, and as I was proud of their opposition, I felt that he had a right to be so. The whole force of Tammany henchmen and canal contractors throughout the State honored us both with their enmity.

It was arranged among Mr. Conkling's supporters that, at the great caucus which was to decide the matter, Mr. Conkling's name should be presented by the member of the assembly representing his district, Ellis Roberts, a man of eminent character and ability, who, having begun by taking high rank as a scholar at Yale, had become one of the foremost editors of the State, and had afterward distinguished himself not only in the State legislature, but in Congress, and as the head of the independent treasury in the city of New York. The nest question was as to the speech seconding the nomination. It was proposed that Judge Folger should make it, but as he showed a curious diffidence in the matter, and preferred to preside over the caucus, the duty was tendered to me.

At the hour appointed the assembly hall of the old Capitol was full; floor and galleries were crowded to suffocation. The candidates were duly presented, and, among

them, Mr. Conkling by Mr. Roberts. I delayed my speech somewhat. The general course of it had been thought out beforehand, but the phraseology and sequence of argument were left to the occasion. I felt deeply the importance of nominating Mr. Conkling, and when the moment came threw my heart into it. I was in full health and vigor, and soon felt that a very large part of the audience was with me. Presently I used the argument that the great State of New York, which had been so long silent in the highest councils of the Nation, demanded a voice. Instantly the vast majority of all present, in the galleries, in the lobbies, and on the floor, rose in quick response to the sentiment and cheered with all their might. There had been no such outburst in the whole course of the evening. Evidently this was the responsive chord, and having gone on with the main line of my argument, I at last closed with the same declaration in different form;—that our great Commonwealth,—the most important in the whole sisterhood of States,—which had been so long silent in the Senate, wished to be heard, and that, therefore, I seconded the nomination of Mr. Conkling. Immediately the whole house rose to this sentiment again and again, with even greater evidence of approval than before; the voting began and Mr. Conkling was finally nominated, if my mem-ory is correct, by a majority of three.

The moment the vote was declared the whole assembly broke loose; the pressure being removed, there came a general effervescence of good feeling, and I suddenly found myself raised on the shoulders of stalwart men who stood near, and rapidly carried over the heads of the crowd, through many passages and corridors, my main anxiety being to protect my head so that my brains might not be knocked out against stairways and doorways; but presently, when fairly dazed and bewildered, I was borne into a room in the old Congress Hall Hotel, and deposited safely in the presence of a gentleman standing with his back to the fire, who at once extended his hand to me most cordially, and to whom I said, "God bless

you, Senator Conkling. "A most hearty response followed, and so began my closer acquaintance with the new senator.

Mr. Conkling's election followed as a thing of course, and throughout the State there was general approval.

During this session of 1867 I found myself involved in two rather curious struggles, and with no less a personage than my colleague, Judge Folger.

As to the first of these I had long felt, and still feel, that of all the weaknesses in our institutions, one of the most serious is our laxity in the administration of the criminal law. No other civilized country, save possibly the lower parts of Italy and Sicily, shows anything to approach the number of unpunished homicides, in proportion to the population, which are committed in sundry parts of our own country, and indeed in our country taken as a whole. In no country is the deterrent effect of punishment so vitiated by delay; in no country is so much facility given to chicanery, to futile appeals, and to every possible means of clearing men from the due penalty of high crime, and especially the crime of murder.

It was in view of this fact that, acting on the advice of an old and able judge whose experience in criminal practice had been very large, I introduced into the Senate a bill to improve the procedure in criminal cases. The judge just referred to had shown me the absurdities arising from the fact that testimony in regard to character, even in the case of professional criminals, was not allowed save in rebuttal. It was notorious that professional criminals charged with high crimes, especially in our large cities, frequently went free because, while the testimony to the particular crime was not absolutely overwhelming, testimony to their character as professional criminals, which, in connection with the facts established, would have been absolutely conclusive, could not be admitted. I therefore proposed that testimony as to character in any criminal case might be introduced by the prosecution if, after having been privately submitted to

the judge, he should decide that the ends of justice would be furthered thereby.

The bill was referred to the Senate judiciary committee, of which Judge Folger was chairman. After it had lain there some weeks and the judge had rather curtly answered my questions as to when it would be reported, it became clear to me that the committee had no intention of reporting it at all, whereupon I introduced a resolution requesting them to report it, at the earliest day possible, for the consideration of the Senate, and this was passed in spite of the opposition of the committee. Many days then passed; no report was made, and I therefore introduced a resolution taking the bill out of the hands of the committee and bringing it directly before the committee of the whole. This was most earnestly resisted by Judge Folger and by his main associate on the committee, Henry Murphy of Brooklyn. On the other hand I had, to aid me, Judge Lowe, also a lawyer of high standing, and indeed all the lawyers in the body who were not upon the judiciary committee. The result was that my motion was successful; the bill was taken from the committee and immediately brought under discussion.

In reply to the adverse arguments of Judge Folger and Mr. Murphy, which were to the effect that my bill was an innovation upon the criminal law of the State, I pointed out the fact that evidence as to the character of the person charged with crime is often all-important; that in our daily life we act upon that fact as the simplest dictate of common sense; that if any senator present had his watch stolen from his room he would be very slow to charge the crime against the servant who was last seen in the room, even under very suspicious circumstances; but if he found that the servant had been discharged for theft from various places previously, this would be more important than any other circumstance. I showed how safeguards which had been devised in the middle ages to protect citizens from the feudal lord were now used to aid criminals in evading the law, and I ended by rather unjustly comparing

Judge Folger to the great Lord Chancellor Eldon, of whom it was said that, despite his profound knowledge of the law, "no man ever did so much good as he prevented.'' The result was that the bill was passed by the Senate in spite of the judiciary committee.

During the continuance of the discussion Judge Folger had remained in his usual seat, but immediately after the passage of the bill he resumed his place as president of the Senate. He was evidently vexed, and in declaring the Senate adjourned he brought the gavel down with a sort of fling which caused it to fly out of his hand and fall in front of his desk on the floor. Fortunately it was after midnight and few saw it; but there was a general feeling of regret among us all that a man so highly respected should have so lost his temper. By common consent the whole matter was hushed; no mention of it, so far as I could learn, was made in the public press, and soon all seemed forgotten.

Unfortunately it was remembered, and in a quarter which brought upon Judge Folger one of the worst disappointments of his life.

For, in the course of the following summer, the Constitutional Convention of the State was to hold its session and its presidency was justly considered a great honor. Two candidates were named, one being Judge Folger and the other Mr. William A. Wheeler, then a member of Congress and afterward Vice-President of the United States. The result of the canvas by the friends of both these gentlemen seemed doubtful, when one morning there appeared in the "New York Tribune,'' the most powerful organ of the Republican party, one of Horace Greeley's most trenchant articles. It dwelt on the importance of the convention in the history of the State, on the responsibility of its members, on the characteristics which should mark its presiding officer, and, as to this latter point, wound up pungently by saying that it would be best to have a president who, when he disagreed with members, did not throw his gavel at them. This shot took effect; it ran through

the State; people asked the meaning of it; various exaggerated legends became current, one of them being that he had thrown the gavel at me personally;—and Mr. Wheeler became president of the convention.

But before the close of the session another matter had come up which cooled still more the relations between Judge Folger and myself. For many sessions, year after year, there had been before the legislature a bill for establishing a canal connecting the interior lake system of the State with Lake Ontario. This was known as the Sodus Canal Bill, and its main champion was a public-spirited man from Judge Folger's own district. In favor of the canal various arguments were urged, one of them being that it would enable the United States, while keeping within its treaty obligations with Great Britain, to build ships on these smaller lakes, which, in case of need, could be passed through the canal into the great chain of lakes extending from Lake Ontario to Lake Superior. To this it was replied that such an evasion of the treaty was not especially creditable to those suggesting it, and that the main purpose of the bill really was to create a vast water power which should enure to the benefit of sundry gentlemen in Judge Folger's district.

Up to this time Judge Folger seemed never to care much for the bill, and I had never made any especial effort against it; but when, just at the close of the session, certain constituents of mine upon the Oswego River had shown me that there was great danger in the proposed canal to the water supply through the counties of Onondaga and Oswego, I opposed the measure. Thereupon Judge Folger became more and more earnest in its favor, and it soon became evident that all his power would be used to pass it during the few remaining days of the session. By his influence it was pushed rapidly through all its earlier stages, and at last came up before the Senate. It seemed sure to pass within ten minutes, when I moved that the whole matter be referred to the approaching Constitutional Convention, which was to begin its sessions

immediately after the adjournment of the legislature, and Judge Folger having spoken against this motion, I spoke in its favor and did what I have never done before in my life and probably shall never do again—spoke against time. There was no "previous question'' in the Senate, no limitation as to the period during which a member could discuss any measure, and, as the youngest member in the body, I was in the full flush of youthful strength. I therefore announced my intention to present some three hundred arguments in favor of referring the whole matter to the State Constitutional Convention, those arguments being based upon the especial fitness of its three hundred members to decide the question, as shown by the personal character and life history of each and every one of them. I then went on with this series of biographies, beginning with that of Judge Folger himself, and paying him most heartily and cordially every tribute possible, including some of a humorous nature. Having given about half an hour to the judge, I then took up sundry other members and kept on through the entire morning. I had the floor and no one could dispossess me. The lieutenant-governor, in the chair, General Stewart Woodford, was perfectly just and fair, and although Judge Folger and Mr. Murphy used all their legal acuteness in devising some means of evading the rules, they were in every case declared by the lieutenant-governor to be out of order, and the floor was in every case reassigned to me. Meantime, the whole Senate, though anxious to adjourn, entered into the spirit of the matter, various members passing me up biographical notes on the members of the convention, some of them very comical, and presently the hall was crowded with members of the assembly as well as senators, all cheering me on. The reason for this was very simple. There had come to be a general understanding of the case, namely, that Judge Folger, by virtue of his great power and influence, was trying in the last hours of the session to force through a bill for the benefit of his district, and that I was simply doing my best to prevent an injustice. The result was that I went on hour after hour with my series of biographies, until at last Judge Folger himself sent me word that if I would desist and allow the legislature to adjourn he would make no further effort to carry the bill at that session. To this I instantly agreed; the bill was dropped for that session and for all sessions: so far as I can learn it has never reappeared.

Shortly after our final adjournment the Constitutional Convention came together. It was one of the best bodies of the kind ever assembled in any State, as a list of its members abundantly shows. There was much work for it, and most important of all was the reorganization of the highest judicial body in the State—the Court of Appeals—which had become hopelessly inadequate.

The two principal members of the convention from the city of New York were Horace Greeley, editor of the "Tribune,'' and William M. Evarts, afterward Attorney-General, United States senator, and Secretary of State of the United States. Mr. Greeley was at first all-powerful. As has already been seen, he had been able to prevent Judge Folger taking the presidency of the convention, and for a few days he had everything his own way. But he soon proved so erratic a leader that his influence was completely lost, and after a few sessions there was hardly any member with less real power to influence the judgments of his colleagues.

This was not for want of real ability in his speeches, for at various times I heard him make, for and against measures, arguments admirably pungent, forcible, and far-reaching, but there seemed to be a universal feeling that he was an unsafe guide.

Soon came a feature in his course which made matters worse. The members of the convention, many of them, were men in large business and very anxious to have a day or two each week for their own affairs. Moreover, during the first weeks of the session, while the main matters coming before the convention were still in the hands

of committees, there was really not enough business ready for the convention to occupy it through all the days of the week, and consequently it adopted the plan, for the first weeks at least, of adjourning from Friday night till Tuesday morning. This vexed Mr. Greeley sorely. He in-sisted that the convention ought to keep at its business and finish it without any such weekly adjournments, and, as his arguments to this effect did not prevail in the convention, he began making them through the "Tribune'' before the people of the State. Soon his arguments became acrid, and began undermining the convention at every point.

As to Mr. Greeley's feeling regarding the weekly adjournment, one curious thing was reported: There was a member from New York of a literary turn for whom the great editor had done much in bringing his verses and other productions before the public—a certain Mr. Duganne; but it happened that, on one of the weekly motions to adjourn, Mr. Duganne had voted in the affirmative, and, as a result, Mr. Greeley, meeting him just afterward, upbraided him in a manner which filled the rural bystanders with consternation. It was well known to those best acquainted with the editor of the "Tribune'' that, when excited, he at times indulged in the most ingenious and picturesque expletives, and some of Mr. Chauncey Depew's best stories of that period pointed to this fact. On this occasion Mr. Greeley really outdid himself, and the result was that the country members, who up to that time had regarded him with awe as the representative of the highest possible morality in public and private life, were greatly dismayed, and in various parts of the room they were heard expressing their amazement, and saying to each other in awe-stricken tones: "Why! Greeley swears!''

Ere long Mr. Greeley was taking, almost daily in the "Tribune,'' steady ground against the doings of his colleagues. Lesser newspapers followed with no end of cheap and easy denunciation, and the result was that the

convention became thoroughly, though unjustly, discredited throughout the State, and indeed throughout the country. A curious proof of this met me. Being at Cambridge, Massachusetts, I passed an evening with Governor Washburn, one of the most thoughtful and valuable public men of that period. In the course of our conversation he said: "Mr. White, it is really sad to hear of the doings at your Albany convention. I can remember your constitutional convention of 1846, and when I compare this convention with that, it grieves me.'' My answer was: "Governor Washburn, you are utterly mistaken: there has never been a constitutional convention in the State of New York, not even that you name, which has contained so many men of the highest ability and character as the one now in session, and none which has really done better work. I am not a member of the body and can say this in its behalf.'' At this he expressed his amazement, and pointed to the "Tribune'' in confirmation of his own position. I then stated the case to him, and, I think, alleviated his distress.

But as the sessions of the convention drew to a close and the value of its work began to be clearly understood, Greeley's nobler qualities, his real truthfulness and public spirit began to assert themselves, and more than once he showed practical shrewdness and insight. Going into convention one morning, I found the question under discussion to be the election of the secretary of state, attorney-general, and others of the governor's cabinet, whose appointment under the older constitutions was wisely left to the governor, but who, for twenty years, had been elected by the people. There was a wide-spread feeling that the old system was wiser, and that the new had by no means justified itself; in fact, that by fastening on the governor the responsibility for his cabinet, the State is likely to secure better men than when their choice is left to the hurly-burly of intrigue and prejudice in a nominating convention.

The main argument made by those who opposed such a

return to the old, better order of things was that the people would not like it and would be inclined to vote down the new constitution on account of it.

In reply to this, Mr. Greeley arose and made a most admirable short speech ending with these words, given in his rapid falsetto, with a sort of snap that made the whole seem like one word: "When-the-people-take-up-their-ballots-they-want-to-see-who-is-to-be-governor: that's-all-they-care-about: they-don't-want-to-read-a-whole-chapter-of-the-Bible-on-their-ballots.''

Unfortunately, the majority dared not risk the popular ratification of the new constitution, and so this amendment was lost.

No doubt Mr. Greeley was mainly responsible for this condition of things; his impatience with the convention, as shown by his articles in the "Tribune,'' had been caught by the people of the State.

The long discussions were very irksome to him, and one day I mildly expostulated with him on account of some of his utterances against the much speaking of his colleagues, and said: "After all, Mr. Greeley, is n't it a pretty good thing to have a lot of the best men in the State come together every twenty years and thoroughly discuss the whole constitution, to see what improvements can be made; and is not the familiarity with the constitution and interest in it thus aroused among the people at large worth all the fatigue arising from long speeches?'' "Well, perhaps so,'' he said, but he immediately began to grumble and finally to storm in a comical way against some of his colleagues who, it must be confessed, were tiresome. Still he became interested more and more in the work, and as the new constitution emerged from the committees and public debates, he evidently saw that it was a great gain to the State, and now did his best through the "Tribune'' to undo what he had been doing. He wrote editorials praising the work of the convention and urging that it be adopted. But all in vain: the unfavorable impression had been too widely and deeply made, and the result was that

the new constitution, when submitted to the people, was ignominiously voted down, and the whole summer's work of the convention went for nothing. Later, however, a portion of it was rescued and put into force through the agency of a "Constitutional Commission,'' a small body of first-rate men who sat at Albany, and whose main conclusions were finally adopted in the shape of amendments to the old constitution. There was, none the less, a wretched loss to the State.

During the summer of 1867 I was completely immersed in the duties of my new position at Cornell University; going through various institutions in New England and the Western States to note the workings of their technical departments; visiting Ithaca to consult with Mr. Cornell and to look over plans for buildings, and credentials for professorships, or, shut up in my own study at Syracuse, or in the cabins of Cayuga Lake steamers, drawing up schemes of university organization, so that my political life soon seemed ages behind me.

While on a visit to Harvard, I was invited by Agassiz to pass a day with him at Nahant in order to discuss methods and men. He entered into the matter very earnestly, agreed to give us an extended course of lectures, which he afterward did, and aided us in many ways. One remark of his surprised me. I had asked him to name men, and he had taken much pains to do so, when suddenly he turned to me abruptly and said: "Who is to be your professor of moral philosophy? That is by far the most important matter in your whole organization.'' It seemed strange that one who had been honored by the whole world as probably the foremost man in natural science then living, and who had been denounced by many exceedingly orthodox people as an enemy of religion, should take this view of the new faculty, but it showed how deeply and sincerely religious he was. I soon reassured him on the point he had raised, and then went on with the discussion of scientific men, methods, and equipments.

I was also asked by the poet Longfellow to pass a day with him at his beautiful Nahant cottage in order to discuss certain candidates and methods in literature. No-thing could be more delightful than his talk as we sat together on the veranda looking out over the sea, with the gilded dome of the State House, which he pointed out to me as "The Hub,'' in the dim distance. One question of his amused me much. We were discussing certain recent events in which Mr. Horace Greeley had played an important part, and after alluding to Mr. Greeley's course during the War, he turned his eyes fully but mildly upon me and said slowly and solemnly: "Mr. White, don't you think Mr. Greeley a very useless sort of man?'' The question struck me at first as exceedingly comical; for, I thought, "Imagine Mr. Greeley, who thinks himself, and with reason, a useful man if there ever was one, and whose whole life has been devoted to what he has thought of the highest and most direct use to his fellow-men, hearing this question put in a dreamy way by a poet,—a writer of verse,—probably the last man in America whom Mr. Greeley would consider `useful.' '' But my old admiration for the great editor came back in a strong tide, and if I was ever eloquent it was in showing Mr. Longfellow how great, how real, how sincere, and in the highest degree how useful Mr. Greeley had been.

Another man of note whom I met in those days was Judge Rockwood Hoar, afterward named by General Grant Attorney-General of the United States, noted as a profound lawyer of pungent wit and charming humor, the delight of his friends and the terror of his enemies. I saw him first at Harvard during a competition for the Boylston prize at which we were fellow-judges. All the speaking was good, some of it admirable; but the especially remarkable pieces were two. First of these was a recital of Washington Irving's "Broken Heart,'' by an undergraduate from the British provinces, Robert Alder McLeod. Nothing could be more simple and perfect in its way; nothing more free from any effort at orating; all

was in the most quiet and natural manner possible. The second piece was a rendering of Poe's "Bells,'' and was a most amazing declamation, the different sorts of bells being indicated by changes of voice ranging from basso profondo to the highest falsetto, and the feelings aroused in the orator being indicated by modulations which must have cost him months of practice.

The contest being ended, and the committee having retired to make their award, various members expressed an opinion in favor of Mr. McLeod's quiet recital, when Judge Hoar, who had seemed up to that moment immersed in thought, seemed suddenly to awake, and said: "If I had a son who spoke that bell piece in that style I believe I'd choke him.'' The vote was unanimously in favor of Mr. McLeod, and then came out a curious fact. Having noticed that he bore an empty sleeve, I learned from Professor Peabody that he had lost his arm while fighting on the Confederate side in our Civil War, and that he was a man of remarkably fine scholarship and noble character. He afterward became an instructor at Harvard, but died early.

During the following autumn, in spite of my absorption in university interests, I was elected a delegate to the State Convention, and in October made a few political speeches, the most important being at Clinton, the site of Hamilton College. This was done at the special request of Senator Conkling, and on my way I passed a day with him at Utica, taking a long drive through the adjacent country. Never was he more charming. The bitter and sarcastic mood seemed to have dropped off him; the overbearing manner had left no traces; he was full of delightful reminiscences and it was a day to be remembered.

I also spoke at various other places and, last of all, at Clifton Springs, but received there a rebuff which was not without its uses.

I had thought my speeches successful; but at the latter place, taking the cars nest morning, I heard a dialogue between two railway employees, as follows:

"Bill, did you go to the meetin' last night?'' "Yes.'' "How was it?'' "It wa'n't no meetin', leastwise no p'litical meetin'; there wa'n't nothin' in it fur the boys; it was only one of them scientific college purfessors lecturin'.'' And so I sped homeward, pondering on many things, but strengthened, by this homely criticism, in my determination to give my efforts henceforth to the new university.

CHAPTER IX
GENERAL GRANT AND SANTO DOMINGO—1868-1871

DURING the two or three years following my senatorial term, work in the founding and building of Cornell University was so engrossing that there was little time for any effort which could be called political. In the early spring of 1868 I went to Europe to examine institutions for scientific and technological instruction, and to secure professors and equipment, and during about six months I visited a great number of such schools, especially those in agriculture, mechanical, civil, and mining engineering and the like in England, France, Germany, and Italy; bought largely of books and apparatus, discussed the problems at issue with Europeans who seemed likely to know most about them, secured sundry professors, and returned in September just in time to take part in the opening of Cornell University and be inaugurated as its first president. Of all this I shall speak more in detail hereafter.

There was no especial temptation to activity in the political campaign of that year; for the election of General Grant was sure, and my main memory of the period is a visit to Auburn to hear Mr. Seward.

It had been his wont for many years, when he came home to cast his vote, to meet his neighbors on the eve of the election and give his views of the situation and of its resultant duties. These occasions had come to be anticipated with the deepest interest by the whole region round about, and what had begun as a little gathering of neighbors

had now become such an assembly that the largest hall in the place was crowded with voters of all parties.

But this year came a disappointment. Although the contest was between General Grant,—who on various decisive battle-fields had done everything to save the administration of which Mr. Seward had been a leading member, —and on the other side, Governor Horatio Seymour, who had done all in his power to wreck it, Mr. Seward devoted his speech to optimistic generalities, hardly alluding to the candidates, and leaving the general impression that one side was just as worthy of support as the other.

The speech was an unfortunate ending of Mr. Seward's career. It was not surprising that some of his old admirers bitterly resented it, and a remark by Mr. Cornell some time afterward indicated much. We were arranging together a program for the approaching annual commencement when I suggested for the main address Mr. Seward. Mr. Cornell had been one of Mr. Seward's lifelong supporters, but he received this proposal coldly, pondered it for a few moments silently, and then said dryly, "Perhaps you are right, but if you call him you will show to our students the deadest man that ain't buried in the State of New York.'' So, to my regret, was lost the last chance to bring the old statesman to Cornell. I have always regretted this loss; his presence would have given a true consecration to the new institution. A career like his should not be judged by its little defects and lapses, and this I felt even more deeply on receiving, some time after his death, the fifth volume of his published works, which was largely made up of his despatches and other papers written during the war. When they were first published in the newspapers, I often thought them long and was impatient at their optimism, but now, when I read them all together, saw in them the efforts made by the heroic old man to keep the hands of European powers off us while we were restoring the Union, and noted the desperation with which he fought, the encouragement which he infused into our diplomatic representatives

abroad, and his struggle, almost against fate, in the time of our reverses, I was fascinated. The book had arrived early in the evening, and next morning found me still seated in my library chair completely absorbed in it.

In the spring of the year 1870, while as usual in the thick of university work, I was again drawn for a moment into the current of New York politics. The long wished for amendment of the State constitution, putting our highest tribunal, the Court of Appeals, on a better footing than it had ever been before, making it more adequate, the term longer, and the salaries higher, had been passed, and judges were to be chosen at the next election. Each of the two great parties was entitled to an equal number of judges, and I was requested to go to the approaching nominating convention at Rochester in order to present the name of my old friend and neighbor, Charles Andrews.

It was a most honorable duty, no man could have desired a better candidate, and I gladly accepted the mandate. Although it was one of the most staid and dignified bodies of the sort which has ever met in the State, it had as a preface a pleasant farce.

As usual, the seething cauldron of New York City politics had thrown to the surface some troublesome delegates, and among them was one long famed as a "Tammany Republican.''

Our first business was the choice of a president for the convention, and, as it had been decided by the State committee to present for that office the name of one of the most respected judges in the State, the Honorable Platt Potter, of Schenectady, it was naturally expected that some member of the regular organization would present his name in a dignified speech. But hardly had the chairman of the State committee called the convention to order when the aforesaid Tammany Republican, having heard that Judge Potter was to be elected, thought evidently that he could gain recognition and applause by being the first to present his name. He therefore rushed forward,

and almost before the chairman had declared the convention opened, cried out: "Mr. Chairman, I move you, sir, that the Honorable `Pot Platter' be made president of this convention.'' A scream of laughter went up from all parts of the house, and in an instant a gentleman rose and moved to amend by making the name "Platt Potter.'' This was carried, and the proposer of the original motion retired crestfallen to his seat.

I had the honor of presenting Mr. Andrews's name. He was nominated and elected triumphantly, and so began the career of one of the best judges that New York has ever had on its highest court, who has also for many years occupied, with the respect and esteem of the State, the position of chief justice.

The convention then went on to nominate other judges, —nomination being equivalent to election,—but when the last name was reached there came a close contest. An old friend informed me that Judge Folger, my former colleague in the Senate and since that assistant treasurer of the United States in the city of New York, was exceedingly anxious to escape from this latter position, and desired greatly the nomination to a judgeship on the Court of Appeals.

I decided at once to do what was possible to secure Judge Folger's nomination, though our personal relations were very unsatisfactory. Owing to our two conflicts at the close of our senatorial term above referred to, and to another case where I thought he had treated me unjustly, we had never exchanged a word since I had left the State Senate; and though we met each other from time to time on the board of Cornell University trustees, we passed each other in silence. Our old friendship, which had been very dear to me, seemed forever broken, but I felt deeply that the fault was not mine. At the same time I recognized the fact that Judge Folger was not especially adapted to the position of assistant treasurer of the United States, and was admirably fitted for the position of judge in the Court of Appeals. I therefore did everything possible

to induce one or two of the delegations with which I had some influence to vote for him, dwelling especially upon his former judgeship, his long acquaintance with the legislation of the State, and his high character, and at last he was elected by a slight majority.

The convention having adjourned, I was on my way to the train when I was met by Judge Folger, who had just arrived. He put out his hand and greeted me most heartily, showing very deep feeling as he expressed his regret over our estrangement. Of course I was glad that bygones were to be bygones, and that our old relations were restored. He became a most excellent judge, and finally chief justice of the State, which position he left to become Secretary of the Treasury.

To the political cataclysm which ended his public activity and doubtless hastened his death, I refer elsewhere. As long as he lived our friendly relations continued, and this has been to me ever since a great satisfaction.

In this same year, 1870, occurred my first extended conversation with General Grant. At my earlier meeting with him when he was with President Johnson in Albany, I had merely been stiffly presented to him, and we had exchanged a few commonplaces; but I was now invited to his cottage at Long Branch and enjoyed a long and pleasant talk with him. Its main subject was the Franco-German War then going on, and his sympathies were evidently with Germany. His comments on the war were prophetic. There was nothing dogmatic in them; nothing could be more simple and modest than his manner and utterance, but there was a clearness and quiet force in them which impressed me greatly. He was the first great general I had ever seen, and I was strongly reminded of his mingled diffidence and mastery when, some years afterward, I talked with Moltke in Berlin.

Another experience of that summer dwells in my memory. I was staying, during the first week of September, with my dear old friend, Dr. Henry M. Field, at Stockbridge, in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts, and

had the good fortune, at the house of his brother, the eminent jurist, David Dudley Field, to pass a rainy evening in company with Mr. Burton Harrison, who, after a distinguished career at Yale, had been the private secretary of Jefferson Davis, president of the Southern Confederacy. On that evening a storm had kept away all but a few of us, and Mr. Harrison yielded to our entreaties to give us an account of Mr. Davis's flight at the surrender of Richmond, from the time when he quietly left his pew in St. Paul's Church to that of his arrest by United States soldiers. The story was most vivid, and Mr. Harrison, as an eye witness, told it simply and admirably. There had already grown out of this flight of Mr. Davis a most luxuriant tangle of myth and legend, and it had come to be generally believed that the Confederate president had at last endeavored to shield himself behind the women of his household; that when arrested he was trying to escape in the attire of his wife, including a hooped skirt and a bonnet, and that he was betrayed by an incautious display of his military boots beneath his wife's flounces. The simple fact was that, having separated from his family party, and seeking escape to the coast or mountains, he was again and again led by his affection for his family to return to them, his fears for them overcoming all care for himself; and that, as he was suffering from neuralgia, he wore over his clothing, to guard him from the incessant rain, Mrs. Davis' waterproof cloak. Out of this grew the legend which found expression in jubilant newspaper articles, songs, and caricatures.

This reminds me that some years later, my old college friend, Colonel William Preston Johnston, president of Tulane University, told me a story which throws light upon that collapse of the Confederacy. Colonel Johnston was at that period the military secretary of President Davis, and, as the catastrophe approached, was much vexed at the interminable debates in the Confederate Congress. Among the subjects of these discussions was the great seal of the Confederacy. It had been decided to

adopt for this purpose a relief representing Crawford's statue of Washington at Richmond, with the Southern statesmen and soldiers surrounding it; but though all agreed that Washington, in his Continental costume, and holding in his hand his cocked hat, should retain the central position, there were many differences of opinion as to the surrounding portraits, the result being that motions were made to strike out this or that revolutionary hero from one State and to replace him by another from another State, thus giving rise to lengthy eulogies of these various personages, so that the whole thing resembled the discussions in metaphysical theology by the Byzantines at the time when the Turks were forcing their way through the walls of Constantinople. One day, just before the final catastrophe, Mr. Judah Benjamin, formerly United States senator, but at that time the Confederate secretary of state, passed through Colonel Johnston's office, and the following dialogue took place.

Colonel Johnston: "What are they doing in the Senate and House, Mr. Secretary?''

Mr. Benjamin: "Oh, simply debating the Confederate seal, moving to strike out this man and to insert that.''

Colonel Johnston: "Do you know what motion I would make if I were a member?''

Mr. Benjamin: "No, what would you move?''

Colonel Johnston: "I would move to strike out from the seal everything except the cocked hat.''

Colonel Johnston was right; the Confederacy was "knocked into a cocked hat'' a few days afterward.

In the autumn of that year, September, 1870, I was sent as a delegate to the State Republican Convention, and presented as a candidate for the lieutenant-governorship a man who had served the State admirably in the National Congress and in the State legislature as well as in great business operations, Mr. DeWitt Littlejohn of Oswego. I did this on the part of sundry gentlemen who were anxious to save the Republican ticket, which had at its head my old friend General Woodford, but though I was successful

in securing Mr. Littlejohn's nomination, he soon afterward declined, and defeat followed in November.

The only part which I continued to take in State politics was in writing letters and in speaking, on sundry social occasions of a political character, in behalf of harmony between the two factions which were now becoming more and more bitter. At first I seemed to have some success, but before long it became clear that the current was too strong and that the bitterness of faction was to prevail. I am so constituted that factious thought and effort dishearten and disgust me. At many periods of my life I have acted as a "buffer'' between conflicting cliques and factions, generally to some purpose; now it was otherwise. But, as Kipling says, "that is another story.''

The hard work and serious responsibilities brought upon me by the new university had greatly increased. They had worn deeply upon me when, in the winter of 1870-71, came an event which drew me out of my university life for a time and gave me a much needed change: —I was sent by the President as one of the three commissioners to Santo Domingo to study questions relating to the annexation of the Spanish part of that island which was then proposed, and to report thereupon to Congress.

While in Washington at this time I saw much of President Grant, Mr. Sumner, and various other men who were then leading in public affairs, but some account of them will be given in my reminiscences of the Santo Domingo expedition.

I trust that it may be allowed me here to recall an incident which ought to have been given in a preceding chapter. During one of my earlier visits to the National Capital, I made the acquaintance of Senator McDougal. His distorted genius had evidently so dazzled his fellow-citizens of California that, in spite of his defects, they had sent him to the highest council of the Nation. He was a martyr to conviviality, and when more or less under the sway of it, had strange ideas and quaint ways of expressing them. His talk recalled to me a time in my childhood

when, having found a knob of glass, twisted, striated with different colors, and filled with air bubbles, I enjoyed looking at the landscape through it. Everything became grotesquely transfigured. A cabbage in the foreground became opalescent, and an ear of corn a mass of jewels, but the whole atmosphere above and beyond was lurid, and the chimneys and church spires were topsy-turvy.

The only other person whose talk ever produced an impression of this sort on me was Tolstoy, and he will be discussed in another chapter.

McDougal's peculiarity made him at last unbearable; so much so that the Senate was obliged to take measures against him. His speech in his own defense showed the working of his mind, and one passage most of all. It remains probably the best defense of drunkenness ever made, and it ran as follows:

"Mr. President,—I pity the man who has never viewed the affairs of this world, save from the poor, low, miserable plane of ordinary sobriety.''

My absence in the West Indies covered the first three months of the year 1871, and then the commission returned to Washington and made its report; but regarding this I shall speak at length in the chapter of my diplomatic experiences, devoted to the Santo Domingo question.

10. CHAPTER X
THE GREELEY CAMPAIGN—1872

HAVING finished my duties on the Santo Domingo Commission, I returned to the University in May of 1871, devoted myself again to my duties as president and professor, and, in the mass of arrears which had accumulated, found ample occupation. I also delivered various addresses at universities, colleges, and elsewhere, keeping as remote from politics as possible.

In June, visiting New York in order to take part in a dinner given by various journalists and others to my classmate and old friend, George Washburne Smalley, at that time the London correspondent of the "New York Tribune,'' I met, for the first time, Colonel John Hay, who was in the full tide of his brilliant literary career and who is, as I write this, Secretary of State of the United States. His clear, thoughtful talk strongly impressed me, but the most curious circumstance connected with the affair was that several of us on the way to Delmonico's stopped for a time to observe the public reception given to Mr. Horace Greeley on his return from a tour through the Southern States. Mr. Greeley, undoubtedly from the purest personal and patriotic motives, had, with other men of high standing, including Gerrit Smith, attached his name to the bail bond of Jefferson Davis, which released the ex-president of the Confederacy from prison, and, in fact, freed him entirely from anything like punishment for treason. I have always admired Mr. Greeley's honesty and courage in doing this. Doubtless, too, an

equally patriotic and honest desire to aid in bringing North and South together after the war led him to take an extensive tour through sundry Southern States. He had just returned from this tour and this reception was given him in consequence.

It had already been noised abroad that there was a movement on foot to make him a candidate for the Presidency, and many who knew the characteristics of the man, even those who, like myself, had been greatly influenced by him and regarded him as by far the foremost editorial writer that our country had ever produced, looked upon this idea with incredulity. For of all patriotic men in the entire country who had touched public affairs Horace Greeley seemed the most eminently unfit for executive duties. He was notoriously, in business matters, the easy prey of many who happened to get access to him;— the "long-haired men and short-haired women'' of the country seemed at times to have him entirely under their sway; his hard-earned money, greatly needed by himself and his family, was lavished upon ne'er-do-weels and cast into all sorts of impracticable schemes. He made loans to the discarded son of the richest man whom the United States had at that time produced, and in every way showed himself an utterly incompetent judge of men. It was a curious fact that lofty as were his purposes, and noble as were his main characteristics, the best men of the State—men like Seward, Weed, Judge Folger, Senator Andrews, General Leavenworth, Elbridge Spaulding, and other really thoughtful, solid, substantial advisers of the Republican party—were disliked by him, and yet no other reason could be assigned than this:—that while they all admired him as a writer, they could not be induced to pretend that they considered him fit for high executive office, either in the State or Nation. On the other hand, so far as politics were concerned, his affections seemed to be lavished on politicians who flattered and coddled him. Of this the rise of Governor Fenton was a striking example. Doubtless there were exceptions to this rule, but

it was the rule nevertheless. This was clearly and indeed comically shown at the reception given him in Union Square on the evening referred to. Mr. Greeley appeared at a front window of a house on the Broadway side and came out upon a temporary platform. His appearance is deeply stamped upon my memory. He was in a rather slouchy evening dress, his white hair thrown back off his splendid forehead, and his broad, smooth, kindly features as serene as the face of a big, well-washed baby.

There was in his appearance something at the same time naïve and impressive, and the simplicity of it was increased by a bouquet, huge and gorgeous, which some admirer had attached to his coat, and which forced upon the mind of a reflective observer the idea of a victim adorned for sacrifice.

He gave scant attention to his audience in the way of ceremonial greeting, and plunged at once into his subject; —beginning in a high, piping, falsetto voice which, for a few moments, was almost painful. But the value of his matter soon overcame the defects of his manner; the speech was in his best vein; it struck me as the best, on the whole, I had ever heard him make, and that is saying much. Holding in his hands a little package of cards on which notes were jotted down, he occasionally cast his eyes upon them, but he evidently trusted to the inspiration of the hour for his phrasing, and his trust was not misplaced. I never heard a more simple, strong, lucid use of the English language than was his on that occasion. The speech was a very noble plea for the restoration of good feeling between North and South, with an effort to show that the distrust felt by the South toward the North was natural. In the course of it he said in substance:

"Fellow Citizens: The people of the South have much reason to distrust us. We have sent among them during the war and since the war, to govern them, to hold office among them, and to eat out their substance, a number of worthless adventurers whom they call "carpet-baggers.''

These emissaries of ours pretend to be patriotic and pious; they pull long faces and say `Let us pray'; but they spell it p-r-e-y. The people of the South hate them, and they ought to hate them.''

At this we in the audience looked at each other in amazement; for, standing close beside Mr. Greeley, at that very moment, most obsequiously, was perhaps the worst "carpet-bagger'' ever sent into the South; a man who had literally been sloughed off by both parties;— who, having been become an unbearable nuisance in New York politics, had been "unloaded'' by Mr. Lincoln, in an ill-inspired moment, upon the hapless South, and who was now trying to find new pasture.

But this was not the most comical thing; for Mr. Greeley in substance continued as follows:

"Fellow Citizens: You know how it is yourselves. There are men who go to your own State Capitol, nominally as legislators or advisers, but really to plunder and steal. These men in the Northern States correspond to the `carpet-baggers' in the Southern States, and you hate them and you ought to hate them.'' Thus speaking, Mr. Greeley poured out the vials of his wrath against all this class of people; blissfully unconscious of the fact that on the other side of him stood the most notorious and corrupt lobbyist who had been known in Albany for years;— a man who had been chased out of that city by the sheriff for attempted bribery, had been obliged to remain for a considerable time in hiding to avoid criminal charges of exerting corrupt influence on legislation, and whom both political parties naturally disowned. Comical as all this was, it was pathetic to see a man like Greeley in such a cave of Adullam.

During this summer of 1871 occurred the death of one of my dearest friends, a man who had exercised a most happy influence over my opinions and who had contributed much to the progress of anti-slavery ideas in New England and New York. This was the Rev. Samuel Joseph May, pastor of the Unitarian Church in

Syracuse, a friend and associate of Emerson, Garrison, Phillips, Gerrit Smith, and one of the noblest, truest, and most beautiful characters I have ever known.

Having seen the end of slavery, and being about eighty years of age, he felt deeply that his work was done, and thenceforward declared that he was happy in the idea that his life on this planet was soon to end. I have never seen, save in the case of the Hicksite Quaker at Ann Arbor, referred to elsewhere, such a living faith in the reality of another world. Again and again Mr. May said to me in the most cheerful way imaginable, "I am as much convinced of the existence of a future state as of these scenes about me, and, to tell you the truth, now that my work here is ended, I am becoming very curious to know what the next stage of existence is like.'' On the afternoon of the 1st of July I paid him a visit, found him much wearied by a troublesome chronic complaint, but contented, cheerful, peaceful as ever.

Above him as he lay in his bed was a portrait which I had formerly seen in his parlor. Thereby hung a curious tale. Years before, at the very beginning of Mr. May's career, he had been a teacher in the town of Canterbury, Connecticut, when Miss Prudence Crandall was persecuted, arrested, and imprisoned for teaching colored children. Mr. May had taken up her case earnestly, and, with the aid of Mr. Lafayette Foster, afterward president of the United States Senate, had fought it out until the enemies of Miss Crandall were beaten. As a memorial of this activity of his, Mr. May received this large, well painted portrait of Miss Crandall, and it was one of his most valued possessions.

On the afternoon referred to, after talking about various other matters most cheerfully, and after I had told him that we could not spare him yet, that we needed him at least ten years longer, he laughingly said, "Can't you compromise on one year?'' "No,'' I said, "nothing less than ten years. "Thereupon he laughed pleasantly, called his daughter, Mrs. Wilkinson, and said, "Remember;

when I am gone this portrait of Prudence Crandall is to go to Andrew White for Cornell University, where my anti-slavery books already are.'' As I left him, both of us were in the most cheerful mood, he appearing better than during some weeks previous. Next morning I learned that he had died during the night. The portrait of Miss Crandall now hangs in the Cornell University Library.

My summer was given up partly to recreation mingled with duties of various sorts, including an address in honor of President Woolsey at the Alumni dinner at Yale and another at the laying of the corner stone of Syracuse University.

Noteworthy at this period was a dinner with Longfellow at Cambridge, and I recall vividly his showing me various places in the Craigie house connected with interesting passages in the life of Washington when he occu-pied it.

Early in the autumn, while thus engrossed in everything but political matters, I received a letter from my friend Mr. A. B. Cornell, a most energetic and efficient man in State and national politics, a devoted supporter of General Grant and Senator Conkling, and afterward governor of the State of New York, asking me if I would go to the approaching State convention and accept its presidency. I wrote him in return expressing my reluctance, dwelling upon the duties pressing upon me in con-nection with the university, and asking to be excused. In return came a very earnest letter insisting on the importance of the convention in keeping the Republican party together, and in preventing its being split into factions before the approaching presidential election. I had, on all occasions, and especially at various social gatherings at which political leaders were present, in New York and elsewhere, urged the importance of throwing aside all factious spirit and harmonizing the party in view of the coming election, and to this Mr. Cornell referred very earnestly. As a consequence I wrote him that if the delegates

from New York opposed to General Grant could be admitted to the convention on equal terms with those who favored him, and if he, Mr. Cornell, and the other managers of the Grant wing of the party would agree that the anti-Grant forces should receive full and fair representation on the various committees, I would accept the presidency of the convention in the interest of peace between the factions, and would do my best to harmonize the differing interests in the party, but that otherwise I would not consent to be a member of the convention. In his answer Mr. Cornell fully agreed to this, and I have every reason to believe, indeed to know, that his agreement was kept. The day of the convention having arrived (September 27, 1871), Mr. Cornell, as chairman of the Republican State committee, called the assemblage to order, and after a somewhat angry clash with the opponents of the administration, nominated me to the chairmanship of the convention.

By a freak of political fortune I was separated in this contest from my old friend Chauncey M. Depew; but though on different sides of the question at issue, we sat together chatting pleasantly as the vote went on, neither of us, I think, very anxious regarding it, and when the election was decided in my favor he was one of those who, under instructions from the temporary chairman, very courteously conducted me to the chair. It was an immense assemblage, and from the first it was evident that there were very turbulent elements in it. Hardly, indeed, had I taken my seat, when the chief of the Syracuse police informed me that there were gathered near the platform a large body of Tammany roughs who had come from New York expressly to interfere with the convention, just as a few years before they had interfered in the same place with the convention of their own party, seriously wounding its regular chairman; but that I need have no alarm at any demonstration they might make; that the police were fully warned and able to meet the adversary.

In my opening speech I made an earnest plea for peace

among the various factions of the party, and especially between those who favored and those who opposed the administration; this plea was received with kindness, and shortly afterward came the appointment of committees. Of course, like every other president of such a body, I had to rely on the standing State committee. Hardly one man in a thousand coming to the presidency of a State convention knows enough of the individual leaders of politics in all the various localities to distinguish between their shades of opinion. It was certainly impossible for me to know all those who, in the various counties of the State, favored General Grant and those who disliked him. Like every other president of a convention, probably without an exception, from the beginning to the present hour, I received the list of the convention committees from the State committee which represented the party, and I received this list, not only with implied, but express assurances that the agreement under which I had taken the chairmanship had been complied with;—namely, that the list represented fairly the two wings of the party in convention, and that both the Grant and the anti-Grant delegations from New York city were to be admitted on equal terms.

I had no reason then, and have no reason now, to believe that the State committee abused my confidence. I feel sure now, as I felt sure then, that the committee named by me fairly represented the two wings of the party; but after their appointment it was perfectly evident that this did not propitiate the anti-administration wing. They were deeply angered against the administration by the fact that General Grant had taken as his adviser in regard to New York patronage and politics Senator Conkling rather than Senator Fenton. Doubtless Senator Conkling's manner in dealing with those opposed to him had made many enemies who, by milder methods, might have been brought to the support of the administration. At any rate, it was soon clear that the anti-administration forces, recognizing their inferiority in point of numbers, were determined to

secede. This, indeed, was soon formally announced by one of their leaders; but as they still continued after this declaration to take part in the discussions, the point of order was raised that, having formally declared their intention of leaving the convention, they were no longer entitled to take part in its deliberations. This point I ruled out, declaring that I could not consider the anti-administration wing as outside the convention until they had left it. The debates grew more and more bitter, Mr. Conkling making, late at night, a powerful speech which rallied the forces of the administration and brought them victory. The anti-administration delegates now left the convention, but before they did so one of them rose and eloquently tendered to me as president the thanks of his associates for my impartiality, saying that it contrasted most honorably with the treatment they had received from certain other members of the convention. But shortly after leaving they held a meeting in another place, and, having evidently made up their minds that they must declare war against everybody who remained in the convention, they denounced us all alike, and the same gentleman who had made the speech thanking me for my fairness, and who was very eminent among those who were known as "Tammany Republicans,'' now made a most violent harangue in which he declared that a man who conducted himself as I had done, and who remained in such an infamous convention, or had anything to do with it, was "utterly unfit to be an instructor of youth.''

Similar attacks continued to appear in the anti-administration papers for a considerable time afterward, and at first they were rather trying to me. I felt that nothing could be more unjust, for I had strained to the last degree my influence with my associates who supported General Grant in securing concessions to those who differed from us. Had these attacks been made by organs of the opposite political party, I would not have minded them; but being made in sundry journals which had represented the Republican party and were constantly read by my old

friends, neighbors, and students, they naturally, for a time, disquieted me. One of the charges then made has often amused me as I have looked back upon it since, and is worth referring to as an example of the looseness of statement common among the best of American political journals during exciting political contests. This charge was that I had "sought to bribe people to support the administration by offering them consulates.'' This was echoed in various parts of the State.

The facts were as follows: An individual who had made some money as a sutler in connection with the army had obtained control of a local paper at Syracuse, and, through the influence thus gained, an election to the lower house of the State legislature. During the winter which he passed at Albany he was one of three or four Republicans who voted with the Democrats in behalf of the measures proposed by Tweed, the municipal arch-robber afterward convicted and punished for his crimes against the city of New York. Just at this particular time Tweed was at the height of his power, and at a previous session of the legislature he had carried his measures through the Assembly by the votes of three or four Republicans who were needed in addition to the Democratic votes in order to give him the required majority. Many leading Republican journals had published the names of these three or four men with black lines around them, charging them, apparently justly, with having sold themselves to Tweed for money, and among them the person above referred to. Though he controlled a newspaper in Syracuse, he had been unable to secure renomination to the legislature, and, shortly afterward, in order to secure rehabilitation as well as pelf, sought an appointment to the Syracuse postmastership. Senator Conkling, mindful of the man's record, having opposed the appointment, and the President having declined to make it, the local paper under control of this person turned most bitterly against the administration, and day after day poured forth diatribes against the policy and the persons of all connected with

the actual government at Washington, and especially against President Grant and Senator Conkling.

The editor of the paper at that time was a very gifted young writer, an old schoolmate and friend of mine, who, acting under instructions from the managers of the paper, took a very bitter line against the administration and its supporters.

About the time of the meeting of the convention this old friend came to me, expressed his regret at the line he was obliged to take, said that both he and his wife were sick of the whole thing and anxious to get out of it, and added: "The only way out, that I can see, is some appointment that will at once relieve me of all these duties, and in fact take me out of the country. Cannot you aid me by application to the senator or the President in obtaining a consulate?'' I answered him laughingly, "My dear —, I will gladly do all I can for you, not only for friendship's sake, but because I think you admirably fitted for the place you name; but don't you think that, for a few days at least, while you are applying for such a position, you might as well stop your outrageous attacks against the very men from whom you hope to receive the appointment?''

Having said this, half in jest and half in earnest, I thought no more on the subject, save as to the best way of aiding my friend to secure the relief he desired.

So rose the charge that I was "bribing persons to support the administration by offering them consulates.''

But strong friends rallied to my support. Mr. George William Curtis in "Harper's Weekly,'' Mr. Godkin in "The Nation,'' Mr. Charles Dudley Warner and others in various other journals took up the cudgels in my behalf, and I soon discovered that the attacks rather helped than hurt me. They did much, indeed, to disgust me for a time with political life; but I soon found that my friends, my students, and the country at large understood the charges, and that they seemed to think more rather than less of me on account of them. In those days the air was full of that

sort of onslaught upon every one supposed to be friendly to General Grant, and the effect in one case was revealed to me rather curiously. Matthew Carpenter, of Wisconsin, was then one of the most brilliant members of the United States Senate, a public servant of whom his State was proud; but he had cordially supported the administration and was consequently made the mark for bitter attack, day after day and week after week, by the opposing journals, and these attacks finally culminated in an attempt to base a very ugly scandal against him upon what was known among his friends to be a simple courtesy publicly rendered to a very worthy lady. The attacks and the scandal resounded throughout the anti-administration papers, their evident purpose being to defeat his reêlection to the United States Senate.

But just before the time for the senatorial election in Wisconsin, meeting a very bright and active-minded student of my senior class who came from that State, I asked him, "What is the feeling among your people regarding the reêlection of Senator Carpenter?'' My student immediately burst into a torrent of wrath and answered: "The people of Wisconsin will send Mr. Carpenter back to the Senate by an enormous majority. We will see if a gang of newspaper blackguards can slander one of our senators out of public life.'' The result was as my young friend had foretold: Mr. Carpenter was triumphantly reêlected.

While I am on this subject I may refer, as a comfort to those who have found themselves unjustly attacked in political matters, to two other notable cases within my remembrance.

Probably no such virulence has ever been known day after day, year after year, as was shown by sundry presses of large circulation in their attacks on William H. Seward. They represented him as shady and tricky; as the lowest of demagogues; as utterly without conscience or ability; as pretending a hostility to slavery which was simply a craving for popularity; they refused to report his speeches, or, if they did report them, distorted them. He

had also incurred the displeasure of very many leaders of his own party, and of some of its most powerful presses, yet he advanced steadily from high position to high position, and won a lasting and most honorable place in the history of his country.

The same may be said of Senator Conkling. The attacks on him in the press were bitter and almost universal; yet the only visible result was that he was reêlected to the national Senate by an increased majority. To the catastrophe which some years later ended his political career, the onslaught by the newspapers contributed nothing; it resulted directly from the defects of his own great qualities and not at all from attacks made upon him from outside.

Almost from the first moment of my acquaintance with Mr. Conkling, I had endeavored to interest him in the reform of the civil service, and at least, if this was not possible, to prevent his actively opposing it. In this sense I wrote him various letters. For a time they seemed successful; but at last, under these attacks, he broke all bounds and became the bitter opponent of the movement. In his powerful manner and sonorous voice he from time to time expressed his contempt for it. The most striking of his utterances on the subject was in one of the State conventions, which, being given in his deep, sonorous tones, ran much as follows: "When Doctor-r-r Ja-a-awnson said that patr-r-riotism-m was the l-a-w-s-t r-r-refuge of a scoundr-r-rel, he ignor-r-red the enor-r-rmous possibilities of the word r-refa-awr-r-rm!''

The following spring (June 5, 1872) I attended the Republican National Convention at Philadelphia as a substitute delegate. It was very interesting and, unlike the enormous assemblages since of twelve or fifteen thousand people at Chicago and elsewhere, was a really deliberative body. As it was held in the Academy of Music, there was room for a sufficient audience, while there was not room for a vast mob overpowering completely the members of the convention and preventing any real discussion at some

most important junctures, as has been the case in so many conventions of both parties in these latter years.

The most noteworthy features of this convention were the speeches of sundry colored delegates from the South. Very remarkable they were, and a great revelation as to the ability of some, at least, of their race in the former slave States.

General Grant was renominated for the Presidency, and for the Vice-Presidency Mr. Henry Wilson of Massachusetts in place of Schuyler Colfax, who had held the position during General Grant's first term.

The only speeches I made during the campaign were one from the balcony of the Continental Hotel in Philadelphia and one from the steps of the Delavan House at Albany, but they were perfunctory and formal. There was really no need of speeches, and I was longing to go at my proper university work. Mr. James Anthony Froude, the historian, had arrived from England to deliver his lectures before our students; and, besides this, the university had encountered various difficulties which engrossed all my thoughts.

General Grant's reêlection was a great victory. Mr. Greeley had not one Northern electoral vote; worst of all, he had, during the contest, become utterly broken in body and mind, and shortly after the election he died.

His death was a sad ending of a career which, as a whole, had been so beneficent. As to General Grant, I believe now, as I believed then, that his election was a great blessing, and that he was one of the noblest, purest, and most capable men who have ever sat in the Presidency. The cheap, clap-trap antithesis which has at times been made between Grant the soldier and Grant the statesman is, I am convinced, utterly without foundation. The qualities which made him a great soldier made him an effective statesman. This fact was clearly recognized by the American people at various times during the war, and especially when, at the surrender of Appomattox, he declined to deprive General Lee of his sword,

and quietly took the responsibility of allowing the soldiers of the Southern army to return with their horses to their fields to resume peaceful industry. These statesmanlike qualities were developed more and more by the great duties and responsibilities of the Presidency. His triumph over financial demagogy in his vetoes of the Inflation Bill, and his triumph over political demagogy in securing the treaty of Washington and the Ala-bama indemnity, prove him a statesman worthy to rank with the best of his predecessors. In view of these evidences of complete integrity and high capacity, and bearing in mind various conversations which I had with him during his public life down to a period just before his death, I feel sure that history will pronounce him not only a general but a statesman in the best sense of the word.

The renomination of General Grant at the Philadelphia convention was the result of gratitude, respect, and conviction of his fitness. Although Mr. Greeley had the support of the most influential presses of the United States, and was widely beloved and respected as one who had borne the burden and heat of the day, he was defeated in obedience to a healthy national instinct.

Years afterward I was asked in London by one of the most eminent of English journalists how such a thing could have taken place. Said he, "The leading papers of the United States, almost without exception, were in favor of Mr. Greeley; how, then, did it happen that he was in such a hopeless minority?'' I explained the matter as best I could, whereupon he said, "Whatever the explanation may be, it proves that the American press, by its wild statements in political campaigns, and especially by its reckless attacks upon individuals, has lost that hold upon American opinion which it ought to have; and, depend upon it, this is a great misfortune for your country.'' I did not attempt to disprove this statement, for I knew but too well that there was great truth in it.

Of my political experiences at that period I recall two: the first of these was making the acquaintance at Saratoga

of Mr. Samuel J. Tilden. His political fortunes were then at their lowest point. With Mr. Dean Richmond of Buffalo, he had been one of the managers of the Democratic party in the State, but, Mr. Richmond having died, the Tweed wing of the party, supported by the canal contractors, had declared war against Mr. Tilden, treated him with contempt, showed their aversion to him in every way, and, it was fully understood, had made up their minds to depose him. I remember walking and talking again and again with him under the colonnade at Congress Hall, and, without referring to any person by name, he dwelt upon the necessity of more earnest work in redeeming American politics from the management of men ut-terly unfit for leadership. Little did he or I foresee that soon afterward his arch-enemy, Tweed, then in the same hotel and apparently all-powerful, was to be a fugitive from justice, and finally to die in prison, and that he, Mr. Tilden himself, was to be elected governor of the State of New York, and to come within a hair's-breadth of the presidential chair at Washington.

The other circumstance of a political character was my attendance as an elector at the meeting of the Electoral College at Albany, which cast the vote of New York for General Grant. I had never before sat in such a body, and its proceedings interested me. As president we elected General Stewart L. Woodford, and as the body, after the formal election of General Grant to the Presidency, was obliged to send certificates to the governor of the State, properly signed and sealed, and as it had no seal of its own, General Woodford asked if any member had a seal which he would lend to the secretary for that purpose. Thereupon a seal-ring which Goldwin Smith had brought from Rome and given me was used for that purpose. It was an ancient intaglio. Very suitably, it bore the figure of a "Winged Victory,'' and it was again publicly used, many years later, when it was affixed to the American signature of the international agreement made at the Peace Conference of The Hague.

The following winter I had my first experience of "Reconstruction'' in the South. Being somewhat worn with work, I made a visit to Florida, passing leisurely through the southern seaboard States, and finding at Columbia an old Yale friend, Governor Chamberlain, from whom I learned much. But the simple use of my eyes and ears during the journey gave me more than all else. A visit to the State legislature of South Carolina revealed vividly the new order of things. The State Capitol was a beautiful marble building, but unfinished without and dirty within. Approaching the hall of the House of Representatives, I found the door guarded by a negro, squalid and filthy. He evidently reveled in his new citizenship; his chair was tilted back against the wall, his feet were high in the air, and he was making everything nauseous about him with tobacco; but he soon became obsequious and admitted us to one of the most singular deliberative bodies ever known—a body composed of former landed proprietors and slave-owners mixed up pell-mell with their former slaves and with Northern adventurers then known as "carpet-baggers.'' The Southern gentlemen of the Assembly were gentlemen still, and one of them, Mr. Memminger, formerly Secretary of the Treasury of the Confederate States, was especially courteous to us. But soon all other things were lost in contemplation of "Mr. Speaker.'' He was a bright, nimble, voluble mulatto who, as one of the Southern gentlemen informed me, was "the smartest nigger God ever made.'' Having been elevated to the speakership, he magnified his office. While we were observing him, a gentleman of one of the most historic families of South Carolina, a family which had given to the State a long line of military commanders, governors, senators, and ambassadors, rose to make a motion. The speaker, a former slave, at once declared him out of order. On the member persisting in his effort, the speaker called out, "De genlemun frum Bufert has no right to de floh; de genlemun from Bufert will take his seat,'' and the former aristocrat obeyed. To this it had come at last.

In the presence of this assembly, in this hall where disunion really had its birth, where secession first shone out in all its glory, a former slave ordered a former master to sit down, and was obeyed.

In Charleston the same state of things was to be seen, and for the first time I began to feel sympathy for the South. This feeling was deepened by what I saw in Georgia and Florida; and yet, below it all I seemed to see the hand of God in history, and in the midst of it all I seemed to hear a deep voice from the dead. To me, seeing these things, there came, reverberating out of the last century, that prediction of Thomas Jefferson,—himself a slaveholder,—who, after depicting the offenses of slavery, ended with these words, worthy of Isaiah,—divinely inspired if any ever were:—"I tremble when I remember that God is just.''

11. CHAPTER XI
GRANT, HAYES, AND GARFIELD—1871-1881

AT various times after the death of Mr. Lincoln I visited Washington, meeting many men especially influential, and, first of all, President Grant. Of all personages whom I then met he impressed me most strongly. At various times I talked with him at the White House, dining with him and seeing him occasionally in his lighter mood, but at no time was there the slightest diminution of his unaffected dignity. Now and then he would make some dry remark which showed a strong sense of humor, but in everything there was the same quiet, simple strength. On one occasion, when going to the White House, I met Professor Agassiz of Cambridge, and took him with me: we were received cordially, General Grant offering us cigars, as was his wont with visitors, and Agassiz genially smoking with him: when we had come away the great naturalist spoke with honest admiration of the President, evidently impressed by the same qualities which had always impressed me—his modesty, simplicity, and quiet force.

I also visited him at various times in his summer cottage at Long Branch, and on one of these occasions he gave a bit of history which specially interested me. As we were taking coffee after dinner, a card was brought in, and the President, having glanced at it, said, "Tell him that I cannot see him.'' The servant departed with the message, but soon returned and said, "The gentleman

wishes to know when he can see the President.'' "Tell him never,'' said Grant.

It turned out that the person whose name the card bore was the correspondent of a newspaper especially noted for sensation-mongering, and the conversation drifted to the subject of newspapers and newspaper correspondents, when the President told the following story, which I give as nearly as possible in his own words:

"During the hottest period of the final struggle in Virginia, we suffered very much from the reports of newspaper correspondents who prowled about our camps and then put on the wires the information they had gained, which of course went South as rapidly as it went North. It became really serious and embarrassed us greatly. On this account, one night, when I had decided to make an important movement with a portion of the army early next day, I gave orders that a tent should be pitched in an out-of-the-way place, at the earliest possible moment in the morning, and notified the generals who were to take part in the movement to meet me there.

"It happened that on the previous day there had come to the camp a newspaper correspondent named —, and, as he bore a letter from Mr. Washburne, I treated him as civilly as possible.

"At daylight next morning, while we were assembled in the tent making final arrangements, one of my aides, Colonel —, heard a noise just outside, and, going out, saw this correspondent lying down at full length, his ear under the edge of the tent, and a note-book in his hand. Thereupon Colonel took the correspondent by his other ear, lifted him to his feet, and swore to him a solemn oath that if he was visible in any part of the camp more than five minutes longer, a detachment of troops would be ordered out to shoot him and bury him there in the swamp, so that no one would ever know his name or burial-place.

"The correspondent left at once,'' said the President,

"and he took his revenge by writing a history of the war from which he left me out.''

The same characteristic which I had found at other meetings with Grant came out even more strongly when, just before the close of his term, he made me a visit at Cornell, where one of his sons was a student. To meet him I invited several of our professors and others who were especially prejudiced against him, and, without exception, they afterward expressed the very feeling which had come over me after my first conversation with him— surprise at the revelation of his quiet strength and his knowledge of public questions then before the country.

During a walk on the university grounds he spoke to me of the Santo Domingo matter. [3] He said: "The annexation question is doubtless laid aside for the present, but the time will come when the country will have occasion to regret that it was disposed of without adequate discussion. As I am so soon to leave the presidency, I may say to you now that one of my main thoughts in regard to the annexation of the island has been that it might afford a refuge for the negroes of the South in case anything like a war of races should ever arise in the old slave States.'' He then alluded to the bitter feeling between the two races which was then shown in the South, and which was leading many of the blacks to take refuge in Kansas and other northwestern States, and said, "If such a refuge as Santo Domingo were open to them, their former masters would soon find that they have not the colored population entirely at their mercy, and would be obliged to compromise with them on far more just terms than would otherwise be likely.''

The President said this with evidently deep conviction, and it seemed to me a very thoughtful and far-sighted view of the possibilities and even probabilities involved.

During another walk, in speaking of the approaching close of his second presidential term, he said that he found himself looking forward to it with the same longing which

he had formerly had as a cadet at West Point when looking forward to a furlough.

I have never believed that the earnest effort made by his friends at Chicago to nominate him for a third term was really prompted by him, or that he originally desired it. It always seemed to me due to the devotion of friends who admired his noble qualities, and thought that the United States ought not to be deprived of them in obedience to a tradition, in this case, more honored in the breach than in the observance.

I may add here that, having seen him on several convivial occasions, and under circumstances when, if ever, he would be likely to indulge in what was understood to have been, in his early life, an unfortunate habit, I never saw him betray the influence of alcohol in the slightest degree.

Shortly after General Grant laid down his high office, he made his well-known journey to Europe and the East, and I had the pleasure of meeting him at Cologne and traveling up the Rhine with him. We discussed American affairs all day long. He had during the previous week been welcomed most cordially to the hospitalities of two leading sovereigns of Europe, and had received endless attentions from the most distinguished men of England and Belgium, but in conversation he never, in the slightest degree, referred to any of these experiences. He seemed not to think of them; his heart was in matters pertaining to his own country. He told me much regarding his administration, and especially spoke with the greatest respect and affection of his Secretary of State, Mr. Hamilton Fish.

Somewhat later I again met him in Paris, had several walks and talks with him in which he discussed American affairs, and I remember that he dwelt with especial admiration, and even affection, upon his colleagues Sherman and Sheridan.

I trust that it may not be considered out of place if, in this retrospect, which is intended, first of all, for my

children and grandchildren, I state that a personal fact, which was known to many from other sources, was confirmed to me in one of these conversations: General Grant informing me, as he had previously informed my wife, that he had fully purposed to name me as Secretary of State had Mr. Fish carried out his intention of resigning. When he told me this, my answer was that I considered it a very fortunate escape for us both; that my training had not fitted me for such duties; that my experience in the diplomatic service had then been slight; that I had no proper training as a lawyer; that my knowledge of international law was derived far more from the reading of books than from its application; and that I doubted my physical ability to bear the pressure for patronage which converged upon the head of the President's cabinet.

In the Washington of those days my memory also recalls vividly a dinner with Senator Conkling at which I met a number of interesting men, and among them Governor Seymour, who had been the candidate opposed to Grant during his first presidential campaign; Senator Anthony, Senator Edmunds, the former Vice-President Mr. Hamlin, Senator Carpenter, and others. Many good stories were told, and one amused me especially, as it was given with admirable mimicry by Senator Carpenter. He described an old friend of his, a lawyer, who, coming before one of the higher courts with a very doubtful case, began his plea as follows: "May it please the court, there is only one point in this case favorable to my client, but that, may it please the court, is a chink in the common law which has been worn smooth by the multitude of scoundrels who have escaped through it.''

During the year 1878 I was sent as an honorary commissioner from the State of New York to the Paris Exposition, and shall give a more full account of this period in another chapter . Suffice it that, having on my return prepared my official report on the provision for political education made by the different governments of Europe, I became more absorbed than ever in university affairs,

keeping aloof as much as possible from politics. But in the political campaign of 1878 I could not but be interested. It was different from any other that I had known, for the "Greenback Craze'' bloomed out as never before and seemed likely to poison the whole country. Great hardships had arisen from the fact that debts which had been made under a depreciated currency had to be paid in money of greater value. Men who, in what were known as "flush times,'' had bought farms, paid down half the price, and mortgaged them for the other half, found now, when their mortgages became due, that they could not sell the property for enough to cover the lien upon it. Besides this, the great army of speculators throughout the country found the constant depreciation of prices bringing them to bankruptcy. In the cry for more greenbacks,— that is, for continued issues of paper money,— demagogism undoubtedly had a large part; but there were many excellent men who were influenced by it, and among them Peter Cooper of New York, founder of the great institution which bears his name, one of the purest and best men I have ever known.

This cry for more currency was echoed from one end of the country to the other. In various States, and especially in Ohio, it seemed to carry everything before it, nearly all the public men of note, including nearly all the leading Democrats and very many of the foremost Republicans, bowing down to it, the main exceptions being John Sherman and Garfield.

In central New York the mania seemed, early in the summer, to take strong hold. In Syracuse John Wieting, an amazingly fluent speaker with much popular humor, who had never before shown any interest in politics, took the stump for an unlimited issue of government paper currency, received the nomination to Congress from the Democrats and sundry independent organizations, and for a time seemed to carry everything before him. A similar state of things prevailed at Ithaca and the region round about Cayuga Lake. Two or three people much

respected in the community came out for this doctrine, and, having a press under their control, their influence seemed likely to be serious. Managers of the Republican organization in the State seemed at first apathetic; but at last they became alarmed and sent two speakers through these disaffected districts—only two, but each, in his way, a master. The first of them, in order of time, was Senator Roscoe Conkling, and he took as his subject the National Banking System. This had been for a considerable time one of the objects of special attack by uneasy and unsuccessful people throughout the entire country. As a matter of fact, the national banking system, created during the Civil War by Secretary Chase and his advisers, was one of the most admirable expedients ever devised in any country. Up to the time of its establishment the whole country had suffered enormously from the wretched currency supplied from the State banks. Even in those States where the greatest precaution was taken to insure its redemption all of it was, in time of crisis or panic, fluctuating and much of it worthless. But in other States the case was even worse. I can recall perfectly that through my boyhood and young manhood every merchant and shopkeeper kept on his table what was called a "bank-note detector,'' which, when any money was tendered him, he was obliged to consult in order to know, first, whether the bill was a counterfeit, as it frequently was; secondly, whether it was on a solvent bank; and thirdly, if good, what discount should be deducted from the face of it. Under this system bank-notes varied in value from week to week, and even from day to day, with the result that all buying and selling became a sort of gambling.

When, then, Mr. Chase established the new system of national banks so based that every bill-holder had security for the entire amount which his note represented, so controlled that a bill issued from any little bank in the remotest State, or even in the remotest corner of a Territory, was equal to one issued by the richest bank in Wall Street, so engraved that counterfeiting was practically impossible,

there was an immense gain to every man, woman, and child in the country.

To appreciate this gain one must have had experience of the older system. I remember well the panic of 1857, which arose while I was traveling in eastern and northern New England, and that, arriving in the city of Salem, Massachusetts, having tendered, in payment of my hotel bill, notes issued by a leading New York city bank, guaranteed under what was known as the "Safety Fund System,'' they were refused. The result was that I had to leave my wife at the hotel, go to Boston, and there manage to get Massachusetts money.

But this was far short of the worst. Professor Roberts of Cornell University once told me that, having in those days collected a considerable debt in one of the Western States, he found the currency so worthless that he attempted to secure New York funds, but that the rate of exchange was so enormous that, as the only way of saving anything, he bought a large quantity of cheap clothing, shipped it to the East, and sold it for what it would bring.

As to the way in which the older banking operations were carried on in some of the Western States, Governor Felch of Michigan once gave me some of his ex-periences as a bank examiner, and one of them especially amused me. He said that he and a brother examiner made an excursion through the State in a sleigh with a pair of good horses in order to inspect the various banks established in remote villages and hamlets which had the power of issuing currency based upon the specie contained in their vaults. After visiting a few of these, and finding that each had the amount of specie required by law, the examiners began to note a curious similarity between the specie packages in these different banks, and before long their attention was drawn to another curious fact, which was that wherever they went they were preceded by a sleigh drawn by especially fleet horses. On making a careful examination, they found that this sleigh bore from bank to bank a number of kegs of specie sufficient to enable

each bank in its turn to show the examiners a temporary basis in hard money for its output of paper.

Such was the state of things which the national banks remedied, and the system had the additional advantage of being elastic, so that any little community which needed currency had only to combine its surplus capital and establish a bank of issue.

But throughout the country there were, as there will doubtless always be, a considerable number of men who, not being able to succeed themselves, distrusted and disliked the successful. There was also a plentiful supply of demagogues skilful in appealing to the prejudices of the ignorant, envious, or perverse, and as a result came a cry against the national banks.

In Mr. Conkling's Ithaca speech (1878), he argued the question with great ability and force. He had a sledgehammer way which broke down all opposition, and he exulted in it. One of his favorite tactics, which greatly amused his auditors, was to lead some prominent gainsayer in his audience to interrupt him, whereupon, in the blandest way possible, he would invite him to come forward, urge him to present his views, even help him to do so, and then, having gradually entangled him in his own sophistries and made him ridiculous, the senator would come down upon him with arguments—cogent, pithy, sarcastic—much like the fist of a giant upon a mosquito.

In whatever town Mr. Conkling argued the question of the national banks, that subject ceased to be a factor in politics: it was settled; his attacks upon the anti-bank demagogues annihilated their arguments among thinking men, and his sarcasm made them ridiculous among unthinking men. This was the sort of thing which he did best. While utterly deficient in constructive power, his destructive force was great indeed, and in this campaign it was applied, as it was not always applied, for the advantage of the country.

The other great speaker in the campaign was General James A. Garfield, then a member of the House of Representatives.

My acquaintance with him had begun several years before at Syracuse, when my old school friend, his college mate, Charles Elliot Fitch, brought him into my library. My collection of books was even at that date very large, and Garfield, being delighted with it, soon revealed his scholarly qualities. It happened that not long before this I had bought in London several hundred volumes from the library left by the historian Buckle, very many of them bearing copious annotations in his own hand. Garfield had read Buckle's "History of Civilization in England'' with especial interest, and when I presented to him and discussed with him some of these annotated volumes, there began a friendly relation between us which ended only with his life.

I also met him under less favorable circumstances. Happening to be in Washington at the revelation of the Crédit Mobilier operations, I found him in the House of Representatives, and evidently in the depths of suffering. An effort was making to connect him with the scandal, and while everything I know of him convinces me that he was not dishonest, he had certainly been imprudent. This he felt, and he asked me, in an almost heart-broken tone, if I really believed that this had forever destroyed his influence in the country. I answered that I believed nothing of the kind; that if he came out in a straightforward, manly way, without any of the prevarication which had so greatly harmed some others, he would not be injured, and the result showed that this advice was good.

On our arrival at the great hall in Ithaca (October 28, 1878), we found floor and stage packed in every part. Never had a speaker a better audience. There were present very many men of all parties anxious to hear the currency question honestly discussed, and among them many of the more thoughtful sort misled by the idea that a wrong had been done to the country in the restoration of the currency to a sound basis; and there was an enormous attendance of students from the university.

As Garfield began he showed the effects of fatigue from

the many speeches he had been making for weeks,—morning, noon, and night; but soon he threw himself heartily into the subject, and of all the thousands of political speeches I have heard it was the most effective. It was eloquent, but it was far more than that; it was honestly argumentative; there was no sophistry of any sort; every subject was taken up fairly and every point dealt with thoroughly. One could see the supports of the Greenback party vanishing as he went on. His manner was the very opposite of Mr. Conkling's: it was kindly, hearty, as of neighbor with neighbor,—indeed, every person present, even if greenbacker or demagogue, must have said within himself, "This man is a friend arguing with friends; he makes me his friend, and now speaks to me as such.''

The main line of his argument finished, there came something even finer; for, inspired by the presence of the great mass of students, he ended his speech with an especial appeal to them. Taking as his test the noted passage in the letter written by Macaulay to Henry Randall, the biographer of Jefferson,—the letter in which Macaulay prophesied destruction to the American Republic when poverty should pinch and discontent be wide-spread in the country, —he appealed to these young men to see to it that this prophecy should not come true; he asked them to follow in this, as in similar questions, their reason and not their prejudices, and from this he went on with a statement of the motives which ought to govern them and the line they ought to pursue in the effort to redeem their country.

Never was speech more successful. It carried the entire audience, and left in that region hardly a shred of the greenback theory. When the election took place it was observed that in those districts where Conkling and Garfield had spoken, the greenback heresy was annihilated, while in other districts which had been counted as absolutely sure for the Republican party, and to which, therefore, these orators had not been sent, there was a great increase in the vote for currency inflation.

I have often alluded to this result as an answer to those

who say that speaking produces no real effect on the convictions of men regarding party matters. Some speaking does not, but there is a kind of speaking which does, and of this were these two masterpieces, so different from each other in matter and manner, and yet converging upon the same points, intellectual and moral.

Before I close regarding Garfield, it may be well to give a few more recollections of him. The meeting ended, we drove to my house on the university grounds, and shortly before our arrival he asked me, "How did you like my speech?'' I answered: "Garfield, I have known you too long and think too highly of you to flatter you; but I will simply say what I would say under oath: it was the best speech I ever heard. "This utterance of mine was deliberate, expressing my conviction, and he was evidently pleased with it.

Having settled down in front of the fire in my library, we began to discuss the political situation, and his talk remains to me among the most interesting things of my life. He said much regarding the history of the currency question and his relations to it, and from this ran rapidly and suggestively through a multitude of other questions and the relations of public men to them. One thing which struck me was his judicially fair and even kindly estimates of men who differed from him. Very rarely did he speak harshly or sharply of any one, differing in this greatly from Mr. Conkling, who, in all his conversations, and especially in one at that same house not long before, seemed to consider men who differed from him as enemies of the human race.

Under Mr. Hayes, the successor of General Grant in the Presidency, I served first as a commissioner at the Paris Exposition, and then as minister to Germany. Both these services will be discussed in the chapters relating to my diplomatic life, but I may refer briefly to my acquaintance with him at this period.

I had met him but once previously, and that was during his membership of Congress when he came to enter his son

at Cornell. I had then been most favorably impressed by his large, sincere, manly way. On visiting Washington to receive my instructions before going to Berlin, I saw him several times, and at each meeting my respect for him was increased. Driving to Arlington, walking among the soldiers' graves there, standing in the portico of General Lee's former residence, and viewing from the terrace the Capitol in the distance, he spoke very nobly of the history we had both personally known, of the sacrifices it had required, and of the duties which it now imposed. At his dinner-table I heard him discuss with his Secretary of State, Mr. Evarts, a very interesting question—the advisability of giving members of the cabinet seats in the Senate and House of Representatives, as had been arranged in the constitution of the so-called Confederate States; but of this I shall speak in another chapter .

It should further be said regarding Mr. Hayes that, while hardly any President was ever so systematically denounced and depreciated, he was one of the truest and best men who has ever held our Chief Magistracy. I remember, just at the close of his administration, dining with an eminent German statesman who said to me: "I have watched the course of your President with more and more surprise. We have been seeing constantly in our German newspapers extracts from American journals holding up your President to contempt as an ignoramus, but more and more I have seen that he is one of the most substantial, honest, and capable Presidents that you have had.''

This opinion was amply justified by what I saw of Mr. Hayes after the close of his Presidency. Twice I met him during conferences at Lake Mohonk, at which matters relating to the improvement of the freedmen and Indians were discussed, and in each he took broad, strong, and statesmanlike views based on thoughtful experience and permeated by honesty.

I also met him at a great public meeting at Cleveland, where we addressed some four thousand people from the

same platform, and again I was impressed by his manly, far-seeing grasp of public questions.

As to my after relations with Garfield, I might speak of various pleasant interviews, but will allude to just one incident which has a pathetic side. During my first residence in Germany as minister of the United States, I one day received a letter from him asking me to secure for him the best editions of certain leading Greek and Latin classics, adding that it had long been his earnest desire to re-read them, and that now, as he had been elected to the United States Senate, he should have leisure to carry out his purpose. I had hardly sent him what he desired when the news came that he had been nominated to the Presidency, and so all his dream of literary leisure vanished. A few months later came the news of his assassination.

My term of service as minister in Berlin being ended, I arrived in America in September, 1881, and, in accordance with custom, went to present my respects to the new President and his Secretary of State. They were both at Long Branch. Mr. Blaine I saw and had with him a very interesting conversation, but President Garfield I could not see. His life was fast ebbing out, and a week later, on Sunday morning, I heard the bells tolling and knew that his last struggle was over.

So closed a career which, in spite of some defects, was beautiful and noble. Great hopes had been formed regarding his Presidency, and yet, on looking back over his life, I have a strong feeling that his assassination was a service rendered to his reputation. I know from those who had full information that during his campaign for the Presidency he had been forced to make concessions and pledges which would have brought great trouble upon him had he lived through his official term. Gifted and good as he was, advantage had been taken of his kindly qualities, and he would have had to pay the penalty.

It costs me a pang to confess my opinion that the administration of Mr. Arthur, a man infinitely his inferior in nearly all the qualities which men most justly admire, was

far better than the administration which Mr Garfield would have been allowed to give to the country.

Upon my return to the university I was asked by my fellow-citizens of Ithaca in general, as also by the university faculty and students, to give the public address at the celebration of President Garfield's funeral. This I did and never with a deeper feeling of loss.

One thing in the various tributes to him had struck me painfully: Throughout the whole country his career was constantly referred to in funeral addresses as showing how a young American under all the disadvantages of poverty could rise to the highest possible position. I have always thought that such statements, as they are usually presented, are injurious to the character and lowering to the aspirations of young men. I took pains, therefore, to show that while Garfield had risen under the most discouraging circumstances from complete poverty, his rise was due to something other than mere talent and exertion —that it was the result of talent and exertion originating in noble instincts and directed to worthy ends. Garfield's life proves this abundantly, and whatever may have been his temporary weakness under the fearful pressure brought upon him toward the end of his career, these instincts and purposes remained his main guiding influences from first to last.

12. CHAPTER XII
ARTHUR, CLEVELAND, AND BLAINE—1881-1884

THE successor of Garfield, President Arthur, I had met frequently in my old days at Albany. He was able, and there never was the slightest spot upon his integrity; but in those early days nobody dreamed that he was to attain any high distinction. He was at that time charged with the main military duties under the governor; later he became collector of the port of New York, and in both positions showed himself honest and capable. He was lively, jocose, easy-going, with little appearance of devotion to work, dashing off whatever he had to do with ease and accuracy. At various dinner-parties and social gatherings, and indeed at sundry State conventions, where I met him, he seemed, more than anything else, a bon vivant, facile and good-natured.

His nomination to the Vice-Presidency, which on the death of Garfield led him to the Presidency, was very curious, and an account of it given me by an old friend who had previously been a member of the Garfield cabinet and later an ambassador in Europe, was as follows:

After the defeat of the "Stalwarts,'' who had fought so desperately for the renomination of General Grant at the Chicago Convention of 1880, the victorious side of the convention determined to concede to them, as an olive-branch, the Vice-Presidency, and with this intent my informant and a number of other delegates who had been especially active in preventing Grant's renomination went to the room of the New York delegation, which had

taken the leading part in his support, knocked at the door, and called for Mr. Levi P. Morton, previously a member of Congress, and, several years later, Vice-President of the United States and Governor of New York. Mr. Morton came out into the corridor, and thereupon the visitors said to him, "We wish to give the Vice-Presidency to New York as a token of good will, and you are the man who should take it; don't fail to accept it.'' Mr. Morton answered that he had but a moment before, in this conference of his delegation, declined the nomination. At this the visitors said, "Go back instantly and tell them that you have reconsidered and will accept; we will see that the convention nominates you.'' Mr. Morton started to follow this advice, but was just too late: while he was outside the door he had been taken at his word, the place which he had declined had been offered to General Arthur, he had accepted it, and so the latter and not Mr. Morton became President of the United States.

Up to the time when the Presidency devolved upon him, General Arthur had shown no qualities which would have suggested him for that high office, and I remember vividly that when the news of Garfield's assassination arrived in Berlin, where I was then living as minister, my first overwhelming feeling was not, as I should have expected, horror at the death of Garfield, but stupefaction at the elevation of Arthur. It was a common saying of that time among those who knew him best, " `Chet' Arthur President of the United States! Good God!'' But the change in him on taking the Presidency was amazing. Up to that time he had been known as one of Mr. Conkling's henchmen, though of the better sort. As such he had held the collectorship of the port of New York, and as such, during his occupancy of the Vice-Presidency, he had visited Albany and done his best, though in vain, to secure Mr. Conkling's renomination; but immediately on his elevation to the Presidency all this was changed, and there is excellent authority for the statement that when Mr. Conkling wished him to continue, as President, in the subservient

position which he had taken as Vice-President, Mr. Arthur had refused, and when taxed with ingratitude he said: "No. For the Vice-Presidency I was indebted to Mr. Conkling, but for the Presidency of the United States my debt is to the Almighty.''

The new President certainly showed this spirit in his actions. Rarely has there been a better or more dignified administration; the new Secretary of State, Mr. Frelinghuysen, was in every respect fitted for his office, and the other men whom Mr. Arthur summoned about him were satisfactory.

Although I had met him frequently, and indeed was on cordial terms with him before his elevation to the Presidency, I never met him afterward. During his whole administration my duties in connection with Cornell University completely absorbed me. I was one of the last university presidents who endeavored to unite professorial with executive duties, and the burden was heavy. The university had made at that period its first great sale of lands, and this involved a large extension of its activity; the famous Fiske lawsuit, involving nearly two millions of dollars, had come on; there was every sort of detail requiring attention at the university itself, and addresses must be given in various parts of the country, more especially before alumni associations, to keep them in proper relations with the institution; so that I was kept completely out of politics, was hardly ever in Washington during this period, and never at the White House.

The only matter which connected me with politics at all was my conviction, which deepened more and more, as to the necessity of reform in the civil service; and on this subject I conferred with Mr. Dorman B. Eaton, Mr. John Jay, and others at various times, and prepared an article for the "North American Review'' in which I presented not only the general advantages of civil service reform, but its claims upon men holding public office. My main effort was to show, what I believed then and believe still

more strongly now, that, evil as the whole spoils system was in its effects on the country, it was quite as vexatious and fertile in miseries and disappointments to political leaders. In the natural order of things, where there is no spoils system, and where the bestowal of offices is not in the hands of senators, representatives, and the like, these senators and representatives, when once elected, have time to discharge their duties, and with very little pains can maintain their hold upon their constituents as long as they please. The average man, when he has cast his vote for a candidate and sees that candidate elected, takes an interest in him; the voter, feeling that he has, in a certain sense, made an investment in the man thus elected, is naturally inclined to regard him favorably and to continue him in office. But with the spoils system, no sooner is a candidate elected than, as has been well observed, for every office which he bestows he makes "ninety-nine enemies and one ingrate.'' The result is that the unsuccessful candidates for appointment return home bent on taking revenge by electing another person at the end of the present incumbent's term, and hence comes mainly the wretched system of rapid rotation in office, which has been in so many ways injurious to our country.

This and other points I urged, but the evil was too deeply seated. Time was required to remove all doubts which were raised. I found with regret that my article had especially incurred the bitter dislike of my old adviser, Thurlow Weed, the great friend of Mr. Seward and former autocrat of Whig and Republican parties in the State of New York. Being entirely of the old school, he could not imagine the government carried on without the spoils system.

On one of my visits to New York in the interest of this reform, I met at dinner Mr. William M. Evarts, then at the head of the American bar, who had been Secretary of State under Mr. Hayes, and who was afterward senator from the State of New York. I had met him frequently before and heard much of his brilliant talk, and especially his admirable stories of all sorts.

But on this occasion Mr. Evarts surpassed himself. I recall a series of witty repartees and charming illustrations, but will give merely one of the latter. Something was said of people's hobbies, whereupon Mr. Evarts said that a gentleman visiting a lunatic asylum went into a room where several patients were assembled, and saw one of them astride a great dressing-trunk, holding fast to a rope drawn through the handle, seesawing and urging it forward as if it were a horse at full speed. The visitor, to humor the patient, said, "That 's a fine horse you are riding.'' "Why, no,'' said the patient, "this is not a horse.'' "What is it, then?'' asked the visitor. The patient answered, "It 's a hobby.'' "But,'' said the visitor, "what 's the difference between a horse and a hobby?'' "Why,'' said the patient, "there 's an enormous difference; a horse you can get off from, a hobby you can't.''

As to civil-service reform, my efforts to convert leading Republicans by personal appeals were continued, and in some cases with good results; but I found it very difficult to induce party leaders to give up the immediate and direct exercise of power which the spoils system gave them. Especially was it difficult with sundry editors of leading papers and party managers; but time has wrought upon them, and some of those who were most obdurate in those days are doing admirable work in these. The most serious effort I ever made was to convert my old friend and classmate, Thomas C. Platt, the main manager and, as he was called, the "boss'' of the Republican party in the State of New York, a man of great influence throughout the Union. He treated me civilly, but evidently considered me a "crank.'' He, like Mr. Thurlow Weed, was unable to understand how a party could be conducted without the promise of spoils for the victors; but I have lived to see him take a better view. As I write these lines word comes that his influence is thrown in favor of the bill for reforming the civil service of the State of New York, championed by my nephew, Mr. Horace White, a member

of the present State Senate, and favored by Colonel Roosevelt, the governor.

It was upon a civil-service errand in Philadelphia that I met, after a long separation, my old friend and classmate Wayne MacVeagh. He had been minister to Constantinople, Attorney-General in the Garfield cabinet, and, at a later period, ambassador at Rome. At this period he had returned to practise his profession in Philadelphia, and at his hospitable table I met a number of interesting men, and on one occasion sat next an eminent member of the Philadelphia bar, Judge Biddle. A subject happened to come up in which I had taken great interest, namely, American laxity in the punishment of crime, and especially the crime of murder, whereupon Judge Biddle dryly remarked: "The taking of life, after due process of law, as a penalty for murder, seems to be the only form of taking life to which the average American has any objection.''

In the autumn of 1882 came a tremendous reverse for the Republican party. There was very wide-spread disgust at the apparent carelessness of those in power regarding the redemption of pledges for reforms. Judge Folger, who had been nominated to the governorship of New York, had every qualification for the place, but an opinion had widely gained ground that President Arthur, who had called Judge Folger into his cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury, was endeavoring to interfere with the politics of the State, and to put Judge Folger into the governor's chair. There was a suspicion that "the machine'' was working too easily and that some of its wheels were of a very bad sort. All this, coupled with slowness in redeeming platform pledges, brought on the greatest disaster the Republican party had ever experienced. In November, 1882, Mr. Cleveland was elected governor by the most enormous majority ever known, and the defeat extended not only through the State of New York, but through a number of other States. It was bitter medicine, but, as it afterward turned out, very salutary.

Just after this election, being in New York to deliver an

address before the Geographical Society on the subject of "The New Germany'' (December 27, 1882), I met a number of distinguished men in politics at the table of General Cullom, formerly the head of the West Point Academy. There was much interesting talk, and some significant political facts were brought out; but the man who interested me most was my next neighbor at table, General McDowell.

He was an old West Pointer, and had planned the first battle of Bull Run, when our troops were overwhelmingly defeated, the capital put in peril, and the nation humiliated at home and abroad. There is no doubt now that McDowell's plans were excellent, but the troops were raw volunteers, with little knowledge of their officers and less confidence in them; and, as a result, when, like the men in the "Biglow Papers,'' they found "why baggonets is peaked,'' there was a panic, just as there was in the first battles of the French Revolution. Every man distrusted every other man; there was a general outcry, and all took flight. I remember doing what I could in those days to encourage those who looked with despair on the flight from the battle-field of Bull Run, by pointing out to them exactly similar panics and flights in the first battles of the soldiers who afterward became the Grande Armée and marched triumphantly over Europe.

But of one thing the American people felt certain in those days, and that was that at Bull Run "General McDowell was drunk.'' This assertion was loudly made, widely spread, never contradicted, and generally believed. I must confess now with shame that I was one of those who were so simple-minded as to take this newspaper story as true. On this occasion, sitting next General McDowell, I noticed that he drank only water, taking no wine of any sort; and on my calling his attention to the wines of our host as famous, he answered, "No doubt; but I never take anything but water.'' I answered, "General, how long has that been your rule?'' He replied, "Always since my boyhood.

At that time I was sent to a military school at Troyes in France, and they gave us so much sour wine that I vowed that if I ever reached America again no drink but water should ever pass my lips, and I have kept to that resolution.''

Of course this was an enormous surprise to me, but shortly afterward I asked various army officers regarding the matter, and their general answer was: "Why, of course; all of us know that McDowell is the only officer in the army who never takes anything but water.''

And this was the man who was widely believed by the American people to have lost the battle of Bull Run because he was drunk!

Another remembrance of this period is a dinner with Mr. George Jones, of the "New York Times,'' who gave me a full account of the way in which his paper came into possession of the documents revealing the Tammany frauds, and how, despite enormous bribes and bitter threats, the "Times'' persisted in publishing the papers, and so brought the Tweed régime to destruction.

Of political men, the most noted whom I met in those days was Governor Cleveland. He was little known, but those of us who had been observant of public affairs knew that he had shown sturdy honesty and courage, first as sheriff of the county of Erie, and next as mayor of Buffalo, and that, most wonderful of all, he had risen above party ties and had appointed to office the best men he could find, even when some of them were earnest Republicans.

In June of 1883 he visited the university as an ex-officio trustee, laid the corner-stone of the chapel above the remains of Ezra Cornell, and gave a brief address. It was short, but surprised me by its lucidity and force. This being done, I conducted him to the opening of the new chemical laboratory. He was greatly interested in it, and it was almost pathetic to note his evident regret that he had never had the advantage of such instruction. I learned afterward that he was classically prepared to enter college, but that his father, a poor country clergyman,

being unable to defray his expenses, the young man determined to strike out for himself, and so began one of the best careers known in the history of American politics.

At this same commencement of Cornell University appeared another statesman, Justin S. Morrill of Vermont, author of the Morrill Bill of 1862, which, by a grant of public lands, established a college for scientific, technical, military, and general education in every State and Territory in the Union. It was one of the most beneficent measures ever proposed in any country. Mr. Morrill had made a desperate struggle for his bill, first as representative and afterward as senator. It was twice vetoed by President Buchanan, who had at his back all the pro-slavery doctrinaires of his time. They distrusted, on various accounts, any system for promoting advanced education, and especially for its promotion by the government; but he won the day, and on this occasion our trustees, at my suggestion, invited him to be present at the unveiling of his portrait by Huntington, which had been painted by order of the trustees for the library.

He was evidently gratified at the tribute, and all who met him were pleased with him. The time will come, I trust, when his statue will stand in the capital of the Union as a memorial of one of the most useful and far-seeing statesmen our country has known.

A week later I addressed my class at Yale on "The Message of the Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth.'' In this address my endeavor was to indicate the lines on which reforms of various sorts must be instituted, and along which a better future for the country could be developed, and it proved a far greater success than I had expected. It was widely circulated in various forms, first in the newspapers, then as a pamphlet, and finally as a kind of campaign document.

From July to September of that year (1883) I was obliged to be in Europe looking after matters pertaining to the university lawsuit, and, on returning, was called upon to address a large meeting of Germans at the funeral

of a member of the German parliament who had died suddenly while on a visit to our country—Edward Lasker. I had known him well in Berlin as a man of great ability and high character, and felt it a duty to accept the invitation to give one of the addresses at his funeral. The other address was given by my friend of many years, Carl Schurz; and these addresses, with some others made at the time, did, I suppose, something to bring to me the favor of my German fellow-citizens in New York.

Still, my main thoughts were given to Cornell University. This was so evident that on one occasion a newspaper of my own party, in an article hostile to those who spoke of nominating me for the governorship, declared: "Mr. White's politics and religion are Cornell University.'' But suddenly, in 1884, I was plunged into politics most unexpectedly.

As has been usual with every party in the State of New York from the beginning of the government, the Republicans were divided between two factions, one supporting Mr. Arthur for the Presidency, the other hoping to nominate Mr. Blaine. These two factions thus standing op-posed to each other, Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, with a few others in various parts of the State, started an independent movement, with the result that the two main divisions of the party, detesting each other more than they detested the independents, supported the latter and elected independent candidates as delegates at large to the approaching Republican Convention at Chicago. Without any previous notice, I was made one of these delegates. My position was therefore perfectly independent; I was at liberty to vote for whom I pleased. Although my acquaintance with Mr. Blaine was but slight, I had always felt strong admiration and deep attachment for him. As Secretary of State, during a part of my residence in Berlin, he had stood by me in a contest regarding the double standard of value in which I had feared that he might waver; and, far more than all this, his general political course had caused me,

as it had caused myriads of others, to feel grateful to him.

But I had learned some things regarding his vulnerability in a presidential campaign which made me sure that it would be impossible to elect him. An impartial but kindly judge had, some months before, while expressing great admiration for Mr. Blaine, informed me of some transactions which, while they showed no turpitude, revealed a carelessness in doing business which would certainly be brought to bear upon him with great effect in a heated political campaign. It was clear to me that, if nominated, he would be dragged through the mire, the Republican party defeated, and the country at large besmirched in the eyes of the whole world.

Arrived at Chicago June 2, 1884, I found the political caldron seething and bubbling. Various candidates were earnestly supported, and foremost of all, President Arthur and Mr. Blaine. The independent delegates, led by Theodore Roosevelt and George William Cur-tis, and the Massachusetts delegation, headed by Governor Long, Senator Hoar, and Henry Cabot Lodge, decided to support Senator Edmunds of Vermont. No man stood higher than he for integrity as well as for statesmanlike qualities and legal abilities; no one had more thoroughly the respect of thinking men from one end of the country to the other.

The delegates having arrived in the great hall where the convention was sitting, a number of skirmishes took place, and a momentary victory was gained by the Independents in electing, as temporary chairman, a colored delegate of great ability from one of the Southern States, over Mr. Powell Clayton of Arkansas, who, though he had suffered bitterly and struggled bravely to maintain the Union during the Civil War, was supposed to be identified with doubtful methods in Southern politics.

But as it soon became evident that the main tide was for Mr. Blaine, various efforts were made to concentrate the forces opposed to him upon some candidate who could

command more popular support than Mr. Edmunds. An earnest effort was made in favor of John Sherman of Ohio, and his claims were presented most sympathetically to me by my old Cornell student, Governor Foraker. Of all the candidates before the convention I would have preferred to vote for Mr. Sherman. He had borne the stress of the whole anti-slavery combat, and splendidly; he had rendered great services to the nation as a statesman and financier, and was in every respect capable and worthy. Unfortunately there were too many old enmities against him, and it was clear that the anti-Blaine vote could not be concentrated on him. My college classmate, Mr. Knevals of New York, then urged me to vote for President Arthur. This, too, would have been a fairly satisfactory solution of the question, for President Arthur had surprised every one by the excellence of his administration. Still there was a difficulty in his case: the Massachusetts delegates could not be brought to support him; it was said that he had given some of their leaders mortal offense by his hostility to the River and Harbor Bill. A final effort was then made by the Independents to induce General Sherman to serve, but he utterly refused, and so the only thing left was to let matters take their course. All chance of finding any one to maintain the desired standard of American political life against the supporters of Mr. Blaine had failed.

As we came into the convention on the morning of the day fixed for making the nominations, I noticed that the painted portraits of Washington and Lincoln, previously on either side of the president's chair, had been removed. Owing to the tumultuous conduct of the crowd in the galleries, it had been found best to remove things of an ornamental nature from the walls, for some of these ornaments had been thrown down, to the injury of those sitting below.

On my calling Curtis's attention to this removal of the two portraits, he said: "Yes, I have noticed it, and I am glad of it. Those weary eyes of Lincoln have been upon

us here during our whole stay, and I am glad that they are not to see the work that is to be done here to-day.'' It was a curious exhibition of sentiment, a revelation of the deep poetic feeling which was so essential an element in Curtis's noble character.

The various candidates were presented by prominent speakers, and most of the speeches were thoroughly good; but unquestionably the best, from an oratorical point of view, was made on the nomination of Mr. Edmunds by Governor Long of Massachusetts. Both as to matter and manner it was perfection; was felt to be so by the convention; and was sincerely applauded even by the majority of those who intended to vote for Mr. Blaine.

There was one revelation here, as there had been at many conventions previously, which could not fail to produce a discouraging impression upon every thoughtful American. The number of delegates and substitutes sent to the convention amounted in all to a few hundreds, but these were almost entirely lost in the immense crowd of spectators, numbering, it was said, from twelve to fifteen thousand. In the only conventions which I had ever before seen, including those at Baltimore and Philadelphia and various State conventions of New York, the delegates had formed the majority of those in the hall; but in this great "wigwam'' there were times in which the most important part was played by the spectators. At some moments this overwhelming mob, which encircled the seats of the delegates on the floor and rose above them on all sides in the galleries, endeavored to sweep the convention in the direction of its own whims and fancies. From time to time the convention ceased entirely to be a deliberative body. As the names of certain favorite candidates were called, or as certain popular allusions were made in speeches, this mob really took possession of the convention and became almost frantic. I saw many women jumping up and down, dishevelled and hysterical, and some men acting in much the same way. It was absolutely unworthy of a convention of any party, a disgrace to decency, and a blot upon

the reputation of our country. I am not alone in this opinion. More than once during my official life in Europe I have heard the whole thing lamented by leading liberal statesmen as bringing discredit on all democratic government.

There were times indeed when the galleries sought to howl down those who were taking part in the convention, and this was notably the case during a very courageous speech by Mr. Roosevelt.

I may mention, in passing, that the country then received the first revelation of that immense pluck and vigor which have since carried Mr. Roosevelt through so many political conflicts, borne him through all the dangers of the Santiago campaign, placed him in the governor's chair of the State of New York and in the Vice-Presidency of the United States, leading to the Presidency, which he holds as I revise these lines. At the Chicago Convention, though he was in a small minority, nothing daunted him. As he stood upon a bench and addressed the president, there came from the galleries on all sides a howl and yell, "Sit down! sit down!'' with whistling and cat-calls. All to no purpose; the mob might as well have tried to whistle down a bronze statue. Roosevelt, slight in build as he then was, was greater than all that crowd combined. He stood quietly through it all, defied the mob, and finally obliged them to listen to him.

Toward the end of the convention this mob showed itself even worse than before. It became evident that large parts of the galleries were packed in the interest of the local candidate for the Vice-Presidency, General Logan, and this mass of onlookers did their best to put down all delegates supporting any other.

No more undemocratic system was ever devised. The tendency of this "wigwam'' plan of holding great meetings or conventions is to station a vast mob of sensation-seeking men and women in the galleries between the delegates and the country at large. The inevitable consequence is that the "fog-horns'' of a convention play the most effective

part, and that they seek mainly the applause of the galleries. The country at large is for the moment forgotten. The controlling influence is the mob, mainly from the city where the convention is held. The whole thing is a monstrous abuse. Attention has been called to it by thinking Democrats as well as by Republicans, who have seen in it a sign of deterioration which has produced many unfortunate consequences and will produce more. It is the old story of the French Convention overawed by a gallery mob and mistaking the mob whimsies of a city for the sober judgment of the country. One result of it the whole nation saw when, in more recent years, a youthful member of Congress, with no training to fit him for executive duties, was suddenly, by the applause of such a mob, imposed upon the Democratic National Convention as a candidate for the Presidency. Those who recall the way in which "the boy orator of the Platte'' became the Democratic candidate for the Chief Magistracy over seventy millions of people, on account of a few half-mawkish, half-blasphemous phrases in a convention speech, can bear witness to the necessity of a reform in this particular—a reform which will forbid a sensation-seeking city mob to usurp the function of the whole people of our Republic.

In spite of these mob hysterics, the Independents persisted to the last in supporting Mr. Edmunds for the first place, but in voting for the second place they separated. For the Vice-Presidency I cast the only vote which was thrown for my old Cornell student, Mr. Foraker, previously governor of Ohio, and since that time senator from that State.

In spite of sundry "defects of his qualities,'' which I freely recognized, I regarded him as a fearless, upright, downright, straightforward man of the sort who must always play a great part in American politics.

It was at this convention that I saw for the first time Mr. McKinley of Ohio, and his quiet self-possession in the midst of the various whirls and eddies and storms caused me to admire him greatly. Calm, substantial, quick

to see a good point, strong to maintain it, he was evidently a born leader of men. His speeches were simple, clear, forcible, and aided at times in rescuing the self-respect of the body.

This Republican convention having adjourned, the National Democratic Convention met soon afterward in the same place and nominated Grover Cleveland of New York. He was a man whom I greatly respected. As already stated, his career as sheriff of Erie County, as mayor of Buffalo, and as governor of the State of New York had led me to admire him. He had seemed utterly incapable of making any bid for mob support; there had appeared not the slightest germ of demagogism in him; he had refused to be a mere partizan tool and had steadily stood for the best ideals of government. As governor he showed the same qualities which had won admiration during his previous career as sheriff and mayor. He made as many appointments as he could without regard to political considerations, and it was remarked with wonder that when a number of leading Democratic "workers'' and "wheel-horses'' came to the executive chamber in Albany in order to dictate purely partizan appointments, he virtually turned them out of the room. Most amazing thing of all, he had vetoed a bill reducing the fare on the elevated railroads of New York, in the face of the earnest advice of partizans who assured him that by doing so he would surely array against him the working-classes of that city and virtually annihilate his political future. To this his answer was that whatever his sympathies for the working-people might be, he could not, as an honest man, allow such a bill to pass, and, come what might, he would not. He had also dared, quietly but firmly, to resist the chief "boss'' of his party in New York City, and he had consequently to brave the vials of Celtic wrath. The scenes at the convention which nominated him were stirring, and an eminent Western delegate struck a chord in the hearts of thousands of Republicans as well as Democrats when he said, "We love him for the enemies he has

made.'' Had it been a question simply between men, great numbers of us who voted for Mr. Blaine would have voted for Mr. Cleveland; but whatever temptation I might be subjected to in the matter was overcome by one fact: Mr. Cleveland was too much like the Trojan horse, for he bore with him a number of men who, when once brought into power, were sure to labor hard to undo everything that he would endeavor to accomplish, and his predestined successor in the governorship of the State of New York was one of those whom I looked upon as especially dangerous.

Therefore it was, that, after looking over the ground, I wrote an open letter to Mr. Theodore Roosevelt and other Independents, giving the reasons why those of us who had supported Mr. Edmunds should now support Mr. Blaine, and in this view Mr. Roosevelt, with a large number of our Independent friends, agreed.

I had, however, small hopes. It was clear to me that Mr. Blaine had little chance of being elected; that, in fact, he was too heavily weighted with the transactions which Mr. Pullman had revealed to me some months before the beginning of the convention.

But I made an effort to commit him to the only policy which could save him. For, having returned to the university, I wrote William Walter Phelps, an old friend, who had been his chief representative at Chicago, an earnest letter stating that there seemed to me but one chance of rallying to Mr. Blaine's support the very considerable body of disaffected Republicans in the State of New York; that, almost without exception, they were ardent believers in a reform of the civil service; and that an out-and-out earnest declaration in favor of it by our presidential candidate might do much to propitiate them. I reminded Mr. Phelps of the unquestioned evils of the "spoils system,'' and said that Mr. Blaine must surely have often observed them, suffered under pressure from them, and felt that something should be done to remedy them; and that if he would now express his conviction to this effect, taking strong ground in favor of the reform and basing

his utterances on his experiences as a statesman, it would, in my mind, do much to save the State of New York for the Republicans.

After writing this letter, feeling that it might seem to Mr. Phelps and to Mr. Blaine himself very presuming for a man who had steadily opposed them at Chicago thus to volunteer advice, I laid it aside. But it happened that I had been chosen one of the committee of delegates to go to Maine to apprise Mr. Blaine formally of his nomination, and it also happened that my old student and friend, Judge Foraker, was another member of the committee. It was impossible for me to go to Maine, since the commencement of the university, at which I was bound to preside, came on the day appointed for Mr. Blaine's reception of the committee at Bangor; but Judge Foraker having stopped over at the university to attend a meeting of the trustees as an alumni member of that body, I mentioned this letter to him. He asked to see it, and, having read it, asked to be allowed to take it with him. I consented, and heard nothing more from him on the subject; but the following week, at the Yale commencement, while sitting with Mr. Evarts and Judge Shipman to award prizes in the law department, I saw, looking toward me over the heads of the audience in the old Centre Church, my friend Frederick William Holls of New York, and it was evident from his steady gaze that he had something to say. The award of prizes having been made and the audience dismissed, Mr. Holls met me and said: "Mr. Blaine will adopt your suggestion in his letter of acceptance.'' Both of us were overjoyed. It looked like a point scored not only for the Republican party, but for the cause which we both had so deeply at heart.

But as the campaign went on it was more and more evident that this concession, which I believe he would have adhered to had he been elected, was to be in vain.

It was perhaps, on the whole, and on both sides, the vilest political campaign ever waged. Accusations were made against both candidates which should have forever brought

contempt on the men who made them. Nothing could have been further from the wish of either candidate than that such accusations should be made against his opponent, but each was powerless: the vile flood of slander raged on. But I am glad here to recall the fact that when, at a later period, one of the worst inventors of slander against Mr. Blaine sought reward in the shape of office from President Cleveland, he was indignantly spurned.

In politics I took very little part. During the summer my main thoughts were directed toward a controversy before the Board of Regents, in regard to the system of higher education in the State of New York, with my old friend President Anderson of Rochester, who had vigorously attacked some ideas which seemed to me essential to any proper development of university education in America; and this was hardly finished when I was asked to take part in organizing the American Historical Association at Saratoga, and to give the opening address. This, with other pursuits of an academic nature, left me little time for the political campaign.

But there occurred one little incident to which I still look back with amusement. My old friends and con-stituents in Syracuse had sent me a general invitation to come over from the university and preside at some one of their Republican mass-meetings. My answer was that as to the "hack speakers'' of the campaign, with their venerable gags, stale jokes, and nauseating slanders, I had no desire to hear them, and did not care to sit on the platform with them; but that when they had a speaker to whom I cared to listen I would gladly come. The result was that one day I received a letter inviting me to preside over a mass-meeting at Syracuse, at which Mr. McKinley was to make the speech. I accepted gladly and on the appointed evening arrived at the Syracuse railway station. There I found the mayor of the city ready to take me in his carriage to the hall where the meeting was to be held; but we had hardly left the station when he said to me: "Mr. White, I am very sorry, but Mr. McKinley has been delayed

and we have had to get another speaker.'' I was greatly disappointed, and expressed my feelings somewhat energetically, when the mayor said: "But this speaker is really splendid; he carries all before him; he is a thorough Kentucky orator.'' My answer was that I knew the breed but too well, and that if I had known that Mr. McKinley was not to come I certainly would not have left my work at the university. By this time we had arrived at the door of the Globe Hotel, whence the speaker entered the carriage. He was a tall, sturdy Kentuckian, and his appearance and manner showed that he had passed a very convivial day with the younger members of the committee appointed to receive him.

His first words on entering the carriage were not very reassuring. No sooner had I been introduced to him than he asked where he could get a glass of brandy. "For,'' said he, "without a good drink just before I go on the platform I can't make a speech.'' I attempted to quiet him and to show him the difficulties in the case. I said: "Colonel —, you have been with our young men here all day, and no doubt have had a fairly good time; but in our meetings here there is just now need of especial care. You will have in your audience to-night a large number of the more sedate and conservative citizens of Syracuse, church members, men active in the various temperance societies, and the like. There never was a campaign when men were in greater doubt; great numbers of these people have not yet made up their minds how they will vote, and the slightest exhilaration on your part may cost us hundreds of votes.'' He answered: "That's all very well, but the simple fact is that I am here to make a speech, and I can't make it unless I have a good drink beforehand.'' I said nothing more, but, as he still pressed the subject on the mayor and the other member of the committee, I quietly said to them as I left the carriage: "If that man drinks anything more before speaking, I will not go on the stage with him, and the reason why I don't will speedily be made known.'' The mayor reassured me, and we all went

together into the large room adjoining the stage, I keeping close watch over the orator, taking pains to hold him steadily in conversation, introducing as many leading men of the town to him as possible, thus preventing any opportunity to carry out his purpose of taking more strong drink, and to my great satisfaction he had no opportunity to do so before we were summoned into the hall.

Arrived there, I made my speech, and then the orator of the evening arose. But just before he began to speak he filled from a water-pitcher a large glass, and drank it off. My thought at the moment was that this would dilute some of the stronger fluids he had absorbed during the day and cool him down somewhat. He then went on in a perfectly self-possessed way, betrayed not the slightest effect of drinking, and made a most convincing and effective speech, replete with wit and humor; yet, embedded in his wit and humor and rollicking fun, were arguments appealing to the best sentiments of his hearers. The speech was in every way a success; at its close I congratulated him upon it, and was about to remind him that he had done very well on his glass of cold water, when he suddenly said to me: "Mr. White, you see that it was just as I told you: if I had n't taken that big glass of gin from the pitcher just before I started, I could not have made any speech.''

"All 's well that ends well,'' and, though the laugh was at my expense, the result was not such as to make me especially unhappy.

But this campaign of 1884 ended as I had expected. Mr. Cleveland was elected to the Presidency.

13. CHAPTER XIII
HENDRICKS, JOHN SHERMAN, BANCROFT, AND OTHERS—1884-1891

THE following spring, visiting Washington, I met President Cleveland again.

Of the favorable impression made upon me by his career as Governor of New York I have already spoken, and shall have occasion to speak presently of his Presidency. The renewal of our acquaintance even increased my respect for him. He was evidently a strong, honest man, trying to do his duty under difficulties.

I also met again Mr. Cleveland's opponent in the previous campaign—Mr. Blaine. Calling on Mr. William Walter Phelps, then in Congress, whom I had known as minister of the United States at Vienna, and who was afterward my successor at Berlin, I made some reference to Mr. Blaine, when Mr. Phelps said: "Why don't you go and call upon him?'' I answered that it might be embarrassing to both of us, to which he replied: "I don't think so. In spite of your opposition to him at Chicago, were I in your place I would certainly go to his house and call upon him.'' That afternoon I took this advice, and when I returned to the hotel Mr. Blaine came with me, talking in a most interesting way. He spoke of my proposed journey to Virginia, and discussed Jefferson and Hamilton, admiring both, but Jef-ferson the most. As to his own working habits, he said that he rose early, did his main work in the morning, and never did any work in the evening; that, having been

brought up in strongly Sabbatarian notions during his boyhood in Pennsylvania, he had ever since, from the force of habit, reserved Sunday as a day of complete rest. Speaking of the customs in Pennsylvania at that time, he said that not even a walk for exercise was allowed, and nothing was ever cooked on the sacred day.

I met him afterward on various occasions, and could not but admire him. At a dinner-party he was vexatiously badgered by a very bumptious professor, who allowed himself to speak in a rather offensive manner of ideas which Mr. Blaine represented; and the quiet but decisive way in which the latter disposed of his pestering interlocutor was worthy of all praise.

Mr. Blaine was certainly the most fascinating man I have ever known in politics. No wonder that so many Republicans in all parts of the country seemed ready to give their lives to elect him. The only other public man in the United States whose personality had ever elicited such sympathy and devotion was Henry Clay. Perhaps his nearest friend was Mr. Phelps, to whom I have referred above,—one of the best, truest, and most winning men I have ever known. He had been especially devoted to Mr. Blaine, with whom he had served in Congress, and it was understood that if the latter had been elected Mr. Phelps would have been his Secretary of State.

Mr. Phelps complained to me, half seriously, half jocosely, of what is really a crying abuse in the United States —namely, that there is no proper reporting of the proceedings of the Houses of Congress in the main journals of the country which can enable the people at large to form any just idea as to how their representatives are conducting the public business. He said: "I may make a most careful speech on any important subject before Congress and it will not be mentioned in the New York papers, but let me make a joke and it will be published all over the United States. Yesterday, on a wager, I tried an experiment: I made two poor little jokes during a short

talk in the House, and here they are in the New York papers of this morning.''

During this visit to Washington I met at the house of my classmate and dear friend, Randall Gibson, then a senator from Louisiana, a number of distinguished men among them the Vice-President, Mr. Hendricks, and General Butler, senator from South Carolina

Vice-President Hendricks seemed sick and sore. He had expected to be a candidate for the Presidency, with a strong probability of election, but had accepted the Vice-Presidency; and the subject which seemed to elicit his most vitriolic ill will was reform in the civil service. As we sat one evening in the smoking-room at Senator Gibson's he was very bitter against the system, when, to my surprise, General Butler took up the cudgels against him and made a most admirable argument. At that moment, for the first time, I felt that the war between North and South was over; for all the old issues seemed virtually settled, and here, as regarded this new issue, on which I felt very deeply, was one of the most ardent of Confederate soldiers, a most bitter pro-slavery man before the Civil War, one who, during the war, had lost a leg in battle, nearer me politically than were many of my friends and neighbors in the North.

Senator Jones of Florida, who was present, gave us some character sketches, and among others delineated admirably General Williams, known in the Mexican War as "Cerro Gordo Williams,'' who was for a time senator from Kentucky. He said that Williams had a wonderful gift of spread-eagle oratory, but that, finding no listeners for it among his colleagues, he became utterly disgusted and went about saying that the Senate was a "d—d frigid, respectable body that chilled his intellect.'' This led my fellow-guests to discuss the characteristics of the Senate somewhat, and I was struck by one remark in which all agreed—namely, that "there are no politics in executive session.''

Gibson remarked that the best speech he had ever heard in the Senate was made by John Sherman.

As regards civil-service matters, I found on all sides an opinion that Mr. Cleveland was, just as far as possible, basing his appointments upon merit. Gibson mentioned the fact that a candidate for an important office in his State, who had committed three murders, had secured very strong backing, but that President Cleveland utterly refused to appoint him.

With President Cleveland I had a very interesting interview. He referred to his visit to Cornell University, said that he would have liked nothing so well as to go more thoroughly through its various departments, and, as when I formerly saw him, expressed his regret at the loss of such opportunities as an institution of that kind affords.

At this time I learned from him and from those near him something regarding his power for hard work. It was generally understood that he insisted on writing out all important papers and conducting his correspondence in his own hand, and the result was that during a considerable period of the congressional sessions he sat at his desk until three o'clock in the morning.

It was evident that his up-and-down, curt, independent way did not at all please some of the leading members of his party; in fact, there were signs of a serious estrangement caused by the President's refusals to yield to senators and other leaders of the party in the matter of appointments to office. To illustrate this feeling, a plain, bluff Western senator, Mr. Sawyer of Wisconsin, told me a story.

Senator Sawyer had built up a fortune and gained a great influence in his State by a very large and extensive business in pine lumber, and he had a sort of rough, quaint woodman's wit which was at times very amusing. He told me that, some days before, two of his most eminent Democratic colleagues in the Senate were just leaving the Capitol, and from something they said he saw that they

were going to call upon the President. He therefore asked them, "How do you like this new President of yours?'' "Oh,'' answered the senators in chorus, "he is a very good man—a very good man indeed.'' "Yes,'' said Senator Sawyer, "but how do you like him?'' "Oh,'' answered the senators, "we like him very much—very much indeed.'' "Well,'' said Sawyer, "I will tell you a story before you go to the White House if you will agree when you get back, to tell me—`honest Injun'—whether it suits your case.'' Both laughingly agreed, and Mr. Sawyer then told them the following story: When he was a young man with very small means, he and two or three other young wood-choppers made up an expedition for lumber-cutting. As they were too poor to employ a cook for their camp, they agreed to draw lots, and that the one on whom the lot fell should be cook, but only until some one of the company found fault; then the fault-finder should become cook in his turn. Lots being drawn, one of them, much to his disgust, was thus chosen cook, and toward the close of the day he returned to camp, before the others, to get supper ready. Having taken from the camp stores a large quantity of beans, he put them into a pot boiling over the fire, as he had seen his mother do in his boyhood, and then proceeded to pour in salt. Unfortunately the salt-box slipped in his hand, and he poured in much more than he had intended—in fact, the whole contents of the box. On the return of the woodmen to the cabin, ravenously hungry, they proceeded to dish out the boiled beans, but the first one who put a spoonful in his mouth instantly cried out with a loud objurgation, "Thunder and lightning! this dish is all salt''; but, in a moment, remembering that if he found fault he must himself become cook, he said very gently, "But I like salt.'' Both senators laughed and agreed that they would give an honest report of their feelings to Senator Sawyer when they had seen the President. On their return, Sawyer met them and said, "Well, honest Injun, how was it?'' They both laughed and said, "Well, we like salt.''

Among many interesting experiences I recall especially a dinner at the house of Mr. Fairchild, Secretary of the Treasury. He spoke of the civil service, and said that a short time previously President Cleveland had said to him, regarding the crowd pressing for office: "A suggestion to these office-seekers as to the good of the country would make them faint.''

During this dinner I happened to be seated between Senators John Sherman of Ohio and Vance of Georgia, and presently Mr. Vance—one of the jolliest mortals I have ever met—turned toward his colleague, Senator Sherman, and said, very blandly: "Senator, I am glad to see you back from Ohio; I hope you found your fences in good condition.'' There was a general laugh, and when it was finished Senator Sherman told me in a pleasant way how the well-known joke about his "looking after his fences'' arose. He said that he was the owner of a large farm in Ohio, and that some years previously his tenant wrote urging him most earnestly to improve its fences, so that finally he went to Ohio to look into the matter. On arriving there, he found a great crowd awaiting him and calling for a speech, when he excused himself by saying that he had not come to Ohio on political business, but had merely come "to look after his fences.'' The phrase caught the popular fancy, and "to look after one's fences'' became synonymous with minding one's political safeguards.

I remember also an interesting talk with Mr. Bayard, who had been one of the most eminent senators in his time, who was then Secretary of State, and who became, at a later period, ambassador of the United States to Great Britain. Speaking of office-seeking, he gave a comical account of the developing claims of sundry applicants for foreign missions, who, he said, "are at first willing to go, next anxious to go, and finally angry because they cannot go.''

On another social occasion, the possibility of another attempt at secession by States being discussed, General

Butler of South Carolina said: "No more secession for me.'' To this, Senator Gibson, who also had been a brigadier-general in the Confederate service, and had seen much hard fighting, said, "And no more for me.'' Butler rejoined, "We may have to help in preventing others from seceding one of these days.'' I was glad to note that both Butler and Gibson spoke thoroughly well of their former arch-enemy, General Grant.

Very interesting was it to meet again Mr. George Bancroft. He referred to his long service as minister at Berlin, expressed his surprise that Bismarck, whom he remembered as fat, had become bony, and was very severe against both clericals and liberals who had voted against allowing aid to Bismarck in the time of his country's greatest necessity.

I also met my Cornell colleague Goldwin Smith, the former Oxford professor and historian, who expressed his surprise and delight at the perfect order and decorum of the crowd, numbering nearly five thousand persons, at the presidential levee the night before. In order to understand what an American crowd was like, instead of going into the White House by the easier way, as he was entitled by his invitation to do, he had taken his place in the long procession far outside the gate and gradually moved through the grounds into the presidential presence, taking about an hour for the purpose. He said that there was never any pressing, crowding, or impatience, and he compared the crowd most favorably with any similar body in a London street.

Chief Justice Waite I also found a very substantial interesting man; but especially fascinating was General Sheridan, who, at a dinner given by my Berlin predecessor, Mr. Bancroft Davis, described the scene at the battle of Gravelotte when, owing to a rush by the French, the Emperor of Germany was for a time in real danger and was reluctantly obliged to fall back. He said that during the panic and retreat toward Thionville he saw the Emperor halt from time to time to scold soldiers who threw

away their muskets; that very many German soldiers, during this panic, cast aside everything except the clothes they wore—not only their guns, but their helmets; that afterward the highways and fields were strewn thickly with these, and that wagons were sent out to collect them. He also said that Bismarck spoke highly to him regarding the martial and civil qualities of the crown prince, afterward the Emperor Frederick, but that regarding the Red Prince, Frederick Charles, he expressed a very different opinion.

Speaking of a statement that some one had invented armor which would ward off a rifle-ball, Sheridan said that during the Civil War an officer who wore a steel vest beneath his coat was driven out of decent society by general contempt; and at this Goldwin Smith told a story of the Duke of Wellington, who, when troubled by an inventor of armor, nearly scared him to death by ordering him to wear his own armor and allow a platoon of soldiers to fire at him.

During the course of the conversation Sheridan said that soldiers were braver now than ever before—braver, indeed, than the crusaders, as was proved by the fact that in these days they wear no armor. To this Goldwin Smith answered that he thought war in the middle ages was more destructive than even in our time. Sheridan said that breech-loading rifles kill more than all the cannon.

At a breakfast given by Goldwin Smith at Wormley's, Bancroft, speaking of Berlin matters, said that the Emperor William did not know that Germany was the second power in the world so far as a mercantile navy was concerned until he himself told him; and on the ignorance of monarchs regarding their own domains, Goldwin Smith said that Lord Malmesbury, when assured by Napoleon III that in the plebiscite he would have the vote of the army, which was five hundred thousand, answered, "But, your majesty, your army numbers seven hundred thousand,'' whereupon the Emperor was silent. The inference

was that his majesty knew a large part of his army to be merely on paper.

At this Mr. John Field, of Philadelphia, said that on the breaking out of the Franco-Prussian War he went to General Grant at Long Branch, and asked him how the war was likely to turn out, to which the general answered, "As I am President of the United States, I am unable to answer.'' "But,'' said Field, "I am a citizen sovereign and ask an opinion.'' "Well,'' said General Grant, "confidentially, the Germans will beat the French thoroughly and march on Paris. The French army is a mere shell.'' This reminded me that General Grant, on my own visit to him some weeks before, had foretold to me sundry difficulties of Lord Wolseley in Egypt just as they afterward occurred.

At a dinner with Senator Morrill of Vermont I met General Schenck, formerly a leading member of Congress and minister to Brazil and to England. He was very interesting in his sketches of English orators; thought Bright the best, Gladstone admirable, and Sir Stafford Northcote, with his everlasting hawing and humming, intolerable. He gave interesting reminiscences of Tom Corwin, his old preceptor, and said that Corwin's power over an audience was magical. He added that he once attended a public dinner in Boston, and, sitting near Everett, who was the chief speaker, noticed that when the waiters sought to clear the table and were about to remove a bouquet containing two small flags, Everett would not allow them to do it, and that later in the evening, during his speech, just at the proper point, he caught up these flags, as if accidentally, and waved them. He said that everything with Everett and Choate seemed to be cut and dried; that even the interruptions seemed prepared beforehand.

Senator Morrill then told a story regarding Everett's great speech at the opening of the Dudley Observatory at Albany, which I had heard at the time of its delivery. In this speech Everett said: "Last night, crossing the

Connecticut River, I saw mirrored in its waters Arcturus, then fully at the zenith, and I thought,'' etc., etc.; "but,'' said Morrill, "some one looked into the matter and found that Everett, before leaving home, had evidently turned the globe in his study wrong side up, for at that time Arcturus was not at the zenith, but at the nadir.''

At the Cornell commencement of this year (1885) I resigned my presidency of the university. It had nominally lasted eighteen years, but really more than twenty, since I had taken the lead in the work of the university even before its charter was granted, twenty years previously, and from that day the main charge of its organi-zation and of everything except providing funds had been intrusted to me. Regarding this part of my life I shall speak more fully in another chapter.

Shortly after this resignation two opportunities were offered me which caused me considerable thought.

As to the first, President Cleveland was kind enough to write me an autograph letter asking whether I would accept one of the positions on the new Interstate Railway Commission. I felt it a great honor to be asked to act as colleague with such men as Chief Justice Cooley, Mr. Morrison, and others already upon that board, but I recognized my own incompetence to discharge the duties of such a position properly. Though I had been, some years before, a director in two of the largest railway corporations in the United States, my heart was never in that duty, and I never prepared myself to discharge it. Thinking the matter over fully, I felt obliged to decline the place. My heart was set on finishing the book which I had so long wished to publish,—my "History of the Warfare of Science with Theology,''—and in order to cut myself off from other work and get some needed rest I sailed for Europe on October 3, 1885, but while engaged most delightfully in visits to Oxford, Cambridge, and various places on the Continent, I received by cable an offer which had also a very tempting side. It was sent by my old friend Mr. Henry Sage of Ithaca,

urged me to accept the nomination to Congress from that district, and assured me that the nomination was equivalent to an election. There were some reasons why such a position was attractive to me, but the more I thought of it the more it seemed to me that to discharge these duties properly would take me from other work to which I was pledged. Before deciding the question, however, I determined to consult two old friends who were then living in London hotels adjacent to my own. The first of these was my dear old instructor, with whom my relations had been of the kindest ever since my first year at Yale—President Porter.

On my laying the matter before him, he said, "Accept by all means''; but as I showed him the reasons on both sides, he at last reluctantly agreed with me that probably it was best to send a declination.

The other person consulted was Mr. James Belden of Syracuse, afterward a member of Congress from the Onondaga district, a politician who had a most intimate knowledge of men and affairs in our State. We had been during a long period, political adversaries, but I had come to respect sundry qualities he had more lately exhibited, and therefore went to him as a practical man and laid the case before him. He expressed his great surprise that I should advise with him, my old political adversary, but he said, "Since you do come, I will give you the very best advice I can.''

We then went over the case together, and I feel sure that he advised me as well as the oldest of my friends could have done, and with a shrewdness and foresight all his own.

One of his arguments ran somewhat as follows: "To be successful in politics a man must really think of nothing else; it must be his first thought in the morning and his last at night; everything else must yield to it. Heretofore you have quietly gone on your way, sought nothing, and taken what has been freely tendered you in the interest of the party and of the public. I know the Elmira

district, and you can have the nomination and the election without trouble; but the question is whether you could ever be happy in the sort of work which you must do in order to take a proper place in the House of Representatives. First of all, you must give up everything else and devote yourself to that alone; and even then, when you have succeeded, you have only to look about you and see the men who have achieved success in that way, and who, after all, have found in it nothing but disappointment.'' In saying this he expressed the conclusion at which I had already arrived.

I cabled my absolute declination of the nomination, and was reproved by my friends for not availing myself of this opportunity to take part in political affairs, but have nevertheless always felt that my decision was wise.

To tell the truth, I never had, and never desired to have, any capacity for the rough-and-tumble of politics. I greatly respect many of the men who have gifts of that sort, but have recognized the fact that my influence in and on politics must be of a different kind. I have indeed taken part in some stormy scenes in conventions, meetings, and legislatures, but always with regret. My true rôle has been a more quiet one. My ambition, whether I have succeeded in it or not, has been to set young men in trains of fruitful thought, to bring mature men into the line of right reason, and to aid in devising and urging needed reforms, in developing and supporting wise policies, and in building up institutions which shall strengthen what is best in American life.

Early in 1891 I was asked by Mr. Sherman Rogers of Buffalo, one of the best and truest men in political life that I have ever known, to accompany him and certain other gentlemen to Washington, in order to present to Mr. Harrison, who had now become President of the United States, an argument for the extension of the civil-service rules. Accompanied by Mr. Theodore Roosevelt and Senator Cabot Lodge, our delegation reached the Executive Mansion at the time fixed by the President,

and were received in a way which surprised me. Mr. Harrison seemed, to say the least, not in good humor. He stood leaning on the corner of his desk, and he asked none of us to sit. All of us had voted for him, and had come to him in his own interest as well as in the interest of the country; but he seemed to like us none the better for all that. The first speech was made by Mr. Rogers. Dwelling on the disappointment of thoughtful Republicans throughout the country at the delay in redeeming pledges made by the Republican National Convention as to the extension of the civil service, and reiterated in the President's own speeches in the United States Senate, he in a playful way referred to the conduct of certain officials in Buffalo, when the President interrupted him, as it seemed to me at the time very brusquely and even rudely saying: "Mr. Rogers, you have no right to impute evil motives to any man. The motives of these gentlemen to whom you refer are presumably as good as your own. An argument based upon such imputations cannot advance the cause you support in the slightest degree.'' Mr. Rogers was somewhat disconcerted for a moment, but, having resumed his speech, he presented, in a very dignified and convincing way, the remainder of his argument. He was followed by the other members from various States, giving different sides of the case, each showing the importance which Republicans in his own part of the country attributed to an extension of the civil-service rules.

My own turn came last. I said: "Mr. President: I will make no speech, but will simply state two facts.

"First: Down to a comparatively recent period every high school, college, and university in the Northern States has been a center of Republican ideas: no one will gainsay this for a moment. But recently there has come a change. During nearly twenty years it has been my duty to nominate to the trustees of Cornell University candidates for various positions in its faculty; the fundamental charter of the institution absolutely forbids any consideration, in such cases, of the party or sect to which any candidate

belongs, and I have always faithfully carried out that injunction, never, in any one of the multitude of nominations that I have made, allowing the question of politics to enter in the slightest degree. But still it has happened that, almost without exception, the candidates have proved to be Republicans, and this to such an extent that at times I have regretted it; for the university has been obliged frequently to ask for legislation from a Democratic legis-lature, and I have always feared that this large prepon-derance of Republican professors would be brought up against us as an evidence that we were not true to the principles of our charter. As a matter of fact, down to two or three years since, there were, as I casually learned, out of a faculty of about fifty members, not over eight or ten Democrats. But during these recent years all this has been changed, and at the State election, when Judge Folger was defeated for the governorship, I found to my surprise that, almost without exception, my colleagues in the faculty had voted the Democratic ticket; so far as I could learn, but three besides myself had voted for the Republican candidate.'' President Harrison immediately said: "Mr. White, was that not chiefly due to the free-trade tendencies of college-men?'' I answered: "No, Mr. President; the great majority of these men who voted with the Democrats were protectionists, and you will yourself see that they must have been so if they had continued to vote for the Republican ticket down to that election. All that I hear leads me to the conviction that the real cause is disappointment at the delay of the Republican party in making good its promises to improve the public service. In this question the faculties of our colleges and universities, especially in the Eastern, Middle, and Northern States, take a deep interest. In fact, it is with them the question of all questions; and I think this is one of the things which, at that election in New York, caused the most overwhelming defeat that a candidate for governor had ever experienced.'' To this the President listened attentively, and I then said: "Mr. President, my second point is this: The State of New York is, of course, of immense importance to the Republican party, and it has been carried in recent years by a majority of a few hundred votes. There are more than fourteen thousand school districts in the State, and in nearly every one of these school districts there are a certain number of earnest men—anywhere from a handful to a houseful—who believe that since the slavery question is removed from national politics, the only burning question which remains is the `spoils system' and the reform of the civil service. Now, you have only to multiply the fourteen thousand school districts by a very small figure, and you will see the importance of this question as regards the vote of the State of New York. I know whereof I speak, for I have myself addressed meetings in many of these districts in favor of a reform of the civil service, have had correspondence with other districts in all parts of the State, and am sure that there is a deep-seated feeling on the subject in great numbers of them,— a feeling akin to what used to be called in the anti-slavery days `fanaticism,'—that is, a deep-seated conviction that this is now the most important question before the American people, and that it must be settled in precedence to all others.''

The President received what I had to say courteously, and then began a reply to us all. He took at first rather a bitter tone, saying that he had a right to find fault with all of us; that the Civil Service League had denounced his administration most unjustly for its relation to the spoils system; that he was moving as rapidly in the matter as circumstances permitted; that he was anxious to redeem the promises made by the party and by himself; that he had already done something and purposed to do more; and that the glorifications of the progress made by the previous administration in this respect, at the expense of his own, had been grossly unjust.

To this we made a short rejoinder on one point, stating that his complaint against us was without foundation;

that not one of us was a member of the Civil Service League; that not one of us had taken any part in its deliberations; and that we could not, therefore, be made responsible in any way for its utterances. The President now became somewhat more genial, though he did not ask us to be seated, alluding in a pungent but good-natured way to the zeal for reform shown by Mr. Roosevelt, who was standing by, and closing in considerably better humor than he had begun. Although I cannot say that I was greatly pleased with his treatment of the committee, I remembered that, although courtesy was not generally considered his strong point, he was known to possess many sterling qualities, and I felt bound to allow that his speech revealed a man of strength and honest purpose. All of us, even Mr. Roosevelt and Senator Lodge, came away believing that good had been done, and that the President, before his term of office had expired, would do what he could in the right direction; and I am glad to say that this expectation was fulfilled.

14. CHAPTER XIV
McKINLEY AND ROOSEVELT—1891-1904

DURING the summer of 1891 came a curious episode in my life, to which, as it was considerably discussed in the newspapers at the time, and as various sensational news-makers have dwelt upon it since, I may be permitted to refer. During several years before,—in fact, ever since my two terms in the State Senate,—various people, and especially my old Cornell students throughout the State, had written to me and published articles in my behalf as a candidate for governor. I had never encour-aged these, and whenever I referred to them deprecated them, since I preferred a very different line of life, and felt that the grapple with spoilsmen which every governor must make would wear me out very rapidly. But the election which was that year approaching was felt to be very important, and old friends from various parts of the State thought that, in the severe contest which was expected, I stood a better chance of election than any other who could be named at that particular time, their theory being that the German vote of the State would come to me, and that it would probably come to no other Republican.

The reason for this theory was that I had received part of my education in Germany; had shown especial interest in German history and literature, lecturing upon them at the University of Michigan and at Cornell; had resided in Berlin as minister; had, on my return, delivered in New York and elsewhere an address on the "New Germany,''

wherein were shown some points in German life which Americans might study to advantage; had also delivered an address on the "Contributions of Germany to American Civilization''; and had, at various times, formed pleasant relations with leading Germans of both parties. The fact was perfectly well known, also, that I was opposed to the sumptuary laws which had so largely driven Germans out of the Republican party, and had declared that these were not only unjust to those immediately affected by them, but injurious to the very interests of temperance, which they were designed to promote.

I was passing the summer at Magnolia, on the east coast of Massachusetts, when an old friend, the son of an eminent German-American, came from New York and asked me to become a candidate for the governorship. I was very reluctant, for special as well as general reasons. My first wish was to devote myself wholly to certain long-deferred historical work; my health was not strong; I felt utterly unfitted for the duties of the campaign, and the position of governor, highly honorable as it is, presented no especial attractions to me, my ambition not being in that line. Therefore it was that at first I urged my friends to combine upon some other person; but as they came back and insisted that they could agree on no one else, and that I could bring to the support of the party men who would otherwise oppose it, I reluctantly agreed to discuss the subject with some of the leading Republicans in New York, and among them Mr. Thomas C. Platt, who was at the head of the organized management of the party.

In our two or three conversations Mr. Platt impressed me curiously. I had known him slightly for many years; indeed, we had belonged to the same class at Yale, but as he had left it and I had entered it at the beginning of the sophomore year we did not know each other at that period. We had met occasionally when we were both supporting Mr. Conkling, but had broken from each other at the time when he was supporting Mr. Blaine, and I, Mr. Edmunds,

for the nomination at Chicago. Our discussion now took a form which somewhat surprised me. The general belief throughout the State was, I think, that Mr. Platt's first question, or, at any rate, his main question, in any such discussion, would be, necessarily, as to the attitude of the candidate toward Mr. Platt's own interests and aspirations. But I feel bound to say that in the discussions between us no such questions were ever asked, approached, or even hinted at. Mr. Platt never asked me a question regarding my attitude toward him or toward his friends; he never even hinted at my making any pledge or promise to do anything or not to do anything with reference to his own interests or to those of any other person; his whole effort was directed to finding what strength my nomination would attract to the party and what it would repel. He had been informed regarding one or two unpopular votes of mine when I was in the State Senate—as for example, that I had opposed the efforts of a powerful sectarian organization to secure the gift of certain valuable landed property from the city of New York; he had also been informed regarding certain review and magazine articles in which I had spoken my mind somewhat freely against certain influences in the State which were still powerful, and it had been hinted to him that my "Warfare of Science'' chapters might have alienated a considerable number of the more narrow-minded clergymen and their flocks.

I told Mr. Platt frankly that these fears seemed quite likely to be well founded, and that there were some other difficulties which I could myself suggest to him: that I had in the course of my life, made many opponents in supporting Cornell University, and in expressing my mind on various questions, political and religious, and that these seemed to me likely to cost the party very many votes. I therefore suggested that he consult certain persons in various parts of the State who were entitled to have an opinion, and especially two men of the highest judgment in such matters—Chief Justice Andrews of

Syracuse, and Carroll Earl Smith, editor of the leading Republican journal in central New York. The result was that telegrams and letters were exchanged, these gentlemen declaring their decided opinion that the matters referred to were bygones, and could not be resuscitated in the coming contest; that they would be lost sight of in the real questions sure to arise; and that even in the election immediately following the vote which I had cast against giving a large tract of Ward's Island to a Roman Catholic institution, I had lost no votes, but had held my own with the other candidates, and even gained upon some of them.

Mr. Platt also discussed my relations to the Germans and to the graduates of Cornell University who were scattered all over the State; and as these, without exception, so far as could be learned, were my warm personal friends, it was felt by those who had presented my name, and finally, I think, by Mr. Platt, that these two elements in my support might prove valuable.

Still, in spite of this, I advised steadily against my own nomination, and asked Mr. Platt: "Why don't you support your friend Senator Fassett of Elmira? He is a young man; he has very decided abilities; he is popular; his course in the legislature has been admirable; you have made him collector of the port of New York, and he is known to be worthy of the place. Why don't you ask him?'' Mr. Platt's frankness in reply increased my respect for him. He said: "I need not confess to you that, personally, I would prefer Mr. Fassett to yourself; but if he were a candidate he would have to carry the entire weight of my unpopularity.''

Mr. Platt was from first to last perfectly straightforward. He owed me nothing, for I had steadily voted against him and his candidate in the National Convention at Chicago. He had made no pledges to me, for I had allowed him to make none—even if he had been disposed to do so; moreover, many of my ideas were opposed to his own. I think the heaviest piece of work I ever undertook was when, some months before, I had endeavored to convert

him to the civil-service-reform forces; but while I had succeeded in converting a good many others, he remained intractable, and on that subject we were at opposite poles.

It therefore seems to me altogether to his credit that, in spite of this personal and theoretical antagonism between us, and in spite of the fact that I had made, and he knew that I would make, no pledges or promises whatever to him in view of an election, he had favored my nomination solely as the best chance of obtaining a Republican victory in the State; and I will again say that I do not believe that his own personal advantage entered into his thoughts on this occasion. His pride and his really sincere devotion to the interests of the Republican party, as he understood them, led him to desire, above all things, a triumph over the Democratic forces, and the only question in his mind was, Who could best secure the victory?

At the close of these conferences he was evidently in my favor, but on leaving the city I said to him: "Do not consider yourself as in any way pledged to my support. Go to the convention at Rochester, and decide what is best after you get there. I have no desire for the nomination— in fact, would prefer that some one else bear the burden and heat of the day. I have been long out of touch with the party managers in the State. I don't feel that they would support me as they would support some man like Mr. Fassett, whom they know and like personally, and I shall not consider you as pledged to me in the slightest degree. I don't ask it; I don't wish it; in fact, I prefer the contrary. Go to Rochester, be guided by circumstances, and decide as you see fit.''

In the meantime various things seemed to strengthen my candidacy. Leading Germans who had been for some time voting with the Democratic party pledged themselves to my support if I were nominated, and one of them could bring over to my side one of the most powerful Democratic journals in the State; in fact, there were pledged to my support two leading journals which, as matters

turned out afterward, opposed the Republican nomination.

At the convention which met shortly afterward at Rochester (September, 1891), things went as I had anticipated, and indeed as I had preferred. Mr. Platt found the elements supporting Mr. Fassett even stronger than he had expected. The undercurrent was too powerful for him, and he was obliged to yield to it.

Of course sundry newspapers screamed that he had deceived and defeated me. I again do him the justice to say that this was utterly untrue. I am convinced that he went to Rochester believing my candidacy best for the party; that he really did what he could in my favor, but that he found, what I had foretold, that Mr. Fassett, young, energetic, known, and liked by the active political men in various parts of the State, naturally wished to lead the forces and was naturally the choice of the convention—a choice which it was not within Mr. Platt's power to change.

Mr. Fassett was nominated, and I do not know that I have ever received a message which gave me a greater sense of relief than the telegram which announced this fact to me.

As regards the inside history of the convention, Professor Jenks of Cornell University, a very thoughtful student of practical politics, who had gone to Rochester to see the working of a New York State convention, told me some time afterward that he had circulated very freely among the delegates from various rural districts; that they had no acquaintance with him, and therefore talked freely in his presence regarding the best policy of the convention. As a rule, the prevailing feeling among them was expressed as follows: "White don't know the boys; he don't know the men who do the work of the party; he supports civil-service reform, and that means that after doing the work of the campaign we shall have no better chance for the offices than men who have done nothing—in fact, not so good, perhaps, as those who have opposed

us.'' No doubt this feeling entered into the minds of a large number of delegates and conduced to the result.

A few weeks afterward Mr. Fassett came to Ithaca. I had the pleasure of presiding and speaking at the public meeting which he addressed, and of entertaining him at my house. He was in every way worthy of the position to which he had been nominated, but, unfortunately, was not elected.

Having made one or two speeches in this campaign, I turned to more congenial work, and in the early spring of the following year (February 12 to May 16, 1892) accepted an election as non-resident professor at Stanford University in California, my duty being to deliver a course of twenty lectures upon "The Causes of the French Revolution.'' Just as I was about to start, Mr. Andrew Carnegie very kindly invited me to go as his guest in his own car and with a delightful party. There were eight of us—four ladies and four gentlemen. We went by way of Washington, Chattanooga, and New Orleans, stopping at each place, and meeting many leading men; then to the city of Mexico, where we were presented to Porfirio Diaz, the president of that republic, who seemed to be a man of great shrewdness and strength. I recall here the fact that the room in which he received us was hung round with satin coverings, on which, as the only ornament, were the crown and cipher of Diaz' unfortunate predecessor, the Emperor Maximilian. Thence we went to California, and zigzag along the Pacific coast to Tacoma and Seattle; then through the Rocky Mountains to Salt Lake City meeting everywhere interesting men and things, until at Denver I left the party and went back to give my lectures at Stanford.

Returning to Cornell University in the early summer I found myself in the midst of my books and happy in resuming my work. But now, July 21, 1892, came my nomination by President Harrison to the position of envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at St. Petersburg. On thinking the matter over, it seemed to me

that it would be instructive and agreeable to have a second diplomatic experience in Russia after my absence of nearly forty years. I therefore accepted, and in the autumn of 1892 left America for St. Petersburg.

While in Washington to receive my instructions before leaving, I again met Mr. Harrison, and must say that he showed a much more kindly and genial side than that which had formerly been revealed to me, when I had discussed shortcomings of his administration as regarded the civil service.

My occupancy of this new position lasted until the autumn of 1894, and there was one thing in it which I have always regarded as a great honor. Mr. Harrison had appointed me at about the close of the third year of his term of office; I therefore naturally looked forward to a stay of but one year in Russia, and, when I left America, certainly desired no more. A little of Russian life goes very far. It is brilliant and attractive in many ways; but for a man who feels that he has duties and interests in America it soon becomes a sort of exile. At the close of Mr. Harrison's administration, therefore, I tendered my resignation, as is customary with ministers abroad at such times, so that it would arrive in Washington on the fourth day of March, and then come under the hand of the new President, Mr. Cleveland. I had taken its acceptance as a matter of course, and had made all my arrangements to leave Russia on the arrival of my successor. But soon I heard that President Cleveland preferred that I should remain, and that so long as I would consent to remain no new appointment would be made. In view of the fact that I had steadily voted against him, and that he knew this, I felt his conduct to be a mark of confidence for which I ought to be grateful, and the result was that I continued at the post another year, toward the close of which I wrote a private letter to him, stating that under no circumstances could I remain longer than the 1st of October, 1894. The fact was that the book which I considered the main work of my life was very nearly finished. I was anxious to have leisure to

give it thorough revision, and this leisure I could not have in a diplomatic position. Therefore it was that I insisted on terminating my career at St. Petersburg, and that the President finally accepted my declination in a letter which I shall always prize.

During the following winter (1894-1895), at Florence Sorrento, and Palermo, my time was steadily given to my historical work; and having returned home and seen it through the press, I turned to another historical treatise which had been long deferred, and never did a man more thoroughly enjoy his leisure. I was at last apparently my own master, and could work in the midst of my books and in the library of the university to my heart's content.

But this fair dream was soon brought to naught. In December, 1895, I was appointed by President Cleveland a member of the commission to decide upon the boundary line between the British possessions in South America and Venezuela. The circumstances of the case, with the manner in which he tendered me the position, forbade me to decline it, and I saw no more literary leisure during the following year.

As the presidential campaign of 1896 approached I had given up all thoughts of politics, and had again resumed the historical work to which I proposed to devote, mainly, the rest of my life—the preparation of a biographical history of modern Germany, for which I had brought together a large amount of material and had prepared much manuscript. I also hoped to live long enough to put into shape for publication a series of lectures, on which I had obtained a mass of original material in France, upon "The Causes of the French Revolution''; and had the new campaign been like any of those during the previous twenty years, it would not have interested me. But suddenly news came of the nomination by the Democrats of Mr. Bryan. The circumstances attending this showed clearly that the coming contest involved, distinctly, the question between the forces of virtual repudiation, supporting a policy which meant not merely national disaster but generations of dishonor

on the one side, and, on the other, Mr. McKinley, supporting a policy of financial honesty. Having then been called upon to preside over a Republican meeting at Ithaca, I made a speech which was published and widely circulated, giving the reasons why all thinking men of both parties ought to rally in support of the Republican candidate, and this I followed with an open letter to many leading Democrats in the State. It was begun as a private letter to a valued Democratic friend, Mr. Oscar S. Straus, who has twice proved himself a most useful and patriotic minister of the United States at Constantinople. But, as my pen was moving, another Democratic friend came into my mind, then another, and again another, until finally my views were given in an open letter to them all; and this having been submitted to a friend in New York, with permission to use it as he thought best, he published it. The result seemed fortunate. It was at once caught up by the press and republished in all parts of the country. I cannot claim that the gentlemen to whom I wrote were influenced by it, but certain it is that in spite of their earnest differences from President McKinley on very important questions, their feeling that this campaign involved issues superior to any of those which had hitherto existed, led all of them, either directly or indirectly, to support him.

At the suggestion of various friends, I also republished in a more extended form my pamphlet on "Paper Money Inflation in France: How it Came, What it Brought, and How it Ended,'' which had first been published at the suggestion of General Garfield and others, as throwing light on the results of a debased currency, and it was now widely circulated in all parts of the country.

Mr. McKinley was elected, and thus, in my judgment, was averted the greatest peril which our Republic has encountered since the beginning of the Civil War. Having now some time for myself, I accepted sundry invitations to address the students of two of the greater State universities of the West. It gave me pleasure to visit them, on

many accounts, and above all for the purpose of realizing the magnificent advance that has been made by them in becoming universities worthy of our country.

My anticipations were far more than met. My old student and successor at the University of Michigan as professor and at Cornell University as president, Dr. Charles Kendall Adams, welcomed me to the institution over which he so worthily presided—the State University of Wisconsin; and having visited it a quarter of a century before, I was now amazed at its progress. The subject of my address, in the presence of the whole body of students was "Evolution versus Revolution in Politics,'' and never have I spoken with more faith and hope. Looking into the faces of that immense assembly of students, in training for the best work of their time, lifted me above all doubts as the future of that commonwealth.

From Madison I went to Minneapolis under an invitation to address the students at the State University of Minnesota, and again my faith and hope were renewed as I looked into the faces of those great audiences of young men and young women. They filled me with confidence in the future of the country. At Minneapolis I also met various notable men, among them Archbishop Ireland, who had interested me much at a former meeting in Philadelphia. I became sure that whatever ecclesiastics of his church generally might feel toward the United States, he was truly patriotic. Alas for both church and state that such prelates as Gibbons, Ireland, Keane, Spalding, and the like, should be in a minority!

But my most curious experience was due to another citizen of Minnesota. Having been taken to the State House, I was introduced, in the lower branch of the legislature, to no less a personage than Mr. Ignatius Donnelly, so widely known by his publications regarding the authorship of Shakspere's writings; and on my asking him whether he was now engaged on any literary work, he informed me that he was about to publish a book which would leave no particle of doubt, in the mind of any thinking man, that

the writings attributed to Shakspere were really due to Francis Bacon. During this conversation the house was droning on in committee of the whole, and the proceedings fell upon my ear much like the steady rumble of a mill; but suddenly the mill seemed to stop, my own name was called, and immediately afterward came the words: "Mr. — of — and Mr. — of — will escort Mr. White to the chair.'' It was a very sudden awakening from my talk with Mr. Donnelly on literature, but there was no help for it. "Accoutred as I was, I plunged in,'' and, in a long fur-lined coat much the worse for wear and bespattered with mud, was conducted to the speaker, who, after formal greetings, turned me loose on the audience. Naturally my speech revealed what was uppermost in my mind—wonder at the progress made by the State, admiration for its institutions, confidence in its future, pride in its relation to the Union. At the close of this brief talk a few members set up a call for Mr. Donnelly to respond, whereupon he promptly arose, and of all the speeches I have ever heard his was certainly the most surprising. It had seemed to me that my own remarks had glorified Minnesota up to the highest point; but they were tame indeed compared to his. Having first dosed me with blarney, he proceeded to deluge the legislature with balderdash. One part of his speech ran substantially on this wise:

"Mr. Speaker, I ask the gentleman, when he returns to his home, to tell his fellow-citizens of the East what he has seen during his visit to this great State; and, sir, we also wish him to tell them that Minnesota and the great Northwest will no longer consent to be trodden under the feet of the East. The strength of the United States and the future center of American greatness is here in Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, not far from this place I own a farm.'' (Here I began to wonder what was coming next.) "From that farm, on one side, the waters trickle down until they reach the rivulets, and then the streams, and finally the great rivers which empty into Hudson Bay. And from the other side of that farm, sir, the waters trickle down into

the rivulets, thence pass into the streams, and finally into the great Father of Waters, until they reach the Gulf of Mexico. Mr. Speaker, on this plateau are now raised the great men of the Republic. Formerly Virginia was the mother of statesmen; that is so no longer. The mother of statesmen in these days, and of the men who are to control the destinies of this Republic, is Minnesota.''

Never before had I any conception of the height to which "tall talk'' might attain. It was the apotheosis of blather; but as my eye wandered over the assemblage, I noticed that many faces wore smiles, and it was clear to me that the members had merely wished to exhibit their most amusing specimen.

I felt that if they could stand it I could, and so, having bidden the Speaker and Mr. Donnelly good-bye, passed out and made the acquaintance of the neighboring city of St. Paul, which struck me as even more beautiful than Edinburgh in the views from its principal streets over hills, valleys, and mountains.

At the University of Michigan, in view of my recent visit, I did not again stop, but at Harvard and Yale I addressed the students, and returned home from the excursion with new faith in the future of the country. James Bryce is right when he declares that in our universities lie the best hopes of the United States.

Early in the year following the election I was appointed by the President ambassador to Germany. I had not sought the position; indeed, I had distinctly declined to speak of the matter to any of those who were supposed to have the management of political affairs in the State. It came to me, directly and unsought, from President McKinley; I therefore prized it, and shall ever prize the remembrance of it.

While it was announced as pending, I was urged by various friends to speak of the subject to Mr. Platt, who as the only Republican senator from New York and the head of the Republican organization, was supposed to have large rights in the matter. It was hinted to me that

some statement to Mr. Platt on the subject was re-quired by political etiquette and would smooth the Presi-dent's way. My answer was that I felt respect and friendship for Mr. Platt; that I called at his rooms from time to time socially, and discussed various public matters with him; but that I could never make a request to him in the premises; that I could not put myself in the attitude of a suppliant, even in the slightest degree, to him or even to the President.

The result was that the President himself spoke to Mr. Platt on the subject, and, as I was afterward informed, the senator replied that he would make no objection, but that the appointment ought not to be charged against the claims of the State of New York.

The presidential campaign of 1900, in which Mr. McKinley was presented for reêlection, touched me but slightly. There came various letters urging me to become a candidate for the Vice-Presidency, and sundry newspapers presented reasons for my nomination, the main argument being the same which had been formerly used as regarded the governorship of New York—that the German-Americans were estranged from the Republican party by the high tariff, and that I was the only Republican who could draw them to the ticket. All this I deprecated, and refused to take any part in the matter, meantime writing my nephew, who had become my successor in the State Senate, my friend Dr. Holls, and others, to urge the, name of Theodore Roosevelt. I had known him for many years and greatly admired him. His integrity was proof against all attack, his courage undoubted, and his vigor amazing. It was clear that he desired renomination for the place he already held—the governorship of New York—partly because he was devoted to certain reforms, which he could carry out only in that position, and partly because he preferred activity as governor of a great State to the usually passive condition of a Vice-President of the United States. Moreover, he undoubtedly had aspirations to the Presidency. These were perfectly legitimate, and indeed honorable,

in him, as they are in any man who feels that he has the qualities needed in that high office. He and his friends clearly felt that the transition from the governorship of New York to the Presidency four years later would be more natural than that from the Vice-Presidency; but in my letters I insisted that his name would greatly strengthen the national ticket, and that his road to the Presidency seemed to me more easy from the Vice-Presidency than from the governorship; that, although during recent years Vice-Presidents had not been nominated to the higher office, during former years they had been; and that I could see no reason why he might not bring about a return to the earlier custom. As to myself, at my age, I greatly preferred the duties of ambassador to those of Vice-President. The Republican party was wise enough to take this view, and at the National Convention he was nominated by acclamation.

Early in August, having taken a leave of absence for sixty days, I arrived in New York, and on landing received an invitation from Mr. Roosevelt to pass the day with him at his house in the country. I found him the same earnest, energetic, straightforward man as of old. Though nominated to the Vice-Presidency against his will, he had thrown himself heartily into the campaign; and the discussion at his house turned mainly on the securing of a proper candidate for the governorship of the State of New York. I recommended Charles Andrews, who, although in the fullest vigor of mind and body, had been retired from the chief-justiceship of the State on his arrival at the age of seventy years. This recommendation Mr. Roosevelt received favorably; but later it was found impossible to carry it out, the Republican organization in the State having decided in favor of Mr. Odell.

During my entire stay in the United States I was constantly occupied with arrears of personal business which had been too long neglected; but, at the request of various friends, wrote sundry open letters and articles, which were widely circulated among German-Americans,

showing the injustice of the charge so constantly made against President McKinley, of hostility to Germany and German interests. Nothing could be more absurd than such an imputation. The very opposite was the case.

I also gave a farewell address to a great assemblage of students at Cornell University, my topic being "The True Conduct of Student Life''; but in the course of my speech, having alluded to the importance of sobriety of judgment, I tested by it sundry political contentions which were strongly made on both sides, alluding especially to Goldwin Smith's very earnest declaration that one of the greatest dangers to our nation arises from plutocracy. I took pains to show that the whole spirit of our laws is in favor of the rapid dispersion of great properties, and that, within the remembrance of many present, a large number of the greatest fortunes in the United States had been widely dispersed. As to other declarations regarding dangers arising from the acquisition of foreign territory and the like, I insisted that all these dangers were as nothing compared to one of which we were then having a striking illustration—namely, demagogism; and I urged, what I have long deeply felt, that the main source of danger to republican institutions is now, and always has been, the demagogism which seeks to array labor against capital, employee against employer, profession against profession, class against class, section against section. I mentioned the name of no one; but it must have been clear to all present how deeply I felt regarding the issues which each party represented, and especially regarding the resort to the lowest form of demagogism which Mr. Bryan was then making, in the desperate attempt to save his falling fortunes.

During this stay in America I made two visits to Washington to confer with the President and the State Depart-ment. The first of these was during the hottest weather I have ever known. There were few people at the capital who could leave it, and at the Arlington Hotel there were not more than a dozen guests. All were distressed

by the heat. Moreover, there was an amazing complication of political matters at this time, calculated to prostrate the Washington officials, even if the heat had not done so; and, among these, those relating to American control in the Philippine Islands; the bitter struggle then going on in China between the representatives of foreign powers, including our own, and the Chinese insurrectionists; the difficulties arising out of the successful result of the Spanish War in Cuba; complications in the new administration of Porto Rico; and the myriad of questions arising in a heated political campaign, which was then running fast and furious.

Arriving at the White House, I passed an hour with the President, and found him, of all men in Washington, the only one who seemed not at all troubled by the heat, by the complications in China, by the difficulties in Cuba and Porto Rico, or by the rush and whirl of the campaign. He calmly discussed with me the draft of a political note which was to be issued nest day in answer to the Russian communications regarding the mode of procedure in China, which had started some very trying questions; and then showed me a letter from ex-President Cleveland declining a position on the International Arbitration Tribunal at the Hague, and accepted my suggestion not to consider it a final answer, but to make another effort for Mr. Cleveland's acceptance. During this first visit of mine, the Secretary of State and the First Assistant Secretary were both absent, having been almost prostrated by the extreme heat. At a second visit in October, I again saw the President, found him in the same equable frame of mind, not allowing anything to trouble him, quietly discharging his duties in the calm faith that all would turn out well. Dining with Secretary Hay, I mentioned this equanimity of the President, when he said: "Yes; it is a source of perpetual amazement to us all. He allows no question, no matter how complicated or vexatious, to disturb him. Some time since, at a meeting of the cabinet, one of its members burst out into a bitter speech against

some government official who had been guilty of gross rudeness, and said, `Mr. President, he has insulted you, and he has insulted me'; thereupon the President said calmly, `Mr. Secretary, if he has insulted me, I forgive him; if he has insulted you, I shall remove him from office.' ''

Newspapers were teeming with misrepresentations of the President's course, but they failed to ruffle him. On his asking if I was taking any part in the campaign, I referred to a speech that I had made on the Fourth of July in Leipsic, and another to the Cornell University students just before my departure, with the remark that I felt that a foreign diplomatic representative coming home and throwing himself eagerly into the campaign might possibly do more harm than good. In this remark he acqui-esced, and said: "I shall not, myself, make any speeches whatever; nor shall I give any public receptions. My record is before the American people, and they must pass judgment upon it. In this respect I shall go back to what seems to me the better practice of the early Presidents.'' I was struck by the justice of this, and told him so, although I felt obliged to say that he would be under fearful temptation to speak before the campaign had gone much farther. He smiled, but held to his determination, despite the fact that his opponent invaded all parts of the Union in an oratorical frenzy, in one case making a speech at half-past two in the morning to a crowd assembled at a railway station, and making during one day thirty-one speeches, teeming with every kind of campaign misrepresentation; but the President was faithful to his promise, uttered no word in reply, and was reêlected.

Not only at home, but abroad, as I can amply testify, the news of his reêlection was received with general satisfaction, and most of all by those who wish well to our country and cherish hopes that government by the people and for the people may not be brought to naught by the wild demagogism which has wrecked all great republics thus far.

But alas! the triumph was short-lived. One morning in September, while I was slowly recovering from two of the greatest bereavements which have ever befallen me, came the frightful news of his assassination. Shortly afterward, for family and business reasons, I went for a few weeks to the United States, and, in the course of my visit, conferred with the new President three times—first at the Yale bicentennial celebration, afterward in his private office, and finally at his table in the White House. Hard indeed was it for me to realize what had taken place —that President McKinley, whom I had so recently seen in his chair at the head of the cabinet table, was gone forever; that in those rooms, where I had, at four different times, chatted pleasantly with him, he was never to be seen more; and that here, in that same seat, was sitting my old friend and co-laborer. Hard was it to realize that the last time I had met Mr. Roosevelt in that same room was when we besought President Harrison to extend the civil service. Interesting as the new President's conversation was, there was constantly in my mind, whether in his office or his parlors or the dining-room at the White House, one deep undertone. It was like the pedal bass of an organ, steadily giving the ground tone of a requiem—the vanity and evanescence of all things earthly. There had I seen, in the midst of their jubilant supporters, Pierce, Lincoln, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Cleveland, Harrison, and, finally, so short a time before, McKinley. It seemed all a dream. In his conversations the new President showed the same qualities that I had before known in him—earnestness, vigor, integrity, fearlessness, and, at times, a sense of humor, blending playfully with his greater qualities. The message he gave me to the Emperor William was characteristic. I was naturally charged to assure the Emperor of the President's kind feeling; but to this was added, in a tone of unmistakable truth: "Tell him that when I say this, I mean it. I have been brought up to admire and respect Germany. My life in that country and my reading since have steadily increased this respect and admiration.'' I noticed on the table a German book which he had just been reading, its author being my old friend Professor Hans Delbrück of the Berlin University. At the close of the message, which referred to sundry matters of current business, came a playful postlude. "Tell his Majesty,'' said the President, "that I am a hunter and, as such, envy him one thing especially: he has done what I have never yet been able to do—he has killed a whale. But say to him that if he will come to the United States, I will take him to the Rocky Mountains to hunt the mountain lions, which is no bad sport,—and that if he kills one, as he doubtless will, he will be the first monarch who has killed a lion since Tiglath-Pileser.'' I need hardly add that when, a few weeks later, I delivered the message to the Emperor at Potsdam, it pleased him. Many people on both sides of the Atlantic have noted a similarity in qualities between these two rulers, and, from close observation, I must confess that this is better founded than are most such attributed resemblances. The Emperor has indeed several accomplishments, more especially in artistic matters, which, so far as I can learn, the President has not; but both are ambitious in the noblest sense; both are young men of deep beliefs and high aims; earnest, vigorous, straightforward, clear-sighted; good speakers, yet sturdy workers, and anxious for the prosperity, but above all things jealous for the honor of the people whose affairs they are called to administer. The President's accounts of difficulties in finding men for responsible positions in various branches of the service, and his clear statements of the proper line to be observed in political dealings between the United States and Europe where South American interests were concerned, showed him to be a broad-minded statesman. During my stay with him, we also discussed one or two points in his forthcoming message to Congress, and in due time it was received at Berlin, attracting general respect and admiration in Germany, as throughout Europe generally.