Virtue and a trade are a child's best portions.Write injuries in dust, benefits in marble.The way to be safe is never to be secure.When you are good to others, you are best to yourself.Well done is better than well said.God helps them that help themselves.Wish not so much to live long as to live well.He that won't be counselled can't be helped.
Virtue and a trade are a child's best portions.
Write injuries in dust, benefits in marble.
The way to be safe is never to be secure.
When you are good to others, you are best to yourself.
Well done is better than well said.
God helps them that help themselves.
Wish not so much to live long as to live well.
He that won't be counselled can't be helped.
That he was a philosopher in deed as well as in word was soon to be proved, for, at the age of forty-two, he did the wisest thing a man can do, but for which very few have courage. He had won an established position in the world and as much wealth as he felt he needed, so he sold his business, intending to devote the remainder of his life to science, of which he had always been passionately fond. Already he had founded the Philadelphia Library and the American Philosophical Society, had invented the Franklin stove, and served as postmaster of Philadelphia, and a few years later, he established the institution which is now the University of Pennsylvania. It was at about this time that, by experimenting with a kite, he proved lightning to be a discharge of electricity, and suggested the use of lightning rods.
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But his scientific studies were destined to be interrupted, for his country called him, and the remainder of his life was passed in her service, first as agent in London for Pennsylvania, where he did everything possible to avert the Revolution; then as a member of the Continental Congress, and one of the committee of five which drew up the Declaration of Independence; then as ambassador to France, where, practically unaided, he succeeded in effecting the alliance between the two countries which secured the independence of the colonies; and finally as Presidentof Pennsylvania and a member of the Constitutional Convention. His last public act was to petition Congress to abolish slavery in the United States. If one were asked to name the three men who did most to secure the independence of their country, they would be George Washington, who fought her battles, Robert Morris, who financed them, and Benjamin Franklin, who secured the aid of France. When Thomas Jefferson, who had been selected as minister to France, appeared at the court of Louis XVI, he presented his papers to the Comte de Vergennes.
"You replace Mr. Franklin?" inquired the nobleman, glancing at the papers.
"No, monsieur," Jefferson replied, "I succeed him. No one could replace him."
And that answer had more truth than wit.
Honors came to Franklin such as no other American has ever received, but he remained from first to last the same quiet, deep-hearted, and unselfish man, whose chief motive was the promotion of human welfare. He had his faults and made his mistakes; but time has sloughed them all away, and there are few sources of inspiration which can compare with the study of his life.
No family has loomed larger in American affairs than the Adams family of Massachusetts. John Adams, President himself and living to see his own son President—an experience which, probably no other man will ever enjoy—had a second cousin whoplayed a much more important part than he did in securing the independence of the United States. His name was Samuel Adams, and when he graduated from Harvard in 1740, at the age of eighteen, his thesis discussed the question, "Whether it be lawful to resist the supreme magistrate if the commonwealth cannot otherwise be preserved," and answered it in the affirmative.
Samuel Adams was a silent, stern and deeply religious man, something of a dreamer, a bad manager and constantly in debt; but he was perhaps the first in America to conceive the idea of absolute independence from Great Britain, and he worked for this end unceasingly and to good purpose. The wealthy John Hancock was one of his converts, and it was partly to warn these two of the troops sent out to capture them that Paul Revere took that famous ride to Lexington on the night of April 18, 1775. A month later, when General Gage offered amnesty to all the rebels, Hancock and Adams were especially excepted.
It was Samuel Adams who, perceiving that Virginia was apt to be lukewarm in aiding a war which was to be fought mostly in the North, suggested the appointment of Virginia's favorite son, George Washington, as commander-in-chief of the American army, and who seconded the motion to that effect made by John Adams. He lived to see his dream of independence realized, and his grave in the old Granary burying ground at Boston is one of the pilgrimage places of America.
With his name that of John Hancock is, as we have seen, closely associated. The worldly circumstances of the two were very different, for Samuel Adams was always poor, while John Hancock had fallen heir to one of the greatest fortunes in New England. He was only twenty-seven at the time, and his fortune made a fool of him, as sudden wealth has a way of doing. It was at this time, being young and impressionable, he met Samuel Adams, a silent and reserved man, fifteen years his senior and regarded by his neighbors as a harmless crank. But there was something about him which touched Hancock's imagination—and touched his pocketbook, too, for about the first thing Adams did was to borrow money from him.
Hancock was no doubt glad to lend the money, for he had more than he knew what to do with, and spent it in such a lavish manner that he was soon one of the most popular men in Boston. So when one of his ships was seized for smuggling in a cargo of wine, all his friends and employees got together and paraded the streets, and a lot of boys and loafers joined them, for drink was flowing freely, and pretty soon there was a riot, and the troops were called out and fired a volley and killed five men, and the rest of the mob decided that it was time to go home, and went. And that was the Boston massacre about which you have heard so much that it would almost seem to rank with that of St. Bartholomew. But, as the Irishman remarked, the man who gets his finger pinched makes a lot more racket than the onewho gets his head cut off; and the Boston massacre, for all the hullabaloo that was raised about it, was merely an insignificant street riot. No doubt Samuel Adams did his full share in fanning that little spark into a conflagration!
For Adams had acquired great influence over Hancock, and that vapid young man was fond of being seen in the company of the older one. Adams was anxious to secure Hancock for the revolutionary cause, and soon had him so hopelessly entangled that there was no escape for him. On the anniversary of the Boston massacre, he persuaded Hancock to deliver a revolutionary speech, which he had himself prepared, and after that there was a British order out for Hancock's arrest; Adams contrived that Hancock should be one of the three delegates from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress—John and Samuel Adams were the other two—and Hancock was deeply impressed by the honor; at the second Congress, Adams saw to it that his friend was chosen President. In consequence, Hancock was the first signer of the Declaration of Independence, the incident which is the best known in his career. He signed the document in great sprawly letters, remarking grandiloquently, as he did so, "I guess King George can read that without spectacles," and for many years, "John Hancock" was the synonym for a bold signature. He was afterwards governor of Massachusetts for more than a decade, and on one occasion attempted to snub Washington, with very poor success. His body lies in the old Granaryburying-ground, only a step from that of Samuel Adams.
One day, while Thomas Jefferson was a student at William and Mary College, at Williamsburg, a young friend named Patrick Henry dropped in to see him, and announced that he had come to Williamsburg to be admitted to the bar.
"How long have you studied law?" Jefferson inquired.
"Oh, for over six weeks," Henry answered.
The story goes that Jefferson advised his friend to go home and study for at least a fortnight longer; but Henry declared that the only way to learn law was to practice it, and went ahead and took the examination, such as it was, and passed!
That was in 1760, and Patrick Henry was twenty-four years old at the time. He had been a wild boy, cared little for books, and had failed as a farmer and as a merchant before turning to law as a last resort. Nor as a lawyer was he a great success, the truth being that he lacked the industry and diligence which are essential to success in any profession; but he had one supreme gift, that of lofty and impassioned oratory. In 1765, as a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, he made the rafters ring and his auditors turn pale by his famous speech against the stamp act; as a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1774, he made the only real speech of the Congress, arousing the delegates from an attitudeof mutual suspicion to one of patriotic ardor for a common cause.
"Government," said he, "is dissolved. Where are your landmarks, your boundaries of colonies? The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American."
Samuel Adams said afterwards that, but for that speech, which drew the delegates together and made them forget their differences, the Congress would probably have ended in a wrangle. And a year later, again in Virginia, in defense of his resolution to arm the militia, he gave utterance to the most famous speech of all, starting quietly with the sentence, "Mr. President, it is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope," and ending with the tremendous cry: "I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!"
That was the supreme moment of Patrick Henry's life. He did a great work after that, as member of the Continental Congress, as commander-in-chief of the Virginia forces, and as governor of the Commonwealth, but never again did he come so near the stars—as, indeed, few men ever do.
You have all heard the story of Damon and Pythias, true type of devoted friendship, and history abounds in such examples; but sometimes it shows a darker side, and the controlling force in two men's lives will be hate instead of love, and the end will be shipwreck and tragedy. Such a story we are totell briefly here of the lives of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.
They were born a year apart. Burr in 1756, at Newark, New Jersey; Hamilton, in 1757, on the little West Indian island of Nevis. Burr was of a distinguished ancestry, his grandfather being the famous Jonathan Edwards; Hamilton's father was an obscure planter whose first name has been lost to history. Burr graduated at Princeton, entered the army, rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and resigned in 1777 to study law, being admitted to the New York bar five years later. Hamilton was sent to New York, entered King's, now Columbia, College, got caught in the rising tide of Revolution, proved himself uncommonly ready with tongue and pen, enlisted, saw the battles of Long Island, Trenton, and Princeton, was appointed aide-de-camp to Washington and acted as his secretary, filling the post admirably, but resigned in a fit of pique over a fancied slight, and repaired to New York to study law. Such, in outline, is the history of these two men until Fate threw them in each other's way.
New York City was the arena where the battle was fought. Within a few years, Hamilton and Burr were the most famous men in the town. They resembled each other strongly in temperament and disposition; each was "passionate, brooking no rivalry; ambitious, faltering at no obstacle; proud with a fiery and aggressive pride; eloquent with the quick wit, the natural vivacity, and the lofty certaintyof the true orator." They were too nearly alike to be friends; they became instinctive enemies. Each felt that the other was in the way.
For sixteen years, Burr practiced law in New York, growing steadily in influence. For five of those years, Hamilton did the same. They were the foremost lawyers in the city. No man could stand before them, and when they met on opposite sides of a case, it was, indeed, a meeting of giants. But in 1789, Washington appointed Hamilton his secretary of the treasury, and leaving New York, Hamilton applied himself to the great task of establishing the public credit, laying the basis for the financial system of the nation, which endures until this day. It was a splendid task, splendidly performed, and Hamilton emerged from it the leader of the powerful Federal party.
In 1800, two men were candidates for the presidency. One was Thomas Jefferson and the other was Aaron Burr. Instead of being overwhelmed by the great Virginian, Burr received an equal number of electoral votes, and the contest was referred to Congress for decision. As a Federalist, Burr felt that he should have Hamilton's support, but Hamilton used his great influence against him, stigmatizing him as "a dangerous man," and Jefferson was elected. Four years later, Burr was a candidate for governor of New York, and again Hamilton openly, bitterly, and successfully opposed him, again speaking of him as "a dangerous man."
Smarting under the sting of this second defeat,Burr sent a note to Hamilton asking if the expression, "a dangerous man," referred to him politically or personally. Hamilton sent a sneering reply, and expressed himself as willing to abide by the consequences. It was "fighting language between fighting men"—a quarrel which Hamilton had been seeking for five years and which he had done everything in his power to provoke—and Burr promptly sent a challenge. Hamilton as promptly accepted it, named pistols at ten paces as the weapons, and at seven o'clock on the morning of July 11, 1804, the two men faced each other on the heights of Weehawken, overlooking New York bay. Both fired at the word; Burr's bullet passed through Hamilton's body; Hamilton's cut a twig above Burr's head. Hamilton died next day, and Burr, his political career at an end, buried himself in the West.
Three years later, he was arrested, charged with treason, for attempting to found an independent state within the borders of the Union. He had a wild dream of establishing a great empire to the west of the Mississippi, and had collected arms and men for the expedition, and was on his way down the Mississippi when he was arrested and taken back to Richmond for trial. But his plan could not be proved to be treasonable; indeed, his arrest was due more to the animosity which Jefferson felt toward him, than from any other cause, and, brought to trial a year later, he was acquitted. But his reputation was ruined, there was no hope for him in public life, and his remaining years were spent quietly in the practiceof his profession, partly abroad and partly in New York.
It has been too much the habit to picture Burr as a thoroughgoing scoundrel who murdered an innocent man and conspired against his country. As a matter of fact, he did neither. Of the charge of treason he was acquitted, even at a time when public feeling ran high against him, and in the quarrel with Hamilton, it was Hamilton who was at all times the aggressor. Both were brilliant, accomplished and courtly men—even, perhaps, men of genius—but Fate spread a net for their feet, blindly they stumbled into it, and, too proud to retrace their steps, pushed on to the tragic end.
The presiding judge at Burr's trial, not the least of whose achievements was the holding level of the scales of justice on that memorable occasion, was the last of that great school of statesmen who had fought for their country's independence, and who had seen the states united under a common Constitution. John Marshall lived well into the nineteenth century, and his great work was to interpret that Constitution to the country, to give it the meaning which it has for us to-day. Marshall was a Virginian, was just of age at the outbreak of the Revolution, and served in the American army for five years, enlisting as a private and rising to the rank of captain. At the close of the war, he studied law, gained a prominent place in the politics of his state, drew the attention of Washington by his unusual ability, and in 1800 was appointed by him secretary of state. A yearlater he was made chief justice of the Supreme Court—an appointment little less than inspired in its wisdom.
For thirty-four years, John Marshall occupied that exalted position, interpreting to the new country its organic law, and the decisions handed down by him remain the standard authority on constitutional questions. In clearness of thought, breadth of view, and strength of logic they have never been surpassed. His service to his country was of incalculable value, for he built for the national government a firm, foundation which has stood unshaken through the years.
So we come to a new era in American history—an era marked by unexampled bitterness of feeling and culminating in the great struggle for the preservation of the Union. Across this era, three mighty giants cast their shadows—Henry Clay and Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun.
Closely and curiously intertwined were the destinies of these three men, Clay was born in 1777; Webster and Calhoun five years later. Calhoun and Clay were Irishmen and hated England; Webster was a Scotchman, and Scotchmen were usually Tories. Calhoun and Clay were southerners, but with a difference, for Calhoun was born in the very sanctum sanctorum of the South, South Carolina, while Clay's life was spent in the border state of Kentucky, so removed from the South that it did not secede from the Union. Webster was a product ofMassachusetts. Calhoun and Webster were, in temperament and belief, as far apart as the poles; Clay stood between them, "the great compromiser." Calhoun and Webster were greater than Clay, for they possessed a larger genius and a broader culture; and Webster was a greater man than Calhoun, because he possessed the truer vision. Calhoun died in 1850; Clay and Webster in 1852. For the forty years previous to that, these three men were in every way the most famous and conspicuous in America. Others flashed, meteor-like, into a brief brilliance; but these three burned steady as the stars. They had no real rivals. And yet, though each of them was consumed by an ambition to be President, not one was able to realize that ambition, and their last years were embittered by defeat.
As has been said, Clay was the smallest man of the three. His reputation rests, not upon constructive statesmanship, but upon his ability as a party leader, in which respect he has had few equals in American history, and upon his success in proposing compromises. Born in Virginia, and admitted to the bar in 1797, he moved the same year to Lexington, Kentucky, where his practice brought him rapid and brilliant success. His personality, too, won him many friends, and it was so all his life. "To come within reach of the snare of his speech was to love him," and even to this day Kentucky believes that no statesman ever lived who equalled this adopted son of hers, nor doubts the entire sincerity of his famous boast that he would rather be right than President.
Of course he got into politics. That was his natural and inevitable field. As early as 1806 he was sent to the Senate, and afterwards to the House, of which he was speaker for thirteen years. Three times was he a candidate for the presidency, defeated once by John Quincy Adams, once by Andrew Jackson, and once, when victory seemed almost his, by William Henry Harrison. That other great party leader, James G. Blaine, was to meet a similar fate years later. Henry Clay lacked the deep foresight, the prophetic intuition necessary to statesmanship of the first rank, and some of the achievements which he considered the greatest of his life were in reality blunders which had afterwards to be corrected. But as a compromiser, as a rider of troubled waters, and a pilot at a time when shipwreck seemed imminent and unavoidable, he proved his consummate ability, and merits the gratitude of his country.
Henry Clay and Daniel Webster were leaders in the same great party, and were, for the most part, personal friends as well as political allies. But Webster overshadowed Clay in intellect, however he may have been outdistanced by him in political astuteness. If Clay were the fox, Webster was the lion. As a constitutional lawyer, he has never been excelled; as an orator, no other American has ever equalled him. He had in supreme degree the orator's equipment of a dominant and impressive personality, a moving voice, an eloquent countenance, and a command of words little less than inspired. The last sentencesof his reply to Hayne have come ringing down the years, and stand unequalled as sheer eloquence:
"When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as 'What is all this worth'? nor those other words of delusion and folly, 'Liberty first and Union afterwards'; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart—LibertyandUnion, now and forever, one and inseparable!"
"When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as 'What is all this worth'? nor those other words of delusion and folly, 'Liberty first and Union afterwards'; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart—LibertyandUnion, now and forever, one and inseparable!"
The great audience that listened spellbound to that oration, arose and left the Capitol like persons in a dream. Never were they to forget the effect of that tremendous speech.
But the last years of his life were ruined by his ambition to be President. In spite of his commanding talents, or, perhaps, because of them, he never at any time had a chance of receiving the nominationof his party, and his final defeat in 1852, by Winfield Scott, practically killed him.
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Webster was the son of a New Hampshire farmer, who managed to send him to Dartmouth College, from which he graduated in 1801. Four years later he was admitted to the bar at Boston, and in 1812 he was elected to Congress. We find him at once violently opposing the second war with England, for which Clay was working so aggressively. For ten years after that, he devoted himself to the practice of his profession, and soon became the foremost lawyer of New England, especially on constitutional questions. In 1823, he was again sent to Congress; entered the Senate in 1828, and remained in public life practically until his death.
It was in 1830 that he delivered the speech already referred to—perhaps the most remarkable ever heard within the walls of the Capitol. Senator Hayne, of South Carolina, had made a remarkable address, lasting two days, advocating the right of a state to render null and void an unconstitutional law of Congress—in other words, the right of secession from the Union. Two days later, Webster rose to reply. His appearance, always impressive, was unusually so that day; his argument, always close-knit and logical, was the very summation of these qualities; his words seemed edged with fire as he argued that the Constitution is supreme, the Union indissoluble, and that no state has, or can have the right to resist or nullify a national law. It was the greatest oration of America's greatest orator.
Of its effect upon the people who heard it we have spoken; throughout the country it produced a profound impression. The North felt that a new prophet had arisen; the South, a new foeman. The great advocate of nullification, however, was not Hayne, who would be scarcely remembered to-day but for the fact that it was to him Webster addressed his reply, but that formidable giant of a man, John C. Calhoun—the man whom the South felt to be her peculiar representative on the question of state rights, of nullification, and, at last, of slavery. His fate was one of the saddest in American history, for the cause he fought for was a doomed cause, and as he sank into his grave, he saw tottering down upon him the great structure which he had devoted his whole life to upholding.
Not much is known of Calhoun's youth. He was the grandson of an Irish immigrant who had settled in South Carolina, graduated from Yale in 1804, studied law, was admitted to the bar, and, returning to his native state, was, in 1811, elected a member of Congress. That was the beginning of a public career which was to last until his death.
Almost from the first, he was consumed with an ambition to be President, and perhaps would have been, but for an incident so trivial that, under ordinary circumstances, it would have had no consequences. In 1818, as Monroe's secretary of war, Calhoun had occasion at a cabinet meeting to express some censure of Andrew Jackson's conduct of the Seminole war—a censure which was deserved, sinceJackson had violated the law of nations in pursuing his enemy into a foreign country. Twelve years later, when Jackson was President and Calhoun, as Vice-President, was in direct line of succession, so to speak, Jackson heard of Calhoun's remarks, flew into a violent rage, came out as Calhoun's declared enemy, and dealt the death-blow to his presidential aspirations.
Smarting from this injustice, Calhoun turned his attention to the question of state sovereignty, and in February, 1833, South Carolina passed the nullification ordinance to which we have already referred. Calhoun at once resigned the vice-presidency and took his seat in the Senate, prepared to defend the attitude of his state. But Jackson did not wait for that. Seeing that here was an opportunity to strike his enemy, he ordered troops to South Carolina, and threatened to hang Calhoun as high as Haman—a threat which he very possibly would have attempted to carry out had not hostilities been averted by the genius for compromise of Henry Clay. From that time forward, Calhoun became the high priest of the doctrine of state rights and the great defender of slavery. He fought inch by inch the growing sentiment against it; he knew it was a losing fight, and almost the last words uttered by his dying lips were, "The South! The poor South! God knows what will become of her!"
The great triumvirate left no successors to compare with them in prestige or power. Two survivalsfrom the war of 1812 were still on the scene, Thomas Hart Benton and Lewis Cass. Benton was a North Carolina man who had removed to Nashville, and at the outbreak of the war, enlisted under Andrew Jackson, and got into a disgraceful street fight with him, in the course of which Jackson was nearly killed. Strange to say, that doughty old hero chose to forget the matter long years afterwards, when Benton was in the Senate—a Union senator from the slave state of Missouri.
Cass also served through the war, but at the North; was involved in Hull's surrender of Detroit and broke his sword in rage at the disgrace of it; and was afterwards governor of Michigan and Jackson's secretary of war; then, in 1848, Democratic nominee for President and defeated because of Martin Van Buren's disaffection; finally, in 1857, Buchanan's secretary of state, resigning, in 1860, because that shilly-shally President could not make up his mind to send reinforcements to Bob Anderson at Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor. A man who played many parts, filled many positions, and filled them well, Cass's name deserves to be more widely remembered than it is.
In those days, a strange, pompous and ineffective figure was flitting across the stage, impressing men with a respect and significance which it did not possess, its name, Stephen A. Douglas, nicknamed "The Little Giant," but giant in little else than power to create disturbance. Perhaps no other man ever possessed that power in quite the same degree;nor possessed in a greater degree that fascination of personality which makes friends and gains adherents.
Consumed by a gnawing desire of the presidency, beaten for the nomination in 1852, destroying the serenity of the land two years later by contending that Congress had no right to limit slavery in the territories, in the vain hope of winning southern support, but finding himself instead dubbed traitor and Judas Iscariot, receiving thirty pieces of silver from a club of Ohio women, travelling from Boston to Chicago "by the light of his own effigies," which yelling crowds were burning at the stake, and finally hooted off the stage in his own city, certainly it would seem that Douglas's public career was over forever.
But he managed to live down his blunder and to regain much of his old strength by reason of his winning personality; yet made another blunder when he agreed to meet Abraham Lincoln in debate—and one which cost him the presidency. For his opponent drove him into corners from which he could find no way out except at the risk of offending the South. In those days, one had to be either for or against slavery; there was no middle course, and the man who attempted to find one, fell between two stools, as Douglas himself soon learned.
Last scene of all, pitted against that same Abraham Lincoln who had greased the plank for him and shorn him of his southern support, in the presidential contest of 1860, defeated and wounded to death by it, for he knew that never again would hebe within sight of that long-sought prize; yet rising nobly at the last to a height of purest patriotism, declaring for the Union, pledging his support to Lincoln, pointing the way of duty to his million followers, and destroying at a blow the South's hope of a divided North—let us do Stephen A. Douglas, that justice, and render him that meed of praise; for whatever the mistakes and turnings and evasions of his career, that last great work of his outweighed them all.
A man who had a great reputation in his own day as an orator and statesman, but whose polished periods appeal less and less to succeeding generations was Edward Everett—an evidence, perhaps, that the head alone can never win lasting fame. Everett was a New Englander; a Harvard man, graduating with the highest honors; and two years later, pastor of a Unitarian church in Boston. There his eloquence soon attracted attention, and won him a wide reputation. At the age of twenty-one, he was appointed professor of Greek at Harvard; and in 1824, at the age of thirty, he was chosen to represent the Boston district in Congress. He remained there for ten years, served four terms as governor of Massachusetts, was ambassador to England, and then, president of Harvard from 1846-1849; was appointed secretary of state on the death of Daniel Webster in 1852; and finally, in the following year, was elected to the Senate, but was soon forced to resign on account of ill-health.
Soon afterwards, he threw himself into the projectto purchase Mount Vernon by private subscription, delivered his oration on Washington 122 times, netting more than $58,000 toward the project; obtained another $10,000 from thePublic Ledgerby writing for it a weekly article for the period of a year, and added $3,000 more, secured from the readers of that paper. From that time on, he delivered various lectures for philanthropic causes, the receipts aggregating nearly a hundred thousand dollars. They are little read to-day because, in spite of his erudition, polish and high attainments, Everett really had no new message to deliver.
With the coming of the Civil War, another triumvirate emerges to control the destinies of the nation—Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner and William Henry Seward. Stevens and Seward had been introduced to politics by the ineffectual and absurd anti-Masonic party, which flitted across the stage in the early thirties. In 1851, Massachusetts rebuked Daniel Webster for his supposed surrender to the slavery party, made in hope of attaining the presidency, by placing Sumner in his seat in the Senate, and retiring him to private life, where he still remained the most commanding figure in the country.
Seward was already in the Senate, had spoken in reply to Webster, and assumed the leadership which Webster forfeited. In the House, too, was Stevens, who soon gained prominence by a certain vitriolic force which was in him, and these three men labored unceasingly for the defeat of the South—indeed,for more than its defeat—for payment, to the last drop, for the sins it had committed. They were bound together by party ties and in other ways, but most closely of all by a hatred of slavery, which, with Stevens and Sumner, mounted at times to fanaticism and led them into the errors always awaiting the fanatic.
Thaddeus Stevens, the oldest of the three, had been born in Vermont, but removed to Pennsylvania at the age of twenty-two, and began to practice law there. In 1831, he was one of the moving spirits in the formation of the anti-Masonic party, which fancied it saw, in the spread of Masonry, a grave danger to the republic. Two years later, Stevens was chosen a member of the Pennsylvania legislature, but his career did not really begin until, in 1848, at the age of fifty-seven, he was elected a member of the national House of Representatives, where he soon took his place as the leader of the anti-slavery faction. From that time forward, he was unceasing in his warfare against slavery, frequently going to lengths where few cared to follow, and which would seem to indicate that there was a trace of madness in the man. He developed an exaggerated and sentimental regard for the negro, and grew radical and relentless toward the South.
At the close of the war, he regarded the southern states as conquered territory, to be treated as such, and his ideas of treatment seem to have been founded upon those of the Middle Ages. He wished to confiscate the property of all Confederates; endeavoredto impeach President Johnson, who was trying to enforce a system of reconstruction which was at least better than that which Stevens advocated. For a time he seemed to suffer from a very vertigo of hatred, which ate into his soul and destroyed him. The plan of reconstruction adopted by Congress was an embodiment of his ideas; but Johnson was acquitted of the charges Stevens brought against him, and Stevens's poison, as it were, turned in upon himself and killed him. His last request, that his body be buried in an obscure private cemetery, because public cemeteries excluded negroes, shows the man's unbalanced condition, the length to which his ideas had led him.
Charles Sumner, who was to the Senate much what Stevens was to the House, although a larger and better-balanced man, was a typical Bostonian and inheritor of the New England conscience, which, of course, meant that he was opposed through and through to slavery. He was a successful lawyer, and as his sentiments were well known, he was chosen to succeed Webster when the latter wavered on the anti-slavery question, and threw some pledges of assistance to the South. There was never any doubt about Sumner's position, no sign of wavering or coquetting with the enemy, and in 1856, he was assaulted by a southern senator and so severely injured that three years passed before he could resume his seat.
He did so in time to oppose any compromise with slavery or the slave power, which the threateningattitude of the South had almost scared the North into considering, and urged the immediate emancipation of the slaves. When this had been accomplished, his first thought was to make sure that the slaves would remain free, and he began the contest for negro suffrage, as the only guarantee of negro freedom, which he finally won. In the reconstruction period following the war, he was inevitably an ally of Thaddeus Stevens, though the latter far surpassed him in vindictiveness toward the South.
Let us not forget that the South had shown itself blind to its own interests when, as soon as reconstructed by Andrew Johnson, it had, state by state, adopted laws virtually enslaving the black man again. But for this fatuity, there would probably have been no such feeling of vindictiveness at the North as soon developed there; certainly there would have been no excuse for such severity as was afterwards exhibited. So it is true in a sense that the South has itself to blame for the horrors of the reconstruction period, and for the suspicion with which its good faith toward the negro was for many years regarded. Sumner was not a vindictive man, and in his last years, incurred a vote of censure from his own State for offering a bill to remove the names of battles of the Civil War from the Army Register and from the regimental colors of the United States. He practically died in harness in 1874. Looking back at him, one sees how much larger he looms than Stevens; one cannot but admire his courage and honesty of purpose; his public life was a continualstruggle for the right, as he saw it, and, remembering that, his faults need not trouble us.
When Sumner arrived in the Senate, he found William H. Seward, of New York, already there. Seward, who had been admitted to the bar in 1822, at the age of twenty-one, was carried into the New York legislature by the anti-Masonic wave of 1830. Eight years later, he was the Whig governor of the state, and in 1849 was sent to the Senate. There he soon rivetted attention by his rebuke of Webster for condoning the Fugitive Slave Law, and caught the reins of party leadership as they fell from Webster's hands. It was then that he made his famous statement that the war against slavery was waged under a "higher law than the Constitution," and that the fall of slavery was inevitable.
In 1856, when the newly-formed anti-slavery party, known as the Republican, met to name a national ticket, Seward was the logical candidate, but refused to allow his name to be considered, and the choice fell upon that brilliant adventurer, John C. Frémont. Frémont was, of course, defeated, and Seward continued to be the leader of Republican thought, and the chief originator of Republican doctrine. Indeed, he was, in a sense, the Republican party, so that, four years later, he seemed not only the logical but the inevitable choice of the party for President. His most formidable opponent was Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, who had been carefully working for the nomination, and who was blessed with the shrewdest of campaign managers. Seward led on thefirst ballot, and would have won but for the expert trading already referred to in the story of Lincoln's nomination.
It was natural that Lincoln should offer him the state portfolio, and Seward accepted it. From first to last, he held true to the President, and the services he rendered the country were second only to those of Lincoln himself. When Lincoln was killed, an attempt was also made to murder Seward, and was very nearly successful—so nearly that for days Seward lingered between life and death. He recovered, however, to resume his place in Johnson's cabinet. Over the new President he had great influence; he had long been an advocate of mercy toward the South, and he did much to persuade the President to the course he followed in restoring the southern states to the Union, without reference to the wishes of Congress. Even John Sherman pronounced the plan "wise and judicious," but Stevens, Sumner, and their powerful coterie in Congress violently opposed it, and Seward came in for his share of the vituperation and bitter accusation which the plan called forth. Johnson's defeat closed his political career, and the last years of his life were spent in travel.
The very cause of his downfall marks him as the greatest of the three, for he placed justice above expediency, and not even the attempt upon his life changed his feeling toward the South. Perhaps the wisdom of his judgment was never better exemplified than in his purchase from Russia of the great territoryknown as Alaska, for the sum of $7,200,000. Alaska was regarded at the time as an icy desert of no economic value, but time has changed that estimate, and the discovery of gold there made it one of the richest of the country's possessions.
Outside of Seward, Sumner and Stevens, the most prominent public man of the time was Salmon P. Chase, an Ohioan who had for many years taken an important part in the anti-slavery controversy. Although sent to the Senate in 1849 as a Democrat, he left the party on the nomination of Pierce in 1852, when it stood committed to the support and extension of slavery. Three years later, he was elected governor of Ohio by the Republicans. He was Lincoln's secretary of the treasury, and financed the country during its most trying period in a way that compelled the admiration even of his enemies. He served afterwards as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, dying in 1873. He was another man whose life was embittered by failure to attain the prize of the presidency. Three times he tried for it, in 1860, in 1864, and in 1868, but he never came within measurable distance of it. For he lacked the capacity for making friends, and repelled rather than attracted by a studiously impressive demeanor, a painful decorousness, and an unbending dignity, which was, of course, no true dignity at all, but merely a bad imitation of it. In a word, he lacked the saving sense of humor—the quality which endeared Abraham Lincoln to the whole nation.
Another Ohioan who loomed large in the historyof the time was John Sherman, a lawyer like all the rest, a member of Congress since 1855, not at first a great opponent of slavery, but drawn into the battle by his allegiance to the Republican party, forming an alliance with Thaddeus Stevens, and collaborating with him in the production of the reconstruction act. He was appointed secretary of the treasury by President Hayes, in 1876, and his great work for the country was done in that office, in re-establishing the credit which the Civil War had shaken. He, also, was bitten by the presidential bacillus, and was a candidate for the nomination at three conventions, but each time fell short of the goal—once when he had it seemingly within his grasp. A stern, forceful, capable man, he left his impress upon the times.
Of the men who guided the fortunes of the Confederacy, only two need be mentioned here—Jefferson Davis and Alexander H. Stephens; for, rich as the Confederacy was in generals, it was undeniably poor in statesmen. The golden age of the South had departed; with John C. Calhoun passed away the last really commanding figure among Dixie's statesmen, and from him to Jefferson Davis is a long step downward.
Davis's early life was romantic enough. Born in 1808 in Kentucky, of a father who had served in the Revolution, appointed to the National Military Academy by President Monroe; graduating there in 1828 and serving through the Black Hawk war; then abruptly resigning from the army to elope withthe daughter of Colonel Zachary Taylor, and settling near Vicksburg, Mississippi, to embark in cotton planting; drawn irresistibly into politics and sent to Congress, but resigning to accept command of the First Mississippi Rifles and serving with great distinction through the war with Mexico; and, finally, in 1847, sent to the Senate—such was Davis's history up to the time he became involved in the maelstrom of the slavery question.
From the first, he was an ardent advocate of the state-rights theory of government, and the right of secession, and for thirteen years he defended these theories in the Senate, gradually emerging as the most capable advocate the South possessed. That fiery and impulsive people, looking always for a hero to worship, found one in Jefferson Davis, and he soon gained an immense prestige among them. On January 9, 1861, his state seceded from the Union, and he withdrew from the Senate. Before he reached home, he was elected commander-in-chief of the Army of the Mississippi, and a few days later, he was chosen President of the Confederate States.
From the first, his task was a difficult one, and it grew increasingly so as the war went on. That he performed it well, there can be no question. He was the government, was practically dictator, for he dominated the Confederate Congress absolutely, and its principal business was to pass the laws which he prepared. Only toward the close of the war did it, in a measure, free itself from this control, and, finally, in 1865, it passed a resolution attributingConfederate disaster to Davis's incompetency as commander-in-chief, a position which he had insisted on occupying; removing him from that position and conferring it upon General Lee, giving the latter, at the same time, unlimited powers in disposing of the army.
But it was too late. Even Lee himself could not ward off the inevitable. On the morning of Sunday, April 2, 1865, Jefferson Davis sat in his pew at church in the city of Richmond, when an officer handed him a telegram. It was from Lee, and read, "Richmond must be evacuated this evening," Lee had fought and lost the battle of Petersburg, and was in full retreat. Davis left the church quietly, called his cabinet together, packed up the government archives, and boarded a train for the South. For over a month, he moved from place to place endeavoring to escape capture, his party melting away until it comprised only his family and a few servants; and finally, on May 9th, he was surprised and taken by a company of Union cavalry near Irwinsville, in southern Georgia. Davis was imprisoned at Fortress Monroe for two years—a thoroughly senseless procedure which only served to keep open a painful wound—and on Christmas Day, 1868, was pardoned by President Johnson.
Davis's imprisonment had added immensely to his prestige. The South forgot his blunders and short-comings, seeing in him only the martyr who had suffered for his people, and welcomed him with a kind of hysterical adoration, which lasted until hisdeath. The last years of his life were passed quietly on his estate in Mississippi.
When Davis was chosen President of the Confederacy, Alexander H. Stephens was chosen Vice-President. Stephens had also had a picturesque career. Left an orphan, without means, at the age of fifteen he had nevertheless secured an education, and, in 1834, after two months' study, was admitted to the Georgia bar. He at once began to win a more than local reputation, for he was a man of unusual ability, and in 1836, he was elected to the Legislature, though an avowed opponent of nullification.
Seven years later, he was sent to Congress, and continued to oppose the secession movement; but he saw whither things were trending, and in 1859 he resigned from Congress, remarking that he knew there was going to be a smash-up and thought he would better get off while there was time. In 1860 he made a great Union speech; and it is a remarkable proof of the hold he had upon the people of the South, that, in spite of this, and of his well-known convictions, he was chosen Vice-President of the Confederacy a year later. He accepted, but within a year he had quarrelled with Jefferson Davis on the question of state rights, and in 1864, organized the Georgia Peace party. From that time on to the close of the war, he labored to bring about a treaty of peace, but in vain.
He was imprisoned for a few months after the downfall of the Confederacy, but was soon releasedand was prominent in the political life of Georgia for fifteen years thereafter, being governor of the state at the time of his death in 1883. A more contradictory, obstinate, prickly-conscienced man never appeared in American politics.
So passed the era of the Civil War. Have we had any great statesmen since? Some near-great ones, perhaps, but none of the very first rank. Great men are moulded by great events, or, at least, require great events to prove their greatness. Let us pause a moment, however, to pay tribute to one of the most accomplished party leaders in American history—a man almost to rank with Henry Clay—James G. Blaine.
As a young editor from Maine, he had entered Congress in 1863. There he had encountered another fiery youngster in Roscoe Conkling, and an intense rivalry sprang up between them. They were very different in temperament, Blaine being the more popular, Conkling the more brilliant. Blaine had a genius for making friends and keeping them; Conkling's quick temper and hasty tongue frequently cost him his most powerful adherents. Three years later, this rivalry came to an open clash, in which each denounced the other on the floor of the House in words as stinging as parliamentary law permitted. Blaine's tirade was so bitter that Conkling became an implacable enemy and never again spoke to him. It was almost the story of Hamilton and Burr over again, except that the age of duelling had passed.
That quarrel on the floor of the House was to have momentous consequences. Blaine became speaker of the House and the most popular and powerful man in his party, so that it seemed that nothing could stand between him and the desire for the presidency which gnawed at his heart, just as it had at Henry Clay's. But always in the way stood Conkling.
In 1876, at Cincinnati, Blaine was nominated by Robert G. Ingersoll in one of the most eloquent addresses ever delivered on the floor of a national convention, and on the first ballot fell only a few votes short of a majority. But his enemies were at work, and on the seventh ballot, succeeded in stampeding the convention to Rutherford B. Hayes. Hayes, however, was pledged to a single term, and Blaine was hailed as the nominee in 1880; but when the convention assembled, there was Conkling with a solid phalanx of over three hundred delegates for Grant. The result was that neither Blaine nor Grant could get a majority of the votes, and the nomination fell to Garfield. Finally, by tireless work, Blaine laid his plans so well that he secured the nomination four years later, only to have New York State thrown against him by Conkling and to go down to defeat. Conkling had his revenge, and Blaine's career was practically at an end, for he was an old and broken man.
Let us add frankly that there were many within his own party who mistrusted him—who believed him insincere, if not actually dishonest, and refusedto support him. For a fourth time, in 1892, he attempted to get the nomination, but his name had lost its wizardry, and he was defeated by Benjamin Harrison. There are few more pitiful stories in American politics than that of this brilliant and able man, consumed by the desire for a great prize which seemed always within his grasp and yet which always eluded him. For a quarter of a century, he chased this will-o'-the-wisp, only to be led by it into a bog and left to perish there.
There are a few names on the later pages of American statesmanship which stand for notable achievement, more especially in the line of diplomacy, the two greatest of which are those of John Hay and Elihu Root. Both of these men, as secretary of state, did memorable work; not the sort of work which appeals to popular imagination, for there was nothing spectacular about it; but quiet and effective work in the forming of informal alliances and treaties with foreign nations, maintaining America's position as a world power, and making her the friend of all the world. That is the position she should occupy, since she has no quarrel with any one; and it is with its maintenance that the statesmanship of the present day is principally concerned.
So we close this chapter on American Statesmen. It is a tragic chapter—tragic because of thwarted ambitions, and unfulfilled desires. Of them all, Benjamin Franklin was the only one whose life was fromfirst to last happy and contented, who realized his ideals and who died in peace; and this, I think, because he asked nothing for himself, hungered for no preferment, was consumed by no ambition, sacrificed nothing to expediency, but accepted life with large philosophy and never-failing humor, realizing that in serving others he was best serving himself, and whose inward peace was manifest in his placid and smiling countenance. Upon the rocks of ambition the greatest of those who followed him dashed themselves to pieces.
FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN. Born at Boston, January 17, 1706; established thePennsylvania Gazette, 1729; founded Philadelphia library, 1731; began publication of "Poor Richard's Almanac," 1732; postmaster of Philadelphia, 1737; founded American Philosophical Society and University of Pennsylvania, 1743; demonstrated by means of a kite that lightning is a discharge of electricity, 1752; deputy postmaster-general for British colonies in America, 1753-74; colonial agent for Pennsylvania in England, 1757-75; elected to second Continental Congress, 1775; ambassador to France, 1776-85; negotiated treaty with France, February 6, 1778; concluded treaty of peace with England, in conjunction with Jay and Adams, September 3, 1783; returned to America, 1785; President of Pennsylvania, 1785-88; delegate to Constitutional Convention, 1787; died at Philadelphia, April 17, 1790.
ADAMS, SAMUEL. Born at Boston, September 27, 1722; delegate to first and second Continental Congress,1775-76; lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts, 1789-94; governor of Massachusetts, 1794-97; died at Boston, October 2, 1803.
HANCOCK, JOHN. Born at Quincy, Massachusetts, January 12, 1837; President of the Provincial Congress, 1774-75; President of Continental Congress, 1775-77; governor of Massachusetts, 1780-85 and 1787-93; died at Quincy, October 8, 1793.
HENRY, PATRICK. Born at Studley, Hanover County, Virginia, May 20, 1736; admitted to the bar, 1760; entered Virginia House of Burgesses, 1765; member of Continental Congress, 1774; of Virginia Convention, 1775; governor of Virginia, 1776-79 and 1784-86; died at Red Hill, Charlotte County, Virginia, June 6, 1799.
HAMILTON, ALEXANDER. Born in the island of Nevis, West Indies, January 11, 1757; settled in New York, 1772; entered Continental service as captain of artillery, 1776; on Washington's staff, 1777-81; member of Continental Congress, 1782-83; of the Constitutional Convention, 1787; secretary of the treasury, 1789-95; appointed commander-in-chief of the army, 1799; mortally wounded in a duel with Aaron Burr, July 11, 1804, and died the following day.
BURR, AARON. Born at Newark, New Jersey, February 6, 1756; served with distinction in the Canada expedition in 1775 and at Monmouth in 1778; began practice of law in New York, 1783; United States senator, 1791-97; Vice-President, 1801-05; killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, July 11, 1804; in 1805, conceived plan of conquering Texas and perhaps Mexico and establishing a great empire in the South-west;arrested in Mississippi Territory, January 14, 1807; indicted for treason at Richmond, Virginia, May 22, and acquitted, September 1, 1807; died at Port Richmond, Staten Island, September 14, 1836.
MARSHALL, JOHN. Born in Fauquier County, Virginia, September 24, 1755; served in the Revolution; United States envoy to France, 1797-98; member of Congress, 1799-1800; secretary of state, 1800-01; chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, 1801-35; died at Philadelphia, July 6, 1835.
CLAY, HENRY. Born in Hanover County, near Richmond, Virginia, April 12, 1777; United States senator from Kentucky, 1806-07 and 1809-11; member of Congress, 1811-21 and 1823-25; peace commissioner at Ghent, 1814; candidate for President, 1824; secretary of state, 1825-29; senator, 1832-42 and 1849-52; Whig candidate for President, 1832 and 1844; chief designer of the "Missouri Compromise" of 1820, of the compromise of 1850, and of the compromise tariff of 1832-33; died at Washington, June 29, 1852.
WEBSTER, DANIEL. Born at Salisbury, now Franklin, New Hampshire, January 18, 1782; graduated at Dartmouth College, 1801; admitted to the bar at Boston, 1805; Federalist member of Congress from New Hampshire, 1813-17; removed to Boston, 1816; member of Congress from Massachusetts, 1823-27; Whig United States senator, 1827-41; received several electoral votes for President, 1836, and unsuccessful candidate for Whig nomination until death; secretary of state, 1841-43; senator, 1845-50; secretary of state, 1850-52; died at Marshfield, Massachusetts, October 24, 1852.
CALHOUN, JOHN CALDWELL. Born in Abbeville District, South Carolina, March 18, 1782; graduated at Yale, 1804; admitted to the bar, 1807; member of the South Carolina general assembly, 1808-09; member of Congress, 1811-17; secretary of war in Monroe's cabinet, 1817-24; Vice-President, 1825-32; United States senator, 1832-43; secretary of state under Tyler, 1844-45; re-elected to the Senate of which he remained a member until his death, at Washington, March 31, 1850.
BENTON, THOMAS HART. Born at Hillsborough, North Carolina, March 14, 1782; United States senator from Missouri, 1821-51; member of Congress, 1853-55; died at Washington, April 10, 1858.
CASS, LEWIS. Born at Exeter, New Hampshire, October 9, 1782; served in the second war with England; governor of Michigan Territory, 1813-31; secretary of war, 1831-36; minister to France, 1836-42; United States senator, 1845-48; Democratic candidate for President, 1848; senator, 1849-57; secretary of state, 1857-60; died at Detroit, Michigan, June 17, 1866.
DOUGLAS, STEPHEN ARNOLD. Born at Brandon, Vermont, April 23, 1813; judge of the Supreme Court of Illinois, 1841; member of Congress, 1843-47; United States senator, 1847-61; Democratic candidate for President, 1860; died at Chicago, June 3, 1861.
EVERETT, EDWARD. Born at Dorchester, Massachusetts, April 11, 1794; professor of Greek at Harvard, 1819-25; editor theNorth American Review, 1819-24; member of Congress, 1825-35; governor of Massachusetts, 1836-40; minister to England, 1841-45; president of Harvard College, 1846-49; secretary ofstate, 1852-53; senator, 1853-54; candidate of Constitutional Union party for Vice-President, 1860; died at Boston, January 15, 1865.
STEVENS, THADDEUS. Born in Caledonia County, Vermont, April 4, 1792; graduated at Dartmouth College, 1814; removed to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and admitted to the bar, 1816; Whig member of Congress, 1849-53; Republican member of Congress, 1859-68; proposed impeachment of President Johnson, 1868; died at Washington, April 11, 1868.
SUMNER, CHARLES. Born at Boston, January 6, 1811; graduated at Harvard, 1830; admitted to the bar, 1834; United States senator, 1851-74; assaulted in Senate chamber by Preston Brooks, May 22, 1856; chairman of committee on foreign affairs, 1861-71; died at Washington, March 11, 1874.
SEWARD, WILLIAM HENRY. Born at Florida, Orange County, New York, May 16, 1801; graduated at Union College, 1820; admitted to the bar, 1822; member State Senate, 1830-34; Whig governor of New York, 1838-43; United States senator, 1849-61; candidate for Republican nomination for President, 1860; secretary of state, 1861-69; died at Auburn, New York, October 10, 1872.
CHASE, SALMON PORTLAND. Born at Cornish, New Hampshire, January 13, 1808; United States senator from Ohio, 1849-55; governor of Ohio, 1856-60; secretary of the treasury, 1861-64; chief justice of the Supreme Court, 1864-73; died at New York City, May 7, 1873.
SHERMAN, JOHN. Born at Lancaster, Ohio, May 10, 1823; admitted to the bar, 1844; Republican memberof Congress from Ohio, 1855-61; senator, 1861-77; secretary of the treasury, 1877-81; senator, 1881-97; secretary of state, 1897-98; candidate for presidential nomination in 1884 and 1888; died at Washington, October 22, 1900.
DAVIS, JEFFERSON. Born in Christian County, Kentucky, June 3, 1808; graduated at West Point, 1828; Democratic member of Congress from Mississippi, 1845-46; served in Mexican war, 1846-47; United States senator, 1847-51; secretary of war, 1853-57; senator, 1857-61; resigned his seat, January 21, 1861; inaugurated President of the Confederacy, February 22, 1862; arrested near Irwinsville, Georgia, May 10, 1865; imprisoned at Fortress Monroe, Virginia, 1865-67; amnestied, 1868; died at New Orleans, December 6, 1889.
STEPHENS, ALEXANDER HAMILTON. Born near Crawfordville, Georgia, February 11, 1812; graduated at University of Georgia, 1832; member of State legislature, 1836; member of Congress, 1843-59; Vice-President of the Confederacy, 1861-65; imprisoned in Fort Warren, Boston harbor, May-October, 1865; member of Congress, 1873-82; governor of Georgia, 1883; died at Atlanta, Georgia, March 4, 1883.
BLAINE, JAMES GILLESPIE. Born at West Brownsville, Pennsylvania, January 31, 1830; member of Congress from Maine, 1862-76; senator, 1876-81; secretary of state, 1881 and 1889-92; unsuccessful candidate of Republican party for President, 1884; died at Washington, January 27, 1893.
The settlers in America did not find an unoccupied country of which they were free to take possession, but a land in which dwelt a savage and warlike people, who had been named Indians, because the first voyagers supposed that it was the Indies they had discovered. The name has clung, in spite of the attempts of scientists to fasten upon them the name Amerinds, to distinguish them from the inhabitants of India. Indians they will probably always remain, a standing evidence of the confusion of thought of the early voyagers.
That the Indians owned the country there can be no question; but civilization has never stopped to consider the claims of savage peoples, and it did not in this case. Might made right; besides, the Indians, consisting of scattered, semi-nomadic tribes, seemed to have no use for the great territory they occupied. Indeed, they themselves, at first, welcomed the white-skinned newcomers; but they soon grew jealous of encroachments which never ceased, and at last fought step by step for their country. They were driven back, defeated, exterminated. But in the early years, no settlement was safe, and every man was, in a sense, a pioneer.
The French, in their eagerness for empire, allied themselves with the Indians, supplied them with arms, and offered a bounty for scalps; and for nearly three quarters of a century, a bitter and bloody contest was waged, which ended only with the expulsion of the French from the continent. Deprived of their ally, the Indians retreated beyond the mountains, where their war parties gathered to drive back the white invader. Those years on the frontier developed a race of men accustomed to danger and ready for any chance; and towering head and shoulders above them all stands the mighty figure of Daniel Boone, the most famous of American pioneers. About him cluster legends and tales innumerable, some true, many false; but one thing is certain; for boldness, cunning and knowledge of woodcraft and Indian warfare he had no equal.
Born in Pennsylvania, but moving at an early age to the little frontier settlement of Holman's Ford, in North Carolina, the boy had barely enough schooling to enable him to read and write. His real books were the woods, and he studied them until they held no secrets from him. He was a born hunter, a lover of the wild life of the forest, impatient of civilization, and truly at home only in the wilderness. The cry of the panther, the war-whoop of the Indian, were music to him; that was his nature—to love adventure, to court danger, to welcome the thrill of the pulse which peril brings. Understand him: he was not the man to incur foolish risks; but he incurred necessary ones without a second thought. He wasnear death no doubt a hundred times, yet lived to die in his bed. But he was at his best, he really lived, only when the wilderness held him and when his life depended upon his care and watchfulness.