Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2

G >> George S. Boutwell >> Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2

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Transcriber's note:

Footnotes are at the end of the chapter.

A few commas have been moved or added for clarity.

Obsolete spellings of place names have been retained; personal names
and obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

REMINISCENCES
OF
SIXTY YEARS IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS
VOLUME II

Reminiscences of
Sixty Years
in Public Affairs
by George S. Boutwell
Governor of Massachusetts, 1851-1852
Representative in Congress, 1863-1869
Secretary of the Treasury, 1869-1873
Senator from Massachusetts, 1873-1877
etc., etc.,

Volume Two

New York
McClure, Phillips & Co.
Mcmii

_Copyright, 1902, by_
McClure, Phillips & Co.

_Published May, 1902. N._

CONTENTS

XXVIII Service in Congress
XXIX Incidents in the Civil War
XXX The Amendments to the Constitution
XXXI Investigations Following the Civil War
XXXII Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
XXXIII The Treasury Department in 1869
XXXIV The Mint Bill and the "Crime of 1873"
XXXV Black Friday--September 24, 1869
XXXVI An Historic Sale of United States Bonds in England
XXXVII General Grant's Administration
XXXVIII General Grant as a Statesman
XXXIX Reminiscences of Public Men
XL Blaine and Conkling and the Republican Convention of 1880
XLI From 1875 to 1895
XLII The Last of the Ocean Slave Traders
XLIII Mr. Lincoln as an Historical Personage
XLIV Speech on Columbus
XLV Imperialism as a Public Policy
INDEX

REMINISCENCES
OF
SIXTY YEARS IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS
VOLUME II

XXVIII
SERVICE IN CONGRESS

My election to Congress in 1862 was contested by Judge Benjamin F.
Thomas, who was then a Republican member from the Norfolk district.
The re-districting of the State brought Thomas and Train into the same
district. I was nominated by the Republican Convention, and Thomas
then became the candidate of the "People's Party," and at the election
he was supported by the Democrats. His course in the Thirty-seventh
Congress on the various projects for compromise had alienated many
Republicans, and it had brought to him the support of many Democrats.
My active radicalism had alienated the conservative Republicans. As a
consequence, my majority reached only about 1,400 while in the
subsequent elections, 1864-'66-'68 the majorities ranged from five to
seven thousand.

Among the new members who were elected to the Thirty-eighth Congress
and who attained distinction subsequently, were Garfield, Blaine and
Allison. Wilson, of Iowa, had been in the Thirty-seventh Congress and
Henry Winter Davis had been a member at an earlier period. Mr.
Conkling was a member of the Thirty-seventh Congress, but he was
defeated by his townsman Francis Kernan under the influence of the
reactionary wave which moved over the North in 1862. At that time Mr.
Lincoln had lost ground with the people. The war had not been
prosecuted successfully, the expenses were enormous, taxes were heavy,
multitudes of families were in grief, and the prospects of peace
through victory were very dim. The Democrats in the House became
confident and aggressive.

Alexander Long, of Ohio, made a speech so tainted with sympathy for
the rebels that Speaker Colfax came down from the chair and moved a
resolution of censure. Harris, of Maryland, in the debate upon the
resolution, made a speech much more offensive than that of Long. As a
consequence, the censure was applied to both gentlemen and as a further
consequence, the friends of the South became more guarded in
expressions of sympathy. It is true also, that there were many
Democrats who did not sympathize with Harris, Long, and Pendleton.
Voorhees of Indiana was also an active sympathizer with the South. I
recollect that in the Thirty-eighth or Thirty-ninth Congress he made a
violent attack upon Mr. Lincoln, and the Republican Party. The House
was in committee, and I was in the chair. Consequently I listened
attentively to the speech. It was carefully prepared and modeled
apparently upon Junius and Burke--a model which time has destroyed.

Of the members of the House during the war period, Henry Winter Davis
was the most accomplished speaker. Mr. Davis' head was a study. In
front it was not only intellectual, it was classical--a model for an
artist. The back of his head was that of a prize fighter, and he
combined the scholar and gentleman with the pugilist. His courage was
constitutional and he was ready to make good his position whether by
argument or by blows. His speeches in the delivery were very
attractive. His best speech, as I recall his efforts, was a speech in
defense of Admiral Dupont. That speech involved an attack upon the
Navy Department. Alexander H. Rice, of Massachusetts, was the chairman
of the Naval Committee. He appeared for the Navy Department in an able
defence. Mr. Rice's abilities were not of the highest order, but his
style was polished, and he was thoroughly equipped for the defence. He
had the Navy Department behind him, and a department usually has a
plausible reason or excuse for anything that it does.

An estimate of Mr. Davis' style as a writer and his quality as an
orator may be gained from a speech entitled:--"Reasons for Refusing to
Part Company with the South," which he delivered in February, 1861,
and in which he set forth the condition of the country as it then
appeared to him. These extracts give some support to the opinion
entertained by many that Mr. Davis was the leading political orator
of the Civil War period:

"We are at the end of the insane revel of partisan license, which, for
thirty years, has, in the United States, worn the mask of government.
We are about to close the masquerade by the dance of death. The
nations of the world look anxiously to see if the people, ere they
tread that measure, will come to themselves.

"Yet in the early youth of our national life we are already exhausted
by premature excesses. The corruption of our political maxims has
relaxed the tone of public morals and degraded the public authorities
from terror to the accomplices of evil-doers. Platforms for fools--
plunder for thieves--offices for service--power for ambition--unity in
these essentials--diversity in the immaterial matters of policy and
legislation--charity for every frailty--the voice of the people is the
voice of God--these maxims have sunk into the public mind; have
presided at the administration of public affairs, have almost effaced
the very idea of public duty. The Government under their disastrous
influence has gradually ceased to fertilize the fields of domestic and
useful legislation, and pours itself, like an impetuous torrent, along
the barren ravine of party and sectional strife. It has been shorn of
every prerogative that wore the austere aspect of authority and power.

"The consequence of this demoralization is that States, without regard
to the Federal Government, assume to stand face to face and wage their
own quarrels, to adjust their own difficulties, to impute to each
other every wrong, to insist that individual States shall remedy every
grievance, and they denounce failure to do so as cause of civil war
between States; and as if the Constitution were silent and dead and
the power of the Union utterly inadequate to keep the peace between
them, unconstitutional commissioners flit from State to State, or
assemble at the national capital to counsel peace or instigate war.
Sir, these are the causes which lie at the bottom of the present
dangers. These causes which have rendered them possible and made them
serious, must be removed before they can ever be permanently cured.
They shake the fabric of our National Government. It is to this
fearful demoralization of the Government and the people that we must
ascribe the disastrous defections which now perplex us with the fear of
change in all that constituted our greatness. The operation of the
Government has been withdrawn from the great public interests, in order
that competing parties might not be embarrassed in the struggle for
power by diversities of opinion upon questions of policy; and the
public mind, in that struggle, has been exclusively turned on the
slavery question, which no interest required to be touched by any
department of this Government. On that subject there are widely
marked diversities of opinion and interest in the different portions of
the Confederacy, with few mediating influences to soften the
collision. In the struggle for party power, the two great regions of
the country have been brought face to face upon the most dangerous of
all subjects of agitation. The authority of the Government was relaxed
just when its power was about to be assailed; and the people,
emancipated from every control and their passions inflamed by the
fierce struggle for the Presidency, were the easy prey of revolutionary
audacity.

"Within two months after a formal, peaceful, regular election of the
chief magistrate of the United States, in which the whole body of the
people of every State competed with zeal for the prize, without any new
event intervening, without any new grievances alleged, without any new
measures having been made, we have seen, in the short course of one
month, a small proportion of the population of six States transcend the
bounds at a single leap at once of the State and the national
constitutions; usurp the extraordinary prerogative of repealing the
supreme law of the land; exclude the great mass of their fellow-
citizens from the protection of the Constitution; declare themselves
emancipated from the obligations which the Constitution pronounces to
be supreme over them and over their laws; arrogate to themselves all
the prerogatives of independent power; rescind the acts of cession of
the public property; occupy the public offices; seize the fortresses
of the United States confided to the faith of the people among whom
they were placed; embezzle the public arms concentrated there for the
defence of the United States; array thousands of men in arms against
the United States; and actually wage war on the Union by besieging
two of their fortresses and firing on a vessel bearing, under the flag
of the United States, reinforcements and provisions for one of them.
The very boundaries of right and wrong seem obliterated when we see a
Cabinet minister engaged for months in deliberately changing the
distribution of public arms to places in the hands of those about to
resist our public authority, so as to place within their grasp means
of waging war against the United States greater than they ever used
against a foreign foe; and another Cabinet minister, still holding his
commission under the authority of the United States, still a
confidential adviser of the President, and bound by his oath to
support the Constitution of the United States, himself a commissioner
from his own State to another of the United States for the purpose of
organizing and extending another part of the same great scheme of
rebellion; and the doom of the Republic seems sealed when the
President, surrounded by such ministers, permits, without rebuke, the
Government to be betrayed, neglects the solemn warning of the first
solider of the age, till almost every fort is a prey to domestic
treason, and accepts assurances of peace in his time at the expense of
leaving the national honor unguarded. His message gives aid and
comfort to the enemies of the Union, by avowing his inability to
maintain its integrity; and, paralyzed and stupefied, he stands amid
the crash of the falling Republic, still muttering, 'Not in my time,
not in my time; after me the deluge!'"

Soon after Mr. Colfax's election as speaker of the Thirty-eighth
Congress, I met him in a restaurant. He expressed surprise that he had
not heard from me in regard to a place upon a committee. I said that
the subject did not occupy my thoughts--that I had work enough whether
I was upon a committee or not. He expressed himself as disturbed by
the fact that he could not give me as good a place as he wished to
give me. I tried to relieve his mind upon that point. In all my
legislative experience I never made any suggestion as to committee
work. Mr. Colfax placed me upon the Judiciary Committee, which, in the
end, was the best place to which I could have been assigned.

Mr. Colfax was made of consequence in the country by the newspapers,
and he was ruined by his timidity. If he had admitted that he was an
owner of stock in the Credit Mobilier Company, not much could have
been made against him. His denials and explanations, which were either
false or disingenuous, and his final admission of a fact which implied
that he had been in the receipt of a quarterly payment from a post-
office contractor, completed his ruin. There was a time when the
country over-estimated his ability. He was a genial, kindly man, with
social qualities and an abundance of information in reference to men
in the United States and to recent and passing politics. He had
newspaper knowledge and aptitude for gathering what may be called
information as distinguished from learning. He was a victim to two
passions or purposes in life, that are in a degree inconsistent--public
life and money-making. Instances there have been of success, but I
have never known a case where a public man has not suffered in
reputation by the knowledge that he had accumulated a fortune while he
was engaged in the public service. As a speaker of the House, Colfax
was agreeable and popular, but he lacked in discipline. His rule was
lax, and there can be no doubt that from the commencement of his
administration there had been a decline in what may be termed the
morale of the House. Something of its reputation for dignity and
decorum had been lost.

A young man from New York, Mr. Chanler, made a speech in the Thirty-
eighth or Thirty-ninth Congress, which seemed to favor the
Confederacy. This phase of his speech was due to the fact that he
was a transcendental State Rights advocate. He did not believe in
secession, as a wise and proper policy, but he did believe in the
right of a State to consult itself as to its continuance in the Union.
Chanler was not a strong man and he owed his election, probably, to his
connection with the Astor family. He failed to make the political
distinction clear to the mind of the House and he was followed by
General Schenck in a severe speech. Chanler explained and asserted
that he was not secessionist--that he was for the Union--that he had
served with the New York Seventh--and that he had made a tender to
General Dix of service on his staff, but that he had not received a
reply from General Dix.

Thereupon S. S. Cox, who then represented a district in Ohio, made a
jocose reply to Schenck and a like defence of Chanler and ended with
the remark that he hoped his "colleague regretted having been guilty
of a groundless attack upon a solider of the Republic." I went over to
Cox to congratulate him upon his defence of Chanler, and in reply Cox
said: "The funniest part of it is that Chanler took it all in earnest
and came to my seat and thanked me for my speech."

Cox had no malice in his nature and there was always a doubt whether he
had any sincerity in his politics. He had no sympathy with the
rebellion, and, generally, he voted appropriations for the army and
the navy. He was sincere in his personal friendships, and his
friendships were not upon party lines. In his political action he
seemed more anxious to annoy his opponents than to extinguish them.
His speeches were short, pointed, and entertaining. He was a favorite
with the House, but his influence upon its action was very slight.
Those who acquire and retain power are the earnest and persistent men.
When Cox had made his speech and expended his jokes he was content.
The fate of a measure did not much disturb or even concern him.

Cox was party to an affair in the House which illustrated the
characteristics of Thaddeus Stevens, or "Old Thad," as he was called.
Late in the war, or soon after its close, Mr. Stevens introduced a
bill to appropriate $800,000 to reimburse the State of Pennsylvania for
expenses incurred in repelling invasions and suppressing insurrections.
The bill was referred to the Committee on Appropriations, of which
Stevens was chairman. Without much delay and before the holidays,
Stevens reported the bill. There was some debate, in which my
colleague, Mr. Dawes, took part against the bill. Finally the House
postponed the bill till after the holidays. During the recess I
examined the question by making inquiries at the War and Treasury
departments, where I found that authority existed for reimbursing
States for all expenditures actually made and for the payment of all
troops that had been mustered into the service. Thus the real purpose
of the bill was apparent. During the Antietam and Gettysburg campaigns
bodies of troops had been organized for defence and expenses had been
incurred by towns and counties, but no actual service had been
performed. It was intended by the appropriation to provide for the
payment of these expenses. I prepared a brief and gave it to Mr.
Dawes, who used it in the debate. When it became apparent that the
bill would be lost, Cox rose and moved to insert after the word
Pennsylvania, the words Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana,
Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas and the Territory of New Mexico.
Also to strike out $800,000 and insert ten million dollars. These
amendments brought to the support of the measure the members from all
those States, and the bill was passed. The Senate never acted upon
it. I was indignant at the action of the House, and I said to Stevens,
whose seat was near to mine: _"This is the most outrageous thing that
I have seen on the floor of the House."_ Stevens doubled his fist but
not in anger, shook it in my face and said: "You rascal, if you had
allowed me to have my rights I should not have been compelled to make
a corrupt bargain in order to get them." Thus he admitted his
arrangement with Cox and the character of it, and laid the
responsibility upon me.

Mr. Stevens was a tyrant in his rule as leader of the House. He was at
once able, bold and unscrupulous. He was an anti-slavery man, a friend
to temperance and an earnest supporter of the public school system, and
he would not have hesitated to promote those objects by arrangements
with friends or enemies. He was unselfish in personal matters, but his
public policy regarded the State of Pennsylvania, and the Republican
Party. The more experienced members of the House avoided controversy
with Stevens. First and last many a new member was extinguished by his
sarcastic thrusts. As for himself no one could terrorize him. I
recall an occasion near the close of a session, when, as it was
important to get a bill out of the Committee of the Whole, he remained
upon his feet or upon his one foot and assailed every member who
proposed an amendment. Sometimes his remarks were personal and
sometimes they were aimed at the member's State. In a few minutes he
cowed the House, and secured the adoption of his motion for the
committee to rise and report the bill to the House.

He must have been a very good lawyer. The impeachment article which
received the best support was from his pen. He possessed wit,
sarcasm and irony in every form. In public all these weapons were
poisoned, but in private he was usually genial. On one occasion
Judge Olin of New York was speaking and in his excitement he walked
down and up the aisle passing Stevens' seat. At length Stevens said:
"Olin, do you expect to get mileage for this speech?"

During the controversy with Andrew Johnson, Thayer, of Pennsylvania,
became excited upon a matter of no consequence, denounced the report of
a committee, and in the course of his remarks said: "They ask us to
go it blind." Judge Hale, of New York, with an innocent expression,
said he would like to have the gentleman from Pennsylvania inform the
House as to the meaning of the phrase "go it blind." Stevens said at
once: "It means following Raymond." The pertinency of the hit was in
the circumstance that Raymond was supporting Johnson, and that Hale was
following Raymond, not from conviction but for the reason that they
had been classmates in college.

Robert S. Hale was a man of large ability and a successful lawyer.
During his term in Congress he was a prominent candidate for a seat
upon the bench of the Court of Appeals of the State of New York. At
a critical moment he appeared in the House in the role of a reformer
and proceeded to arraign members for their action in regard to the
measure known as the "salary grab." The debate showed that Hale was
involved in the business to such an extent that he lost his standing
in the House and imperiled his chance of obtaining a seat upon the
bench of the Court of Appeals.

The bill for the increase of the salaries of public officers was a
proper bill with the single exception that it should have been
prospective as to the members of Congress. It added $2,500 to the
annual salary of the Congressman or $5,000 for a term. The temptation
to give the benefit of the increase to the members of the then
existing House was too strong for their judgment and virtue. When,
however, the indignation of the people was manifested, more than a
majority of the members of each House sought refuge in a variety of
subterfuges. Some neglected to collect the increase, others who had
received the added sum, returned it to the Treasury upon a variety of
pretexts. Some endowed schools or libraries, and a minority received
what the laws allowed them and upon an assertion of their right to
receive it. Outside of the criminal classes there has but seldom been
a more melancholy exhibition of the weakness of human nature. The
members seemed not to realize that the wrong was in the votes for
which those members were alone responsible who had sustained the bill,
and that the acceptance of the salary which the law allowed was not
only a right but a duty. At the end those members who took the
salary and defended their acts enjoyed the larger share of public
respect. Indeed, not one of the shufflers gained anything by the
course that he had pursued. The public reasoned, and reasoned justly,
that they would have kept the money if they had dared to do so.

Similar conduct ruined many of the members of Congress who were
beneficiaries of the Credit Mobilier scheme. Mr. Samuel Hooper was a
large holder of the stock, but being a man of fortune the public
accepted that fact as a defence against the suggestion that the stock
had been placed in his hands for the purpose of influencing his
action as a member of Congress. With others the case was different.
Many were poor men. They had paid no money for the stock. Mr. Ames
made the subscriptions, carried the stocks, and turned over the profits
to those who had paid nothing and risked nothing. When the
investigation was threatened, many of those who were involved ran to
shelter under a variety of excuses and some of them hoped to escape by
the aid of falsehood which ripened into perjury when the investigation
was made. A few admitted ownership and asserted their right to
ownership. Those men escaped with but little loss of prestige. Of the
others, some retained their hold upon public office and some were
advanced to higher places, but they carried always the smell of the
smoke of corruption upon their garments.

Judge Hale defended Mr. Colfax, but at the end his condition was worse
than at the beginning.

There is something of error in our public policy. With a few
exceptions, the salaries of public officers are too low--in many cases
they are meager. This fact furnishes a pretext for efforts to make
money while in the public service. All these efforts are adverse to
the public interests and often the proceedings are tainted with
corruption. A member of Congress ought to receive $7,500 and a
Cabinet officer cannot live in a manner corresponding to his station
upon less than $15,000. Adequate salaries would not prevent
speculation on the part of public officers, but they could not offer
as an excuse for their acts the meager salaries allowed by the
government. From the "salary grab" bill there were two good results.
The President's salary was increased to $50,000 and the justices of
the Supreme Court received $10,000 instead of $6,000 per annum. It has
not been any part of my purpose in what I have said in favor of an
increase of salaries to furnish means for campaign expenses by
candidates either before or after nominations have been made.

If the statements are trustworthy that have been made publicly in
recent years the conclusion cannot be avoided that money is used
in elections for corrupt purposes--sometimes to secure nominations
and sometimes to secure elections, when nominations have been made.
There are proper uses for money in political contests, but candidates
should not be required to make contributions in return for support.
If the statements now made frequently and boldly, are truthful
statements, then we are moving towards a condition of affairs when the
offices of government will be divided between rich men and men who
seek office for the purpose of becoming rich. A general condition
cannot be proved by the experiences of individuals, but the
experiences of individuals may indicate a general condition. I cannot
doubt that an unwholesome change in the use of money in elections has
taken place in the last fifty years. A gentleman now living (1901),
who was a member of the National Committee of the Democratic Party in
the year 1856 is my authority for the statement that the total sum of
money at the command of the committee in the campaign for Mr.
Buchanan was less than twenty-five thousand dollars.

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