Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2)

J >> James Gillespie Blaine >> Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2)

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It is instructive to remember that in little more than eight years
after this conversation, and but three years after Colonel Benton's
death, the civil war began, and opened to Mr. Sumner the opportunity
of leading in a political and social revolution almost without parallel
in modern times.

A singular interest was added to the moral eulogies of Mr. Sumner by
the speech of Mr. Lamar of Mississippi, who had just returned to the
House of Representatives which he left thirteen years before to join
his State in secession. It was a mark of positive genius in a
Southern representative to pronounce a fervid and discriminating eulogy
upon Mr. Sumner, and skilfully to interweave with it a defense of that
which Mr. Sumner like John Wesley believed to be the sum of all
villainies. Only a man of Mr. Lamar's peculiar mental type could
have accomplished the task. He pleased the radical anti-slavery
sentiment of New England: he did not displease the radical pro-slavery
sentiment of the South. There is a type of mind in the East that
delights in refined fallacies, in the reconciling of apparent
contradictions, in the tracing of distinction and resemblances where
less subtle intellects fail to perceive their possibility. There is a
certain Orientalism in the mind of Mr. Lamar, strangely admixed with
typical Americanism. He is full of reflection, full of imagination;
seemingly careless, yet closely observant; apparently dreamy, yet
altogether practical.

It is the possession of these contradictory qualities which accounts
for Mr. Lamar's political course. His reason, his faith, his hope,
all led him to believe in the necessity of preserving the Union of
States; but he persuaded himself that fidelity to a constituency
which had honored him, personal ties with friends from whom he could
not part, the maintenance of an institution which he was pledged to
defend, called upon him to stand with the secession leaders in the
revolt of 1861. He was thus ensnared in the toils of his own
reasoning. His very strength became his weakness. He could not escape
from his self-imposed thraldom and he ended by following a cause whose
success could bring no peace, instead of sustaining a cause whose
righteousness was the assurance of victory.

Alexander H. Stephens took his seat in the same Congress with Mr.
Lamar. He had acquired a commanding reputation in the South by his
sixteen years' service in the House from 1843 to 1859. He had been
trained in the Whig school, and had early espoused the strong Federal
principles which recognized the doctrine of secession as a heresy, and
disunion as a crime. In joining the Rebellion he renounced a creed of
Nationality in which the Democratic promoters of the Confederacy
had never believed. He incurred thereby a heavier responsibility
than those who, trained in the strict construction school, found
sovereignty in the State and recognized no superior allegiance to the
National Government; who in fact denied that there was any such power
existing as a _National_ Government. If Mr. Stephens had maintained
his original devotion to the _National_ idea, a noble course lay before
him; but when he drifted from his moorings of loyalty to the Union he
surrendered the position that could have given him fame. He was
rewarded with the second office in the Confederacy--which may be taken
as the measure of his importance to the Secession cause, according to
the estimate of the original conspirators against the Union.

Mr. Stephens was physically a shattered man when he resumed his seat in
Congress, but the activity of his mind was unabated. With all their
disposition to look upon as an illustrious statesman, it must be
frankly confessed that he made little impression upon the new
generation of public men. Instead of the admiration which his speeches
were once said to have elicited in the House, the wonder now grew that
he ever could have been considered an oracle or a leader. He had been
dominated in the crises of his career by the superior will and greater
ability of Robert Toombs; and he now appeared merely as a relic of the
past in a representative assembly in which his voice was said to have
been once potential.

At the close of the Forty-first Congress in the month of February,
1871, an Act was passed providing a government for the District of
Columbia. It repealed the charters of the cities of Washington and
Georgetown, destroyed the old Levy court which existed under the
statutes of Maryland before the District was ceded, and placed over the
entire territory a form of government totally differing from any which
had theretofore existed. It consisted of a Governor, and a Legislative
Assembly composed of a Council and a House of Delegates. The Governor
and the Council were to be appointed by the President and confirmed by
the Senate, and the House of Delegates was to be elected by the people;
thus making the government conform in essential respects to that which
had been provided for the earlier Territories of the United States.
Powers assimilating mainly with those granted to new Territories
were conferred upon the government of the District, including the power
to borrow money to an amount equivalent to "five per cent of the
assessed value of property in said District;" and to borrow without
charter limitations, "provided the law authorizing the same shall, at a
general election, have been submitted to the people, and have received
a majority of the votes cast for members of the Legislative Assembly
at such election."

It was a radical change, and the powers were granted because of the
necessity, which was generally felt, that something should be done for
the improvement of the National Capital. Alexander R. Shepherd, a
native of the District, engaged in business as a plumber and known to
be a man of remarkable energy and enterprise, was appointed Governor
of the District by President Grant and was confirmed by the Senate.
He was a personal friend in whom the President reposed boundless
confidence. In the course of little more than three years, which was
the duration of the new government, an astonishing change was effected
in the character and appearance of the city of Washington. From an
ill-paved, ill-lighted, unattractive city, it became a model of
regularity, cleanliness, and beauty. No similar transformation has
ever been so speedily realized in an American city, the model being
found only in certain European capitals where public money had been
lavishly expended for adornment.

Of course so great an improvement involved the expenditure of large
sums, and the District of Columbia found itself in debt to the amount
of several millions. An agitation was aroused against what was
alleged to be the corrupt extravagance of the government; the law
authorizing it was repealed and the District placed under the direction
of three Commissioners, who have since administered its affairs.
Whatever fault may be found, whatever charges may be made, the fact
remains that Governor Shepherd wrought a complete revolution in the
appearance of the Capital. Perhaps a prudent and cautious man would
not have ventured to go as fast and as far as he went, but there was
no proof that selfish motives had inspired his action. He had not
enriched himself, and when the government ended he was compelled to
seek a new field of enterprise in the mineral region of Northern
Mexico. The prejudice evoked towards Governor Shepherd has in large
part died away, and he is justly entitled to be regarded as one who
conferred inestimable benefits upon the city of Washington. The
subsequent growth of population, the great number of new and handsome
residences, the rapid and continuous rise in the value of real estate,
the vastly increased number of annual visitors, have given a new life
to the National Capital which dates distinctly from the changes and
improvements which he inaugurated.

The Republican party naturally considered itself invested with a new
lease of power. The victory in the Presidential election of 1872 had
been so sweeping, both in the number of States and in the popular
majorities, that it seemed as if no re-action were possible for years
to come. The Liberal-Republican organization had been practically
dissolved by the disastrous defeat of Mr. Greeley, and the Democracy
had been left prostrate, discouraged and rent with personal feuds. But
the financial panic of 1873 precipitated a new element into the
political field, and led to a counter-revolution that threatened to be
as irresistible as the Republican victory which it followed. The first
warning came in the election of William Allen Governor of Ohio in 1873,
over Edward F. Noyes, the Republican incumbent. It was followed by the
defeat of General Dix and the election of Samuel J. Tilden Governor of
New York the ensuing year, and by such a re-action throughout the
country as gave to the Democratic party control of the House of
Representatives for the first time since 1859.

The extent of the political revolution was made apparent in the vote of
the House of Representatives on the 6th of March, 1875, when the
Forty-fourth Congress was duly organized. Michael C. Kerr of Indiana,
long and favorably known as one of the Democratic leaders of the House,
was nominated by his party for Speaker, and the Republicans nominated
Mr. Blaine, who for the past six years had occupied the Chair. Mr.
Kerr received 173 votes; Mr. Blaine received 106. The relative
strength of the two parties had therefore been reversed from the
preceding Congress. It was a species of revolution which brought to
the front many men not before known to the public.

--Among the Democrats, now the dominant party, the most prominent of
the new members from the South was John Randolph Tucker of Virginia,
a distinguished lawyer who had been the Attorney-General of his State
and always a zealous adherent of the State-rights' school; Alfred M.
Scales of North Carolina, a member of the House in 1857-59 and
afterwards Governor of his State; Benjamin H. Hill of Georgia, who
had become distinguished as a member of the Confederate Senate, and
who as a popular orator and ready debater had attained high rank
in the South; Joseph C. S. Blackburn and Milton J. Durham of
Kentucky,--the former a fluent speaker, the latter an indefatigable
worker; Washington C. Whittihorne and John D. C. Atkins of Tennessee,--the
latter a member of the House in the Thirty-fifth Congress; John H.
Reagan of Texas, Confederate Postmaster-General; Otho R. Singleton and
Charles E. Hooker of Mississippi,--the former a member of the House as
early as 1853; Charles J. Faulkner of West Virginia, a prominent
Democrat before the war, and conspicuously identified with the
rebellion; Thomas L. Jones of Kentucky, who had already served in the
House; Randall L. Gibson and E. John Ellis, young and ambitious men
from Louisiana; and John Goode, jun., of Virginia, who had been a
member of the Confederate Congress. The growing strength of the South
was noticeable in the House, and was the main reliance of the
Democratic party.

--From the North the most distinguished Democrats were Abram S. Hewitt
and Scott Lord from New York; Frank Jones of New Hampshire, a
successful business man of great and deserved popularity; Charles P.
Thompson, a well-known lawyer of Massachusetts; Chester W. Chaplin, a
railroad magnate from the same State; George A. Jenks, a rising lawyer
from Pennsylvania; John A. McMahon of Ohio, apt and ready in
discussion; Alpheus S. Williams of Michigan, a West-Point graduate, a
General in the civil war, and in his younger days an intimate friend
and traveling-companion of the "Chevalier" Wikoff; William Pitt Lynde
of Milwaukee, a noted member of the Wisconsin Bar.--From Illinois
three Democrats entered who became active in the partisan arena in
after years,--Carter H. Harrison, William M. Springer, and William A.
J. Sparks. John V. LeMoyne, son of the eminent anti-slavery leader,
Franics J. LeMoyne, entered as a Democratic member from Chicago.

--The most prominent Republicans among the new members were Martin I.
Townsend of the Troy district, New York, not more distinguished for his
knowledge of the law than for his rare gifts of wit and humor; Elbridge
G. Lapham of Canandaigua and Lyman R. Bass of Buffalo, both well known
at the bar of Western New York; Simeon B. Chittenden, a successful
merchant of the city of New York; Winthrop W. Ketchum, for many years in
the Legislature of Pennsylvania; Charles H. Joyce of Vermont, with a
good war record; William M. Crapo, a lawyer with large practice at New
Bedford, Massachusetts; Julius H. Seelye, the able and learned
President of Amherst College; Henry L. Pierce, a well-known
manufacturer of Massachusetts; and Thomas J. Henderson of Illinois, a
Brigadier-General in the Union Army.--Henry W. Blair of New Hampshire
was a member of the bar, enlisted early in the war, and attained the
rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He had been in both branches of the
Legislature of his State, and was a leader in the Prohibition cause.

In the Senate, the Democratic gain, though it had not changed the
control of the body, was very noticeable. William W. Eaton of
Connecticut, an old-fashioned Democrat, honest, sincere, and outspoken
in his sentiments, succeeded Governor Buckingham. Francis Kernan of
New York, who had already served in the House of Representatives, took
the seat of Governor Fenton. Joseph E. McDonald of Indiana, a man of
strong parts, succeeded Daniel D. Pratt. William A. Wallace of
Pennsylvania, an extreme partisan, but an agreeable gentleman and loyal
friend, took the place of John Scott. Allen T. Caperton, an estimable
man who had served in the Confederate Senate, now succeeded Arthur L.
Boreman of West Virginia. Samuel B. Maxey of Texas, a graduate of
West Point, succeeded J. W. Flanagan. Charles W. Jones of Florida
succeeded Abijah Gilbert. Robert E. Withers of Virginia succeeded
John F. Lewis. Last and most prominent of all, Ex-President Andrew
Johnson succeeded William G. Brownlow from Tennessee.

These nine Democrats took the place of nine Republicans, making a net
difference in the Senate of eighteen,--a difference somewhat increased
by the fact that Francis M. Cockrell, a decided Democrat, took the
place of Carl Schurz, who, as between political parties, was always
undecided. Nor was this uniform series of Democratic gains balanced in
any degree by Republican gains. The new Republican senators all took
the places of Republican predecessors. The other new Democratic
senators took the places of Democratic predecessors. The Republicans
had lost the power to command two-thirds of the Senate, and had
entered upon that struggle which led soon after to a contest for the
mastery of the body. More and more it became evident that as the
commissions of the present Republican senators from the South should
expire, their places would be filled by Democrats; and that with
thirty-two senators in a compact body from the recent slave States, it
would require a strong Republican union in the North to maintain a
majority.

Among the Republicans who now entered the Senate were General Burnside,
who succeeded William Sprague from Rhode Island; Angus Cameron, who
succeeded Matthew H. Carpenter from Wisconsin; Isaac P. Christiancy,
who succeeded Zachariah Chandler from Michigan; Samuel J. R. McMillan,
who succeeded William R. Washburn, who had served out the remnant of
Mr. Sumner's term. Newton Booth, who had been Governor of California,
now took his seat in the Senate as the colleague of Mr. Sargent.
Governor Booth had suddenly come into prominence on the Pacific coast,
and though professing a general allegiance to the Republican party, he
had been and continued to be somewhat independent in his views and his
votes, especially upon railroad questions.

Ex-President Johnson signalized his return by beginning in the Senate
just where he had left off in the Presidency. Two weeks after the
session convened he seized the occasion of a resolution relating to
Louisiana affairs to recount some incidents in his own Administration,
and gave to his whole speech the color of a vindictive attack upon
President Grant. The motive was somewhat concealed under decorous
language, but the attack was nevertheless personal and direct. He
assailed Sheridan's military administration in Louisiana, defended that
of General Hancock, accused President Grant of designing to seize a
third term of his office, imputed evil motives to him for accepting
gifts from friends, considered the liberties of the country in danger
from his administration, and thought that his tyranny was not concealed
by the gloved hand. He seemed to have nursed his wrath during the six
years he had passed in private life, and to have aspired to the Senate
simply for the revival of animosities and for the renewal of
controversies with those for whom he cherished special hatred.

The impression made upon the Senate and upon the country by Mr.
Johnson's speech was unpleasant. His anger, peculiarly unbecoming his
years and his station, was directed especially against the men who
would not follow him in his desertion of the party which had elevated
him to power. At least twice before, in the history of the Federal
Government, it had been demonstrated that a President who for any
cause runs counter to the views and wishes of the party that elected
him is doomed to disappointment, and is fortunate if he escape
disgrace. Mr. Johnson had drunk the cup of humiliation to its dregs,
and the remaining energies of his life seemed now devoted to the
punishment, or least the denunciation, of those who had obstructed and
defeated his policies while President. Revenge is always an ignoble
motive, pardonable, if at all, when inspired by the hot blood of youth,
but to be regarded as not only lamentable but pitiable in men who
approach threescore and ten. The extra session closed on the 24th of
March. Mr. Johnson did not live to resume his seat. On the last day
of the ensuing July (1875) he died peacefully at his home in East
Tennessee among friends who had watched his progress from poverty and
illiteracy to the highest position in the Republic. He was in the
sixty-seventh year of his age.

The annual message of the President contained no reference to the
condition of the South. The stringent and persistent prosecution in
the United States courts of members of the organized bands of Ku-Klux
had tended to dissolve that organization and to restrain its members
from the commission of such outrages as had distinguished the earlier
period of their existence. There was hope in the minds of sanguine
people of the North that an era of peace and harmony had begun in the
South, which would be characterized by a fair recognition of the rights
of all the population, that free suffrage would be protected, that the
hand of violence would be stayed, and that the Centennial year would
find every State of the Republic in the enjoyment of material
prosperity, of the fair administration of the law, of the enforcement
of equal rights.

No body of men rejoiced over this prospect more heartily than
Republican senators and representatives, for if it should prove true
they would have cause of gratulation both as patriots and partisans.
The complete pacification of the country on the basis of equal and
exact justice was the leading desire of all right-minded men, and the
free suffrage which this implied would give to the Republicans the
opportunity for a fair trial of strength in the advocacy of their
principles before the Southern people. The picture was one which would
well adorn the great National anniversary so near at hand, but many
men feared that it was a picture only and not a reality.

An occasion arose four weeks after the delivery of the President's
message, to test the real feelings of the House concerning the Southern
question. Mr. Randall of Pennsylvania introduced a bill removing the
political disabilities from every person in the United States. Since
the broad Act of Amnesty in 1872, which excepted only a few classes
from its operation, a considerable number of Southern gentlemen had
been relieved upon individual application; but the mass of those
excepted were still under the disability. The disposition of the
Republicans was to grant without hesitation an amnesty almost
universal, the exceptions, with a majority of the party probably,
being limited to three persons,--Jefferson Davis, Robert Toombs, and
Jacob Thompson. Mr. Randall brought his bill to a vote on the 10th of
January, 1876. By the Constitution it required a vote of two-thirds,
but fell short of the number, the _ayes_ being 175, the _noes_ 97.
The negative vote was wholly Republican; while the affirmative vote
included all the Democratic members together with a small number of
Republicans.

Mr. Blaine moved to amend by excepting Jefferson Davis from the
benefits of the bill. The situation was peculiar. Upon a direct vote,
if the amendment were submitted, very few Republicans could be found
who would include Mr. Davis by name in the amnesty; and there was a
large number of Democrats who wished to be saved from the embarrassment
implied in such a procedure. They appreciated the difference between
voting for a bill of general amnesty which included Jefferson Davis
without name, and voting for an amendment which named him and him only
for restoration to eligibility to any office under the Government of
the United States. No punishment was inflicted upon Mr. Davis; no
confiscation of his property was attempted or desired; Congress did not
wish to deny him the right of suffrage. He was simply deprived of the
right to aspire to the honors of the Republic. The Democrats being a
majority of the House could prevent the amendment of the bill, and the
Republicans being more than one-third could prevent the passage of the
bill. It was a singular case of playing at parliamentary cross-purposes,
and afforded the ground, as it proved in the end, for a prolonged and
somewhat exciting discussion.

The reason assigned for excepting Jefferson Davis was not that he had
been a rebel, for rebels were restored by thousands; not that he had
been in Congress, for Southern Congressmen were restored by scores if
not by hundreds; not that he had been the chief of the revolutionary
government, for that would only be a difference of degree in an offense
in which all had shared. The point of objection was that Mr. Davis,
with the supreme power of the Confederacy in his hands, both military
and civil, had permitted extraordinary cruelties to be inflicted upon
prisoners of war. He was held to be legally and morally responsible,
in that, being able to prevent the horrors of Andersonville prison,
he did not prevent them.

The debate took a somewhat wide range, engaging Mr. Blaine and General
Garfield as the leading participants on the Republican side, and
Benjamin H. Hill, Mr. Randall, and Mr. Cox on the Democratic side.
Upon a second effort to pass the bill with an amendment requiring an
oath of loyalty as a prerequisite to removal of disabilities, it
failed to secure the necessary two-thirds, the _ayes_ being 184, the
_noes_ 97. All that the Republicans demanded was a vote on the
exclusion of Jefferson Davis, and this was steadily refused. Many
gentlemen of the South are still under disability because of the
parliamentary tactics pursued by the Democratic party of the House of
Representatives at that time. If a vote had been allowed on Jefferson
Davis, his name would have been rejected, and the bill, which included
even Robert Toombs and Jacob Thompson, would have been passed without
delay. If Mr. Davis though that he was ungenerously treated by the
Republicans, he must have found ample compensation in the conduct of
both Southern and Northern Democrats, who kept seven hundred prominent
supporters of the rebellion under disability for the simple and only
reason that the Ex-President of the Confederacy could not share in the
clemency.

[(1) In the history of the Federal Government only one administration
(that of Franklin Pierce) has completed its full term without a single
change in the Cabinet announced at its beginning. The following are
the members of General Grant's Cabinet, the changes in which were in
the aggregate more numerous than in the Cabinet of any of his
predecessors:--

Secretaries of State.--Elihu B. Washburne, Hamilton Fish.
Secretaries of the Treasury.--George S. Boutwell, William A.
Richardson, Benjamin H. Bristow, Lot M. Morrill.
Secretaries of War.--John A. Rawlins, William W. Belknap, Alphonso
Taft, James Donald Cameron.
Secretaries of the Navy.--Adolph E. Borie, George M. Robeson.
Postmasters-General.--John A. J. Creswell, James W. Marshall, Marshall
Jewell, James N. Tyner.
Attorneys-General.--E. Rockwood Hoar, Amos T. Akerman, George H.
Williams, Edwards Pierrepont, Alphonso Taft.
Secretaries of the Interior.--Jacob D. Cox, Columbus Delano, Zachariah
Chandler.