Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs/Chapter 10
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MASSACHUSETTS MEN IN THE FORTIES
IN 1841 I was again a candidate for the House, and I was elected by the meager majority of one vote. As a member for the year 1842 I made the acquaintance of many persons, some of whom became distinguished in state and national politics. The leading members on the Democratic side were Samuel C. Allen of Northfield; Nathaniel Hinckley of Barnstable; Seth Whitmarsh, of Seekonk; Seth J. Thomas, Richard Frothingham, of Charlestown, and James Russell, of West Cambridge. Allen was a son of the Samuel C. Allen, who had been a member of Congress, a member of the old Republican Party of Jefferson, and the author of the saying: “Associated wealth is the dynasty of modern states.” Another son was Elisha Allen, who was then a member of Congress from Maine, elected in 1840. He was afterwards our Commissioner to the Sandwich Islands, and subsequently he was Minister from the Islands to the United States.
Samuel C. Allen, Jr., was a vigorous, incisive debater. His speeches were brief, direct, and disagreeable to his opponents. He followed Mr. Webster’s advice to the citizens of Boston—he “made no long orations” and in those days, he “drank no strong potations.”
Thomas was an energetic, capable man, a ready debater, although of limited resources in learning. Whitmarsh was an unlearned country leader, whose speeches were better adapted to a neighborhood gathering of political supporters, than to the deliberations of an assembly charged with a share in the government of a state. Hinckley was an original thinker, with a hobby. His purpose was to secure the abolition of the rule which excluded from the witness-stand those who did not believe in a personal God. This he accomplished, and by the aid of the arguments that are formulated in Stuart Mill’s Treatise on Liberty, but they are not there more clearly presented by Mill than they had been presented by Hinckley in the debates of 1842 and 1843 in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Hinckley was a bore, but the object was accomplished through his agency. Since that time such parties have been permitted to testify, and the day should come speedily when the laws should be so changed as to allow the husband and the wife to testify in all cases where they happen to be jointly interested or opposed to each other.
In judicial investigations, all who know anything should be permitted to speak, and of their credibility the court and the jury should judge. No one should be kept from the witness-stand upon the ground of interest or feeling. Interest in a party or a cause may be a temptation to perjury. In a majority of contests, however, the truth will be told voluntarily even by interested or infamous persons, and in cases where the witness indulges in falsehood the skill of attorneys and the judgment of the court will enable the jury to reach a correct conclusion.
Frothingham was a student, a fair speaker, but destitute of the qualities of an orator and too timid for leadership. A parliamentary leader may, or may not, be a leader of opinion. Mr. Clay was both. Mr. Webster was a leader in opinion, and whatever leadership was accorded to him in the Senate of the United States was due to the recognized fact that he represented a constituency of opinion larger than his constituency as a senator. In the case of Mr. Sumner that was more conspicuously true. As a mere parliamentary leader, his standing was low. He was not fertile in resources; he was not ready in debate; his arguments rested upon authorities; and these he could not always command in season for the emergency. But it was admitted that he either represented a great body of American citizens in opinion, or that a great body of American citizens would accept his opinions whenever he made them known.
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In competition with the leaders of the Democratic Party of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1842 it was not a hard task to acquire a fair standing, but in truth I never thought of the results of my labors as they might affect my standing.
The Whig side of the House was at once more able and more numerous. The city of Boston was a Whig city by a large majority. Its members, about forty, were chosen on one ticket. The list was prepared by the city committee, and each year some young lawyers, merchants, and tradesmen, or mechanics, were brought forward. The vacancies that occurred enabled the committee to compliment a retired merchant, or successful mechanic, with a seat in the House. The attendance of members was not enforced, and it was quite irregular. A full House consisted of about three hundred and fifty members, but sixty was a quorum. It was common for merchants and lawyers to call at the House, look at the orders of the day, and then go to business. In an exigency they were sent for and brought in to vote.
The House was not a place for luxurious ease. The members sat on long seats without cushions, having only a narrow shelf on the back of the seat next in front on which with care a book might be laid or a memorandum written. A drawer under the seat for the documents constituted a member’s outfit. There were four wood fires—one in each corner of the great hall. Members sat in their overcoats and hats, and in one of the rules it was declared that when “a member rises to speak, he shall take off his hat and address the speaker.”
Boston sent John C. Gray, John C. Park, Charles Francis Adams, George T. Bigelow (afterwards Chief Justice of the State), Edmund Dwight, Charles P. Curtis, George T. Curtis, John G. Palfrey and others who were men of mark.
From other parts of the State there were Alvah Crocker, of Fitchburg; Henry Wilson, of Natick; Thomas Kinnicutt and Benjamin F. Thomas, of Worcester; John P. Robinson and Daniel S. Richardson, of Lowell; Samuel H. Walley, Jr., of Roxbury, and others.
Mr. Gray was a son of William Gray, the leading merchant of Boston at the close of the last century. Mr. Gray was kept in the House for many years. He was familiar with the rules and usages, and his influence within certain limits was considerable. His integrity was undisputed. Nobody suspected him of personal interests in anything. As chairman of the Committee on Finance, he guided the expenditures of the State with economy and rigid justice. As a speaker his powers were limited to a statement of the facts bearing upon the case. To argument in any high sense he did not aspire.
John C. Park was a good talker. His resources were at his command. His style was agreeable, his argument clear, his positions reasonable, and yet his influence was extremely limited. His experience as a lawyer was the same, substantially. He was not capable of carrying the mind of the hearer to conclusions from which there was no escape.
Of the Whig members, Charles Francis Adams was the person of most note—due to his family and name. He was then thirty-five years of age. He was born into a family of culture, and from the first he enjoyed every advantage that could be derived from books and from the conversation of persons of superior intelligence.
If we include the earliest period of life, the majority of mankind acquire a larger share of knowledge from conversation than from reading or observation. Mr. Adams had had the best opportunities for development and improvement from each and all of the three great sources of knowledge. With all these advantages he could not have been included in the first ten on the Whig side of the House. His style of speaking was at once nervous and oracular. His voice and manner were not agreeable, and he had a peculiar violent jerk of the head, as though he would separate it from his body, whenever he became excited or bestowed special emphasis upon a remark. John Quincy Adams had the same peculiarity which I had observed in 1839 in his controversy for the right of petition. In political information Mr. Adams was the best instructed man in the House.
In those days the slavery question in some form was the topic of debate and of resolves by the two Houses. Among these the right of petition and the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia were the most conspicuous. In these debates and proceedings Mr. Adams was the leader. When he became a member of the Thirty-sixth Congress and was appointed upon the committee of thirty-three, he accepted a surrender to the slave power, which would have given to slavery a perpetual lease of existence, if institutions and constitutions could have preserved it. The surrender to slavery, had it been accepted, would have burdened a race with perpetual servitude and consigned the Republic to lasting disgrace. It is to be said, however, that Mr. Adams but yielded to a public sentiment that was controlling in the city of Washington in the winter of 1860-61, and which was then formidable in all parts of the country. The concession or surrender was accepted by many Republicans, including Mr. Corwin of Ohio who was chairman of the committee of thirty-three.
From 1840 to 1850 I was a member of the Legislature for seven years. A large body of the people led by Robert Rantoul, Jr., William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips were in favor of the abolition of capital punishment. Many of the clergy, especially of the orthodox clergy, opposed the change, and for support quoted the laws of Moses. Sermons were preached from the text: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” If this text is treated as a philosophical statement, based upon human nature, that those who resort to blood to avenge their wrongs will get a like return, then the proposition has wisdom in it; but it is the essence of a bloody code if it mean that either the State or the individual sufferer should take a human life either for revenge, punishment, or example.
At a session in the Forties the House was made indignant one morning by the introduction of a petition by Mr. Tolman, of Worcester, asking that the clergy who approved of capital punishment should be appointed hangmen. A motion was made to reject the petition without reference. I interposed and called attention to the similarity between the position the House was thus taking and the position occupied by the National House of Representatives in regard to petitions upon the subject of slavery. The suggestion had no weight with the House. The petition was rejected without a reference.
The next morning the messenger said Mr. Garrison wished to see me in the lobby. I found Mr. Garrison, Wendell Phillips and William Jackson with bundles of petitions of the kind presented by Mr. Tolman. They assumed that as I had advocated the reference of the Tolman petition I would present others of a like character. I said, “Gentlemen, when petitions are presented by a member upon his personal responsibility I shall always favor a reference, but as to the presentation of petitions, I occupy a different position. I must judge of the wisdom of the prayer. In this case I must decline to take any responsibility.” The petitions were presented by Mr. Tolman and the House retreated from its awkward position.
George T. Bigelow was one of the ablest, if not the very ablest, of the Whig leaders. His style of speech was plain, direct, and free from partisan feeling. His statements were usually within the limits of the facts and authorities. His temper was even and his judgment was free from feeling. He possessed those qualities which made him an acceptable judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and afterwards, when he became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, gave him a conspicuous and almost eminent position as jurist.
George T. Curtis was fastidious, and sometimes he was supercilious, in his speeches to the House. His influence was exceedingly limited, and he carried on a constant but useless struggle in the hope of extending it.
Samuel H. Walley, Jr., of Roxbury, was for a time, chairman of the Committee on Finance, and one whose integrity and competency were never doubted by anyone. The revenues and expenditures of the State were then insignificant, relatively, in amount, but the people were poor as compared with their condition in 1880 and subsequently. Every appropriation was canvassed in every shop and on every farm. Mr. Walley maintained a strict economy and the expenses of the State were kept at the lowest point consistent with the wise administration of affairs.
Nevertheless the Democratic Party, acting in error, attacked the expenses, discussed the items in the canvass of 1842, and when they came to power in 1843 they made serious reductions, especially in the matter of salaries of public officers, and all, as I now think, unwisely.
In the sessions of 1842 and 1843 there came from the town of Woburn, Nathaniel A. Richardson. When elected he was only twenty-one years of age. His election was due to the local fame he had acquired as a speaker in the Lyceum of the town. His career was brief. Whether he had in him the elements of success cannot now be known, but it was manifest that he did not get beyond words in his speeches.
His speeches were lacking in information and his powers of argument were weak and limited. His most noted speech was in support of a resolution in favor of refunding to General Jackson the fine of one thousand dollars that had been imposed upon him by a New Orleans judge. Richardson’s opening sentence was this: “I rise, Mr. Speaker, and throw myself into the crackling embers of this debate,”—from which, in the judgment of the House, he never emerged.
The Lyceum, as it existed from 1840 to 1850, has disappeared, and to the loss of young men who may be called to take part in public affairs. In many cases, however, it led to the development of a style of speaking that was not adapted to political discussions or to the profession of the law. Speaking and writing should be pursued at the same time, and study is an essential condition of success. In public assemblies, even in those that are composed of selected persons, there is always an opportunity for a well-trained man, who is also carefully and fully informed upon the subject under debate, to exert an influence and not infrequently he may succeed in securing the acceptance of his opinions.
But study alone will not make a good or even an acceptable speaker, unless there is added also a period of careful practice. There are many men of learning whose faculty for speaking is so limited that their awkwardness is more conspicuous than their knowledge. The Lyceum may be made a school of practice. The business should not be limited to topics that do not excite feeling. The contests of the world rest largely upon feeling, often degenerating into mere passion. Those who are to take part in such contests should learn at an early period of life to control their feelings and passions. Such benign results can be reached only by experience. Let the debates of the Lyceum deal with questions of living interest, and those who take part in such contests will learn to control their feelings and thus prepare themselves for the business of life.
John P. Robinson, of Lowell, was the best equipped member of the House of 1842. He was then in the prime of life in years, but already somewhat impaired. He was a thoroughly educated man, a trained lawyer, of considerable experience in country practice—a practice which renders the members of the profession more acute than the practice of cities. In the country the controversies are about small matters relatively, but the clients are deeply interested, the neighborhood is enlisted on one side or the other, and the attendance at court of the friends of the parties is often large. The counsel is tried quite as rigorously and critically as is the case. Such was the condition of things previous to 1848. Robinson was not only a good English scholar, but he was devoted to the classics, and especially to the Greek classics and history. Afterwards he became a resident of Athens where he lived for several years. He was a good speaker in a high sense of the phrase. In the sessions of 1842 and 1843 the system of corporations was in controversy. The Democrats were in opposition generally. The Whig Party favored the system. In the session of 1842 or 1843 citizens of Nantucket presented a petition for an Act of Incorporation as a “Camel Company.” The town had been the chief port in the world for the whale-fishery business. Its insular position rendered it necessary to obtain supplies from the mainland and to transport the products of the fishery to the mainland. The fact that there was a bar across the harbor, which made it impossible to bring in vessels of the size of those engaged in the fishery was fast depriving it of its supremacy. New London was already a rival.
The scheme for relief was to build what were called “camels.” They were vessels capable of receiving a whale-ship and floating it over the bar. They were to be made broad, of shallow draught, with air-tight compartments. These machines were to be taken outside the bar; the compartments were to be filled with water and the camels sunk. The whale ship was then to be floated over the camel and the water was then to be pumped out of the compartments when the camel would rise with the ship on its back and carry the whaler into the harbor.
The scheme seemed a wild one, but opinions were controlled by party feeling. The bill passed, the camels were built, and the scheme failed as a practical measure. Nantucket was doomed as a trading and commercial town. As a watering place it had a future. In one of the debates upon corporations Robinson took part, perhaps upon the Nantucket “camel” question, and made the best speech to which I have ever listened in defense of the system.
The corporation system has yielded larger returns to Massachusetts than she has received from any other feature of her domestic policy, excepting only her system of public instruction.
Robinson lived, probably, on the verge of insanity, to which end he came finally. When a member of the House, he was restless, almost constantly walking in the area or through the aisles, running his hands through his long black hair, engaged apparently in meditation upon topics outside of the business of the House.
He is immortalized in Lowell’s “Biglow Papers,”
“John P. Robinson, he
“Says he won’t vote for Governor B.”
The Governor B. was Governor George N. Briggs, with whom Robinson had a quarrel about the year 1845.
Henry Wilson, afterwards Senator and Vice-President of the United States, was a member of the House in 1842 and 1843. He had risen to notice in the campaign of 1840. He was engaged by the Whig Party as one of its speakers and announced as the “Natick Cobbler.”
He had worked at the trade of a shoemaker, and as the shoe interest was already a large interest in the State, it was a matter of no slight importance to give distinction to a representative of the craft. Wilson’s family were destitute of culture, and although he had had the advantage of training at an academy for a year, perhaps, his attainments were very limited. I recollect papers in his handwriting in which the rule requiring a sentence to commence with a capital letter was disregarded uniformly. His style of speaking was heavy and unattractive. This peculiarity remained to the end. In those days Wilson was known as an Anti-Slavery Whig. In some respects Wilson’s political career was tortuous, but in all his windings he was true to the cause of human liberty.
Although I was acquainted with Wilson from 1842 to the time of his death, I could never so analyze the man as to understand the elements of the power which he possessed. It may have rested in the circumstance that he appeared to be important, if not essential, to every party with which he was identified. His acquaintance was extensive and it included classes of men with whom many persons in public life do not associate. He made the acquaintance of all the reporters and editors and publishers of papers wherever he went. He frequented saloons and restaurants to ascertain public sentiment. In political campaigns he was the prophet, foretelling results with unusual accuracy.
Benjamin F. Thomas of Worcester was a leading man in the Whig Party, a good speaker, saving only that he appeared to vociferate. He was afterwards a judge of the Supreme Court of the State and for a single term he was a member of Congress.
As a lawyer his rank was good, almost eminent, in the State, but his career in Congress was a failure. He was a member of the Thirty-seventh Congress, and he failed to realize the issues and to comprehend the duties of a public man in an hour of peril. In 1862 he abandoned the Republican Party, and joined himself to a temporary organization in the State, called the People’s Party.
The party disappeared upon its defeat in November, 1862, and Judge Thomas disappeared from politics.
Mr. Kinnicutt, the Speaker, in 1842, was a gentleman of agreeable manners, fair presence, and respectable, moderate abilities. He administered the office with entire fairness. His elevation to the post of Speaker, then thought to be one of great importance, may have been due to his residence at Worcester. In those days, as in these, Worcester was a center of political power and its leading men were able always to command consideration. When, in 1840, it was an urgency in party politics to defeat Governor Morton, John Davis, of Worcester, called “Honest John,” was selected as the candidate, although he was then a member of the United State Senate.
In the sessions of 1843 and 1844, I originated three measures and introduced bills designed to give legal form to the measures.
1. A bill requiring cashiers of banks and treasurers of all other corporations to return to the assessors of each city and town the names of stockholders residing in each such city or town, the shares held by each and the par value of the shares. The bill was passed. The holders of stock who had theretofore escaped taxation were enraged, and a meeting to denounce the measure was held in Boston.
2. A bill to require the mortgagee to pay the tax on mortgaged real estate. The bill was then defeated, but recently the measure has become a law.
3. The reduction of the poll tax.
On each of the last two measures I made a speech which was reported in the Boston Post. Upon the revival of the question concerning the taxation of mortgaged real estate, my opinions were not as firmly in its favor as they had been in 1843, when I originated and advocated the measure.
The assessment of a poll-tax as a prerequisite to the exercise of the right to vote is a relic of the property qualification and it ought not any longer to find a place in the policy of free States. As persons without accumulated property enjoy the benefits of free schools, the use of roads and bridges, and the protection of the laws, there is a justification for the assessment of a capitation tax, but the right to vote should not be dependent upon its payment.