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

Finally, having been again restudied, in the light of my ever-increasing material, it was again reprinted and circulated as a campaign document during the struggle against Mr. Bryan and the devotees of the silver standard in the campaign of 1896, copies of it being spread very widely, especially through the West, and placed, above all, in nearly every public library, university, college, and normal school in the Union.

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

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

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

The proceedings were opened with a prayer by a delegate, who had been a colonel in the Union army, and was now a Methodist clergyman. The heads of all were bowed, and the clergyman-soldier began with the words of the Lord's Prayer; but when he had recited about one half of it he seemed to think that he could better it, and he therefore substituted for the latter half a petition which began with these words: "Grant, O Lord, that the ticket here to be nominated may command a majority of the suffrages of the American people.'' To those accustomed to the more usual ways of conducting service this was something of a shock; still there was this to be said in favor of the reverend colonel's amendment,—he had faith to ask for what he wanted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER VII

SENATORSHIP AT ALBANY—1865-1867

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

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

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

Shortly afterward the body of the murdered President, borne homeward to Illinois, rested overnight in the State Capitol, and preparations were made for its reception. I was one of the bearers chosen by the Senate and was also elected to pronounce one of the orations. Rarely have I felt an occasion so deeply: it has been my lot during my life to be present at the funerals of various great rulers and magnates; but at none of these was so deep an impression made upon me as by the body of Lincoln lying in the assembly chamber at Albany, quiet and peaceful at last.

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

"Oh, how comely it is, and how reviving To the spirits of just men long oppressed, When God into the hands of their deliverer Puts invincible might To quell the mighty of the earth, the oppressor, The brute and boisterous force of violent men,'' etc.[2]

[2] Milton's "Samson Agonistes,'' lines 1268-1280.



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

In the following autumn the question of my renomination came.

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

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

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

Arriving in Albany at the beginning of my third year of service—1866—I found myself the only member of the committee appointed to investigate matters in the city of New York who had been relected. Under these circumstances no report from the committee was possible; but the committee on municipal affairs, having brought in a bill to legislate out of office the city inspector and all his associates, and to put in a new and thoroughly qualified health board, I made a carefully prepared speech, which took the character of a report. The facts which I brought out were sufficient to condemn the whole existing system twenty times over. By testimony taken under oath the monstrosities of the existing system were fully revealed, as well as the wretched character of the "health officers,'' "inspectors,'' and the whole army of underlings, and I exhibited statistics carefully ascertained and tabulated, showing the absurd disproportion of various classes of officials to each other, their appointment being made, not to preserve the public health, but to carry the ward caucuses and elections. During this exposure Boole, the head of the whole system, stood not far from me on the floor, his eyes fastened upon me, with an expression in which there seemed to mingle fear, hatred, and something else which I could hardly divine. His face seemed to me, even then, the face of a madman. So it turned out. The new bill drove him out of office, and, in a short time, into a madhouse.

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

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

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

It was with a pang that I turned from this offer. To all appearance, then and now, my life would have been far happier in such a professorship, but to accept it was clearly impossible. The manner in which it was tendered me seemed to me almost a greater honor than the professorship itself. I was called upon by a committee of the governing body of the university, composed of the man whom of all in New Haven I most revered, Dr. Bacon, and the governor of the State, my old friend Joseph R. Hawley, who read to me the resolution of the governing body and requested my acceptance of the election. Nothing has ever been tendered me which I have felt to be a greater honor.

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

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

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

During this special session of the State Senate it was entangled in a curious episode of national history. The new President, Mr. Andrew Johnson, had been induced to take an excursion into the north and especially into the State of New York. He was accompanied by Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State; General Grant, with his laurels fresh from the Civil War; Admiral Farragut, who had so greatly distinguished himself during the same epoch, and others of great merit. It was clear that Secretary Seward thought that he could establish the popularity of the new administration in the State of New York by means of his own personal influence; but this proved the greatest mistake of his life.

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER VIII

ROSCOE CONKLING AND JUDGE FOLGER—1867-1868

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

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

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

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

Another candidate was Judge Noah Davis, then of Lockport, also a man of high character, of excellent legal abilities, a good speaker, and one who, had he been elected, would have done honor to the State. But on looking about I discovered, as I thought, a better candidate. Judge Bailey, of Oneida County, had called my attention to the claims of Mr. Roscoe Conkling, then a member of Congress from the Oneida district, who had distinguished himself as an effective speaker, a successful lawyer, and an honest public servant. He had, to be sure, run foul of Mr. Blaine of Maine, and had received, in return for what Mr. Blaine considered a display of offensive manners, a very serious oratorical castigation; but he had just fought a good fight which had drawn the attention of the whole State to him. A coalition having been formed between the anti-war Democrats and a number of disaffected Republicans in his district to defeat his relection to Congress, it had seemed likely to overwhelm him and drive him out of public life, and one thing seemed for a time likely to prove fatal to him:—the "New York Tribune,'' the great organ of the party, edited by Horace Greeley, gave him no effective support. But the reason was apparent later when it became known that Mr. Greeley was to be a candidate for the senatorship, and it was evidently felt that should Mr. Conkling triumph in such a struggle, he would be a very serious competitor. The young statesman had shown himself equal to the emergency. He had fought his battle without the aid of Mr. Greeley and the "Tribune,'' and won it, and, as a result, had begun to be thought of as a promising candidate for the United States senatorship. I had never spoken with him; had hardly seen him; but I had watched his course closely, and one thing especially wrought powerfully with me in his favor. The men who had opposed him were of the same sort with those who had opposed me, and as I was proud of their opposition, I felt that he had a right to be so. The whole force of Tammany henchmen and canal contractors throughout the State honored us both with their enmity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In reply to the adverse arguments of Judge Folger and Mr. Murphy, which were to the effect that my bill was an innovation upon the criminal law of the State, I pointed out the fact that evidence as to the character of the person charged with crime is often all-important; that in our daily life we act upon that fact as the simplest dictate of common sense; that if any senator present had his watch stolen from his room he would be very slow to charge the crime against the servant who was last seen in the room, even under very suspicious circumstances; but if he found that the servant had been discharged for theft from various places previously, this would be more important than any other circumstance. I showed how safeguards which had been devised in the middle ages to protect citizens from the feudal lord were now used to aid criminals in evading the law, and I ended by rather unjustly compar- ing Judge Folger to the great Lord Chancellor Eldon, of whom it was said that, despite his profound knowledge of the law, "no man ever did so much good as he prevented.'' The result was that the bill was passed by the Senate in spite of the judiciary committee.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Soon came a feature in his course which made matters worse. The members of the convention, many of them, were men in large business and very anxious to have a day or two each week for their own affairs. Moreover, during the first weeks of the session, while the main matters coming before the convention were still in the hands of committees, there was really not enough business ready for the convention to occupy it through all the days of the week, and consequently it adopted the plan, for the first weeks at least, of adjourning from Friday night till Tuesday morning. This vexed Mr. Greeley sorely. He insisted that the convention ought to keep at its business and finish it without any such weekly adjournments, and, as his arguments to this effect did not prevail in the convention, he began making them through the "Tribune'' before the people of the State. Soon his arguments became acrid, and began undermining the convention at every point.

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

Ere long Mr. Greeley was taking, almost daily in the "Tribune,'' steady ground against the doings of his colleagues. Lesser newspapers followed with no end of cheap and easy denunciation, and the result was that the convention became thoroughly, though unjustly, discredited throughout the State, and indeed throughout the country. A curious proof of this met me. Being at Cambridge, Massachusetts, I passed an evening with Governor Washburn, one of the most thoughtful and valuable public men of that period. In the course of our conversation he said: "Mr. White, it is really sad to hear of the doings at your Albany convention. I can remember your constitutional convention of 1846, and when I compare this convention with that, it grieves me.'' My answer was: "Governor Washburn, you are utterly mistaken: there has never been a constitutional convention in the State of New York, not even that you name, which has contained so many men of the highest ability and character as the one now in session, and none which has really done better work. I am not a member of the body and can say this in its behalf.'' At this he expressed his amazement, and pointed to the "Tribune'' in confirmation of his own position. I then stated the case to him, and, I think, alleviated his distress.

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

The main argument made by those who opposed such a return to the old, better order of things was that the people would not like it and would be inclined to vote down the new constitution on account of it.

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

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

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

The long discussions were very irksome to him, and one day I mildly expostulated with him on account of some of his utterances against the much speaking of his colleagues, and said: "After all, Mr. Greeley, is n't it a pretty good thing to have a lot of the best men in the State come together every twenty years and thoroughly discuss the whole constitution, to see what improvements can be made; and is not the familiarity with the constitution and interest in it thus aroused among the people at large worth all the fatigue arising from long speeches?'' "Well, perhaps so,'' he said, but he immediately began to grumble and finally to storm in a comical way against some of his colleagues who, it must be confessed, were tiresome. Still he became interested more and more in the work, and as the new constitution emerged from the committees and public debates, he evidently saw that it was a great gain to the State, and now did his best through the "Tribune'' to undo what he had been doing. He wrote editorials praising the work of the convention and urging that it be adopted. But all in vain: the unfavorable impression had been too widely and deeply made, and the result was that the new constitution, when submitted to the people, was ignominiously voted down, and the whole summer's work of the convention went for nothing. Later, however, a portion of it was rescued and put into force through the agency of a "Constitutional Commission,'' a small body of first-rate men who sat at Albany, and whose main conclusions were finally adopted in the shape of amendments to the old constitution. There was, none the less, a wretched loss to the State.

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

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

I was also asked by the poet Longfellow to pass a day with him at his beautiful Nahant cottage in order to discuss certain candidates and methods in literature. Nothing could be more delightful than his talk as we sat together on the veranda looking out over the sea, with the gilded dome of the State House, which he pointed out to me as "The Hub,'' in the dim distance. One question of his amused me much. We were discussing certain recent events in which Mr. Horace Greeley had played an important part, and after alluding to Mr. Greeley's course during the War, he turned his eyes fully but mildly upon me and said slowly and solemnly: "Mr. White, don't you think Mr. Greeley a very useless sort of man?'' The question struck me at first as exceedingly comical; for, I thought, "Imagine Mr. Greeley, who thinks himself, and with reason, a useful man if there ever was one, and whose whole life has been devoted to what he has thought of the highest and most direct use to his fellow-men, hearing this question put in a dreamy way by a poet,—a writer of verse,—probably the last man in America whom Mr. Greeley would consider 'useful.' '' But my old admiration for the great editor came back in a strong tide, and if I was ever eloquent it was in showing Mr. Longfellow how great, how real, how sincere, and in the highest degree how useful Mr. Greeley had been.

Another man of note whom I met in those days was Judge Rockwood Hoar, afterward named by General Grant Attorney-General of the United States, noted as a profound lawyer of pungent wit and charming humor, the delight of his friends and the terror of his enemies. I saw him first at Harvard during a competition for the Boylston prize at which we were fellow-judges. All the speaking was good, some of it admirable; but the especially remarkable pieces were two. First of these was a recital of Washington Irving's "Broken Heart,'' by an undergraduate from the British provinces, Robert Alder McLeod. Nothing could be more simple and perfect in its way; nothing more free from any effort at orating; all was in the most quiet and natural manner possible. The second piece was a rendering of Poe's "Bells,'' and was a most amazing declamation, the different sorts of bells being indicated by changes of voice ranging from basso profondo to the highest falsetto, and the feelings aroused in the orator being indicated by modulations which must have cost him months of practice.

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER IX

GENERAL GRANT AND SANTO DOMINGO—1868-1871

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

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

It had been his wont for many years, when he came home to cast his vote, to meet his neighbors on the eve of the election and give his views of the situation and of its resultant duties. These occasions had come to be anticipated with the deepest interest by the whole region round about, and what had begun as a little gathering of neighors had now become such an assembly that the largest hall in the place was crowded with voters of all parties.

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

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

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

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

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

Our first business was the choice of a president for the convention, and, as it had been decided by the State committee to present for that office the name of one of the most respected judges in the State, the Honorable Platt Potter, of Schenectady, it was naturally expected that some member of the regular organization would present his name in a dignified speech. But hardly had the chairman of the State committee called the convention to order when the aforesaid Tammany Republican, having heard that Judge Potter was to be elected, thought evidently that he could gain recognition and applause by being the first to present his name. He therefore rushed for- ward, and almost before the chairman had declared the convention opened, cried out: "Mr. Chairman, I move you, sir, that the Honorable 'Pot Platter' be made president of this convention.'' A scream of laughter went up from all parts of the house, and in an instant a gentleman rose and moved to amend by making the name "Platt Potter.'' This was carried, and the proposer of the original motion retired crestfallen to his seat.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This reminds me that some years later, my old college friend, Colonel William Preston Johnston, president of Tulane University, told me a story which throws light upon that collapse of the Confederacy. Colonel Johnston was at that period the military secretary of President Davis, and, as the catastrophe approached, was much vexed at the interminable debates in the Confederate Congress. Among the subjects of these discussions was the great seal of the Confederacy. It had been decided to adopt for this purpose a relief representing Crawford's statue of Washington at Richmond, with the Southern statesmen and soldiers surrounding it; but though all agreed that Washington, in his Continental costume, and holding in his hand his cocked hat, should retain the central position, there were many differences of opinion as to the surrounding portraits, the result being that motions were made to strike out this or that revolutionary hero from one State and to replace him by another from another State, thus giving rise to lengthy eulogies of these various personages, so that the whole thing resembled the discussions in metaphysical theology by the Byzantines at the time when the Turks were forcing their way through the walls of Constantinople. One day, just before the final catastrophe, Mr. Judah Benjamin, formerly United States senator, but at that time the Confederate secretary of state, passed through Colonel Johnston's office, and the following dialogue took place.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I trust that it may be allowed me here to recall an incident which ought to have been given in a preceding chapter. During one of my earlier visits to the National Capital, I made the acquaintance of Senator McDougal. His distorted genius had evidently so dazzled his fellow- citizens of California that, in spite of his defects, they had sent him to the highest council of the Nation. He was a martyr to conviviality, and when more or less under the sway of it, had strange ideas and quaint ways of expressing them. His talk recalled to me a time in my child- hood when, having found a knob of glass, twisted, striated with different colors, and filled with air bubbles, I enjoyed looking at the landscape through it. Everything became grotesquely transfigured. A cabbage in the foreground became opalescent, and an ear of corn a mass of jewels, but the whole atmosphere above and beyond was lurid, and the chimneys and church spires were topsy-turvy.

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER X

THE GREELEY CAMPAIGN—1872

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

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

It had already been noised abroad that there was a movement on foot to make him a candidate for the Presidency, and many who knew the characteristics of the man, even those who, like myself, had been greatly influenced by him and regarded him as by far the foremost editorial writer that our country had ever produced, looked upon this idea with incredulity. For of all patriotic men in the entire country who had touched public affairs Horace Greeley seemed the most eminently unfit for executive duties. He was notoriously, in business matters, the easy prey of many who happened to get access to him;— the "long-haired men and short-haired women'' of the country seemed at times to have him entirely under their sway; his hard-earned money, greatly needed by himself and his family, was lavished upon ne'er-do-weels and cast into all sorts of impracticable schemes. He made loans to the discarded son of the richest man whom the United States had at that time produced, and in every way showed himself an utterly incompetent judge of men. It was a curious fact that lofty as were his purposes, and noble as were his main characteristics, the best men of the State—men like Seward, Weed, Judge Folger, Senator Andrews, General Leavenworth, Elbridge Spaulding, and other really thoughtful, solid, substantial advisers of the Republican party—were disliked by him, and yet no other reason could be assigned than this:—that while they all admired him as a writer, they could not be induced to pretend that they considered him fit for high executive office, either in the State or Nation. On the other hand, so far as politics were concerned, his affections seemed to be lavished on politicians who flattered and coddled him. Of this the rise of Governor Fenton was a striking example. Doubtless there were exceptions to this rule, but it was the rule nevertheless. This was clearly and indeed comically shown at the reception given him in Union Square on the evening referred to. Mr. Greeley appeared at a front window of a house on the Broadway side and came out upon a temporary platform. His appearance is deeply stamped upon my memory. He was in a rather slouchy evening dress, his white hair thrown back off his splendid forehead, and his broad, smooth, kindly features as serene as the face of a big, well-washed baby.