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Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1

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Title: Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1

Author: George S. Boutwell


        
Release date: November 16, 2006 [eBook #19828]
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Language: English

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[Transcriber's notes:
Footnotes are at the end of the chapter.
The author's spelling of names has been retained.
A few commas have been deleted or moved for clarity.]

REMINISCENCES
OF
SIXTY YEARS IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS
VOLUME I

[Frontispiece:  v1.jpg]
From a photograph by Purdy, of Boston.  Copyright, 1896.
[signature] Geo: S. Boutwell

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

Volume One

New York
McClure, Phillips & Co.
Mcmii

_Copyright, 1902, by_
McClure, Phillips & Co.

_Published May, 1902. N._

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
PRELIMINARY NOTE
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

    I  Incidents of my Early Life
   II  Life as a Store-boy and Clerk
  III  Changes and Progress
   IV  Schools and School-keeping
    V  Groton in 1835
   VI  Groton in 1835--Continued
  VII  Beginnings in Business
 VIII  First Experience in Politics
   IX  The Election of 1840
    X  Massachusetts Men in the Forties
   XI  The Election of 1842, and the Dorr Rebellion
  XII  The Legislature of 1847
 XIII  Legislative Session of 1848--Funeral of John Quincy Adams
  XIV  The Legislature of 1849
   XV  Massachusetts Politics and Massachusetts Politicians, 1850-51
         and 1852
  XVI  Acton Monument
 XVII  Sudbury Monument
XVIII  Louis Kossuth
  XIX  The Coalition and the State Constitutional Convention of 1853
   XX  The Year 1854
  XXI  Organization of the Republican Party in Massachusetts in 1855,
         and the Events Preceding the War
 XXII  As Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education
XXIII  Phi Beta Kappa Address at Cambridge
 XXIV  The Peace Convention of 1861
  XXV  The Opening of the War
 XXVI  The Military Commission of 1862 and General Fremont
XXVII  Organization of the Internal Revenue System in the United States


INTRODUCTION

At the request of my daughter and my son and by the advice of my
friends, the Honorable J. C. Bancroft Davis and the Honorable William
A. Richardson, I am venturing upon the task of giving a sketch of my
experiences in life during three fourths of a century.  The wisdom of
such an undertaking is not outside the realm of debate.  A large part
of my manhood has been spent in the politics of my native state, and
in the politics of the country.  For many years I have had the fortune
to be associated with those in whose hands the chief powers were
lodged.  I have been a witness of, and in some cases an actor in,
events that have changed the character of the institutions and affected
the fortunes of the country.  Those events and their consequences must
in time disturb, if they do not change, the institutions of other
countries.

In the course of this long period I have had opportunities to know
some of the principal actors in those important events.  In a few
cases I am in possession of knowledge not now in the possession of any
other person living.  These considerations may in some degree justify
my undertaking.

On the other hand I have not kept a record of events, and I have had
occasion often, especially in the practice of my profession, to notice
the imperfections of the human memory.  Much that I shall write must
depend upon the fidelity of that faculty, although in some cases my
recollections may be verified or corrected by the public records.

The recollections of actors, when those recollections are reported in
good faith, constitute quite as safe a basis for an historical
judgment as do the diaries in which are noted present impressions.
Usually the writer of a diary has only an imperfect knowledge of the
subject to which the entries relate.  If he is himself an actor in
passing events he makes and leaves a record colored and perhaps tainted
by the personal and political passions of the times.  The teachings of
experience and that more moderate view of events, which we sometimes
call philosophy and sometimes the wisdom of age, may warrant the
student and the historian in giving credence to mere recollections.

The writer of a diary takes little note of the importance of the events
to which the entries relate.  Persons and events become important or
cease to be important by the progress of time, but the life of an
individual is an adequate period usually for the formation of a
judgment.  I cannot assume that it will be my fortune to make a wise
selection in all cases.  Important events may be omitted, insignificant
circumstances may be recorded.

I assume that my family and friends will take an interest in matters
that are purely personal:  therefore I shall record many incidents and
events that do not concern the public.


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

_PRELIMINARY NOTE

In the presence of some misgivings as to the propriety of my course, I
have decided to print the article on my Life as a Lawyer, as it appears
in the "Memoirs of the Judiciary and the Bar of New England" (for
January, 1901), published by the Century Memorial Publishing Company,
Boston, Mass.

Many of the facts were furnished by me.  The article was written by W.
Stanley Child, Esq., but it was not seen by me, nor was its existence
known to me until it appeared in the published work.  The paper in
manuscript and in proof was read and passed by the editors, Messrs.
Conrad Keno and Leonard A. Jones, Esquires.  The words of commendation
are not mine, and it is manifest that any change made by me would place
the responsibility upon me for what might remain.  Hence I reprint the
paper with only two or three changes where I have observed errors in
statements of facts._

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH [*]

George Sewall Boutwell, LL. D., Boston and Groton, the first
commissioner of internal revenue, secretary of the treasury under
President Grant, and for many years one of the leading international
lawyers, is the son of Sewall and Rebecca (Marshall) Boutwell, and was
born in Brookline, Mass., in what is now the old part of the Country
Club house, January 28, 1818.  He comes from old and respected
Massachusetts stock, being a lineal descendant of James Boutwell, who
was admitted a freeman in Lynn in 1638, and of John Marshall, who
came to Boston in the shop _Hopewell_ in 1634.  The family has always
represented the sterling qualities of typical New Englanders.
Tradition asserts that one of his paternal ancestors received a grant
of land for services in King Philip's War.  His maternal grandfather,
Jacob Marshall, was the inventor of the cotton press, an invention
originally made, however, for pressing hops.  His father, Sewall
Boutwell, removed with his family in 1820 from Brookline to Lunenburg,
Mass., where he held several town offices; he was a member of the
Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1843 and 1844 and of the
Constitutional Convention of 1853.

Mr. Boutwell attended in his early years a public school in Lunenburg,
where he became a clerk in a general store at the age of thirteen, thus
gaining a practical as well as a theoretical knowledge of affairs.
Later he supplemented this experience by teaching school at Shirley.
He also studied the classics, and in various ways improved every
opportunity for advancement which limited circumstances afforded.  In
1835 he went to Groton, Mass., as clerk in a store.  But to be a
lawyer was his dream before he had ever seen a lawyer.  Endowed with
unusual intellectual ability, which has been one of his chief
characteristics from boyhood, he felt himself instinctively drawn to
the legal profession, and as early as possible entered his name as
a student at law.

In 1839 he was chosen a member of the Groton School Committee, and
in 1840 he was an active Democrat, advocating the re-election of
Martin Van Buren to the Presidency.  In the meantime he delivered a
number of important lectures and political speeches, his first lecture
being given before the Groton Lyceum when he was nineteen, and he was
now rapidly gaining a reputation in public affairs, in which he early
took a deep interest.  In January, 1842, he became a member of the
lower House of the Massachusetts Legislature from Groton, and for ten
years thereafter his law studies were neglected.  He served during the
sessions of 1842, 1843, 1844, 1847, 1848, 1849 and 1850, and was also
at different times a railroad commissioner, a bank commissioner, and a
member of various other commissions of the commonwealth.

As a member of the House he made many important arguments that were
legal in name if not in fact.  One related to the Act of the
Legislature of 1843, by which the salaries of the judges were reduced,
and another upon a bill for the amendment of the charter of Harvard
College.  On the latter question, which was in controversy for three
years, his opponents were Judge Benjamin R. Curtis and Hon. Samuel
Hoar.

Mr. Boutwell originated the movement for a change in the college
government, which was effected by a compromise in 1851.  Chief Justice
Lemuel Shaw, a member of the corporation, wrote an answer to his
argument.  This led to Mr. Boutwell's appointment in 1851 as a member
of the Harvard College Board of Overseers, which position he filled
until 1860.  In January, 1851, he became Governor of Massachusetts by
a fusion of the Democratic and Free-soil members of the Legislature,
and in 1852 was re-elected by the same body.  He served in that
capacity until January, 1853, a period of two years, and discharged
the duties of the office with ability, dignity, and honor.  As a
member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1853, Mr.
Boutwell had further and better opportunities to make the acquaintance
and to observe the ways of the leading lawyers of the State.

At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1853, Governor
Boutwell entered the law office of Joel Giles, who was engaged in
practice under the patent laws, and who as a mechanic and lawyer was
a well-equipped practitioner in Boston.  As a counselor in patent cases
Mr. Giles had few equals.  It was then Mr. Boutwell's purpose to pursue
the study and engage in the practice of the patent laws as a specialty,
but in October, 1855, without any solicitation and indeed without the
slightest knowledge on his part, he was chosen secretary of the
Massachusetts Board of Education, of which he had been a member from
1853.  With much uncertainty as to the wisdom of his action in
accepting the place, he entered upon his duties and faithfully and
efficiently discharged them until January 1, 1861, although he had
tendered his resignation in 1859.  His annual reports have always been
regarded as models of preparation, and that of 1861--the twenty-fourth
--contains a notable commentary on the school laws of the commonwealth.
He continued as a member of the board until 1863.

After several years Mr. Boutwell severed his relations with Mr. Giles,
and upon his admission to the Suffolk bar in January, 1862, on motion
of the late Judge Josiah Gardner Abbott, he began active practice in
Boston.  His first jury case was before the late Judge Charles Allen,
of Worcester, yet at that time he had never seen a jury trial from the
opening to the close.  Mr. Boutwell had scarcely entered upon his
professional career when he was called to assume a most important place
in national affairs, and one that was destined to keep him in close
relations with the Federal Government at Washington for many years
afterward.

Among the historical events, originating in the Civil War, was the
passage of the act "to provide internal revenue to support the
government and to pay interest on the public debt," approved July 1,
1862.  Mr. Boutwell organized the Office of Internal Revenue and was
the first internal revenue commissioner, receiving his appointment
while at Cairo in the service of the War Department.  He arrived in
Washington July 16, and entered upon his duties the following day.
Within a few days the Secretary of the Treasury assigned him a single
clerk, then a second, and afterward a third, and the clerical force was
increased from time to time until at his resignation of the office of
commissioner on March 3, 1863, it numbered 140 persons.  To him is due
its organization upon a basis which has more than fulfilled the most
cherished hopes and expectations of those who conceived the idea and
which has furnished from the first a valuable source of revenue for
the government with little hardship or unnecessary friction among the
people at large.  The stamp tax took effect nominally on the 1st of
October, 1862, less than two and one-half months after Mr. Boutwell
entered upon his duties as commissioner, yet before he resigned, five
months later, he had the office so well established, and its work so
thoroughly organized throughout the United States, that its usefulness
was assured and it has continued to the present time practically the
same lines that he laid down.  In July, 1863, three months after he
retired from the office, he published a volume of 500 pages, entitled
"A Manual of the Direct and Excise Tax System of the United States,"
which included the act itself, the forms and regulations established
by him, his decisions and rulings, extracts from the correspondence of
the office, and much other valuable information bearing on the subject.
This work has ever been accepted as authority, and still forms the
basis of the government of the internal revenue system.

Before Mr. Boutwell was admitted to the bar he was retained by the
county commissioners of Middlesex County to appear before a
legislative committee of the years 1854 and 1855 against the division
of that county and the erection of a new county to be called the county
of Webster with Fitchburg for the shire.  Emory Washburn appeared for
Worcester County and Rufus Choate for Fitchburg and the new county.
The application failed in 1855 and again in 1856.  Mr. Boutwell's
arguments on this petition, made March 25, 1855, and April 23, 1856,
were remarkable for power and eloquence, and largely influenced the
final result.

From 1862 to 1869 he was retained in many causes, the most important
of which was the controversy over the contract between the commonwealth
and Gen. Herman Haupt for the construction of the Hoosac Tunnel.  The
hearing before a legislative committee occupied about twenty days and
ended in the annulment of the contract.  For several years Mr. Boutwell
was associated in Boston with J. Q. A. Griffin.  Afterward he was in
partnership with Henry F. French until 1869, when he became Secretary
of the Treasury in the Cabinet of President Grant.  He filled this
position with great ability for four years, originating and
promulgating, among other measures, the plan of refunding the public
debt.  During that period he made but one argument, when he appeared
in the Supreme Court on the appeal by his client of a patent case, of
which he had had charge from the beginning.  From 1863 to 1869 he had
been a member of the 38th, 39th, 40th and 41st Congresses, serving on
the committees on the judiciary and on reconstruction, and being
chairman for a time of the latter body.  While representing his
district in Congress Mr. Boutwell gained considerable experience in
the proceedings against President Andrew Johnson, who was impeached for
high crimes and misdemeanors, and he was selected as one of the
managers on the part of the House.  In a remarkably brilliant speech
before the House on December 5 and 6, 1867, he maintained the doctrine
that the president and all other civil officers could be impeached for
acts that were not indictable, although the contrary was held by many
eminent lawyers, including President Dwight, of Columbia College, who
wrote a treatise in support of his theory.  But the House preferred
articles that did not allege an indictable offence and the Senate
sustained them by a vote of thirty-five to eighteen, one less than the
number necessary for conviction.  On April 22 and 23, 1868, Mr.
Boutwell, on behalf of the managers, addressed the Senate, delivering
one of the strongest and ablest arguments on record, and thus
completing, as a lawyer, the most exhaustive labor he ever attempted.
He was a member of the Committee of Fifteen which reported the
Fourteenth Amendment, and while serving on the committee on the
judiciary he reported and carried through the House the Fifteenth
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

In 1873 Mr. Boutwell was chosen United States Senator from
Massachusetts to fill the unexpired term of Hon. Henry Wilson, who had
been elected Vice-President.  He continued in the Senate until 1877,
when he was appointed by President Hayes, through Gen. Charles Devens,
then Attorney-General, commissioner to revise the statutes of the
United States.  That great work was completed and the volume was
published in the autumn of 1878.  Some idea of the labor involved in
this undertaking may be gained from the index, which contains over
25,000 references.  In 1878 Mr. Boutwell returned to Boston and resumed
the practice of law.  In 1880 William M. Evarts, then Secretary of
State, and President Hayes, asked him to accept the position of counsel
and agent for the United States before a Board of International
Arbitrators created by a treaty ratified in June, 1880, between the
United States and France, for the settlement of claims against each
government by citizens of the other government.  The claims of French
citizens, 726 in number, arose from the operations of the Union armies
in the South, principally in and around New Orleans, during the Civil
War, and the consideration of them occupied four years.  The counsel
and the commissioners were called to the discussion of treaties, of
international law, of citizenship, of the Legislation of France, of the
rights of war, and of the conduct of military officers and military
tribunals.  The claims amounted to $35,000,000, including interest; the
recoveries amount to about $625,000; the defence cost the Government
about $500,000; the record is contained in ninety printed volumes of
about one thousand pages each and the pleas and arguments of counsel
for the two governments fill eight large volumes.  Mr. Boutwell's own
arguments cover more than 1,100 pages.  Many of these cases rank as
_causes celebre,_ notably those of Archbishop Joseph Napoleon Perche,
No. 3; Henri Dubos, No. 26; Joseph Bauillotte, No. 130; Bleze Motte,
No. 131; Theodore Valade, No. 214; Pierre S. Wiltz, No. 313; Remy
Jardel, No. 333; Etienne Derbee, No. 339; Arthur Vallon, No. 394;
David Kuhnagel, No. 438; Dr. Denis Meng, No. 567; Azoline Gautherin,
No. 590; Oscar Chopin, No. 592; S. Aruns Sorrel, No. 594, in which he
probably made the best argument of his career; Jules Le More, No. 595;
Athenais C. Le More, No. 598; Mary Ann Texier, No. 569; and Charles
Heidsieck, No. 691.  That of Theodore Valade, No. 214, was a full
account of the battle of Donaldsonville, and those of Archbishop
Perche, David Kuhnagel, and many other involved intricate and
interesting questions of citizenship as well as damages for the
destruction of property.  On May 10, 1884, Mr. Boutwell made an
exhaustive and final report on all these claims to the Secretary of
State, Hon. Frederick T. Frelinghuysen.

Mr. Boutwell was one of the counsel for the government of Hayti in the
celebrated case of Antonio Pelletier against that republic in 1885, and
made a most interesting oral argument.  This case was a romance of the
sea as well as of international importance, involving a claim of
$2,500,000 and questions of piracy and slave trading.  In 1893-94 Mr.
Boutwell was retained as counsel on the part of Chili to defend their
government before an international commission created under a treaty
with the United States signed August 7, 1892.  About forty cases were
presented, involving $26,300,000, and the final report was submitted
April 30, 1894.  Among the more important were those of Gilbert B.
Borden, No. 9, and Frederick H. Lovett et al., No. 43, against the
Republic of Chili.  These as well as nearly all the others were argued
by him with a brilliancy and eloquence that has marked his entire
career at the bar.  Of the five courts martial that were held in
Washington between 1880 and 1892 for the trial of officers of the army
and navy Mr. Boutwell was retained for the defence in four cases, in
three of which the accused were convicted and in the other honorably
acquitted.  In 1886 he was retained by the Mormon Church to appear
before the judiciary committee of the House of Representatives against
the Edmunds bill, which was modified in particulars pointed out in the
discussion.  The same year he appeared before the House committee on
foreign affairs for the government of Hawaii in opposition to the
project for abrogating the treaty of 1875.

Mr. Boutwell's pleas and arguments have with few exceptions been
published in book or pamphlet form, or both, and form of themselves a
most valuable and interesting addition to legal literature.  They bear
evidence of a profound knowledge of the law, of vast research and of
great literary ability.  Among others may be mentioned those upon a
petition to the Massachusetts Legislature for the removal of Joseph M.
Day as judge of probate and insolvency for Barnstable County in March,
1881; in the matter of the Pacific National Bank of Boston before the
banking and currency committee of the United State House of
Representatives, March 22, 1884; and for the claimant in the case of
the Berdan Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company of New York vs. the United
States.  He is the author of "Educational Topics and Institutions,"
1859; "Speeches Relating to the Rebellion and the Overthrow of
Slavery," collected and published in 1867; "Why I am a Republican," a
history of the Republican Party to 1884, republished in 1888; "The
Lawyer, Statesman and Soldier," 1887; and the "Constitution of the
United States," embracing the substance of the leading decisions of the
Supreme Court in which the several articles, sections and clauses have
been examined, explained and interpreted, 1896.  In 1888 he wrote a
pamphlet on "Protection as a Public Policy," for the American
Protective Tariff League; on April 2, 1889, he read a paper on "The
Progress of American Independence," before the New York Historical
Society; and in February, 1896, he published a pamphlet on "The
Venezuelan Question and the Monroe Doctrine."

Mr. Boutwell has probably argued more cases involving international law
than any other living man, and in this department ranks among the
ablest and strongest that this country has ever produced.  For more
than forty years he was a prominent figure before the bar of the United
States Courts at Washington, where he achieved eminence as an advocate
of the highest ability.  He was uniformly successful, and won a
reputation which was not confined to this country.  He is an authority
on international and constitutional law.  His published writings stamp
him as a profound student of public questions and a man of rare
literary culture and genius.  He was a strong Abolitionist, and as
lawyer, statesman and citizen he has faithfully and efficiently
performed his duties and won the confidence of both friends and
opponents.  In politics he has been a leader of the Republican Party
since its organization.  He was a delegate to the Chicago Conventions
of 1860 and 1880, and was chosen a delegate to the Baltimore
Convention of 1864, but declined.  He was elected a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1857 and of the Phi Beta Kappa
Society of Harvard College in June, 1861, at which time he delivered
the Phi Beta Kappa oration.  In 1851 Harvard conferred upon him the
honorary degree of LL. D., and in 1861 he was a member of the Peace
Congress at Washington.

Mr. Boutwell was married July 8, 1841, to Sarah Adelia, daughter of
Nathan Thayer of Hollis, N. H..  Their children are Georgianna A., born
May 18, 1843, and Francis M., born February 26, 1847.  Mr. Boutwell
resides in Groton, Mass.

_The eighth day of July, 1891, Mr. Boutwell's family and friends
celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his marriage with Sarah Adelia
Thayer, daughter of Nathan and Hannah Jewett Thayer, of Hollis, N. H.;
and on the eighth day of July, 1901, the family observed the sixtieth
anniversary, but without ceremony, as Mrs. Boutwell was much impaired
in health._

[* Copyright, 1900, by the Mason Publishing and Printing Co.]


REMINISCENCES
OF
SIXTY YEARS IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS
VOLUME I


I
INCIDENTS OF MY EARLY LIFE

My birthplace was at Brookline, Mass., near Boston, upon a farm in my
father's charge, and then owned by a Dr. Spooner of Boston.  The place
has had many owners and it has been used for various purposes.  In 1851
and 1852 it was owned by a Dr. Trowbridge, who had a fancy for fine
horses.  Upon my election to the office of Governor, and when he had
learned that I was born upon his place, he insisted that I should use a
large black stallion in the review of the troops at the annual parade.
The animal was of fine figure but not so subdued as to be manageable.
In one of those years General Wool came to Boston, upon an invitation
to review the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company on Boston Common.
I assigned the Trowbridge horse to General Wool.  The General rode him
for a minute or two, when he left the saddle and the reviewing officers
went through the ceremony on foot.  Since those days the Spooner place
has been converted into a trotting course known as Clyde Park, and the
house is now used as a clubhouse by an association known as the Country
Club.

When I was about twenty-five years of age I was present at a temperance
meeting at Lowell, held in an unfinished factory building called the
Prescott Mills.  After some speaking, in which I had taken a part, the
Rev. Dr. Pierce, then a white-headed gentleman of seventy years, whom
I had seen as an overseer of Harvard College, came to me, introduced
himself, and after a little conversation he asked me where I was born.
When I answered Brookline, on the Dr. Spooner place, he said:  "Oh,
yes, I remember when your father lived there, and I recall a
circumstance to which I think I owe my good health.  Dr. Spooner," said
he, "resided in Boston in the winter and at Brookline in the summer.
When he was at Brookline he had a child to be christened, and he
preferred to have the city minister perform the ceremony.  After the
service we were invited to dine at Dr. Spooner's, and that minister ate
so unmercifully of everything upon the table, that I then and there
resolved that I would eat but one kind of meat at a meal, and I think
my good health is due in a measure to that resolution."  I made no
resolution, but the circumstance produced an impression upon me, and in
the main I have observed his rule.  In seventy-seven years, within my
recollection, I have lain in bed but seven days.

In April, 1820, when I was hardly more than two years of age, my father
moved to Lunenburg, Worcester County, and settled upon a farm, a mile
south-west of the village, which he had bought of Phinehas Carter, then
an old man, who had been opulent as a farmer for the time and place,
but whose estates had been wasted by a moderate sort of intemperance,
by idleness, and family expenses.  The house was large, well built for
the times, finished with clear, unpainted white pine, with dado work in
the front rooms below and in the chambers above.  It was situated on
the southern brow of a hill, and commanded a view of the Wachusett
mountain, and the hills to the west, south and east over an expanse of
twenty miles in every direction, except the northern half of the
circle.  At a distance of eighty or one hundred rods from the house lay
the Whalom pond, a body of clear, deep spring water, of more than a
hundred acres.  The farm contained one hundred and thirteen acres of
land, somewhat rocky, but in quality better than the average New
England farms.  At the time of the purchase one-half of the acres were
woodland with heavy timber.

My father relied upon that timber to meet the debt of one thousand
dollars which rested upon the place.  In those days wood and timber
were abundant and money was scarce.  If the building of railroads could
have been foreseen and the timber saved for twenty-five years it would
have risen to twice the value of the farm at the time of the purchase.
My father's anxiety to be relieved of the debt was so great that he
made sales of wood and timber as he had the opportunity, but the
proceeds, after much hard labor had been added, were very
insignificant.  As a result, the most valuable part of the timber was
sold for ship-building, or to the coopers, or converted into boards
and shingles, and a remnant of the debt remained for twenty years.

The farm yielded ample supplies of meat, milk, butter, cheese, grain,
fruit, and vegetables, but groceries and clothing were difficult to
procure after such supplies were had as could be obtained by barter.
Once or twice, or possibly three times a year, my father drove an ox-
team or a team of one pair of oxen and one horse to Boston with cider,
apples, a hog or two, and poultry.  The returns enabled him to pay his
taxes, the interest on the debt, and perhaps something over.

Until the introduction of the cotton and woolen manufactures, and
indeed, until the building of railways, the farmers of Massachusetts
had only limited means of comfort.  Their houses were destitute of
furniture, except of the plainest sort.  Of upholstered furniture they
had none.  Except a few school books for the children and the family
Bible there was no reading matter, unless in favored neighborhoods, a
weekly paper carried the news to two or three families that were joint
subscribers.  The mails were infrequent, and the postage on letters,
based on the pieces of paper instead of weight, varied from six and one
fourth cents for all distances within thirty miles to twenty-five cents
for distances of four hundred miles or more.  Intermediate rates were
ten, twelve and a half, and eighteen and three fourths cents.  These
rates existed when mechanics could command only one dollar a day, and
when ordinary laborers could earn only fifty cents or seventy-five
cents--except in the haying season, when good mowers could command one
dollar.  Servant girls and nurses received from one dollar to one
dollar and fifty cents per week.  At the same time every variety of
clothing was much more expensive than it now is, unless shoes and hats
are exceptions.

My father was the best farmer in the neighborhood.  He had been
employed in the nursery and vegetable gardening at Newton, and for five
years he had had charge of the farm of Madam Coffin at Newton Corner,
widow of the Hon. Peleg Coffin, who had been a member of Congress from
Nantucket.  In a few years we had a supply of cherries, peaches, and
choice apples.  As my father understood budding and grafting tress, his
improved fruits were distributed to others.  I acquired the art of
budding when I could not have been more than ten years of age, and
before I left home at the age of thirteen, I had practised the art in
the village and on the trees of the neighbors.

Previous to 1830 the era of invention had not opened, and the articles
by whose aid domestic comfort has been promoted were unknown.  The only
means of cooking were the open fire and the brick oven.  Meat for
roasting was suspended by a cord from a hook in the ceiling in front of
the open fire and over a dripping pan.  The children found amusement
and became useful in twisting the cord and then allowing the weight of
the meat to untwist it.  Even fire in the summer was obtained and kept
with difficulty.  There were no friction matches and not infrequently
a child was sent on a flying visit to a neighbor's house to borrow
fire.  Indeed, the habit of borrowing and lending extended to nearly
every movable thing that any one possessed.  Tools, food, especially
fresh meat, the labor of men, oxen and horses were borrowed and lent.
Farming tools were few in number and rude in construction.  Many of
them were made upon the farms, either by the farmers themselves, or by
the help of poorly instructed mechanics.  The modern plough was
unknown.  Hay and manure forks, scythes, hoes, were so rough, uncouth
and heavy that they would now be rejected by the commonest laborer.  As
early as 1830 by father bought a cast-iron plough; it was the wonder of
the neighborhood and the occasion of many prophecies that were to be
falsified by events.

My father was a practical man and a gentleman by nature.  With him
civility was innate.  He was a close observer and something of a
philosopher.  I recall his statement made in my childhood that matter
was indestructible.  He was of even temper, and of an imperturbable
spirit.  His paternal ancestor on this side of the Atlantic was made a
freeman at Lynn in 1638.  Of his arrival in the country there is no
record.  From that date there had been no marriage except into English
families.  My father was purely English.  My mother, whose family name
was Marshall, and who was a descendant of John Marshall who came in the
_Hopewell_, Captain Babb, in 1635, was English also through all her
ancestors from John Marshall.

My father enjoyed the respect and confidence of his fellow citizens and
he held many of the offices of the town and for many years.  In 1843
and 1844 he was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives
and in 1853 he was a member of the Constitutional Convention.  I was
also a member of the same bodies, and the association with my father
under such peculiar circumstances is one of the pleasant recollections
of my life.*  My mother belonged to a family of unusual intellectual
endowment, and of great rigidity of opinion.  Her father, Jacob
Marshall, was a student by tendency and habit, a stone mason and farmer
by occupation, and the inventor of the press used for pressing hops and
cotton in square bales.  He lived to be more than eighty years of age,
was twice married, and had a large family of children whom he educated
and trained as well as children could be trained and educated at the
close of the last century in a country town in northern Massachusetts.

For the last fifty years of his life he devoted himself to the study of
the bible and such works of history as he could command.  His knowledge
of the bible was so great that he was an oracle in the town, although
he departed from the popular faith and became a Universalist.  He lived
comfortably and without hard work, and in the later years of his life
he became the owner of two farms in the northerly part of Lunenburg.
As I recollect him and his farms he could not have been a good farmer.
His crop was hops, and that crop always commanded money, at a time when
it was unusual to realize money for farm produce.

As my father's house was a mile from the District School, and as there
was a school within twenty or thirty rods of my grandfather's house, I
was sent to my grandfather's for my first winter's schooling.  I think
it must have been the winter of 1823-4.  The teacher was Ithamar
Butters, called Dr. Butters from the circumstance that he had studied
medicine for a time with Dr. Aaron Bard, a physician in the village.
Of Dr. Butters as a teacher I remember little.  He became a disbeliever
in the Bible--an agnostic of those days.  I recollect a remark of his
made many years after:  That he would prefer the worst hell to
annihilation, which he believed would be his fate.

I learned to read by standing in front of my mother as she read the
Bible.  Of course all the letters were inverted, and the faculty of
reading an inverted page, has remained.

I went to the District School summer and winter, until I was ten years
of age, and to the winter school until I passed my seventeenth
birthday, when my school life ended.  My father and mother were
scrupulous about my attendance, and I cannot recall that I was ever
allowed to be absent during the school term either for work or pleasure.

When I reached the age of ten years I was kept on the farm during the
summer months, until I left home in December, 1830.  In those days
farmers' boys did not enjoy the luxury of shoes in the summer, nor
indeed in the autumn season.  More than once I picked chestnuts bare-
footed and often I have tended the oxen in the mowing field frosty
mornings and warmed my feet by standing on a stone.

Once only during my home life did I go to Boston with my father.  He
carried poultry in a one-horse wagon.  I accompanied him.  The year may
have been 1828, or '9 or '30.  On our way he stopped at one of the
Waltham cotton factories to see a niece of my father who was there at
work.  We lodged that night at the house of Madam Coffin.  She was then
already old in my sight.  She seemed pleased with my father's visit,
and the impression left upon my mind is that we were entertained with
marked consideration.  My father had managed her farm for about five
years from 1809 to 1814, when he volunteered for service in the army,
and for ninety days he was on the island then known as Fort Warren.

The next morning we reached Boston and stationed our wagon at the
northwest corner of Quincy Market, where we sold our poultry.  During
the day my father had occasion to go to the store of Joseph Mead, at
the corner of Lyman Place, and I was left in charge of the wagon.  I
had the fortune to sell some of the poultry.  My father thought that
the proceeds in money did not equal the decrease in stock, and so it
proved--for the next Sunday morning when I dressed for meeting I found
a two dollar bill in my trousers' pocket.

That night we spent with Captain Hyde, at Newton Corner.  During the
first year of my father's married life he had carried on a farm on the
opposite side of the highway, and it was from Captain Hyde that he
obtained his knowledge of budding and grafting, and some knowledge of
the art of gardening.  They always continued friends; Captain Hyde came
to my father's, in after years, and supplied our farm with the best
varieties of cherry, peach and apple trees.

The day following we went to Brighton where my father purchased the
remnant of a drove of cattle that had been driven from the State of
Maine--twenty-four in number.  Of these nine were oxen and the rest
were young animals between two and four years of age, and all were
bought for the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars.  My father was
then the overseer of the almshouse, and the purchase was primarily for
that establishment, but some of the animals were sold to the neighbors.
The result of the purchase was to me a short experience as a drover.

As I recollect the experiences of my life on my father's farm, there
were many amusements and relaxations mingled with the hardships.  In
the winter the house was cold, with only open fires for warming rooms.
We had, however, an abundance of wood, and in the evenings a supply of
cider, apples and nuts for ourselves and for the neighbors.  There were
always one or two poor families in the neighborhood who enjoyed the
moderate comforts of our house.  I recall one man, who after a visit
would stop at the pile of wood, near the house, and carry a backload to
his home.  My father often saw the stealing, but the culprit never knew
from any word or act that he had been discovered or suspected.

The ponds and brooks in the vicinity gave us a chance for fishing, and
there was some shooting, especially of pigeons in the autumn.  The oak
forests had not then fallen, and the pigeons were abundant in September
and until there were heavy night frosts, when they would leave for
milder regions.  For several years my father baited pigeons, and caught
them in a net.  To do this we were in the bough-house by daylight.  A
wicked advantage was taken by soaking the grain in anise-seed cordial,
which made the birds noisy and active, thus attracting other pigeons
to the stand.  The device of taking pigeons in a net and wringing their
necks is a brutal business, as is all slaughtering of animals.

From 1820 to 1830 religious controversies were violent and universal.
No one of the towns in Massachusetts was free from them.  Under the
colonial system each town was a religious corporation as well as a
political one.  There was one church and one meetinghouse in each town,
and the parochial expenses were paid from the municipal revenues.  In
1780 when the constitution was adopted, some progress had been made,
but by the Third Article of the Bill of Rights, every citizen was
required to be a member of some religious society.  As a result, new
societies were formed, and in many instances there were so organized
and managed as to avoid expenses.  About the same time attacks were
made upon the Third Article of the Bill of Rights, and after an excited
controversy covering many years, the constitution was changed in that
respect, by an amendment in the nature of a substitute, which was
adopted by the people at an election held in the month of November,
1833.  By that amendment each citizen was authorized to file a
certificate of non-membership with the clerk of the society of which he
was a member and thereafter he was free from any contract or obligation
of such society thereafter made.

The little town of Lunenburg participated actively in the contest.  My
father advocated the amendment.  At the ancient meetinghouse the
ancient doctrines of future punishment were preached and the literal
inspiration of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation was not questioned.
Those who denied the one or doubted the other were denounced as
infidels.  Religious topics were the leading subjects of conversation,
and the fruitful source of personal and neighborhood controversies.  My
father rejected the doctrine of physical punishment in another state of
existence, and he came to regard the Bible as a record of events, and
the expression of human thought and feeling, rather than as a message
of the Divine will.

Perhaps as early as 1820 the Methodists had organized a church and
secured a place of meeting in the north part of the town on a by-road.
The building was not as good in quality or style as is a modern barn.
My father separated himself from the old society and joined the
Methodist society.  In that organization each one paid what he chose.
I recollect attending meetings in the old barn, but the distance was
great and the inconveniences were numerous.  The converts could endure
the inconveniences, but as my father was not a convert nor a believer
his interest was slight.  Afterwards, however, the Methodists built a
meetinghouse in the village, and for several years we had seats and
attended the services.  Once in two or three years the denomination
held camp meetings in the autumn and the work of conversions would go
on rapidly.  The scenes were such as are now reported of the negro
race in the states of the South.  Young girls would shout, crying out
that they had found Jesus, fall down, and lie senseless, or at least
speechless, for many minutes.  After brief periods of excitement many
of the converts returned to their old ways of life, neither better nor
worse.

During these years the Universalists held meetings at Shirley Village,
quite eight miles away.  My father attended occasionally, and not
infrequently I went with him.  I had therefore the opportunity to hear
the great preachers of the denomination--Russell Streeter, Sebastian
Streeter, brothers; Thomas Whittemore, the editor of the _Trumpet_, the
organ of the sect, Hosea Ballou, Walter Balfour, and others whose names
I do not recall.  Balfour was a Scotchman, preaching with an accent,
and rolling his scalp, from his eyes to the nape of his neck.  The
sermons had two peculiarities.  First the text was examined carefully
and so construed as to show that the author, whether Jesus, Peter, or
Paul, taught the doctrine of universal salvation.  Then came a process
of reasoning designed to show that God could not punish his creatures
in a lake of fire and brimstone.  First, he was all-powerful; next, he
was all-wise; then he was infinitely just, and finally his mercy was
without limit.  Could a being endowed with these attributes consign his
children to unending misery?  From the first I saw the defect in the
process of reasoning.  The premises were not faulty, but given a being
with infinite faculties, could another being, with finite faculties
only, forecast the result of the exercise or operation of the infinite?

The little town was made notorious by the career of the physician, Dr.
Aaron Bard.  He was born in Jaffrey, N. H., about the year 1770.  He
obtained his medical education in part at least, at Troy, N. Y., from
which place he fled to avoid arrest upon the charge of robbing graves.
His parents were rigid believers in the old faith, and in that faith
they had trained the son.  Against that faith the son rebelled, dropped
the second "a" in his baptismal name, and rejected the Scriptures as
not containing divine truth.  As the mass of the people believed
implicitly in the divine origin and plenary inspiration of the Bible, a
disbeliever was denounced as an infidel and punished by social outlawry.

Bard was not a quiet doubter.  He attacked the Bible, ridiculed much of
the Old Testament, accepted controversies with the clergy, although he
attended their families without charge.  His reputation as a physician
was considerable, and although his enemies, who were many, made
repeated efforts to secure a competitor, the wary declined their
invitations, and the credulous were soon driven away by poverty, or the
fear of it.  Bard was a bachelor, lived economically, never presented a
bill, and when he died, about the year 1850, his books were free of
charges.  Before the repeal of the Third Article in the Bill of Rights,
Bard organized a society which by some art of logic was so far
recognized as a religious body as to exempt its members from taxation
in the old parish.  It flourished until the Third Article was annulled,
when it disappeared.  Bard purchased a Hebrew bible, lexicon and
grammar, and proceed to translate parts of the Old Testament,
especially the early chapters in Genesis, and in such manner as to
throw doubt upon the received version.  His Sundays were devoted to
talks in his office, where were gathered a few hearers, some because
they agreed with him, and others because they were interested in
hearing what he had to offer.

He was of small size, hardy, ingenious, and free from meanness.  He
was economical and his ways of business forbade any extravagance.  When
he needed hay or grain for his horses or wood for his fire he called
upon some of the farmers whose physician he was, and obtained a supply.
Beyond this he made no demand for payment, though when it was offered
he accepted it.  Until he was about sixty years of age, he rode on
horseback, and always without an overcoat.  From my thirteenth to my
seventeenth year I was boy and clerk in a store at a distance of less
than five rods from Bard's office.  I saw him constantly.  His
denunciations of Christianity were so violent and unreasonable that
many persons would revolt at the thought of accepting his theories.  He
had followers, however, and the trial of Abner Kneeland for blasphemy
promoted the spread of infidel opinions.  I do not now recollect that
I heard Bard express any opinion as to a future state of existence.  In
that particular he was probably an agnostic.  When in later years I saw
a plaster cast of the head of Voltaire at the Cambridge Museum of
Comparative Anatomy, I was impressed with the resemblance between
Bard's head and that cast.

His success as a physician was due probably to his ingenuity and keen
powers of observation rather than to his learning.  All his faculties
were active, and he appreciated the importance of the laws of progress.
When homeopathy had taken some hold upon public opinion, he said:
"There is nothing in it, but then it has done a great deal of good.  It
has taught us not to give so much medicine.  We killed a great many
people with medicine, but it is several years now since I killed a
man."  This remark was made in 1842 or 1843.

In my boyhood the Rev. David Damon was the minister.  He was a graduate
of Harvard College, a man of learning, of good standing in the
profession, and a satisfactory preacher.  His temper was mild, and it
was not easy for Bard to engage in bitter contests with him.  Mr. Damon
left Lunenburg about 1827, and settled in West Cambridge, where he died
suddenly in the pulpit.  Among the constant attendants upon Mr. Damon's
Sunday services at Lunenburg was a blacksmith named Kimball, who was
afflicted with deafness.  From his trade perhaps he had come to be
called Puffer Kimball.  From a front seat in the meetinghouse he had
ventured upon the pulpit stairs, and finally he had reached the
position of standing on an upper stair, resting his arms upon the desk,
and with his hand to his ear listening to the services from beginning
to end.  In the east part of the town was a farmer named James
Gilchrist, a Scotch Irishman, weighing not less than two hundred and
fifty pounds, and the father of four grown sons who where his equals
in weight, and all of them of great strength.  Gilchrist abandoned the
Sunday meetings and when Mr. Damon asked him for his reason he said he
wouldn't have his religion strained through old Puffer Kimball.

This same Gilchrist had had a controversy ending in a slander suit with
Mr. Damon's predecessor, the Rev. Timothy Flint.  Mr. Flint was a man
of recognized ability, a good preacher, but erratic in his ways.  For
some purpose not well understood, he built a furnace in the cellar of
his house.  His friends maintained that he was engaged in scientific
experiments, and such was his purpose, no doubt, but his enemies and
the more ignorant of the community assumed that his plan was to coin
money.  One day, in a store kept by Mr. Cunningham (the grandfather or
great-grandfather of Gen. James Cunningham,) Gilchrist exhibited a coin
and said:  "Here is a dollar that Tim Flint made."  Flint returned the
challenge with a suit, which I think was adjusted without a trial, but
the controversy contributed to the dissolution of the settlement.
Flint left the town to which he returned once in my boyhood and
preached a sermon in the new meetinghouse, that had been substituted
for the old one used in the days of Zabdiel Adams, of Timothy Flint,
and David Damon.

After leaving Lunenburg Flint went with his family to the valley of the
Mississippi, and led the life of a wanderer, floating down the river
with his family and making his way back as best he might.  In these
expeditions children were born and children died.  He wrote two
romances founded on Western primitive life, and a history of the
Mississippi Valley.  Time may give to his works a value that they did
not appear to possess when they were published.  Flint was recognized
in the town as a man of ability, but he failed to secure the
affections or even the confidence of the people.  He was a man of
ready faculty, being able to write his sermons Saturday evening, with
his children around him.

Parson Adams, a cousin of John Adams and the predecessor of Flint, had
lived among his people as a chieftain.  He was not only the spiritual
teacher, he was supreme in most other matters.  Unlike the Adams family
generally, he had a rough wit and a sententious practical wisdom about
common things not unlike the kindred conspicuous qualities in Dr.
Franklin.  If the traditions that existed in my boyhood were
trustworthy, he said and did things that would have ruined an ordinary
minister.  Adams gave an earnest support to the Revolution, and one
of his sermons delivered at the opening of the war contained a view of
the coming greatness of the country that was truly prophetic.

Samuel Dexter studied law at Lunenburg.  He was there married by the
Rev. Zabdiel Adams to a Miss Gordon, a daughter of an English lady.

The successor of Mr. Damon was the Rev. Joseph Hubbard, and during his
ministry the old society that represented the town of former days came
to an end.  The first error was the scheme for erecting a new meeting-
house.  The larger part of the village is on the southern side of a
hill, and the first meetinghouse was midway on the slope and facing
south.  The site was a triangular piece of land, of more than one
hundred rods in extent, on which were shade trees planted in other
days.  If the whole town had been at command not another equally good
site could have been selected.  A spirit, called the spirit of
progress, had seized the leaders and it was resolved to build a new
meetinghouse on the top of the hill.  The house was built, but in the
meantime the society lost members.  Following the dedication of the new
house, there came complaints against Hubbard as a preacher.  He made
enemies, and his enemies promoted disturbances.  Efforts were made to
dissolve the connection.  Hubbard having been settled for life, these
efforts were ineffectual.  Finally his salary was withheld and the
house was closed against him.  Sunday after Sunday, morning and
afternoon, Hubbard would walk from the parsonage to the meetinghouse,
try the doors and then return home.  As long as the doors were open, I
attended the services--the congregation diminishing until the pews were
given up to the boys and those who attended from curiosity.  One
morning the seats of the singers were vacant, and Hubbard read the hymn
commencing:  "Let those refuse to sing, who never knew their God."
That was the last, or near the last of his Sunday services.

As the controversy went on, the members of the parish withdrew, until
the only one remaining who possessed any property was an uncle of mine,
Timothy Marshall.  He lived in the easterly part of the town, and he
was a Universalist in opinion.  He owned a small farm and a sawmill on
the Mulpus Brook.  His chief delights were reading, discussing
political and religious questions, and gathering information in the
department of the natural sciences.  He associated a good deal with Dr.
Bard, but he never accepted Bard's views of the Bible.  He had
continued with the old society from indisposition to disturb himself
rather than from sympathy with its teachings, or regard for its
interests.  At the conclusion of the active controversy between Hubbard
and the society, the unpaid salary amounted to several hundred dollars.
Hubbard threatened suit, and he may have commenced one.  In that
juncture my uncle went over the town and gathered the signatures of
those nominal members who had no property, who had not paid taxes, and
whose eyes had not seen the inside of a meetinghouse.  A parish meeting
was called, composed by my uncle and his new adherents.  At the end
authority was given for the conveyance to Mr. Hubbard of the site of
the old meetinghouse in full satisfaction of his claim.  This spot was
in the center of the village and in the view of the houses of the
principal residents.  Not their curiosity merely, but their fears were
excited when they learned that their bitter enemy was to become the
owner of the common in the center of the village.  To be sure the
bounds were indefinite, but there was a spot belonging to the parish,
and it included all that was not highway.

My uncle had an understanding with Hubbard that the land was to be
conveyed to Hubbard and the society released from all its liabilities
under the contract.  Then the land was to be conveyed to my uncle for
the sum of six hundred dollars.  This was done, and my uncle became the
owner of the common.  He was not a friend of the citizens of the
village, and various uncomfortable surmises were set afloat.  But my
uncle had but little malice in his nature, and moreover he was too
inert to indulge in the luxury of avenging any wrong either real or
imaginary.  The common was left to the use of stray cattle, the
children of the neighborhood and of the school.  After a time the
school district decided to rebuild the school-house.  The old site was
small, indeed, only sufficient for the building.  The citizens
divided, but the advocates of the old site prevailed, and a brick
building was erected.  Still the contest went on, and after a year or
two the majority of the district voted to erect a new house, and the
upper part of the common was selected for the site where a second
house, of wood, was built.  Whether any title to the land was obtained
from my uncle, I know not.  The new house was used for a time, when it
was sold, moved, and converted into a dwelling.

When my uncle died at the age of about eighty-five years, the common
was unoccupied, and it had the appearance that property takes on when
the owner is intemperate or absent, or when the heirs cannot agree to
a division.  The settlement of my uncle's estate was put into the hands
of Mr. Ephraim Graham, whose brother had married my uncle's eldest
daughter.  My uncle's children were scattered, and apparently they
inherited their father's indifference to property.  Graham was unable
to finish any business, and after ten or more years he died, leaving
the estate unsettled.  Finally, the ladies of the village took
possession of the common, removed the rubbish, leveled the ground, and
made the spot an agreeable feature of the town.

Of the teachers of the village school there are several that I remember
with gratitude, and I cannot but think that some of them were very good
teachers.  My first teacher was Martha Putnam, afterwards Mrs.
Nathaniel F. Cunningham.  Of her as a teacher I can recall nothing.
Her father, Major Daniel Putnam, was the principal trader in the
village.  For the time and place his accumulations were very large.
Nancy Stearns, afterwards Mrs. Benjamin Snow, was the teacher of the
summer school for many years.  But beyond comparison Cyrus Kilburn was
the best teacher of the town, and a person who would have ranked high
among teachers at any period in the history of the State.  He was not a
learned man in a large sense, but his habit was to investigate the
subjects within his scope, with great thoroughness.  Grammar was his
favorite study, and he devised a system of analysis in parsing quite in
advance of the time.  He had the faculty of putting questions and of
changing them to meet the capacities of the pupils.  He compelled
thinking.  I attended the winter school about ten terms, and of these
not less than six terms were taught by Mr. Kilburn.

In later years we had Colburn's Sequel as the arithmetic.  From this I
passed to algebra and geometry, and during the last two terms I
studied Latin Grammar.  My school-going days ended in February, 1835,
a month after my seventeenth birthday.

[* During the session of the Legislature of 1843 or 1844, I walked with
my father on the ice from Boston to Fort Warren, a distance of about
three miles.  The authorities were then engaged in cutting a channel
for the departure of a Cunard steamer.]


II
LIFE AS A STORE-BOY AND CLERK

In the month of December, 1830, when I was about one month less than
thirteen years of age, Mr. Simeon Heywood, the postmaster at Lunenburg
and the owner of a small store, proposed to my father that I should go
into his service to remain four years.  An arrangement was made by
which I was to receive my board and clothes, and the privilege of
attending school during the winter months.  I commenced my service the
26th of December, 1830, and I remained until December 1, 1834.

My life with Mr. Heywood was a peculiar one.  The business of the store
was largely in the sale of goods for hats made of palm leaf.  The
business was comparatively new at the time.  For many previous years
the women had been employed in braiding straw and making hats and
bonnets for market.  Gradually, work in palm leaf had taken the place
of work in straw.  The neighbor of Heywood, Major Daniel Putnam, was
doing a large business in hats.  The preparation of the palm leaves was
not an easy business.  The leaves were stripped on the folds by the
hand, then bleached with sulphur in large boxes.  The leaves were then
split so as to produce straws from one twentieth to one eighth of an
inch in width.  The first process of stripping the leaves on the folds
was paid for at the rate of ten cents per one hundred leaves.  I
devoted my leisure to the work, and thus earned a small sum of money.
Heywood was a shoemaker by trade, and an end of the store was used as
a shop.  There one man and sometimes two men were employed.  From much
seeing I was able to make a pair of shoes for myself--rather for the
amusement of the thing than from any advantage.  While at Heywood's
store, probably about 1834, I had a disagreeable experience, the
recollection of which has often returned.  A blacksmith, named Choate,
died, and with another boy, whose name I do not recall, I was
summoned to watch the body during a night.  We occupied an adjoining
room, and once an hour we were required to bathe the face of the corpse
in spirits of camphor.  To this day I have never been able to
understand why two half-grown boys were put to such service.

Heywood was more of an inventor than a trader, and becoming interested
in the manufacture of nail kegs he made an invention in connection with
Dr. Bard for sawing staves concave on one side and convex on the other.
In the year 1834 they obtained a patent for the invention.  As a
consequence the business of the store was neglected.  The invention did
not yield a large return in money, as it was soon superseded by other
devices.  The saw, a hoop-saw, was set up in a mill two miles away, and
from time to time I tended the saw, and thus I began a training in
mechanics which has been useful to me in my profession as a patent
lawyer.  Heywood also invented a wheel for bringing staves to a bevel
and taper, for the construction of barrels systematically.  Mr. Heywood
remained in town eight or ten years, when he moved to Claremont, N. H.,
where he died at the age of eighty years or more.  He was thoroughly
upright, but he had too many schemes for a successful business man.
During my term with Mr. Heywood, I had charge of the post-office,
keeping the accounts, which were then cumbrous, and I made the returns
once in three months.

During a part of the time a stagecoach ran from Lowell, through
Tyngsboro, Pepperell, Townsend Harbor, Lunenburg and Fitchburg, and
thence westward through Petersham and Belchertown to Springfield.  The
distance was about one hundred miles, and I was compelled to be ready
to open the mail three mornings each week, at about two o'clock.  The
driver would sound his horn when he was eighty or one hundred rods
away, and it was my duty to be ready to take the mail when the coach
arrived at the door.

It was when so summoned that it was my fortune to see the shower of
falling stars in November, 1833.  From the time I arose until after
daylight there was no part of the heavens that was not illuminated--not
with one meteor merely--but with many hundreds.  Many of them left a
long train, extending through twenty, thirty, or even forty degrees.  I
called at Bard's window and told him that the stars were falling, but
he refused to get up, thinking it a joke.  The butcher of the town,
Abijah Whitney, came out to commence preparations for his morning
rounds, but conceiving that the day of judgment had come, he returned
into the house and gave up business for the day.  In the year 1901, I
know of one other person only, Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, who witnessed
that exhibition, and it has not been repeated.

During my term with Mr. Heywood, and for many previous years, and for a
short period afterwards, the business of printing standard books,
Bibles, spelling-books and dictionaries had been carried on at
Lunenburg by Col. Edmund Cushing.  The books were bound, and then sent
by teams to Boston.  The printing was on hand-presses, and upon
stereotype plates.  Deacon William Harrington carried on a small
business as a bookbinder, and Messrs. William Greenough & Sons erected
a building on the farm now owned by Mr. Brown on the Lancaster road,
and introduced the business of stereotyping--business then new, I
think.  These various industries gave employment of a large number of
workmen, mostly young men.  The establishment of Colonel Cushing was
near the store of Heywood, and it was at the bindery that I first saw
Alvah Crocker, afterwards known in the politics of the State, and as
the projector of the Fitchburg railroad.  He was a maker of paper at
Fitchburg, and he came with a one-horse wagon to Cushing's place and
carried away the paper shavings produced in the bindery.  Crocker was
a lean and awkward man, remarkable for his voice, which could be heard
over the larger part of the village.  When in after years we were
associated in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and boarded
at the same hotel, the Hanover House, I was compelled to hear the same
voice in constant advocacy of the Fitchburg railroad project.

Colonel Cushing was one of the foremost men in town, but his
aristocratic ways made him unpopular, and therefore he failed to secure
official recognition.  He was the father of Luther S. Cushing, for many
years clerk of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, then
reporter of the decisions of the Supreme Court, afterwards a judge upon
the bench of the Court of Common Pleas, and then the author of
Cushing's Manual.  Another of his sons, Edmund Cushing, Jr., was a
member of the Supreme Court of the State of New Hampshire.  Of his two
other sons, one was a clergyman, and one a civil engineer.  The sons
were all my seniors, and my acquaintance with them was limited, but
when I became a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives,
in January, 1842, Luther S. Cushing, then the clerk, came to me, and
after some words of congratulation, gave me this advice:  "Never
champion any private scheme, unless the parties are your constituents."
Good advice, which I followed in all my legislative experience.

During the four winters of my term with Mr. Heywood, I attended the
school, studying the usual branches with something of algebra,
geometry, and Latin grammar.  It was during these years that the
teacher, Mr. Kilburn, created such an interest in his plans that he
obtained a contribution of twenty-four dollars with which he
purchased a twelve-inch celestial and a twelve-inch terrestrial globe.
Several pleasant evenings were devoted to a study of the heavens with
the aid of the celestial globe.  I attended usually, and thus I gained
a partial knowledge of the constellations, and an acquaintance with
some of the stars by name and location.  The post-office gave me
access to several publications of the day, and in one or two instances
I obtained a few subscribers to journals, and thus secured a free copy
for myself.  _The Penny Magazine_ I obtained in that way for two years.
In the cholera seasons of 1832-3 and 1834, the people were so alarmed
that they hesitated to take letters and papers from the post-office.
For a time gum-camphor was thought to be a preventive against the
contagion.

Between 1830 and 1834 the ambition of the town was stimulated by the
building of a new road from Fitchburg to Shirley.  It was claimed that
a shorter and more nearly level route to Boston from Fitchburg and the
country above was thus secured.  For a time the travel was
considerable, but the teamsters preferred the old roads, the old
taverns, and the old acquaintances.  The construction of the Fitchburg
railroad in 1844 ended the business from the country to Boston over the
old highways.

In the month of November, 1834, I had a call from Mr. Joseph Hazen, of
Shirley, who asked me to accept the post of teacher in the school at
Pound Hill, half-way between Shirley Village and Shirley Centre.  The
pay was sixteen dollars per month in addition to board.  After making
an arrangement with Mr. Heywood, by which I was to pay him eight
dollars for the twenty-six days in December, I accepted the invitation,
and after an examination conducted by the Rev. Seth Chandler and the
Rev. Hope Brown, I entered the school the first Monday of the month of
December.

In the preceding June I had received my freedom suit of clothes--blue
coat, bright buttons, black trousers, and buff vest.  They were made by
Daniel Cross, of Fitchburg, and, when in 1884, I visited that town, and
found him still engaged in the business, I ordered a dress suit from
his hand.


III
CHANGES AND PROGRESS

As I pass in this record from my childhood and early youth to the
responsibilities of life, I am led to some reflections upon the changes
in opinions and the changes in the condition of the people in the more
than half-century from 1835 to 1899.  At the first period there was not
a clergyman of any of the Protestant denominations who questioned the
plenary and verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, including the Old and
New Testaments.  The suggestion could not have safely been made in any
New England pulpit that there were errors of translation, and yet the
Christian world, outside the Catholic Church, now accepts a revision
that changes the meaning of some passages and excludes others as
interpolations.  The account given in the first chapter of Genesis of
the creation of the world and of man was accepted according to the
meaning of the language used.  At the present moment there is not a
well-educated clergyman of any denomination who would not either treat
the account as a legend, or else explain the days as periods of
indefinite duration.

The claim of the verbal and plenary inspiration of the Old Testament is
denied by many and doubted by others, and the volume is seen and
treated by them as a compilation of works or books in which are
recorded the thoughts and doings of men and tribes and nations that
existed at different periods and flourished or suffered as is the
fortune of mankind.

The early chapters of Genesis were then a faithful history; they are
now a legend.  The Book of Job was then an inspiration; it is now a
poem.  The reported interviews between Abraham and Jehovah were then
thought to have been real; now they are treated as the visions of an
excited brain.  The ten commandments were then believed to have been
delivered to Moses by the Supreme Being; now they are regarded as the
work of a wise law-giver.  Kings and Chronicles are now authentic
histories written by honest men; then those records of events were
attributed to the Supreme Ruler of the world.

The domain of prayer has been limited.  Prayers for rain, for health,
for mild winters and fruitful summers, were then made in all the
churches.  Now, with many exceptions no doubt, health is sought in
obedience to the laws of our being, and the seasons find their quality
in the operation of laws whose sources are in material organizations
that cannot yield to human impulses.

The sources of knowledge have been multiplied almost indefinitely.  In
1835 the daily newspaper was not often seen in country towns, and the
circulation of the weekly paper was limited to a very small portion of
the families.  The postage was an important item.  Relatively, the cost
of papers was enormous.  The mails were infrequent, and the people
generally had not the means of paying the combined expenses.  Many,
perhaps most, of the papers, were sent upon credit, and it was not
unusual to find subscribers several years in arrears.  Many of the
papers contained this notice:  "No paper discontinued until all
arrearages are paid," as though sending a paper to a subscriber in
debt, would compel him to make payment.  New books were rare.  The
farmers and laborers had no slight difficulty in meeting the demands
for schoolbooks, and these and the Bible were the total stock in a
majority of houses.

The means of domestic comfort were limited to a degree not now easily
comprehended.  The brick oven and the open fire were the only means of
cooking, and the open fire was the only means of warming the houses.
Soon after 1835, and even before that year possibly, cylinder stoves
were introduced into shops and stores.  Stoves of other varieties soon
followed.  Upholstered furniture and carpets were not found in the
houses of well-to-do farmers even.

The construction of railways and the invention of the telegraphic
system of communication have revolutionized business and changed the
habits of the people, but only the beginnings of their power are yet
seen.  They have made it possible for great free governments to exist
permanently.  Except for differences of languages all Europe might
become one state, if indeed, first, the individual states could over-
throw all dynastic institutions in families, and all forms of hierarchy
in the churches.  These changes to be followed by the abolition of all
forms of mortmain, by the free sale of land, by the distribution of the
estates of deceased persons by operation of law, by compulsory
education with moral training, and the exclusion of all dogmatic
teaching touching the origin or destiny of man.  This freedom and the
aggregation of small states in vast governments, by the consent of all
parties, would be security for the peace of the world.  With general
peace would come the abolition of great armies, freedom from public
debts, and numerous freeholders.  These are the conditions of domestic
and social comfort, the chief and worthiest objects of the State
organization.

In 1830 the movement against the use of intoxicating liquors began--or
rather it was about that year that the movement was strong enough to
lead a small number of country merchants to abandon the trade.  When I
went into Mr. Heywood's store, he had one hogshead of New England rum.
That was sold, and there the business ended.  As a general rule, the
farmers used rum daily during the summer season, and drank freely of
cider during the winter.  On my father's farm, rum toddy was drunk
three times a day during the haying season, which lasted from the 4th
of July to the 1st of August, or a little later.  There was no general
use of liquors at any other season.

At old election*--the last Wednesday in May--at Thanksgiving, the 4th
of July, and when my grandfather visited us--which seems now not to
have been more than three or four times a year--a pitcher of West
India rum toddy was made, seasoned with nutmeg and toasted crackers.

The poverty of farmers with respect of tools, made it almost impossible
for farmers to prosper, except by cattle-raising and the cultivation of
small grains.  Farming is now an art, and the slavery of farm labor has
in a degree disappeared.  Formerly the business of farming was limited
by the home product of manure, but the manufacture of phosphates has
enabled the farmer to enlarge his operations in every direction that
promises a return.

The railway system had driven the eastern farmer from the cultivation
of wheat and corn, as it is not possible for him to compete with the
new and fertile lands of the West.  In these sixty years the wheat
fields have moved from the East to the West.  From 1820 to 1840 the
valleys of the Mohawk and the Genesee furnished the finer flour for the
cities of New York and New England.  Pennsylvania, Maryland and
Virginia supplied Baltimore and Philadelphia.  Then Ohio became the
chief source of supply.  More recently the wheat region is the upper
valley of the Mississippi, and the State of California.  The time is
not far distant when a return movement will begin.  Domestic markets in
the vicinity of the great wheat fields will create a demand for other
products.  With the exhaustion of the soil will come the necessity for
the use of artificial manures.  Thus will be established a permanent
condition of comparative equality between the East and the West.

Already the process has commenced in the culture of Indian corn.  For a
time the farmers of New England were unable to raise corn, even for
farm use, in competition with the West.  The fodder of the corn has now
become valuable to farmers who produce milk for market, and already
they are finding it profitable to raise corn, even when the price at
the door does not exceed fifty cents per bushel.  Coincident with these
changes the States of the East have increased in population, and the
proportion who live in cities is increasing at a greater ratio even.
The railway system and the system of protection to American industry
have been the chief instruments in the augmentation of population
generally, and of the gains to cities.  These changes have inured to
the benefit of the Eastern farmers.

[* Old election in Massachusetts was the last Wednesday in May, when,
under the Constitution of 1780, the governor was inaugurated.]


IV
SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL-KEEPING

Of my pupils at Pound Hill an unusually large proportion were advanced
in years.*  Several of the boys were my seniors, and in size they had
quite an advantage over me, although my weight was then about 165
pounds.  That class gave me very little trouble.  The unruly boys were
those between ten and fifteen years of age.  With a few exceptions the
leading people of the town were well-to-do farmers, and nearly every
week brought an invitation to a party at the house of some one of them.
An attendance of more than fifty persons was not an uncommon occurrence.
The term of the school was limited by the money, and either from the
extra cost of firewood, or some other unusual expense, the school was
brought to a close two or three days sooner than was expected.  My
father was to come for me on a day named, but when my school was over,
and I was free, I concluded to walk home, a distance of about six
miles, and return for my clothes when convenient.

Just at that time there had been a heavy, warm rain, and a melting of
snow, which had raised the streams.  When I reached the bridge at the
brook on the west side of Flat Hill, the water was over the road to the
depth of twelve inches or more.  I concluded to wade across, which I
did.  My mother was frightened, but I escaped without any serious ill
effect.  My school-keeping days were over.  My old teacher, Mr. Cyrus
Kilburn, had charge of the village school and I took my seat among the
pupils.  I remained in the school about two weeks, and then my school-
days were over.  Altogether I had the training of six or seven summer
terms in schools kept by women, supplemented two or three times by a
private school of a few weeks by the same teacher, and ten or eleven
winter terms.  In reading, spelling and grammar I had had a good
training.  To those branches Mr. Kilburn devoted himself, and I recall
his teaching of grammar with great satisfaction.  He had no knowledge
of object-teaching as applied to grammar, but he was skillful in
analysis, and his training was methodical and exact.  In fine, he was
so much devoted to the work of teaching, that the discipline of the
school was neglected.  Of this there had been complaints for years.  At
that time I had a good command of arithmetic, I knew something of
algebra, and geometry seemed easy from the start.  In composition, so-
called, I had had no experience.  Once only during my school life was
an attempt made by a teacher to introduce the exercise of writing, and
that attempt I avoided.  In Latin I had not gone beyond the study of
the grammar, and the training that I had received was from persons
poorly qualified to give instruction.

Once or twice the teacher had been a college undergraduate, and
Kilburn's knowledge of the language was measured by his acquisitions
at the Groton Academy.  Of knowledge wholly useless to me I had learned
to read the Hebrew alphabet from Dr. Bard's elementary Hebrew book.
The reading-books, especially Scott's Lessons, contained extracts from
good writers and speakers, with selections from the best of English
poets, and these extracts and selections, I had read and had heard read
so often that I could repeat many of them at full length.  Worcester's
Geography, and Whelpley's Compend of History were among the books used
in the schools.

[* The Pound Hill schoolhouse has been sold to the owner of the Captain
Parker place and converted into a shop and tool-house.  A photograph
has been taken of the venerable relic.]


V
GROTON IN 1835

In the month of February, 1835, I read an advertisement in the Lowell
_Journal_, asking for a clerk in a store, application to be made at
the office.  I at once wrote to Joseph S. Hubbard,* a former
schoolmate, asking him to call at the office and get the name of the
advertiser.  This he did, and gave me the name of Benj. P. Dix of
Groton.  I wrote to Mr. Dix, and upon the receipt of an answer, I went
with my father to see him.  The result was an agreement to work for him
for three years.  Terms, board and one hundred dollars for the first
year, one hundred and twelve dollars for the second year, one hundred
and twenty-five dollars for the third year.  I commenced my clerkship
with Mr. Dix the fifth day of March, and in the month of September my
contract was ended by his failure.  His business was small, his manners
were abrupt, his capital had been limited, and his family expenses, not
extravagant, had exceeded his income, and bankruptcy in the end was
inevitable.  His sales were chiefly of boots, shoes, leather, and
medicines, of which he kept the only stock in the village.

Mr. Dix was a man of exact ways of life.  The sales made were entered
each day at the close of business, the cash was carefully counted, and
the cash-book was balanced.  But these careful and businesslike ways
did not save him, and in September he made an assignment of his
property to his father Benj. Dix, and to Caleb Butler, for the benefit
of his creditors according to the preferences specified in the
assignment.  Mr. Butler was not a creditor, but Mr. Dix, senior, was
much the largest creditor.  In fact he had furnished his son with the
chief part of the means of doing business.  He was a tanner by trade,
and he had gradually enlarged his business by employing workmen to make
boots and shoes.  A portion of his product of leather and all his
product of boots and shoes had been turned into the son's store.

The deficiency of means on the part of the son was represented at each
settlement by an addition to the debt due to the father.  The debts
amounted to about five thousand dollars.  Following the assignment Mr.
Dix left home, and he did not return until the spring or summer of
1836.  Imprisonment for debt in a modified form then existed.  He and
his family were proud, and he may have wished to avoid seeing his
neighbors and acquaintances while his misfortune was fresh upon him.
His wife was a granddaughter of General Ward, who had been the rival of
General Washington for the command of the army at the opening of the
War of the Revolution.  Mrs. Dix was proud, very properly, of her
paternity, and of her grandfather's association with General
Washington, and neither from her, nor from either of two brothers whom
I subsequently met, did I ever hear a word of criticism upon the wisdom
of the selection of General Washington.  Mrs. Dix had inherited many
letters written by General Washington to her grandfather, and they were
all written in a tone of sincere friendship.

Mrs. Dix's eldest brother, Mr. Nahum Ward, was one of the early
settlers, if not one of the founders of Marietta, Ohio.  Mr. Dix went
to Marietta, where he was given some employment by Mr. Ward.  Neither
Mr. Butler nor Mr. Dix senior, had any knowledge of business, and I was
employed by them at a small advance in my pay, to sell the stock of
goods, and close the business of the store.  After such sales as could
be made, the remainder of the stock was sold at auction the 23d day of
November.  During the preceding night there was a fall of snow, and the
company came to the village in sleighs.  The winter was severe, and
the snow continued to cover the ground until the 18th of April, when
the stage coaches for the north went on runners for the last time.  The
summer of 1836 was so cold, that the corn crop was a failure.  During
the year following corn brought from New Jersey sold for $2.50 per
bushel.

In 1835 the town of Groton was a place of much importance relatively.
It was the residence of several men of more than local fame.  Timothy
Fuller, the father of Margaret, was living there.  He was a lawyer of
considerable distinction, and he had held important public positions.
He had been a representative and senator in the Massachusetts
Legislature, speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives,
and a member of Congress from the Cambridge district from 1817 to 1825.
He died in October, 1835.

Mr. Fuller was a man of careful and regular habits, indeed he belonged
to a family noted for their devotion to the profession of law, and for
their odd manners and styles of dress.

Mr. Fuller's eldest son, Eugene, was afterwards a student in the law
office of George F. Farley.  He was a good debater as a young man, but
as a student rather irregular.  He went to New Orleans to reside,
became an editor of, or writer on, the _Picayune_, and on a return
voyage from Boston he was lost overboard.

Margaret Fuller continued to reside in Groton with her mother and the
other members of the family for several years--until about 1841, I
think.  In the meantime I met her frequently, although she was several
years my senior.  She was a teacher in the Sunday school, and at the
Sunday-evening teachers' meetings she was accustomed to set forth her
opinions with great frankness, and in a style which assumed that they
were not open to debate.  While she lived at Groton she contributed to
the _Dial_.

In personal appearance Margaret Fuller was less attractive than one
might imagine from the portraits and engravings now seen.  Her ability
was recognized, but the celebrity she attained finally was not
anticipated, probably, by any of her town acquaintances.  Her writings
may justify the opinion that as a writer and thinker she is in the
front rank of American women.

Samuel Dana, who had been a judge for many years, president of the
Massachusetts Senate for three terms, and a member of Congress for one
term, was also a resident of Groton.  He had been an active politician
on the Democratic or Jeffersonian side in politics, and for many years
in early life he had been the competitor of Timothy Bigelow, who had
been a resident of Groton and a leader in the Federal Party of the
State.  The town supported Bigelow and returned him to the House, where
he became speaker for many sessions.  Dana as a candidate for the
Massachusetts Senate was elected by the county of Middlesex then
Democratic, and for three terms he was president of the Senate.  Judge
Dana was interested in a small social library that was kept in a
chamber over the store.  It contained Josephus, Plutarch's Lives,
Rollins' Ancient History, and some other standard works whose titles I
do not now recall.

Judge Dana was also interested in the organization of a reading room
club in a building connected with the store.  As clerk in charge of
the store I was custodian of the reading room and library.  I found
time to read Plutarch and Josephus, and I was skeptic enough to
question in my own mind the passage in Josephus in regard to Jesus.
Judge Dana died in the month of November, 1835, at the age of sixty.
His hair was white and long, and his appearance was so venerable that
it is now difficult for me to realize that he was not seventy-five
years of age at least.  His abilities were considerable, and his
descendants, in more than one instance, have shown distinguished
qualities.

Two other well-known lawyers, one of them a lawyer of eminence in the
profession, were also residents of the town; Benj. M. Farley and George
F. Farley, brothers.  They were natives of the small town of Brookline,
N. H.  The elder, Benj. M., had practised in Hollis, N. H., where by
economy and good care of his earnings he had acquired a competency.  At
Groton he made no effort to obtain business, and acted for the most
part as an associate or aid to his brother, who was in the enjoyment of
a large practice and income, for those days and parts.

With George F. Farley, whose age ran with the century, I was well
acquainted from 1835 until his death in 1855.  He was one of the small
number of men that I have known who underestimated their powers.  In
one respect, perhaps, this was not true of Farley.  He never appeared
wanting in courage for any legal struggle with the leaders of the bar
in New England.  In the twenty years that I knew him he had for his
antagonists Webster, Choate, Davis, Curtis, Franklin, Dexter, and
others of eminence, and he never failed to sustain himself upon terms
of equality.  This was remarkable in presence of the fact that he was
likely to be retained on the hard side of most cases.  This was due,
perhaps, to his reputation for shrewdness, and for a quality in
practice which has been called the inventive faculty.  When parties
were not allowed to testify, there was a wide field for the
imagination, and for the exercise of the inventive faculties on the
part of an advocate.  He had defended, successfully, the Ursuline
Convent rioters, and he had been employed in many desperate cases on
the civil side and on the criminal side of the courts.

In his later years he read very little either in law, history, or
general literature.  His law library was meager, although he had
usually one or two students in his office.  He preferred to discuss his
cases with the loungers about the post-office and stores, getting
thereby the benefit of the opinions of common men.

His manner in speaking was inartistic, and although he was a graduate
of Harvard, he indulged himself in the use of country phrases and
rustic pronunciation.  His logic was unanswerable, and his faculty of
cross-examination of witnesses was worthy of emulation.

He enjoyed a few books, the classics in the originals, but he seldom
indulged in a quotation.  Byron as a poet, and Locke as a logician he
commended to me--the latter, Locke on the Human Understanding, with
great earnestness.  Under his advice I read it carefully, and for
mental training he did not overvalue it.  Farley commenced the practice
of his profession at New Ipswich, N. H., and that town elected him once
or twice to the Legislature of the State.  Wishing for a wider field,
he came to Groton.  It was a day of small fees, and a good deal of the
litigation grew out of the intemperate habits of the farmers.

In New Hampshire fees were even more moderate than in Massachusetts.
If Farley had estimated his talents at their full value and had taken
an office in Boston or New York, he could have gratified his love for
money without disturbing his relations to his neighbors.  In minor ways
he was acquisitive and consequently there came to be a public sentiment
which excluded him from public employments.  His political course was
not more erratic than that of many others, but his change of position
was ascribed to policy and not to principle.  In 1840 he was a Whig, in
1850 he was a Free-soiler, and in 1855 he was a Republican.  In the
autumn of the year 1855 he was elected a member of the State Convention
of the Republican Party.

A day or two before the meeting of the convention I was passing by his
premises where he was engaged apparently in examining a buggy which his
man had been putting in order.  The conversation turned upon politics,
and I soon discovered that he wished for a nomination to the
Legislature, and without admitting the fact, his remarks showed that he
comprehended the nature of the obstacles in his way.  At last he said:
"When I began I thought the main thing was to get money; and I have got
it; and it is very convenient to have it, but it isn't just what I
thought it was when I began."

He went to the convention, took a cold which developed into a fever,
and in a week he died.

[* When I became Secretary of the Treasury, in 1869, I appointed Hubbard
to a minor office in the revenue service in the State of Kentucky,
where he then lived.]


VI
GROTON IN 1835--(Continued)

There were two other lawyers in town, Caleb Butler, the postmaster, and
Bradford Russell.  Mr. Butler never appeared in court.  He gave advice
in small matters, wrote deeds and wills, surveyed lands, and served his
neighbors in fiduciary ways.  For many years he was a member, and a
useful member, of the Board of Commissioners for the County of
Middlesex.  That body laid out highways, superintended the public
buildings, and in a word did what no other authority in the county or
State had a right to do.  Mr. Butler was a Whig, and after a time his
politics lost him the office of postmaster and the office of
commissioner.

With Bradford Russell I commenced the study of law, or rather I entered
my name with him and gave some night work to the study of books bearing
upon the profession.  His office was over the store in which I became a
clerk in December, 1835.  Russell was a graduate of Harvard, of the
class of 1818.  For many years two other members of that class resided
at Groton--Dr. Joshua Green, and the Rev. Charles Robinson, pastor of
the old society, then ranked as Unitarian.  Mr. Russell had studied his
profession with Judge James Prescott, who was impeached and removed
from the office of Judge of Probate for the county of Middlesex in the
year 1821.  Judge Prescott, whom I never saw, was a good lawyer in his
time, especially in the department of special pleading.  That branch of
the profession was then passing away, but there were lawyers who lived
by their skill in preparing answers, rejoinders, sur-rejoinders,
rebutters, and sur-rebutters.  Russell had acquired a large amount of
special learning in the law, but he had no capacity to comprehend
principles, nor could he see the application of old decisions to new
cases.  In argument he was weak and inconclusive, but he was confident
in his own powers, and favored as he was at times by the accidents and
hazards of the profession, he gained some victories.  In the final
trials at the county court he usually secured the services of senior
counsel who could meet Farley, his usual antagonist, upon an equality
of standing.  Most frequently he secured the services of Sam Mann of
Lowell, as he was then called.  The name of the town was affixed
generally, as though the advocate had been so christened.

Mann was able, confident, and bold.  He died young, after a brilliant
career.  In many cases Mann and Farley were associated.  When this
combination appeared, the opposing counsel were hard-pressed, usually.
In those days a story was set afloat which, though false, gave voice to
the popular notion.  When the court was held at Cambridge, Farley and
Mann boarded together at the Mansion House, Charlestown Square.  It was
said that when they were associated in a case, they were in the habit
of examining and cross-examining the witnesses.  On one of these
occasions, as the story went, Mann conducted the examination, and
Farley followed with the cross.  Under his hand the witnesses went to
pieces.  After the witnesses left, Farley said, "We can never succeed
if those are your witnesses."  Mann replied:  "Oh, those are the
witnesses for the other side.  To-morrow evening I will show you my
witnesses."  When the evening came, the same witnesses came also.
They were again subject to examination and cross-examination, and
proved impregnable under Farley's hand.  An invention, no doubt, and
yet the story had a run.

Although Russell was not a competitor in any sense with such
antagonists as Farley and Mann, he was in the enjoyment of a practice
that was sufficient for a living, and a prudent man would have made it
the beginning of a moderate fortune.  He had neither skill in money
matters nor ordinary economy.  Hence he was always in debt.  At one
term of the court he entered fifty-eight writs, and there were terms
when he had from seventy to one hundred cases on the docket.  Each of
these cases gave him thirty-three and one third cents costs for every
day of the term.

Russell held the office of Master in Chancery.  In 1838 the Insolvent
Law was enacted, and its administration was confided to Masters in
Chancery.  Russell soon gained a reputation for leniency in the matter
of granting discharges to the insolvent debtors, and his business
increased rapidly.  His jurisdiction was the whole county, and although
there were several masters in the county, his fame was such that
petitions came from Lowell, Waltham and other places where masters had
offices.  I was appointed clerk in insolvency, at five dollars a day
when a court was held.  In this way I gained some needed income,
acquired a knowledge of the Insolvent Law, and more than all, I gained
the acquaintances of the leading lawyers of the county.  As debtors and
witnesses were examined, I may have gained something in practice.  The
Insolvent Law, amended, to be sure, has remained on the statute books
of Massachusetts to this day, and the United States Bankrupt Law was
modeled upon it.  Indeed, there can never by any wide departure from
the provisions of that statute, and from its principles no departure
whatever can be made.

A leading man, and a character in the town, was Thomas A. Staples.  He
was a native of the neighboring town of Shirley.  He was a man of large
size, handsome figure, resolute in his purposes, and vindictive in his
enmities.  His chief business was that of stage proprietor, and mail
contractor.  He was always in debt, and tardy, of course, in his
payments.  He was involved in lawsuits, and many of his debts were paid
upon executions.  His mail contracts were so large that he sublet many
of the routes, and he was always in debt to sub-contractors.  He had a
stage office in Boston for a time at the Hanover House, and after that
at No. 9 Court Street.  His office was the headquarters of country
traders and others who patronized his lines of stages.  In the year
1838 or later, I was in his office when Alvin Adams, the founder of the
Adams Express Company, made his first trip to New York as an express
messenger.  Staples afterward stated in conversation that Adams had but
one parcel, and that he loaned him five dollars to meet his expenses.
At that time Harnden's express was in operation with an office at No. 8
Court Street.  Harnden's company disappeared in a few years, and the
Adams Express Company became an institution that has the appearance of
perpetuity.  At a time perhaps as late as 1850, I met Adams on
Washington Street, when he expressed the opinion that his business was
as profitable as any business in the country.

Staples was engaged also in paper making with mills upon the upper
falls of the Squannacook River.  This branch of his business was
especially unfortunate, and in 1836 he assigned his property to Henry
Woods, Daniel Shattuck, and Joshua B. Fowle.  Mr. Woods was a trader in
whose employment I then was, having let myself to him when I left the
Dix store December 1, 1835, for my board and $150 a year.  Agreement
for one year.  The assignees were all friends of Staples.  The last
named was Calvin Childs, a blacksmith, to whom Staples owed about two
thousand dollars.  The assignees proceeded to execute their trust, and
as collections were made, payments were made until all the debts were
paid except the debt to Childs.  Mr. Woods died in 1841.  Shattuck died
in 1850, and the trust was not then executed.  Fowle paid Childs six
hundred dollars, but he made no settlement of the trust.  In 1853
Childs applied to Russell for counsel and assistance.  Russell filed a
bill on the equity side of the court.  A lawyer, named Fiske, of
Boston, was retained by Fowle.  Fiske answered.  Russell employed the
Hon. Charles R. Train to assist in the trial, but there was no hearing.
In 1858 Train was elected to Congress.  About 1860 Russell came to me
for assistance and put into my hands a large bundle of papers relating
to the case.  At that time Russell was so impaired in health that he
could not aid in the investigation.  Upon an examination I found that
the testimony of Staples was important.  He then lived at Machias,
Maine.  By writing and interviews when I found him in Boston, I became
satisfied that for a hidden reason he was resolved to have nothing to
do with the case.  As a last resort, I took out a commission and
submitted interrogatories.  The answers were evasive or valueless from
loss of memory.  Thus the case was delayed.  In 1862 I was elected to
Congress.  Childs was an easy going man who made inquiries
occasionally, but never complained.  Upon my return from a session,
about 1865, I resolved to bring the case to a close.  I examined the
papers carefully, and I found full material for a statement, although
it cost labor to analyze the accounts.  At that time Russell was dead
and Fiske was dead.  Mr. John Loring, a former partner of Fiske, took
the case.  Loring agreed to a hearing at Chambers.  Chief Justice
Chapman named a day.  At the day named the clients and counsel
appeared.  I presented my statement in writing.  Loring and Fowle said
they knew nothing about the matter.  My statement showed a balance of
between $400 and $500 in Fowle's hands.  I asked for interest.  Fowle
said he had been ready always to pay.  I contended it was his duty long
before to have rendered an account, and made payment.  Judge Chapman,
with less reason than courts have usually for their decisions, held
that as he was always ready to pay, he was not justly chargeable with
interest.  I drew a decree, the judge signed it, Fowle paid, and Childs
returned home that night.  For ten years the case had been on the
docket, when, if some one had made an examination of the papers it
could have been disposed of in a day.

The controversy in New England between Trinitarians and Unitarians had
culminated in Groton about the year 1825 in a division of the old town
society and the organization of an orthodox church under the Rev. John
Todd.  His successor, a Mr. Kittredge, had charge of the Society in
1835, and for a short time afterwards.  He was succeeded by Dudley
Phelps, who was a man of ability and liberal in his religious opinions.
From 1838 to 1841 the post-office was in my charge, although I held the
office of postmaster only from February to April, 1841.  Mr. Phelps
was in the habit of sitting in the office and reading every sort of
newspaper from the _Trumpet_ to the _Investigator_.  Although he was
much my senior, and of differing opinions in politics and religion our
relations were quite intimate.  For several years we were joint
subscribers for the four leading English reviews:--_Edinburgh, North
British, Quarterly_ and _Westminster_.  My recollection is that he
made the dedicatory prayer at the new cemetery, and that he was the
first person buried in it.  He was a man of talent and the father of
two sons, who attained distinction at the bar in New York.

The Rev. Charles Robinson was the pastor of the old society then
Unitarian, but without question as to the plenary inspiration of the
Scriptures.  He was a graduate of Harvard, a man of learning, and a
writer of good sermons.  In the delivery he was faulty to the last
stage of awkwardness.  His perceptive faculties were dull to a degree
without parallel in my experience.

In 1835 and for some time afterwards, there were four taverns and
three stores at which intoxicating liquors were sold and the use of
such liquors by farmers was greatly in excess of their use at the
present time.  In the early winter the country farmers from New
Hampshire and Vermont going to Boston, with butter, cheese, pork and
poultry, patronized the taverns, and gave the town an appearance of
business which contrasts with the aspect of dullness that it now
wears.  The prices for entertainment at the taverns were moderate,
and none of the proprietors accumulated property.


VII
BEGINNINGS IN BUSINESS

In the autumn of 1837 as my second year with Mr. Woods was approaching
a close, I informed him that I proposed to go to Exeter, N. H., attend
the Academy, and then either enter college or proceed with the study of
the law.  At about the same time I corresponded with Mr. Abbott, the
principal of the Academy, in regard to terms, board, etc..  Upon this
notice Mr. Woods made me a proposition to continue with him and share
the business.  He offered to furnish the capital, to give me my board,
and one fourth of the net profits.  My means were very small, the
business was quite sure to yield a profit, and the prospect of
gaining a small amount of capital at the age of twenty-three, when the
partnership was to end, controlled me and I accepted the proposition.
The partnership began March 1, 1838, when I was two months over twenty
years of age.  I had then been in Groton three years, and I had formed
the acquaintance of many young men in the Lyceum, in business and in
social ways.  In connection with the Lyceum I prepared papers which I
read as lectures.  One of these papers upon banking, signed B.,
appeared in the Bay State _Democrat_, edited by Lewis Josselyn, the
publisher.  Another upon Conservatism and Religion, was also printed in
the Bay State _Democrat_.  As I did not give my name to Mr. Josselyn,
and as the letters were mailed at Groton, he came there and after
inquiries, called upon me.  I admitted the authorship.  This
acquaintance continued for many years, and for many years I was a
contributor to his paper.  He was elected secretary of the Senate in
1843 by the Democratic Party.  A little later I wrote an article
called "Gibbet Hill" in which I attempted to present the tradition
concerning the hill in Groton which bears that name.  That article was
printed in the _Yeoman's Gazette_ or the Concord _Freeman_.  For
several years beginning about the year 1836, I wrote one paper each
year called a lecture.  Several of these papers were printed in Hunt's
_Merchants' Magazine_.

From 1835 to 1841 I occupied the store night and day and it was my
custom to read and write until twelve, one or two o'clock in the
morning.  These were my years of hard study.  Not infrequently, when
a tendency to sleep was too heavy for study, I bathed my face and head
in cold water and thus revived my faculties--a practice, however, that
I cannot commend.  Early in my residence in Groton, I formed the
acquaintance and friendship of Dr. Amos B. Bancroft, a friendship which
continued until his death in Italy in the year 1879.  It was with Dr.
Bancroft that I continued my studies in Latin.  In 1835, he had
finished his professional studies with Dr. Shattuck, of Boston, then
an eminent physician.  Dr. Shattuck had studied his profession with Dr.
Amos Bancroft, the father of Amos B.  Dr. Amos, as he was called, was
a graduate of Harvard College in the class of Wendell Phillips, and at
the close of his professional studies he was spoken of as the best
educated physician who had entered the profession in Boston.  At the
time our acquaintance began, he was entering upon the practice of
medicine, at Groton, in place of his father, who was then about sixty-
five years of age, deaf, and not healthy in other respects, although he
lived to the age of eighty years, and then died from an accident in
State Street, Boston.  Dr. Bancroft, Sr., lived in a house which stood
about one hundred feet north of my present residence, and the office of
Dr. Amos was on the spot now occupied by the front of my house.  At the
close of business for the day, nine o'clock in the evening, I was in
the habit of going to the office and reciting my Latin lesson, after
which we discussed other matters.  Upon my return to the store, I
prepared myself for the next evening's recitation.  In this way I read
Caesar and Virgil.  In a closet in Bancroft's office there was a
skeleton.  That skeleton had a history, and possibly there may be a
sequel to it.  It was understood to have been the skeleton of a man
named Jack Frost, who was tried, convicted and executed at Worcester
for the crime of murder committed at or near Princeton.  Dr. Bancroft,
Sr., had been the owner of the skeleton.  Oftentimes I rode Sundays
with Dr. Amos.  On the occasion of one of these drives, and after the
death of Dr. Bancroft, Sr., we passed the house of a waggish old man
named Asa Tarbell.  After a little conversation Tarbell said, "I shall
be over soon for Frost's skeleton."  Dr. Amos, amazed, looked over and
through his glasses, and said, at length:  "Why, what do you mean?"
Said Tarbell:  "Some years ago, your father and I were playing, and I
proposed to put my uncle Ben against your Frost.  Your father agreed to
the game, and I won.  I told him I had no use for Frost at that time,
and that he might keep him."  Tarbell's Uncle Ben was a man of inferior
size, hardly more than a dwarf, who had been a drummer boy in the
Revolution.

I bought the Bancroft estate in 1873, and my foreman, Mr. William A.
Chase informed me that he had found a skeleton, in a barrel in a shed,
and that he had buried it on the place.  If again found it may lead to
the suspicion that it is the skeleton of a murdered man, and not that
of a murderer.

From 1835 to 1841, I read Locke, Say's Political Economy, Smith's
Wealth of Nations, Plutarch, Josephus, Herodotus, Lingard, Hume and
Smollett, Cicero, Demosthenes, Homer, Pope, Byron, Shakespeare,
Boswell's Johnson, Junius, The Tattler, The Rambler, the English
Reviews, French from text-books without a teacher and Rhetoric (Blair's
full edition).  Much of Blair's Rhetoric I studied carefully and with
great benefit.  Some of my papers of those days were written and re-
written four times.  On the law side I read a few text-books:
Blackstone, Story on the Constitution, The Federalist, De Lohme on the
British Constitution, and some other works, probably, which I do not at
once recall.  If I gained some knowledge of the law as practised in the
country, that knowledge was gained from an acquaintance with the
lawyers and from my opportunities as Clerk of the Insolvency Court.

In the year 1836, July 4, an Act was passed by Congress, granting to
a class of widows of soldiers of the War of the Revolution, a pension
for a term of five years.  The towns of Groton, Pepperell and Shirley
had supplied a large number of soldiers, and there were many widows who
were entitled to the benefits of the Act.  My acquaintance as clerk was
already large, and my studies with Russell had given me the faculty of
preparing ordinary papers, and I at once commenced canvassing for the
business.  I obtained in all about fifty cases under the Act of 1836.
Subsequently I obtained other cases under the Act of 1838.  I sent the
applications forward to Washington, and in a few cases certificates
were received in return.  In a majority of cases there was a delay.
The women became anxious and their visits and importunities were
annoying.  In the month of January, 1839, I joined Gen. Staples and
made a visit to Washington.  Staples' object was to make mail
contracts, or to arrange existing difficulties.  My purpose was to
obtain action on pension applications.  Our journey was a slow one, if
not tedious.  From Groton to Boston by stage, and from Boston to
Stonington, Conn., by rail; from Stonington to New York by steamboat;
from New York to Perth Amboy by steamboat; from Perth Amboy by rail, I
think, but possibly by stage to a town on the Delaware River, Franklin
perhaps.  From that point to Philadelphia, by steamboat.  Our journey
from Philadelphia to Washington was by rail in part and in part by
stage.  We passed the creeks between the Susquehanna and Baltimore upon
a railroad.

We stopped overnight in New York, and went to the Park Theater.
Another night we spent in Philadelphia, and went to the Chestnut Street
Theater.  Staples had a fondness for theaters, and on these occasions
I followed his example.  I had been in a theater but one, when I saw
Forrest in Boston, in King Lear.  At Philadelphia I bought a copy of
Byron for three dollars.  That volume I have yet.

The Hon. William Parmenter, a Democrat, then represented the district
in Congress, and I carried one or more letters to him--one from my
employer Mr. Henry Woods, who was an active Democrat.  Mr. Parmenter
was then about fifty years of age, of heavy frame, swarthy in
complexion, and a man of good natural abilities.  He took me to Mr.
Van Buren.  We found him alone, well dressed, polite and rather
gracious than otherwise.  Quite early in my visit, Mr. Parmenter took
me to the Pension Office, then presided over by Mr. Edwards.  Mr.
Parmenter stated his business, and immediately attention was given to
my applications.  In the course of a few days some of the cases were
disposed of, and in a few weeks my docket was clear.

Caleb Butler was then postmaster at Groton.  He had had the place,
probably from the days of John Quincy Adams, for as he was a violent
Whig, he could not have received his appointment from General Jackson.
My employer, Mr. Woods, was an applicant for the post-office, he being
the only Democrat in the street who had accommodations for the office.
I carried papers in support of the application.  Those I gave probably
to Mr. Parmenter, as I have no recollection of any interview with any
post-office official.  Amos Kendall was then Postmaster-General.  He
was a native of Dunstable, and he had been a student at the Groton
Academy when Mr. Butler was the preceptor.  Naturally and properly he
sustained his old teacher.  The change however was made, and upon the
express instructions of Mr. Van Buren it was said.  Mr. Woods retained
the office until his death in January, 1841, when I was appointed
without any agency of my own, but by the agency as I supposed of Gen.
Staples.  Upon the election of General Harrison I was removed in the
month of April, and Mr. Butler was reappointed, an act of which I
never complained, nor had I any reason to complain.

At Washington we stopped at Gadsby's Hotel, now the National.  There I
met and had some acquaintance with Matthew L. Davis, "the Spy in
Washington" as he called himself.  He was a newspaper correspondent and
the biographer of Aaron Burr.  He was a great admirer of Burr.  Davis
wore very thin clothing, scouted overcoats, and boasted that he slept
always in a room with open windows, and under very light bed clothing.
He was old and conceited, and as a permanent companion, he could not
have been otherwise than disagreeable.

At the Supreme Court I heard arguments by Webster and Crittenden, on
opposite sides.  In the Senate I heard Webster, Clay, Calhoun, and
others in running debate, but not in prepared speeches.  The Senate
then contained many other men of note.  Silas Wright, of New York;
Preston, of South Carolina; Benton, of Missouri; Linn, of Missouri,
more remarkable for personal beauty than talents.  In the House Mr.
Adams was then a chief figure.  His contest over the right of petition
had commended him to one portion of the country, and made him the
object of hostility to another portion.  I recall one Monday, when he
had the right to present petitions, and although they were laid on the
table without debate he was able to consume time by presenting them
singly.  As the supply in his hands and on the table seemed
inexhaustible, a compromise was made finally, and the petitions went in
in a mass.  Of other speakers that I heard I recall Henry A. Wise, and
Sergeant S. Prentiss.  Of their style and quality I can say nothing.
The reported speeches of Prentiss do not justify the reputation that he
enjoyed as an orator when living.

The incident which produced the most lasting impression upon me, when
in Washington, was an interview with a slave, a woman fifty years or
more of age.  I had then no love for the system of slavery.  I had read
Clarkson's and Wilberforce's writings, and I knew the history of the
struggle in England for the abolition of the slave trade, and slavery
in the British West Indies.  I had also attended some anti-slavery
meetings in Massachusetts, at which the leaders, Phillips, Garrison,
Foster, Parker, and Pillsbury had denounced the institution.  Groton
was a center of anti-slavery operations in that part of the State.
Several copies of the _Liberator_ were taken in the town, and anti-
slavery meetings were held not infrequently.  The first speech that
George Thompson made in America was made in Groton.

One Sunday morning I walked out towards what is now called the Island.
The road was marked by a rail fence, but of buildings there were none.
I went so far that I was near the slave pen, a building now standing
and which I have visited within a few years.  It was of brick, enclosed
within a brick wall, and all of a dingy straw color.  At a short
distance from the building, I met a black woman walking slowly away
from it.  I said to her:  "What building is that?"  At once she was in
tears, and she said:  "That is the pen where the poor black people are
kept who are going down to Louisiana."  She had then been to visit her
daughter, a girl of about eighteen years of age, according to the
mother's statement, who was to leave the next morning.  She was the
last of a family of nine as the woman said, who had been sold and taken
away from her.  As I was leaving I said:  "Who is your master?"  She
answered:  "Mr. Blair, of the _Globe_."  In the fourteen years of my
manhood, that I acted with the Democratic party, I never said anything
in favor of the system of slavery.  If otherwise I might have done so,
the interview with that old woman would have restrained me.


VIII
FIRST EXPERIENCE IN POLITICS

At the spring election of Groton in 1839, I was chosen a member of the
school committee.  The other members had been in the service in
previous years.  They were the Rev. Charles Robinson, the Rev. Mr.
Kittredge, Dr. Joshua Green, and Dr. George Stearns.  In the early
Colonial period the "minister" was often the schoolmaster also.
Naturally he took an interest in the education of the children, and
previous to the time when school committees were required by statute,
he was the self-constituted guide of the teachers and schools.  Indeed,
the schools were parochial.  Whenever the minister visited a school he
made a prayer, and the morning exercise in reading was in the New
Testament Scriptures--two verses by each pupil.  In 1840 the entire
board was rejected, and a board composed of school teachers and non-
professional men was chosen.

In 1838 the Massachusetts Legislature passed what was known as the
Fifteen-Gallon Law.  The statute prohibited the sale of distilled
spirits in "less quantity than fifteen gallons."  It did not take
effect immediately and the election of that year was not seriously
disturbed, but before the autumn of 1839 the State was thoroughly
aroused.  A cry was raised that it was a law to oppress the poor who
could not command means to purchase the quantity named, while the rich
would enjoy the use of liquor notwithstanding the statute.  The town of
Groton was entitled to two members in the house of representatives.
Both parties nominated candidates who favored the repeal of the
Fifteen-Gallon Law.  The temperance voters put a ticket in the field,
the Rev. Amasa Sanderson, the minister of the Baptist Society, then a
new organization, and feeble in numbers and wealth, and myself.  At
that time my associations were largely with Whigs, but I was opposed to
a national bank, and in favor of free trade.  With those views it was
not possible for me to act with the Whig Party on national questions
or in national contests.  Mr. Sanderson and I received about seventy-
six votes, and as none of the candidates had a majority, the town was
unrepresented.

Edward Everett was Governor when the law was passed, and he was a
candidate for re-election in 1839.  I supported Mr. Everett on the
temperance issue against Judge Marcus Morton, who was the candidate of
the Democratic Party.  Judge Morton had been on the bench of the
Supreme Judicial Court where he had the reputation of an able judge by
the side of Shaw, Wilde and Putnam.  At that time I had not seen
Morton or Everett.  In the year 1836 or 1837 I went to Boston to hear
Alex. H. Everett deliver a Democratic Fourth of July oration.  The
effort was a disappointment to me.  A. H. Everett had a reputation as
an orator, but he was far inferior to his brother Edward.  In later
years I heard Edward Everett often.  His genius in preparation and in
the delivery of his orations and speeches was quite equal to anything
we can imagine at Athens and by Athenian orators, excepting only the
force of his argument.

In 1851 or 1852 I was present at an agricultural fair at Northampton
and in company with Mr. Everett.  After dinner speeches were made.
When we rode to the fair grounds in the morning a dense river fog
covered the valley but at ten o'clock it lifted, and the day became
clear.  At the dinner Mr. Everett in his speech described the morning,
the dense fog, the lifting, the sun illuminating first the hills and
then the valleys, revealing the spires of the churches, etc.  For the
moment I was deceived.  But when he had concluded I saw him hand his
manuscript to a reporter and the speech appeared the next morning,
verbatim as he had delivered it.  He knew the river towns, and he knew
that every fair day in autumn was preceded by a dense fog, and the
speech was written upon that theory.  What alternative he had prepared
in case of a rain, I know not.

As a judge, and at the same time the candidate of the Democratic Party
for Governor for many years, the rank and file of the party came to
regard Judge Morton as a man of fine abilities and sterling integrity.
His abilities were sturdy rather than attractive.  In this respect he
was the opposite of Governor Everett.  In the canvass of 1839 Morton
was elected by one vote in a contest of unusual warmth.  This election
removed him from the bench, much to his regret, it was said, as under
the circumstances he could hardly hope for a re-election.  The House
and Senate were controlled by the Whigs, and the Governor was
surrounded by a council composed of Whigs.  The Fifteen-Gallon Law was
repealed and in other respects the government was not different from
what it would have been had Mr. Everett been re-elected.

Governor Morton continued to be the Democratic candidate, and though
defeated in 1840 and 1841 by John Davis, he was again elected in 1843
by the Legislature, there having been no choice by the people, a
majority being required.  The Senate was Democratic by a considerable
majority.  The House was equally divided at the opening of the session,
and there were four abolitionists who held the balance of power.  After
several trials the Whigs succeeded in electing Daniel P. King of
Danvers, by the help of one or more of the abolitionists.  There were
several contested seats, and when the house had been purged, as the
process was called, the Democrats were in a majority.  The session was
a short one.  A few political measures were passed, salaries were
reduced, and much below a reasonable compensation for those days even.
Governor Morton had a Democratic Council, but they were not agreed in
policy and the administration lost strength even with Democrats.  Its
defeat in the autumn was inevitable, and Gov. Morton ceased to be a
candidate for an office that he had sought in twenty elections and
gained in two.  With others I lost confidence in his ability, but that
confidence I afterwards regained.

He was a member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1853,
and in that body his ability was conspicuous.  His style was clear and
logical, and his processes of reasoning were legal and judicial in
character.  In his speeches he avoided authorities and spurned notes.
He prepared himself by reading and reflection, and the arrangement was
dictated by the logic of the case.  His speeches were the speeches of a
strong man, and he was a dangerous antagonist in debate.  His reasoning
was faultless and he kept his argument free from all surplus matter.

In a conversation that I once had with him at his home in Taunton, he
said that the best legal argument to which he had ever listened was
made by Samuel Dexter.  As Governor Morton had heard Pinckney, Wirt,
Webster, Mason, Choate, Curtis and many others, the praise of Dexter
was not faint praise.


IX
THE ELECTION OF 1840

In the early summer of 1840 the great contest began, which ended in the
defeat of Mr. Van Buren and the election of Gen. Harrison to the
Presidency.  The real issues were not much discussed--certainly not by
the Whigs.  In reality the results were due to the general prostration
of business and the utter discredit that had fallen upon General
Jackson's pet bank system.  The Independent Treasury System, as it was
termed by Democrats, or the Sub-Treasury System, as it was called by
the Whigs, had not been tested.

The country was tired of experiments and all the evils, which were
many, that then afflicted the people, were attributed to the
experiments of General Jackson in vetoing the bills for the recharter
of the United States Bank and for the institution of the pet bank
system.  In truth the country was wedded to the idea that the funds of
the government should be so placed that they could be used to
facilitate business.  That idea and the practice arising from it were
full of peril.  In the infancy of a country, when the resources are
inadequate, a national bank, assuming that it is managed honestly and
wisely, may be an important aid, but time being given, it will
inevitably become a political machine in a country, like the United
States, where the political aspirations of the people are active and
the temptations to seek the aid of the money power are always great.
Even in modern time, with a surplus of millions in the banks of the
city of New York, for which no proper use could be found, there are
indications of a purpose to return to the pet bank system under
another name.

Gen. Harrison, the nominee of the Whig Party, was then sixty-seven
years of age by the record, but the public opinion credited him with
several more years.  His mental powers were not of superior quality,
and his life had not been of a sort to develop his faculties.  He had
done good service in the Indian wars of the frontier and as commander
in the battle of Tippecanoe he had won a reputation as a soldier.
During the war of 1812, he commanded the army of the Northwest, and
with honor.  He had had a seat in each House of Congress, he had
represented the government at the capital of a South American Republic,
and all with credit, and all without distinction.  His career had been
sufficiently conspicuous to justify his friends in eulogies in the
party papers and speeches; and neither as good policy nor just
treatment should his opponents have been betrayed into criticisms of
his military and civil life.  The Democrats were unwise enough to raise
an issue upon his military career, and the result was greatly to their
loss.  His frontier life in a log cabin was also the subject of
ridicule at the opening of the campaign.  The Whigs accepted the issue,
built log cabins on wheels and drew them over the country from one mass
meeting to another.  The unfortunate remark was made by a writer or
speaker that if Harrison had a log cabin and plenty of hard cider he
would be content.  A barrel became the emblem of the Whig Party.  The
log cabin was furnished with a cider barrel at the door, and the
emblematic barrel was seen on cane heads and breast pins.

Mr. Webster struck a fatal blow at the error of the Democratic Party:
--"Let him be the log cabin candidate.  What you say in scorn we will
shout with all our lungs. * * * It did not happen to me to be born in a
log cabin; but my elder brother and sisters were born in a log cabin
raised amid the snow drifts of New Hampshire, at a period so early that
when the smoke first rose from its rude chimney and curled over the
frozen hills there was no similar evidence of a white man's habitation
between it and the settlements on the rivers of Canada. * * * If ever I
am ashamed of it, or if I ever fail in affectionate remembrance of him
who reared it, and defended it against savage violence and destruction,
cherished all the domestic virtues beneath its roof, and through the
fire and blood of a seven years' Revolutionary war, shrunk from no
danger, no toil, no sacrifice to save his country and to raise his
children to a condition better than his own, may my name and the name
of my posterity be blotted forever from the memory of mankind."

John Tyler of Virginia, was placed on the Whig ticket as the candidate
for Vice-President.  Tyler had been a Democrat and the opinions of the
States Rights wing of the Democratic Party were his opinions,
notwithstanding his associations with the Whig Party.  His nomination
was due to the disposition to balance the ticket by selecting one of
the candidates from each wing of the party--and there are always two
wings to a party.

Of poetry the Whig writers furnished much more than was enjoyed by
Democrats.  An effort was made to stay the tide in favor of Harrison
by poetry as well as by argument.  The effort was fruitless.  The
contest of 1840 had its origin in the most distressing financial
difficulties that ever rested upon the country, and it was conducted
on the part of the Whigs by large expenditure of money, for those days,
and with a degree of hilarity and good nature that it is difficult now
to realize.  This may have been due to general confidence, and to a
consequent belief that a change of administration would be followed by
general prosperity.

The Whigs were not under the necessity of submitting arguments to their
followers, and the arguments of Democrats were of no avail.  The Whig
papers in all parts of the country contained lists of names of
Democrats who were supporting General Harrison.  Occasionally the
Democratic papers could furnish a short list of Whigs who declared for
Van Buren in preference to Harrison.  The most absurd stories were told
of the administration, and apparently they were accepted as truth.
Charles J. Ogle, of Pennsylvania, delivered a speech in the House of
Representatives in which he marshaled all the absurd stories that were
afloat.  He charged among other things that Van Buren had sets of gold
spoons.  The foundation for the statement was the fact that there were
spoons in the Executive Mansion that were plated or washed with gold on
the inside of the bowls.  The spoons were there in General Grant's
time, but so much like brass or copper in appearance that one would
hesitate about using them.  Another idle story believed by the masses
was that the Navy bought wood in New Orleans at a cost of twenty-four
dollars a cord and carried it to Florida for the use of the troops
during the Seminole war of 1837-8.  Isaac C. Morse, of Louisiana, was
one of the Congressional bearers or mourners at the funeral of John
Quincy Adams, in 1848.  He was a Whig member and his district in 1840
was on the Texas frontier.  At one of the evening sessions of mourning,
while the Committee was in Boston, he gave an account of his campaign,
and he recited a speech made by a young orator who went out with him as
an aid.  The speech opened thus:  "Fellow Citizens; who is Daniel
Webster?  Daniel Webster is a man up in Massachusetts making a
dictionary.  Who is General Harrison?  Everybody knows who General
Harrison is.  He is Tippecanoe and Tyler too.  But who is Martin Van
Bulen?  Martin Van Bulen!  He is the man who bought the wood in the
Orleans, paid twenty-four dollars a cord for it, carried it round to
Florida and had to cut down the trees to land it."  A fellow in the
crowd cried out, "Carrying coals to Newcastle."  "Yes," said the
speaker, "them coals he carried to Newcastle.  I don't know so much
about the coals, but about the wood I've got the documents."

The general public was not only disposed to accept every wild
statement, but the average intelligence was much below the present
standard, and the means of communication were poor.  If, however,
there had been no canvass, the overthrow of Van Buren would have
occurred.  The defeat of the United States Bank, and the failure of
the pet bank system, had been attended by disorders in the finances,
the ruin of manufactures, a reduction in wages, with all the incident
evils.  As these evils were coincident in time with the measures, the
measures were treated as the guilty cause.  Beyond question, Mr. Clay's
tariff bill contributed to the troubles.

George Bancroft, the historian, was then collector of the port of
Boston.  He took an active part in the canvass in Massachusetts.
On the evening of Saturday previous to the election in Massachusetts,
he spoke at Groton in a building afterwards known as Liberty Hall.*

Mr. Bancroft had a full House, but not an enthusiastic one.  Many of
his hearers were Whigs, who came from the country, but not to cheer the
speaker.  Moreover, the news of the New York election, then held the
first three days of the week, was not encouraging to Democrats.  After
the meeting Mr. Bancroft was taken to the tavern, where a supper was
served to him and to a small number of Democrats.  Mr. Bancroft was
excited, and walking the room he said:--"I do believe if General
Harrison is elected, Divine Providence will interfere and prevent his
ever becoming President of the United States."  These words of
disappointment seemed prophecy, when the death of Harrison occurred
within thirty days after his inauguration.

In his address Mr. Bancroft spoke with great confidence of the vote of
New York.  There were some conscientious Democrats in his audience, who
remembered the remarks, and it was with great reluctance that they gave
him their votes when he was a candidate for Governor in 1844.

The more considerate members of the Democratic Party apprehended defeat
from the opening of the canvass.  As early as June 17, the Whigs had
enormous mass meetings at Boston and Bunker Hill.  The Democrats were
not inert.  The Governor of the State was a Democrat and there were
those who had hopes of his re-election.  In set-off of the great
meeting of the 17th of June at Charlestown, the Democrats prepared for
a similar meeting on Lexington Green, July 4.  The concourse of people
was large.  Governor Morton was present and spoke.  I there met William
D. Kelley, who spoke to a portion of the crowd from a wagon.  He was
then employed in a jeweler's establishment in Boston.

Groton sent a company of volunteers for the day numbering about
seventy-five men, under command of Captain William Shattuck, then a
sturdy Democrat and afterwards an equally sturdy Republican.  Shattuck
was the grandson of Captain Job Shattuck, of Shays' Rebellion.  Job
Shattuck had been a captain in the War of the Revolution, and he was
always an earnest patriot.  He was also a man of wealth, having large
possessions in land, and being wholly exempt from the pecuniary
distresses that harassed the majority of men, from the close of the
war to the close of the century.  Job Shattuck's action was due to his
sympathy for the sufferers and to his sense of justice.  In every town
there were traders and small capitalists who had supplied the families
of soldiers who were absent in the service.

Either by mortgage or by executions, the creditors had secured liens
upon the homesteads of the soldiers and from 1783 to 1789 the liens
were enforced.  Petitions went up to the General Court for a stay act.
James Bowdoin was Governor.  The General Court did not listen to the
appeal.  Daniel Shays and others organized forces for the suppression
of the Courts.  Shattuck was the leader in the county of Middlesex,
and at the head of his force he broke up the Court at Concord.  Finally
he was arrested.  Major Woods, who had been an officer in the war, was
in command of the Government forces.  Shattuck was secreted at the
house of one Gregg, who lived near where the house of John Gilson now
stands.  The season was winter.  It was believed that Gregg betrayed
Shattuck.  When Shattuck discovered his peril, he fled and made his
way toward the Nashua River, which was then frozen.  His pursuers
followed, but at unequal pace.  When he had crossed the river, he saw
that the three men in sight were widely separated from each other.
Shattuck turned, and for a time he became the pursuer.  The first man
ran, then the second, but finally Shattuck fell on the ice, with
sword in hand.  His pursuers seized him.  Upon his refusal to surrender
his sword, they cut the cords of his hand, and wounded him in the leg.
He was tried, sentenced to be hanged, and confined in the jail at
Concord.

The election of 1786 turned upon the questions at issue, and especially
upon the execution of the persons under sentence.  Bowdoin was the
candidate of the "Law-and-Order Party," and John Hancock was nominated
by the friends of the convicts.  Hancock was elected by a vote of about
nineteen thousand against less than six thousand for Bowdoin.  The
convicts were pardoned, and a stay law was passed.  The demand of the
Shays men was reasonable, and the Government was guilty of a criminal
error in resisting it.

The Shays Rebellion was beneficial to Massachusetts, and it contributed
to the argument in favor of the Constitution of the United States.

The town of Groton continued in the control of Shattuck and his friends
for many years after the suppression of the Rebellion.  During that
period he was drawn as a juror.  When his name was called the judge
repeated it, and said, "Job Shattuck!  He can't sit on the jury in this
Court."  As Shattuck came out of the seat limping he said:  "I have
broken up one Court here, and things won't be right, until I break up
another."

Something of the spirit of Job Shattuck has been exhibited in the
larger portion of his numerous descendants.  They have been devoted to
liberty and just in their dealings.  These two qualities were
conspicuous in his grandson, Captain William Shattuck.

I took part in the canvass of 1840 and made speeches in Groton and in
several of the towns in the vicinity.  I was also the candidate of the
Democratic Party for a seat in the House of Representatives.  There was
no opposition for the nomination, although there were many Democrats
who thought my defection the preceding year had prevented the election
of the Democratic candidates.  My temperance opinions were offensive to
many, if not to a majority of the party.  On the other hand there were
a number of young members of the Whig Party whose votes I could
command.  As a final fact, the political feeling was then so strong
that all considerations yielded to the chances and hopes of success.

My opponent, and the successful candidate, was Mr. John Boynton,
afterward, and for a single year, a member of the senate.  He was a
native of the town, a blacksmith by trade, and the son of a blacksmith.
He was a man of quiet ways, upright, and known to every voter.  He had
been in the office of town clerk for many years, he had been kind to
everyone, and he had no enemies.  Boynton was elected, but by a
moderate majority.  But for the excitement of the Presidential
election, the contest would have been very close.

The death of General Harrison and the elevation of John Tyler to the
Presidency wrought a great change in the fortunes of the Whig Party.
Soon after the assembling of Congress at the extra session, called by
President Harrison, a bill for a Fiscal Bank was passed by the two
Houses, and vetoed by President Tyler.  The veto message was so framed
as to encourage the Whig leaders to pass a second bill in a form
designed to avoid the objections of the President.

In the discussion upon the veto of the first bill, Mr. Clay assailed
the President in such terms that a reconciliation was impossible.  From
that moment it was the purpose of the President to co-operate with the
Democratic Party.  A second bill was passed.  That was also vetoed by
the President.  Early in September all the members of the Cabinet
resigned except Mr. Webster.  The outgoing members gave reasons to the
public, and Mr. Webster gave reasons for not going.  Caleb Cushing,
Henry A. Wise, and a few other Whigs, called the Omnibus Party chose
their part with Webster and Tyler.  The Whig Party was divided,
hopelessly.

Previous to the division, a bill had passed, which had been approved by
the President, for the repeal of the Independent Treasury System.  The
ardor of its enemies was such that no substitute was provided.  The
expectation was that a Fiscal Bank, or Fiscal Agent, would be created.
The failure of the bank bills left the Government without any lawful
system of finance.  The pet bank system was restored, in fact.  The
rupture in the Whig Party contributed to its defeat in Massachusetts
at the election in 1842, but the party was so compact in 1841 that its
triumph was assured.  Mr. Webster defended his course, and with few
exceptions his conduct was either approved or tolerated in
Massachusetts.

[* It was then an unfinished building and stood where the Willow Dale
road connects with Hollis Street.  The building had been erected by a
body of people who advocated the union of all the churches.  They
called themselves Unionists.  Their leader was the Rev. Silas Hawley.
He was a vigorous thinker, a close reasoner, and he displayed great
knowledge of the Bible.  His following became considerable.  The
excitement extended to the neighboring towns and for a time serious
inroads were made upon the churches of the village.

The no-creed doctrine was accepted by some who never believed in any
creed, and by others who had believed in creeds that they then thought
were false.  In the year 1838, Hawley convened a "World's Convention"
at Liberty Hall, called by the wicked "Polliwog Chapel," to consider
the subject of uniting all the churches in one church without a creed.

One afternoon early in the week of the session, I saw three men walking
on the street towards Liberty Hall, with knapsacks buckled on their
backs.  One of these was Theodore Parker, one George Ripley, and the
third, I think, was Charles A. Dana.  In this I may be in error.
Parker told me in after years when he had a wide-spread reputation,
that his first public speech was made in that convention.]


X
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 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.

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 much 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 the 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 one 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
hangman.  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
the 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 competence were never
doubted by anyone.  The revenues and expenditure 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 discussion 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 was 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 in 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 States 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.


XI
THE ELECTION OF 1842, AND THE DORR REBELLION

The election of 1842 was contested by the Democratic Party and
successfully, upon the charge that the Whig Administration had unwisely
and illegally aided the "law and order party" in Rhode Island in the
controversy with Thomas W. Dorr, the leader of the party engaged in an
attempt to change the form of government in that State.  At that time
the people of Rhode Island were living under the charter granted by
Charles II.  Its provisions were illiberal in the opinion of the
majority of the people of Rhode Island, but the majority of the voters
under the Charter thought otherwise.  Mr. Dorr represented the popular
opinion, and Governor King represented the dominant class.  Governor
King was a Whig and, naturally the Whig Party of Massachusetts
sympathized with him.  Gen. H. A. S. Dearborn, who had been an officer
in the War of 1812, was then Adjutant-General of Massachusetts.  In his
haste to aid Governor King, he loaned to him quite a quantity of
muskets from the State Arsenal.  This act caused great criticism and
contributed to the overthrow of the Whig Party in 1842, if it did not
in fact cause it.  Dorr had organized a government, under a
constitution which had been ratified by such of the people of Rhode
Island as chose to vote upon it.  The Dorr legislature assembled, a
military force was organized, and the State seemed to be on the eve of
a bloody contest.

Governor King appealed for aid to President Tyler.  The President
recognized Governor King as the head of the lawful government of the
State, and although the aid was not granted, the Dorr Rebellion came
to an end.  The courts followed the political department of the
government, and the attempt of Dorr and his associates was a failure in
fact and in law.  The failure was followed, however, by the adoption of
a constitution from which the most objectionable features of the
Charter were removed.

In 1842 Massachusetts was living under the majority system.  The
Abolitionists placed a candidate in nomination.  As a consequence there
was no election of Governor by the people.  The Democrats succeeded in
obtaining a majority of the Senators elected.  The House was about
equally divided between the Whigs and the Democrats, and the balance of
power was in the hands of four Abolitionists, who were led by one Lewis
Williams of Easton.  Williams was a sort of personage for ten or
twelve days, when he disappeared from public view.

In the contest for Speaker the Democrats supported Seth J. Thomas, of
Charlestown, and the Whigs nominated Thomas Kinnicutt, of Worcester,
who had held the office of Speaker in 1842.  The Abolitionists voted
for Williams.  The struggle continued for two days without a result.
On the third day Mr. Kinnicutt withdrew his name, and his friends
presented the name of Daniel P. King, of Danvers.

Mr. Thomas made a short speech in which he said that he was in the
hands of his friends.  The Democrats attempted to change front, and
to secure the election of Williams.  The attempt failed, and Mr. King
was elected.  Mr. King was a man of moderate abilities, but he had made
himself acceptable to the voting element of the Anti-Slavery Party.
His election as Speaker, was followed by his election to the Twenty-
eighth Congress.  The southern part of Essex County had been
represented by Leverett Saltonstall, of Salem.  He was the candidate of
the Whig Party in 1842, but the votes of the Anti-Slavery men prevented
his election.  Mr. Saltonstall was a man of superior abilities and a
perfect gentleman in bearing and conduct.  He had been a Federalist
and my impressions were adverse to him.  In 1844 he came to the
Massachusetts House of Representatives.  He was appointed Chairman of
the Judiciary Committee of which I was a member.  All my prejudices
were removed, and I came to admire his qualities as a man, and his
capacity as a legislator.

Upon the organization of the House of Representatives, in 1843, the
two Houses in convention, proceeded to the election of a Governor,
Lieutenant Governor, Council, and heads of the several administrative
bureaus.  Marcus Morton, of Taunton, was elected Governor, Dr. Childs
of Pittsfield (Henry H.) was chosen Lieutenant Governor, and of the
subordinate officers all were Democrats.

The nomination of John A. Bolles, for the office of Secretary of the
Commonwealth, gave rise to a singular episode in politics.  John P.
Bigelow, of Boston, had held that office for several years.  He had
performed the duties acceptably, and there was a difference of opinion
in the Democratic Party as to the expediency of a change.  The caucus
decided to make a change.  Upon the announcement of the nomination of
Mr. Bolles, Nathaniel Wood, who had been elected a Senator in
convention, from the county of Worcester, left the caucus and the next
day he resigned his seat in the Senate.  His peculiarities did not end
with this act.  In 1850 he was elected to the House for the year 1851,
as a Coalition Democrat.  He voted for Sumner, but he was greatly
annoyed by the charge of the Whigs that there had been an unholy
coalition between a portion of the Democratic Party and the Free-
soilers.  In replying to the allegations, he made the counter charge
that there was a coalition between the Whigs and the "old hunker
Democrats" as they were called.  They were, in fact, the Democrats
who would not vote for Sumner.  A member called upon Wood for the
evidence.  This question he had not anticipated, and after staggering
for a reply, he said--"I have seen them whispering together."  As legal
evidence the answer was faulty, but in a moral point of view it was not
without force.

Governor Morton was a man of solid qualities.  He had been upon the
bench of the Supreme Judicial Court of the State for many years and in
the fellowship of such jurists as Chief Justice Shaw, Judges Wilde,
Putnam, Hubbard, and others, and he had borne himself with credit and
perhaps even with distinction.  He was a favorite of the Democratic
Party and for many years he had been its candidate for Governor, and
always without opposition.  His election in 1839 was due to the public
dissatisfaction with the Temperance Act passed in 1838 and known as the
Fifteen-Gallon Law.  He became Governor in the year 1840, but as his
Council and the two Houses were controlled by the Whig Party neither
his friends nor his enemies had any means of testing his quality as a
political administrator.  In 1843, however, the circumstances were
different.  His political friends were in power in every branch of the
government.  Party expectations were not realized, and Governor
Morton's administration was not popular with the party generally.
Early in the session, Benjamin F. Hallett, a member of the Executive
Council, became alienated, and the spirit of harmony was banished from
that branch of the government.

As the election had been carried upon the Dorr Rebellion, it was
thought expedient to recognize the event by a dinner in Faneuil Hall.
Dorr was then an exile, and the guest of Henry Hubbard, Democratic
Governor of New Hampshire.  Dorr was invited to the dinner, but he did
not attend.  It was asserted that he was given to understand that
Governor Morton would by placed in an unpleasant position if Dorr were
to come to Massachusetts from New Hampshire, and at the same time, a
requisition should come from the Governor of Rhode Island for his
delivery to answer in that State to an indictment for treason.  The
incident gave rise to a good deal of feeling, and finally, Governor
Morton did not attend the banquet.  Thus it happened that neither of
the chiefs in whose honor the banquet was arranged, was in attendance
on the occasion.

I was appointed Chairman of the Committee on Invitations.  These were
sent to leading Democrats in all parts of the country and especially
were they sent to distinguished members of Congress.  The answers
contained only the most delicate and remote allusions to the object
of the festival.  The letters were turned over to the officers of the
meeting.  For myself, I retained only the envelope of the letter of Mr.
Calhoun with his frank upon the right-hand corner.  I had not
previously seen a letter envelope.

Governor Morton's administration was a failure, and at the election in
1843 he was defeated by Governor Briggs.  The State was a Whig State,
and a Democratic administration for two successive years was an
impossibility.  My impressions of Governor Morton underwent several
changes.  Previous to his election in 1843 I had regarded him as one
of the able men of the country.  His lack of courage, and his apparent
desertion of his friends in 1843 produced an unfavorable impression
upon me both of his character and of his abilities.  As to his
character, my impressions remain.  Of his abilities I can have no doubt.

With some exceptions the policy and measures of the Democratic Party
in 1843 were crude and unwise.  They demanded changes under the name
of reforms.  The chief measure was a bill to reduce the salaries of
public officers, including the salaries of the governor, the lieutenant
governor, and the judges of all the courts.  The Whigs resisted the
passage of the bill, upon the ground of its injustice to the persons in
office, and of its unconstitutionality in respect to the salaries of
the judges of the Supreme Judicial Court.

The bill became a law, and upon the return of the Whigs to power in
1844, the salaries of the judges of the Supreme Judicial Court were
restored, and they were reimbursed for the loss sustained by the act
of 1843.  At the session of 1844 I made an argument upon the
constitutional question, but it was of no avail.  As I have not read
my own argument since 1844 I am not prepared to say that it is
unsound.

By the election of 1843 Governor Morton was defeated.  George N. Briggs
who had been for many years a member of Congress from the Berkshire
District, was elected Governor, and with him a majority of his
political friends in the two Houses.  Governor Briggs held the office
until January 1851.  He was a man of fair, natural abilities, with a
taste for politics.  He had risen from a low condition of life but he
was entirely free from the vices of the world.  As a rigid temperance
man and opponent to slavery, the middle classes of the State became
his supporters without argument.  He held the office for seven years,
but he was defeated by the coalition of 1850.

Among the leading members of the House in 1844, was Joseph Bell, then
recently from Hanover, N. H.  He was named second on the Judiciary
Committee, and to him was committed the conduct of the bill to restore
the judges' salaries.  He was a man of massive frame and of great vigor
of body.  His voice was loud, but it lacked those elements that come
from cultivation.  He had accumulated considerable wealth in the
country and he had come to Boston for ease and comfort in age.  His
career was brief as he lived only a few years thereafter.

Of the affirmative measures of the Legislature of 1844 the most
important perhaps was the statute requiring the registration of births,
marriages, and deaths.  Previous to that time there was no
authoritative records of births, marriages, or deaths.  The books of
town clerks, the records of clergymen, and the entries in family Bibles
were the sources of information.  The information was never complete,
and often that obtained was inaccurate.  The promoters of the measure
were Dr. Edward Jarvis of Dorchester and Lemuel Shattuck of Concord.
They were both enthusiastic upon the subject and when they had created
in me an interest, they furnished me with books and documents including
reports of the English and French systems.  The petition or memorial
was referred to the Judiciary Committee and it fell to me to prepare
the bill.  This I did with the aid, and largely under the direction, of
Shattuck and Jarvis.  Then for the first time I had practical use for
the small stock of knowledge that I had acquired of the French
language.  Previous to my election to the Legislature I had purchased a
series of books on the French language, known as "French Without a
Teacher."  My study of the language had been limited to fragments of
time that I could command while engaged in the business of the store.
Upon my election to the Legislature I made the acquaintance of Count
La Porte who had been a professor of the French language at Cambridge.
I took lessons from him during the sessions of 1842 and 1843.

In the year 1844 I received from the Democratic Party the nomination
for a seat in Congress.  It was a barren honor.  The district was in
the hands of the Whig Party by a respectable majority.  In the canvass
of 1842 the Whigs had nominated John P. Robinson.  He was not an
acceptable candidate, and the candidate of the Abolitionists received
a large vote.  The Democratic candidate was Joseph W. Mansur of
Lowell.  In the first contest he was near an election by a majority.
At the second trial his friends had high hopes of success.  At the
close of the contest it was found that he had lost votes.  His
friends charged that his loss was due to the secret opposition of
Josiah G. Abbott, who was a rival to Mansur, in the city of Lowell.
In 1844 Mansur retired from the field and Abbott became a candidate.
Mansur's friends were opposed to the nomination of Abbott, and by their
action the nomination came to me.  The district was then hopeless.  In
1842 the Dorr question was uppermost in the public mind.  That had lost
its power.  In a Presidential contest Massachusetts was Whig by an
immense majority.  National questions were all-controlling.  I was
renominated for Congress in 1846 and 1848.  I canvassed the district
and made speeches in the principal places but as to success I never
had any hope.

The 17th day of June, 1843, Mr. Webster delivered the address upon the
completion of the Bunker Hill Monument.  President Tyler and some
members of his Cabinet were present.  The concourse of people was so
great that experts were justified in estimating the number at one
hundred thousand.  This was the third opportunity that I had had to
hear Mr. Webster speak.  The first was in the Senate in January, 1839.
A few days later I was present in the gallery of the Supreme Court
room, and heard the argument in the case of Smith _v._ Richards.

Mr. Webster appeared for Smith and Mr. Crittenden for Richards.  The
subject was the sale of a gold mine in which fraud was alleged by
Smith.  The judgment was for Richards, three judges dissenting.  For
the first time I heard the word "denizen," used by Mr. Crittenden.

The election of 1844 was disastrous to the Democratic Party of
Massachusetts.  George Bancroft was its candidate for Governor.  He was
an enthusiastic leader, but not a popular candidate.  I recall the
circumstance that I met him during the canvass at the head of Hanover
Street, Boston, when some news favorable to Polk had been received.  He
had a small cane in his hand which he whirled in the air, and shouted:
"Glorious!  Glorious!" until we were surrounded by a crowd of men and
boys.

At the November election I was defeated by a majority of seventy-six, I
think, in a vote of about four hundred.  I had some political sins of
my own that intensified the hostility of my Whig neighbors, and many
Democrats voted the Whig ticket.

The act requiring the treasurers and cashiers of corporations to return
the names of stockholders to the assessors of the cities and towns
where the stockholders resided with the amount of stock held by each,
could not be overlooked by those who had suffered.  The recollection of
my part in the business was still fresh in the minds of the victims.
Next the scheme for the annexation of Texas was treated as a Democratic
measure, and every Democrat suffered for the sin of the party.  As to
myself, I had spoken in the House against the scheme.  I was a member
of the Committee, of which Charles F. Adams was Chairman, that had made
reports adverse to the measure.  The circumstances, however, availed
nothing.  Mr. Clay's popularity was great, notwithstanding the
indifference or concealed hostility of Mr. Webster.  Indeed, Mr.
Webster's popularity had suffered from his connection with John Tyler.

Mr. Polk had no strength in Massachusetts.  He was the nominee of the
Democratic Party, nothing more.  Before the day of election came in
Massachusetts the election of Polk was known and conceded.  New York
voted the Monday preceding the Monday of the election in Massachusetts,
and the voting was not over until Wednesday night.  There was a mass
meeting at Pepperell, Thursday afternoon, at which Benjamin F. Hallett
and myself spoke.  Mr. Hallett was very confident of Polk's election.
I was in doubt.

That evening I spoke at Chelmsford, and upon my return to Groton, I
found several Whigs at Hoar's tavern, who were congratulating
themselves upon a Whig victory in New York.  Their authority was the
Boston _Atlas,_ an authority not universally accepted at that time.  As
I passed through the bar-room, after leaving my horse at the stable, I
was rallied, and the assertion was made with great confidence that Mr.
Clay was elected.  I could only say in reply that they had better wait
until they had some other authority for the claim.  I went to my house,
however, with many doubts as to the success of Polk.

At that time there was no railway communication between Boston and
Groton.  The first intelligence from abroad came from Lowell.  My
friends there sent to me a copy of the _Vox Populi,_ printed during the
night, and which contained the truthful returns from New York.  At that
time the _Vox Populi_ was not in very good repute, and I thought it
unwise to quote it to anyone.  I thrust it into my desk without
mentioning its contents.

Upon the arrival of the stage from Boston, I received a bundle of
papers from my old friend General Staples, which confirmed the news
furnished by the _Vox Populi_.  These papers I also thrust into my
desk, and went to the post-office.  The outer room was filled with
Whigs--not one Democrat present.  The Whigs were still reposing upon
the news printed in the Boston _Atlas,_ but my statement that I had
information more recent and that Polk had carried New York disturbed
their composure.

At length the postmaster, Caleb Butler, opened the slide door, and
passed out a copy of the Boston _Courier_.  The receiver opened it.
There were no capitals, no signs of exultation, and without waiting
for the reading of the text, the assembly accepted the fact that Clay
was defeated.

The Whigs of Massachusetts and indeed of the whole country were deeply
grieved by the defeat of Mr. Clay.  In many instances his popularity
had ripened into personal friendship.  His defeat came to many families
as a real loss.  Among the disappointed Whigs who had met at the post-
office that morning was a neighbor and friend of mine, Mr. Aaron
Perkins.  In his excitement he said with an oath, "Next Monday we will
give you a whipping."  His declaration was verified.  Many Democrats
whose names were never disclosed to me voted for the Whig candidate,
Deacon William Livermore, and he was elected by a majority of more than
seventy votes.  The next year he was re-elected by a diminished
majority.

In 1846 the Whig Party nominated a new candidate, Edwin Coburn, a young
lawyer then in the office of George F. Farley, with whom Coburn had
studied his profession.  Coburn was a man of good parts intellectually,
a fair debater, and an intimate friend of mine.  The town was canvassed
thoroughly.  Two ballots were taken during the first day.  I received
one hundred and ninety-six votes, and Coburn received one hundred and
ninety-six votes at each ballot, and there were four scattering votes.
The meeting was adjourned to the succeeding day.  That night there was
a rally of the absentees.  The Democrats sent to Lowell, Manchester,
N. H., and Boston, there being an absentee at each of those places.
Upon the first ballot the second day I received two hundred and eleven
votes and Coburn two hundred and seven.  Of scattering votes there were
none.  From that time forward the town was Democratic.  In all the
previous contests I had contended against a Whig majority.  My success
had been due to the friendship of a number of Whig families, to my
strength among the young men, and to a more perfect organization of the
Democratic Party.  The annexation of Texas, and the Mexican War, had
alienated the support of some, and to this fact was due the closeness
of the contest of 1846.


XII
THE LEGISLATURE OF 1847

At the meeting of the Legislature of 1847, some new members appeared.
Caleb Cushing came from Newburyport, and Fletcher Webster, and J.
Lothrop Motley from Boston.  The Democrats of Boston and vicinity were
then engaged in raising and equipping a regiment for Mexico.  Cushing
was Colonel of the regiment and Edward Webster, a brother of Fletcher,
was the Captain of one of the companies.  On the first day of the
session Cushing introduced an order to appropriate twenty thousand
dollars to aid in equipping the regiment for service.  The order was
referred to a special committee of which Cushing was made chairman.
I was put upon the committee and the majority were friends of the
measure.

Upon the report a discussion sprang up which was partisan with a few
exceptions.  Conspicuous among the exceptions was Fletcher Webster.
Webster supported the appropriation in a speech of signal ability.  His
drawback was the disposition to compare him with his father.  Fletcher
was aware of this, and I recollect his remarks upon the subject at an
accidental meeting on Warren Bridge.  Fletcher was rather undersize,
and he spoke of that fact as a hindrance to success in life, in
addition to the disposition to compare him with his father.  In his
speech he made a remark not unlike the style of his father.  Addressing
himself to his Whig friends, he said that they would be required to
explain their opposition to the measure, and added, "and explanations
are always disagreeable."  My acquaintance with Fletcher Webster, was
the introduction to a limited acquaintance with his father, and it led
to an act on the part of Mr. Webster which was of signal importance to
me.

Mr. Cushing remained in the House until the loss of the appropriation,
when he left for Washington.  President Polk gave him a commission as a
Brigadier-General, and he left for Mexico.

Motley was chairman of the Committee on Education, and as Chairman he
reported a bill to divide a portion of the proceeds of the Maine lands,
among the three colleges of the State.  Theretofore they had been added
to the Common School Fund.  As a member of the committee, I opposed the
measure, and the bill was lost.  The subject is mentioned in Holmes'
Life of Motley, and a letter of mine is printed therein.  I had no idea
at the time that Motley had any feeling on account of his defeat, but
Mr. Hooper informed me that it led him to abandon politics.  If so I
may have been the unconscious cause of a success in literature which he
might not have attained in public, political life.

At this session I inaugurated a movement for the reorganization of
Harvard College.  The contest was continued in 1848, '49 and '50.  In
1851 I was elected Governor and the Legislature, under the lead of
Caleb Cushing, passed a bill by which the overseers of the College were
made elective by the Legislature.  It was a compromise measure, and its
immediate results were not favorable to the College.  The lobby became
influential in the selection of overseers and unemployed clergymen of
various denominations were active in lobbying for themselves.  After
a few years' experience the election of overseers was transferred to
the Alumni, with whom the power still remains.  The bill which I
introduced, the reports and arguments which I submitted to the House,
aimed at the reorganization of the corporation and the election of the
corporators by the Legislature.

In the years 1849 and 1850 the town of Concord was represented by the
Hon. Samuel Hoar, and he led in the defence of the College.  He was no
ordinary antagonist.  First and last I have been brought into
competition with many men of ability, and I have not often met a more
able reasoner.  He spoke without notes, his only aid being his pocket
knife which he held in his right hand and dropped by regular processes
into his left hand, where he changed the ends of the knife and then
resumed the automatic process.

My own argument I have not read for many years, but it is not unlikely
that it contains as much ingenuity as can be found in any argument that
I have ever made.  The movement attracted a good deal of interest in
the State.  The College was in control of the Unitarians exclusively,
and it was far from prosperous.  The final change of the Board of
Overseers gave a popular character to the institution, and it was one
of the elements of its recent prosperity.  For the moment the managers
of the College were very hostile to me, but in the course of ten years
all feeling had disappeared, and I enjoyed the friendship of Presidents
Sparks, Felton, and Walker.

The College conferred upon me the degree of LL.D. in 1851.  That honor
had no significance as it was given to every person who was elected
Governor and that without regard to his learning, attainments, or
services.*  Subsequently, however, I was elected a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences by the votes of those who were
controlling the College.  In 1861 I was invited to deliver the Phi
Beta Kappa oration, and I was then made a member of the society.  Since
the opening of the war I have been at Cambridge on two or three
occasions only, and my present acquaintance with the persons in power
is very limited.

From 1844 to 1850 I received from Governor Briggs several appointments.
In 1845 or '46 the Legislature passed an Act authorizing the
appointment of railway commissioners.  Governor Briggs sent me a
commission, which I declined.  The Board was never organized, and the
act was soon repealed.  I was also appointed a member of a commission
on Boston Harbor.  At the time the public were anxious about the fate
of the harbor in consequence of the drainage into it by Charles River,
and numerous minor channels.  It was not then understood that all
deposits by drainage could be removed by dredging.  The members of the
Commission were Judges Williams, Hopkinson, Cummins, the Hon. Chas.
Hudson and myself.  The three judges had then recently lost their
offices by the abolition of the court of common pleas.  Mr. Hudson
had then recently left the United States House of Representatives, but
whether voluntarily or upon compulsion I cannot say.  He was a
clergyman, a Universalist, but at an early age he had abandoned his
profession for politics.  After serving in the Massachusetts House,
Senate and Council, he was elected to Congress from the Worcester
district, for which he sat during four Congresses.  He was a man of
solid qualities without genius of any sort.  He was distinguished in
Congress as a Protectionist, and his speeches on the tariff question
were widely circulated by the Whig Party.  They were filled with
statistics, and like all arguments based on statistics, they were
subject to a good deal of criticism by the advocates of free trade.

The three judges were respectable, clear-headed gentlemen.  Of Cummins
the story is told that, when for the first time a plan of land was
introduced in a real-estate case, he refused to consider the document,
saying:  "I will not allow a case to be won in my court by diagrams."
Williams had been chief justice of the common pleas court and he was
estimated as the superior among his associates upon the bench.  Judge
Hopkinson was from Lowell, where he had been a favorite of the ruling
class in that city.  He was a man of moderate ability.  The work of the
commission continued through several months, and some of its
recommendations were adopted by the Legislature.

As the charters of all the banks in the State were to expire in 1850 or
1851, in the latter year, I think, the Legislature authorized the
appointment of a board of commissioners for the examination of the
banks.  The Governor and Council appointed Solomon Lincoln, of Hingham,
Joseph S. Cabot of Salem, and myself.

Mr. Lincoln was a kind, capable man of considerable learning,
especially in Old Colony history and genealogy.  His first question to
bank officers often related to them personally, and when he found a man
who traced his line to the Old Colony, he pressed him with questions
until his whole history was disclosed.  Mr. Cabot sometimes anticipated
Mr. Lincoln, by saying at once, when we entered a bank, "Is there
anybody here from the Old Colony?"

Mr. Cabot was a bachelor of fifty, and his ways were often odd, and
occasionally they were disagreeable.  He had a custom of never locking
his sleeping-room door.  Of this he often boasted.  When we were at the
American House, Worcester, Mr. Cabot said upon his appearance in the
morning:  "A very queer thing happened to me last night.  When I got up
my clothes were missing.  At last I opened the door, and there they
were in the hall.  I supposed that I had been robbed.  But I am all
right," taking his wallet from his pocket.  I said:  "Have you looked
in your wallet?"  He opened it to find that the money had disappeared.
We ventured to suggest that for a bank commissioner, he had not shown
a great amount of shrewdness.

In the years 1849 and 1850 the commission examined all the banks in the
State.  Only one was found insolvent, a bank at Pawtucket on the
Rhode Island line.  The cashier, named Tillinghast, had been persuaded
by a man named Marchant, of Rhode Island, to loan money without the
knowledge of the officers of the bank.  The loan, at the time of the
discovery, amounted to sixty thousand dollars.

Upon the examination it appeared that there was a slight surplus of
funds over the amount required by the statement.  We insisted upon
another examination.  The cashier then reduced the balance by the
statement that certain notes sent forward for collection had been
discounted.  It was impossible, however, to make the two sides of the
account equal each other.  At the end of the second day the cashier
confessed the crime, and transferred his private property to the bank.
Marchant did nothing.  He came to the Rhode Island edge of the bridge,
where we had some consultations with him, but without any result
advantageous to the bank.

In 1847 I was a member of a joint committee to investigate the subject
of insanity in the State, and to visit asylums in other States, the
object being the erection of a second hospital for the care and
treatment of the insane.  At the time the only asylum under the control
of the State was that at Worcester.  There was a second at Somerville
for the treatment of private patients.  This was under the control of
the Massachusetts General Hospital.  The hospital at Worcester was
under the management of Dr. Woodward, and each years for many years the
reports had set it forth as a well organized and well managed
institution.  At the beginning of our labors we visited the Worcester
Hospital.  I was then ignorant of the treatment of the insane, but I
was shocked by the sight of women in the cells in the basement, who had
no bedding but straw, and some of whom had no clothing whatever.

The committee visited the McLean Asylum at Somerville; the Butler
Hospital, Rhode Island; the Utica and Bloomingdale Asylums, New York;
the Trenton Hospital, the Kirkbride Hospital, and the Philadelphia Alms
House, and in none of these institutions did we find any person naked
or confined in a cell.  The furiously insane were dressed, the arms
were tied so as to limit the use of the hands, and the hands were
covered with padded mittens.  The Worcester Hospital was the poorest
institution of all.  Our chairman, the Rev. Orin S. Fowler, afterwards
a member of Congress, was very indignant, and his report to the
Legislature aroused the State from its delusion in regard to the
Worcester Hospital.  We examined many sites for the contemplated new
hospitals, but the Legislature postponed action.

During the year 1847 I was a member of a committee to examine and
report upon the securities held by the State.  These securities were
chiefly the property of the Common School Fund, and they had been
derived from the sales of public lands in Maine owned jointly with
that State under the agreement made at the time of the separation.
Among these securities was a mortgage upon the property of Nathaniel
J. Wythe, at Fresh Pond.  Mr. Wythe had been a trapper for John Jacob
Astor, and he had published a pamphlet upon the region of the Rocky
Mountains.  Elisha H. Allen afterwards our Consul to Honolulu, and then
Chief Justice of Hawaii, and more recently Minister from that country
to the United States, was a member of the committee.  Mr. Allen and
myself were at Fresh Pond together and under the lead of Wythe we went
to one of his large ice-houses.  The month was August and the men were
engaged in removing ice from the house for loading upon the railway
cars.  From the top o

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