Autobiography of Seventy Years Part 35

I freely admit that I have believed with all my heart and soul in the principles of the Republican Party. But I think there can be found few members of that party who have been less controlled in their public actions by violent partisanship than I have.

CHAPTER x.x.xI SAt.u.r.dAY CLUB

In 1877, about the time of my election to the Senate, I was chosen a member of the famous Sat.u.r.day Club. I always attended the meetings when I could be in Boston until after the death of my brother, when every man who was a member when I was chosen was dead, except Mr. Norton and Judge Gray and the younger Aga.s.siz and Mr. Howells, and all of them had ceased to be constant attendants.

They used to meet at the Parker House in Boston once a month.

Each member was at liberty to bring a guest.

I suppose there was never a merely social club with so many famous men in it or another where the conversation was more delightful since that to which Johnson and Burke and Goldsmith and Garrick and Reynolds belonged. There was plenty of sparkling wit and repartee and plenty of serious talk from philosophers and men of letters and science. Aga.s.siz and Jeffries Wyman would sometimes debate Darwin's theory of evolution, which Darwin had confided to Asa Gray, another member, long before he made it known to the public. Holmes and Lowell contributed their wit, and Judge h.o.a.r, whom Lowell declared the most brilliant man in conversation he had ever known, his shrewd Yankee sense and his marvellous store of anecdote. Some of the greatest members, notably Emerson and Longfellow and Whittier, were in general quite silent. But it was worth going a thousand miles if but to see one of them, or to hear the tones of his voice.

In the beginning I suspected Dr. Holmes of getting himself ready for the talk at the dinner as for a lecture. But I soon found that was utterly unjust. He was always as good if a new subject were brought up, which he could not have expected and which was wholly out of the range of his experience.

His stream was abundant and sparkling and clear, whenever you might tap the cask. "Take another gla.s.s of wine, Judge,"

he said to one of the members who was starting near midnight to drive twenty miles in the cold rain of autumn, "Take another gla.s.s of wine; it will shorten the distance and double the prospect."

Dr. Holmes and I were born on the same day of the year, although I was seventeen years behind him. I sent to the delightful Autocrat the following note which reached him on the morning of his eightieth birthday.

WORCESTER, Aug. 28th, 89.

_My dear Dr. Holmes:_ Let me add my salutation to those of so many of your countrymen, and so many who are not your countrymen, save in the republic of letters, on your birthday.

You may well be amused to think how many political reputations have risen and set during your long and sunny reign. I was led to think of this by the fact that my own birthday also comes Aug. 29th. But alas!

Consules sunt quotannis et novi proconsules, Solus aut Rex aut Poeta non quotannis nascitur.

Of Governors and Senators we have an annual crop. But Autocrats and Poets come but once in eighty years. The asteroids must not envy the Georgium Sides his...o...b..t of fourscore years, but rather rejoice in his beneficent and cheerful light, and in the certainty that it will keep on shining so long as there is a star in the sky.

I am Faithfully yours GEO. F. h.o.a.r.

I got the following pleasant reply:

BEVERLY FARMS, Ma.s.s., August 30, 1889.

_My dear Mr. h.o.a.r,_

Your note of felicitation upon my having reached that "length of days" which Wisdom, if I remember correctly, holds in her right hand, was the first I received and is the first I answer.

Briefly, of course, but with heartfelt sincerity, for I hardly thought that you whose hand is on the wheel that governs the course of the Nation, would find time to remember so small an event as my birthday.

You cannot doubt that it was a great pleasure to me to read your name at the bottom of a page containing so much that it was kind in you to write and most agreeable for me to read.

Please accept my warmest and most grateful acknowledgments, and believe me

Faithfully yours, OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

NAMES OF THE MEMBERS OF THE SAt.u.r.dAY CLUB WHEN I USED TO ATTEND ITS MEETINGS.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Francis Parkman, Edwin P. Whipple, Alexander Aga.s.siz, Horatio Woodman, R. H. Dana, John S. Dwight, Wolcott Gibbs, Samuel G. Ward, Horace Gray, R. H. Dana, Jr., Edward N. Perkins, Louis Aga.s.siz, Asa Gray, Benjamin Pierce, W. D. Howells, J. R. Lowell, Edmund Quincy, H. W. Longfellow, E. L. G.o.dkin, J. L. Motley, William B. Rogers, C. C. Felton, William Amory, O. W. Holmes, James Freeman Clarke, E. R. h.o.a.r, Phillips Brooks, William H. Prescott, William W. Story, John G. Whittier, George F. h.o.a.r, Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Lowell, T. G. Appleton, O. W. Holmes, Jr., J. M. Forbes, Theodore Lyman, Charles E. Norton, William James, J. Elliot Cabot, Francis A. Walker, Samuel G. Howe, Charles F. Adams, Jr., Frederick H. Hedge, F. L. Olmsted, Estes Howe, R. Pumpelly, Charles Sumner, H. H. Richardson, Henry James, William Endicott, Jr., Martin Brimmer, William C. Endicott, James T. Fields, William W. Goodwin, S. W. Rowse, John C. Gray, John A. Andrew, Edward C. Pickering, Jeffries Wyman, Thomas B. Aldrich, E. W. Gurney, Edward W. Emerson, W. M. Hunt, Walbridge A. Field, Charles F. Adams, Sen., Henry L. Higginson, Charles W. Eliot, Edward W. Hooper, Charles C. Perkins, Henry P. Walcott.

CHAPTER x.x.xII THE WORCESTER FIRE SOCIETY

I have been for fifty years a member of another club called the Worcester Fire Society, some of whose members have had a remarkable relation to important events in the history of the country, of which the story will be worth recording. The club was founded in 1793, before the days of fire-engines, so that if the house of any of the members caught fire, his a.s.sociates might come to the rescue with buckets and bags and bed-keys and other apparatus to put out the fire and save the property. But it long since became a mere social club.

It is limited to thirty members.

The elder Levi Lincoln, Mr. Jefferson's intimate friend, confidential correspondent and Attorney-General in his Cabinet, organizer of the political movement which built up Mr. Jefferson's power in New England in the beginning of the last century, was not, I believe, a member of the Society himself. But his sons were, and many of his descendants and connections by marriage, certainly twelve or fifteen in all. When the office of Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States became vacant, by reason of the death of Mr. Justice William Cushing of Ma.s.sachusetts, September 13, 1809, Levi Lincoln the elder was appointed, confirmed by the Senate and commissioned to fill the vacancy. Mr. Jefferson earnestly desired and urged his appointment. President Madison accompanied the offer of the office with a letter urging Mr. Lincoln to accept it in spite of a malady of the eyes from which he was suffering.

Mr. Madison says he had got along very well as Attorney- General and he thinks he would find less inconvenience in discharging the duties of Judge. But Mr. Lincoln declined the office. He lived until 1820, retaining his health and vigor, except for the trouble with his eyes.

He was a very able man. He argued the case in which it was decided by the Supreme Court of Ma.s.sachusetts that slavery was abolished in that State by the Const.i.tution, in 1780.

Judge Story was appointed in his place. If Mr. Lincoln had accepted, it is likely that the great judicial fame of Judge Story would be lacking from American jurisprudence. Story would have devoted himself, probably, to professional or political life. At any rate he would not have been appointed to the Bench before 1820.

There can be no doubt that if Lincoln had accepted the seat upon the Bench, he would have been a thorn in the flesh of Marshall. He doubtless shared Mr. Jefferson's dislike for the great Chief Justice. The case of Dartmouth College _v._ Woodward was decided in 1819. There was in fact but one dissent, but any person who reads Shirley's book on the history of that case will be inclined to believe that without Judge Story Dartmouth College _v._ Woodward would not have been decided as it was.

More interesting and important is the relation, to Mr. Webster's seat in the Senate, of the second Levi Lincoln, son of him of whom I have just spoken, himself a member of the Worcester Club that has been referred to. He was Governor of Ma.s.sachusetts, Judge of the Supreme Court of Ma.s.sachusetts, and a Member of the National House of Representatives. He was elected Senator of the United States by one branch of the Ma.s.sachusetts Legislature when the term of Elijah H. Mills expired, March 3, 1827. There can be no doubt that if he had consented he would also have been elected by the other house. Mr. Webster was chosen at the next Session. But before he was elected he wrote very strongly urging Mr. Lincoln to accept the office.

He said in his letter dated May 22, 1827:

"I beg to say that I see no way in which the public good can be so well promoted as by your consenting to go to the Senate. This is my own clear and decided opinion; it is the opinion, equally clear and decided, of intelligent and patriotic friends here, and I am able to add that it is also the decided opinion of all those friends elsewhere, whose judgment in such matters we should naturally regard. I believe I may say, without violating confidence, that it is the wish, entertained with some earnestness, of our friends at Washington, that you should consent to be Mr. Mills's successor. I need hardly add after what I have said that this is my own wish."

Mr. Lincoln felt constrained to decline, although the office would doubtless have been very agreeable to him, by reason of some statements he had made when elected Governor that he should not be a candidate for the Senate. Mr. Lincoln might, without dishonor or even indelicacy, have accepted the office in spite of those utterances. It was quite clear that all the persons who might be supposed to have acted upon them, desired his election when the time came on. But he was a man of scrupulous honor and did not mean to leave any room for the imputation that he did not regard what is due to "consistency of character," to use his own phrase.

Now if Mr. Lincoln would have accepted the office it is likely that he would have held it until his death in 1868. At any rate it is quite certain that he would have held it until the political revolution of 1851.

It is quite clear to me that the office of Senator was at Mr. Lincoln's command. Observe that this was in 1827, and was the election for the term of six years, ending March 3, 1833. That includes the period of Jackson's great contest with Nullification, when Mr. Webster, with all his power, came to Jackson's support. It includes the time of the Reply to Hayne, and the great debate with Calhoun.

Daniel Webster, I need not say, would have been a great figure anywhere. But if Mr. Lincoln had acted otherwise, there would have been absent from our history and literature Webster's Reply to Hayne, the support of Jackson in the day of Nullification, the debate with Calhoun including the speech, "The Const.i.tution not a Compact between Sovereign States," and the powerful attack on Jackson's a.s.sertion of power in the removal of the deposits. The speech on the President's Protest, with the wonderful pa.s.sage describing the power of England, would not have been made.

If the sentiment of Patriotism, and love of Liberty and Union are to be dominant in this Republic, we cannot measure the value of the influence of Daniel Webster and the speech in reply to Hayne. I am not sure that, without Mr. Webster's powerful championship of the side which prevailed, Mr. Calhoun's theory would not have become established. At any rate, it was the fortune of Daniel Webster that the doctrine of National Unity, whenever it has prevailed in the hearts of his countrymen, has been supported by his argument and clothed in his language.

Another incident of the same kind, not of like importance to those of which I have told, but still of a good deal of interest and importance, happened more lately. I had a good deal to do with it myself.

When President Hayes entered upon office, there were but three members of the Senate of either party who were supporters of his Administration. I was one of them. The other two were my colleague, Mr. Dawes, and Stanley Matthews of Ohio.

President Hayes was, in my opinion, a very wise and able and upright man. It was an admirable Administration. He had a strong and excellent Cabinet. But his nomination had disappointed the ambitions of some very influential men in his own party, and the powerful factions of which they were the leaders and candidates. The opposing party had not only felt the usual disappointment in defeat, but denied the lawfulness of his election. So I was more familiar than would ordinarily have been likely to have been the case with all the councils of his Administration. The Secretary of State was my near kinsman, and the Attorney-General had been my law partner.

When the vacancy occurred in the English mission by the resignation of Mr. John Welsh, I very strongly urged the appointment of Mr. Lowell. Mr. Evarts was quite unwilling to select Mr.

Lowell, and in deference to his wishes, President Hayes offered the place to several other persons, including myself. The offer was communicated to me by Mr. Evarts who was, at that time, Secretary of State. But there were many good reasons why I could not accept it. The offer was made to Governor Alexander H. Bullock, a member of the little society of which I have spoken. I was myself authorized by the President to communicate his desire to Governor Bullock. His answer, declining of account of the condition of his family, will be found in the life prefixed to the published volume of his speeches.

Now, if Governor Bullock had accepted the appointment, which was undoubtedly very attractive to him, what Mr. Lowell did in England would not have been done. He will doubtless go down in literature as a great poet. But it seems to me he is ent.i.tled to an equal rank among the prose writers of the country, and indeed among the prose writers of the English language of our time. His admirable address on Democracy, the delightful address as President of the Wordsworth Society, several estimates of the British poets, delivered by him on various occasions in England when he was Minister there, are among the very best examples of his work in prose.

APPENDIX I

It was upon Mr. Sherman's motion that the words, "Common Defence and General Welfare," which have played so important a part in the construction of the Const.i.tution, were introduced into that instrument. He proposed to add to the taxing clause the words, "for the payment of said debts and for the defraying of expenses that shall be incurred for the defence and general welfare."

This proposition, according to Mr. Madison, was disagreed to as being unnecessary. It then obtained only the single vote of Connecticut. But three days afterward Mr. Sherman moved and obtained the appointment of a Committee, of which he was a member, to which this and several subjects were committed.

That Committee reported the clause in the shape in which it now stands, and it was adopted unanimously.

Its adoption is an instance of Mr. Sherman's great tenacity, and his power to bring the body, of which he was a member, to his own way of thinking in the end, however unwilling in the beginning. This phrase had played not only an important but a decisive part in the great debate between a strict construction of the Const.i.tution and the construction which has prevailed and made it the law of the being of a great National life.

This story is well told in Farrar's "Manual of the Const.i.tution,"

pages 110, 309, 324.