Fifty Years of Public Service Part 3

Notwithstanding the intense partisan feeling that was evoked, the discussion proceeded amidst surroundings characterized by the utmost decorum. The people evidently felt that the greatest of all political principles, that of human liberty itself, was hanging on the issue of this great political contest between intellectual giants, thus openly waged before the world. They accordingly rose to the dignity and solemnity of the occasion, as has been well said by one who was then a zealous follower of Douglas, vindicating by their very example the sacredness with which the right of free speech should be regarded at all times and everywhere.

I have elsewhere described the disappointment I personally felt at the result, when the election returns came in. Although the popular vote stood 125,698 for Lincoln to 121,130 for Douglas--showing a victory for Lincoln among the people--yet enough Douglas Democrats were elected to the Legislature, when added to those of his friends in the Illinois Senate elected two years before and held over, to give him fifty-four members of both branches of the Legislature on joint ballot, against forty-six for Mr. Lincoln.

CHAPTER IV OTHER DISTINGUISHED CHARACTERS OF THAT DAY 1858 and 1859

More than four months had elapsed since Lincoln's epoch-marking speech at Springfield had brought on his great discussion with Douglas, when on October 20, 1858, Governor Seward at Rochester, New York, intensified the political inflammation of the times by saying in a notable speech:

"These antagonistic systems (free labor and slave labor) are continually coming close in contact. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces; and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either an entirely slave-holding or entirely a free-labor nation."

A book written by a young Southerner, "The Impending Crisis in the South--How to Meet It," was recommended in a circular signed by a large number of the Republican Congressmen, and thus given a vogue and weight out of all proportion to the standing of the author, whose recent death under tragic circ.u.mstances at an advanced age has drawn the name of Hinton Rowan Helper for a brief hour from its long obscurity.

"Dred, a Tale of the Dismal Swamp," by the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," served, if such service were at all needed, to keep fresh in all civilized lands the name of Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe.

The British Museum has a long shelf filled with different translations, editions, and versions of her greatest literary work.

In the month of September Mr. Lincoln delivered a speech at Cincinnati, in reply to Mr. Douglas. In that speech he addressed himself to the citizens of Kentucky, and advocated the nomination of Mr. Douglas to the Presidency, upon the ground that he was more devoted to the South than were the Southern leaders themselves, and that he was wiser in methods for defending their rights.

This was a form of attack which Douglas had not antic.i.p.ated, and which he could neither resent nor answer. As the event proved, the seed thus sown was to bear fruit abundantly in results at the ensuing National Democratic conventions, and at the Presidential election two years later. Until June, Mr. Lincoln was unknown outside of Illinois and Indiana. Judge Douglas had already taken a high place among the able men of his time of national and international reputation. In September, Lincoln's character was understood and his ability was recognized in all the non-slaveholding States of the Union. His mastery over Douglas had been complete.

His logic was unanswerable, his ridicule fatal; every position taken by him was defended successfully. At the end Douglas had but one recourse. He misstated Lincoln's positions, and then a.s.sailed them.

But Lincoln was ever on the alert to expose his opponent's fallacies, and to hold up the author to the derision or condemnation of his hearers.

Mr. Lincoln's first fame rests, therefore, on that great debate.

Judge Douglas had long been famous as an experienced politician and an exceptionally skilful debater. As lawyers both ranked high in their State at a time when the bar of Illinois could boast of exceptionally brilliant and able forensic talent.

As it is my purpose to treat of both these great men in some detail in subsequent pages of this work, devoting at least a full chapter to Mr. Lincoln, so long my admired and never failing friend, I shall now proceed to give some personal recollections concerning certain other of the distinguished characters of that day, chiefly those connected with the bar.

I knew Judge David Davis very well. He was Circuit Judge on our State circuit for a number of years, and until Mr. Lincoln became President, when he was made a.s.sociate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. When a young lawyer Davis was a Whig; and my father, being also a Whig, took a great interest in him, as he did in every young lawyer he knew who became affiliated with that party. My father thought himself justified in believing that Davis would become a power in the land. Hence he took up the young man soon after he had settled in the practice of the law at Bloomington; and I have heard him state that he gave Davis the first case he ever had in Tazewell County, by advising another to employ him.

But he re-enacted, on the less conspicuous forum, the distressing experience of failure of Disraeli in his first attempt to address the English House of Commons. Davis broke down in the speech he had prepared to make, to the great mortification of my father, who had exhibited such unusual pride and confidence as to counsel his employment in the case. Subsequently Davis redeemed himself, as did Disraeli, and became a most prominent and successful lawyer.

Among other interesting circ.u.mstances of his career was that of a little claim he had for a client in Boston against a merchant in Chicago. He could not collect the debt, except by levying on a tract of land in Chicago--eighty acres, I think. Davis reported what he had done, and his client manifested dissatisfaction with the result. He so vigorously stated his disappointment to Davis, that the latter immediately redeemed the land by taking it himself and paying the amount of money due the client. This tract grew in value with the growth of Chicago until it became worth a million dollars or more.

Judge Davis was a remarkably popular man on his circuit. He was thoroughly honest, and could not endure a dishonest man on the witness-stand or anywhere else. I remember a man in Chicago who on one occasion filed a bill of discovery for the purpose of finding real estate that he seemed once to have had an interest in, and which also involved the insertion of Judge Davis's own name, since he had himself at one time owned the tract of land involved. The man had lost his voice to a considerable extent, so that he had come to be called "Whispering Smith." He became notorious as a successful collector of debts, where persons had failed and were unable to pay their debts. He had filed in this case a bill of discovery consisting of thirty or forty printed pages which included the names of many persons who had been found to have owned the real estate at one time or another, among them being Judge Davis.

Discovering this, and being entirely innocent of any complicity with the party who had failed, the Judge denounced Smith in open court for the outrage of swearing to something he did not know anything about, and practically threw him out of court.

There was an incident characteristic of his fidelity to friendships which I think well worth relating. It occurred when I was Governor of Illinois. I was invited by the Agricultural Society of McLean County to deliver an address, and went to Bloomington on the day designated. I was called upon by Judge Davis, who resided there.

He was a very polite man, and asked me if he could not take me out to the fair-ground. I told him I would be delighted if he would do so. He came for me with his carriage, and on our arrival at the grounds took me to the stand, disregarding the prearrangements of the officials of the fair, and introduced me to the audience.

In doing so he made a speech, very complimentary to my father, but scarcely mentioning me at all--not more than to introduce me at the end of his eulogistic remarks. Many of the lawyers of the town were present. I knew them all, and they were much amused at this unusual style of introduction. And so was I. I knew, of course, that he was a great friend of my father, and a great friend of mine as well.

Judge Davis was elected to the Senate in 1877 to succeed General Logan, and resigned his seat on the bench to accept the position.

He became quite fond of the Senate, and during his one term there he was elected president _pro tempore_ of the body under somewhat unusual conditions. The Senate at that time was almost evenly divided between the two parties. The two senators from New York, however (both Republicans), and Mr. Aldrich, of Rhode Island, had been elected by their respective Legislatures, but had not taken their seats. This gave the Democrats a temporary majority, and the Senate proceeded to elect Senator Bayard, of Delaware, as its president _pro tempore_. Within the next day or two, however, the two New York senators and Senator Aldrich were admitted to their seats; this left a majority of two for the Republicans if Davis acted with them, and the two parties tied if Davis acted with the Democrats. Under these circ.u.mstances, General Logan, who after being out for two years had been re-elected to the Senate, moved in the caucus that David Davis be the Republican candidate for president _pro tempore_. Later he made the nomination in the Senate itself, and Senator Davis was elected, Senator Bayard descending, amid general laughter, from the chair which he had occupied for but a short time.

Senator Davis was very proud of the position of president _pro tempore_, which he retained to the end of his Senate term. He had been acting quite independently, but seemed to incline a little toward the Democrats. After he became president _pro tempore_, while he never announced himself a Republican, he generally acted with the Republicans.

I was in the Senate the day before Senator Davis's term expired.

He was soliloquizing to himself in the intervals of putting motions and attending to the routine of his office. He was very fond of Senator Isham G. Harris of Tennessee, and when he had occasion to call a senator to the chair, generally it would be Harris. He called Harris to him while I was there, and I heard him say as his friend came up: "Harris, Harris! When I get out of here I won't have to listen to old Bayard any more!"

He was a very remarkable man and a friend of Lincoln, and Lincoln was a friend of his. I suppose that Davis did as much to secure Lincoln's nomination over Seward as any one man, although Judge Logan worked with equal zeal. But Davis knew more people than did Judge Logan, although the latter was, in my opinion, the better lawyer.

In the days of Davis's judicial life on the State bench, the judge and the lawyer had a pretty large circuit. Davis's circuit was composed of several large counties. It was the custom to travel the circuit, judge, lawyers, and all, together. At that period there were no railway facilities worth mentioning, and they had to go by private conveyance--wagon or carriage or on horseback as the case might be. Probably a dozen lawyers might go together, all putting up at the same hotel, and generally having a good time at night, spinning yarns. Lincoln was a good story-teller, and so was Davis; and the evenings were made exceedingly agreeable to all concerned.

In no small measure as a result of the influences thus put into operation, the lawyers of the period were better qualified to get along in life than those of later days; that is to say, for the rough-and-tumble life they were better able to take care of themselves than the lawyers of a more recent date have been, as a general rule.

Judge Stephen T. Logan was, I think, the best lawyer that I have ever known in Illinois. He went to Illinois at an early age and lived there until his death; he had attained the age of a little more than eighty years before he died. He was purely a lawyer.

I think I never knew another lawyer who could so everlastingly ruin a man who undertook to misrepresent the truth. He seemed to understand intuitively whether a man was trying to tell the truth or was lying; if the latter, his words would so effectually be torn to pieces that they could be of no earthly value. But he was not an adept as a politician. He ran for Congress at one time against a man named Thomas L. Harris, and was beaten. He also ran later for Judge of the Supreme Court, and was beaten. This defeat was not his fault, however, as the community was a strongly Democratic one. I recall a story current in those days, to the effect that some man who had recently come from the east inquired, while talking with him, "By the way, Judge, didn't you run for the Supreme Court last year?" In his squeaky voice, the judge replied, "No; I hardly walked."

But the judge was a true man in every respect,--honest, faithful to his friends, and fearless in doing whatever he believed to be right. He felt, I think, a little bit disappointed that President Lincoln did not appoint him instead of Davis a Judge of the Supreme Court.

I came to Washington and saw Mr. Lincoln in Judge Logan's behalf without any suggestion that I do so from Logan or any one else, but simply because I believed that the President ought to appoint him on the Supreme Bench in preference to any other man in the State.

Logan was a better lawyer than Davis; but Davis was an abler politician than Logan. I have always felt that in view of the fact that Lincoln and Logan had been partners earlier, and also neighbors and close friends, he ought to have nominated Logan instead of Davis. Davis, Logan, and Browning were all well qualified for the Supreme Court, all of them friends of Lincoln, and all Whigs.

Lincoln had to make the choice, and I think the selection was influenced by Davis's great a.s.sistance in securing his nomination.

Judge Logan was also a close Whig friend of my father, and earnest in his friendship for me on that account. When I was a candidate for the nomination for Governor I had a pretty stiff fight for the first term. There were rumors that men were going to attack my personal character. I did not know about the judge's action in the premises, but when the convention met, Judge Logan went to it as a private citizen and crowded himself into the hall, remaining here until I was nominated. Then he went home. I was told afterwards that he had gone there for the purpose of defending me in case of an attack against my personal character.

Of course, I could not but greatly appreciate a friendship so manifest.

He had a son, David Logan, who went to Oregon as a young lawyer, and became very eminent there. In later years the judge wrote to him, proposing that if he would come back home he would take him into partnership. To this the father received a reply from David, proposing that if he would come out there a partnership with the son was subject to his acceptance or refusal. The judge died after attaining full four-score years, and the son at an age less advanced.

I think Judge Logan also felt a bit sour toward Mr. Lincoln because the latter, he thought, ought to have been more helpful than he was to his son in his effort to be elected to the United States Senate from Oregon, at the time Baker was elected.

Speaking of Judges Logan and Davis, I am reminded of the exceptionally high character of the lawyers of Illinois of that day, and more especially of Springfield. I think there has never been a time when it had another such splendid bar. It must be that high personal character in leaders has a direct and marked influence in elevating the general characters of the followers. The young lawyers, especially, are impelled by a force implanted by nature to admire and to strive to imitate or attain to the great qualities manifested in life of those to whom leadership is conceded by common consent.

Colonel E. D. Baker was a very good lawyer. Also Orville H.

Browning, of Quincy, who was in Springfield attending the various courts whose sittings were at the State capital much of the time.

Then there was Archibald Williams; and Stephen A. Douglas, a great man in every way, was on the bench a part of the time. Abraham Lincoln was, of course, the equal of any man, on the bench or off of it. Such men prominently in the lead as lawyers, and as men among men, could not but stimulate the ambitions and loftier aspirations of other lawyers, especially the younger ones. In striving to pay the tributes--imitation, etc.,--that can be accorded to greatness, they become great themselves; and perhaps here may be found the real or chief cause of the very large numbers of conspicuously eminent men congregated at the capital of Illinois in those days.

Judge Lyman Trumbull I always regarded as one of the exceptional lawyers of the country. I came to know him well while I was a member of the House and he a United States Senator. During those days I saw very much of him. When Trumbull came to the Senate there was some prejudice against him, growing out of circ.u.mstances (related elsewhere in these pages) which prevented the election of Mr. Lincoln, and which seemed to be plainly within Mr. Trumbull's control. But the feeling soon vanished, and Trumbull's course in the Senate was so true to the principles of the party which Mr.

Lincoln had championed, that the manner in which he had secured the election was soon forgotten, or at least condoned, and the judge remained there for a long period of service--three terms.

While he was there I came to the House of Representatives, and came to be, as our a.s.sociation grew more and more intimate, very fond of Senator Trumbull. I also admired his ability. He was one of the few in that body who could hold his own with Judge Douglas in debate, and when he came into the Senate he at once took issue with Douglas, they being in controversy with each other very frequently on slavery and other political questions, until Douglas's career ended, about the beginning of the Civil War.

I was, perhaps, as intimate personally with Judge Trumbull during my stay in the House as any other member. Barton C. Cook and Norman B. Judd also were as intimate with the judge, as any other members of the Illinois delegation. Nothing ever happened to change these conditions, until the vote which Trumbull cast against the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Mr. Cook and Mr. Judd, especially the latter, seemed to be almost bitterly angry against Judge Trumbull.

As a result of that vote opposition to him began to grow in the party. However, almost immediately after the impeachment he was re-elected, although at the time not a candidate. He was subsequently nominated by the Democratic party for Governor of Illinois. I ran against him as the candidate of the Republican party, and was elected over him by a majority of about thirty-eight thousand. He imagined, so I have heard, that he was going to beat me, and was considerably surprised at his failure to do so.

He died only a few years ago, at an advanced age. His first wife was a sister of Dr. Jayne, an excellent man, and, I am glad to add, he and I are warm personal friends. I am very sorry to say, though, that his children, I believe, are all gone, as are mine.

There were other men who had risen to prominence in Illinois, of whom I wish to write, and some who were then new upon the stage of public life, whom I knew and who subsequently achieved distinction.

I have already postponed my reminiscences of Mr. Lincoln to a later chapter than I could wish, but in point of time we have now come to the year of his nomination and election to the Presidency of the United States, and the beginning of a career which was to be finished in the course of only a little over four years.

The reference to my old friend Doctor William Jayne reminds me that I should say something of my Springfield friends,--some living, but many dead. It is to these friends that I am indebted for my success in public life, and they have generally loyally supported me, although friends in other parts of the State have been quite as loyal and devoted to my interests when I have been a candidate for high public office.

In the days of Lincoln, I do not believe that there ever was a community that contained so many really splendid men, men who were so well fitted to fill any place in the State or Nation, as did Springfield. I can refer to only a few of those of State and National renown. If I have overlooked some whom I should have mentioned, I hope I shall be pardoned.

First of all comes Lincoln. From time to time, as I have written these recollections, I have spoken of him. I will later give my estimate of Douglas, who, while not a citizen of Springfield, spent a great deal of time there as a member of the Supreme Court, as a member of the Legislature, and on legal, political, and social affairs. In the last-mentioned connection he at one time was a rival for the hand of Mary Todd, afterwards Mrs. Abraham Lincoln.

I have thought and written something of Stephen T. Logan, and to my own old law partner, Milton Hay, I refer in other parts of these recollections. There were no better lawyers in their day.

William H. Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, was a capable lawyer also. He wrote an excellent life of his distinguished partner.