Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet Part 7

In the winter of 1846-7, I for the first time visited the cities of Washington, New York and Boston. I rode in a stage coach from Mansfield to the national road south of Newark, and thence over that road by stages to c.u.mberland, the railroads not having yet crossed the mountains. From c.u.mberland I rode in cars to Baltimore, occupying nearly a day. From Baltimore I proceeded to Washington.

On my arrival I went to the National Hotel, then the most popular hotel in Washington, where many Senators and Members lodged. I found there, also, a number of charming young ladies whose company was much more agreeable to me than that of the most distinguished statesmen. We had hops, b.a.l.l.s and receptions, but I recall very few public men I met at that time. Mr. Vinton, then the veteran Member from Ohio, invited me to join for a few days his mess; he was then boarding in a house nearly opposite the hotel, kept by an Italian whose name I cannot recall. He was a famous cook. The mess was composed entirely of Senators and Members, one of the former being Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky. I was delighted and instructed by the free and easy talk that prevailed, a mixture of funny jokes, well-told stories and gay and grave discussions of politics and law.

My stay at the capital was brief as I wished to go to New York and Boston. In New York I received from a relative a letter of introduction to Benj. R. Curtis, then an eminent lawyer, and latterly a more eminent justice of the Supreme Court. When I presented my letter I was received very kindly and after a brief conversation he said he was able to do me a favor, that he had a ticket to a grand banquet to be attended by the leading men of Boston at Plymouth Rock, on the anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, and that Daniel Webster would preside. I heartily thanked him, and on the next day, prompt on time, I entered the train at Boston for Plymouth. When I arrived at the hotel, which is also a station- house of the railway, I did not know a single person in the great a.s.semblage. In due time we were ushered into the dining hall where the banquet was spread. There was no mistaking Webster. He sat at the center of a cross table with the British minister on his right and Jeremiah Mason on his left. At the other end of the room sat Abbott Lawrence and other distinguished men. The residue of the guests, merchants, poets, and orators of Ma.s.sachusetts, filled every seat at the tables. I sat some way down on the side and introduced myself to my neighbors on the right and left, but my eye was on Webster, from whom I expected such lofty eloquence as he alone could utter.

Much to my surprise, when the time came for the oratory to commence, Mr. Lawrence acted as toast master. We had stories, songs, poetry and oratory, generally good and appropriate, but not from Webster.

And so the evening waned. Webster had been talking freely with those about him. He displayed none of the loftiness a.s.sociated with his name. He drank freely. That was manifest to everyone.

His favorite bottle was one labeled "Brandy." We heard of it as being "more than a hundred years old." It did not travel down to us. Webster was plainly hilarious. At this time the conductor appeared at a side door and announced that in fifteen minutes the cars would start for Boston. Then Webster arose--with difficulty --he rested his hands firmly on the table and with an effort a.s.sumed an erect position. Every voice was hushed. He said that in fifteen minutes we would separate, nevermore to meet again, and then, with glowing force and eloquence, he contrasted the brevity and vanity of human life with the immortality of the events they were celebrating, which century after century would be celebrated by your children and your children's children to the latest generation.

I cannot recall the words of his short but eloquent speech, but it made an impress on my mind. If his body was affected by the liquor, his head was clear and his utterance perfect. I met Mr. Webster afterwards on the cars and in Washington. I admired him for his great intellectual qualities, but I do not wonder that the people of the United States did not choose him for President.

Soon after the national Whig convention of 1852, of which I was a member, I heard this story told by his secretary. In the evening, when Mr. Webster was at his well-known residence on Louisiana Avenue, near Sixth street, he was awaiting the ballots in the convention. When it came by the telegraph, "Scott 159, Fillmore 112, Webster 21," he repeated it in his deep tones and said: "How will this read in history?" He did not like either Scott or Fillmore, and was disappointed in the votes of southern members.

To be third in such a contest wounded his pride. He died before the year closed. He was, perhaps, the greatest man of intellectual force of his time, but he had faults which the people could not overlook. Another incident about Mr. Webster, and the house in which he lived, may not be without interest. On New Year's day of 1860, Mr. Corwin, Mr. Colfax and myself made the usual calls together. Among the many visits we made, was one on a gentleman then living in that house. As we entered, Mr. Corwin met an old well-trained negro servant who had been a servant of Mr. Webster in this house. I noticed that Mr. Corwin lost his usual gayety, and as we left the house he turned to us, and, with deep emotion, asked that we leave him at his lodgings, that his long a.s.sociations with Mr. Webster, especially his meetings with him in that house during their a.s.sociation as members of the cabinet of Fillmore, unfitted him to enjoy the usual greetings of the day. I felt that the emotion of such a man as Corwin was the highest possible compliment to the memory of Daniel Webster.

From Boston I returned to New York. There, in the families of two brothers of my mother, both then living, I had a glimpse of New York society. With Mr. Scott, the son-in-law of my uncle, James Hoyt, I made nearly one hundred of the usual New Years' visits, then customary in New York. This custom I am told has been abandoned, but the New York of to-day is quite different from the New York of 1847. It still retained some of the knickerbocker customs of the olden time. The site of the Fifth Avenue Hotel was then a stone- yard where grave stones were cut. All north of Twenty-third street, now the seat of plutocracy, was then spa.r.s.ely occupied by poor houses and miserable shanties, and the site of Central Park was a rough, but picturesque body of woodland, glens and rocky hills, with a few clearings partly cultivated. Even then the population of New York was about 400,000, or more than three-fold that of any city in the United States, and twenty-fold that of Chicago. Now New York contains 2,000,000 inhabitants, and Chicago, according to recent reports, about 1,700,000. Many cities now exist containing over 100,000 inhabitants, the sites of which, in that year, were within the limits of Indian reservations.

From New York I returned to Washington. Many incidents recur to me but they were of persons now dead and gone, the memory of whom will not be recalled by the present generation. Mr. Polk was then President. He was a plain man, of ordinary ability and more distinguished for the great events that happened during his presidency than for anything he did himself. I attended one of his receptions.

His wife appeared to better advantage than he. I then saw Mr.

Douglas for the first time. I think he was still a Member of the House of Representatives, but had attained a prominent position and was regarded as a rising man. I wished very much to see Henry Clay, the great favorite of the Whigs of that day, but he was not then in public life.

There was nothing in Washington at that time to excite interest, except the men and women in public or social life. The city itself had no attractions except the broad Potomac River and the rim of hills that surrounded the city. It then contained about 30,000 inhabitants. Pennsylvania avenue was a broad, badly paved, unattractive street, while all the other streets were unpaved and unimproved. All that part of the city lying north of K street and west of Fourteenth street, now the most fashionable part of the city, was then a dreary waste open, like all the rest of the city, as free pasturage for cows, pigs, and goats. It was a city in name, but a village in fact. The contrast between Washington then and now may be referred to hereafter.

Upon my return from the east in February, 1847, I actively resumed the practice of the law. I was engaged in several important trials, but notably one at Mount Vernon, Ohio, where the contesting parties were brothers, the matter in dispute a valuable farm, and the chief witness in the case the mother of both the plaintiff and defendant.

It was, as such trials are apt to be, vigorously contested with great bitterness between the parties. Columbus Delano was the chief counsel for the plaintiff, and I was his a.s.sistant. I remember the case more especially because during its progress I was attacked by typhoid fever. I returned home after the trial, completely exhausted, and on the Fourth of July, 1847, found myself in a raging fever, which continued more than two months before I was able to rise from the bed, and then I was as helpless as a child. I was unable to walk, and was lifted from the house into the carriage to get the fresh air, and continued under disability until October, when I was again able to renew my business.

During my practice thus far, I had been able to acc.u.mulate in property and money more than ten thousand dollars. I had, in addition to my practice, engaged in a profitable business with Jacob Emminger, a practical mechanic, in the manufacture of doors, blinds and other building materials. We acquired valuable pine- lands in Michigan and transported the lumber to our works at Mansfield. We continued this business until I was appointed Secretary of the Treasury, in March, 1877, when I sold out my interest and also abandoned the practice of the law.

I spent the winter of 1847-8 at Columbus, where I made many acquaintances who were of great service to me in after life, and had a happy time also with the young ladies I met there. Columbus was then the headquarters of social life for Ohio. It had a population of about fifteen thousand, with few or no manufactures.

It has now a population of more than one hundred thousand, the increase being largely caused by the great development of the numerous railroads centering there, and of the coal and iron mines of the Hocking Valley. It was also the natural headquarters of the legal profession, the Supreme Court of Ohio, then under the old const.i.tution, and the District Court of the United States holding their sessions there.

On the first day of August, 1848, my grandmother, Elizabeth Stoddard Sherman, died at Mansfield at the residence of her daughter, Mrs.

Parker. Her history and characteristics have already been referred to. She was to our family the connecting link between the Revolutionary period and our times. She had a vivid recollection of the burning of the princ.i.p.al towns of Connecticut by the British and Tories, of the trials and poverty that followed the War of the Revolution, of the early political contests between the Federalists and Republicans, of the events of the War of 1812, and of her journey to Ohio in 1816. She maintained a masterly care of her children and grandchildren. She was the best type I have known of the strong-willed, religious Puritan of the Connecticut school, and was respected, not only by her numerous grandchildren, but by all who knew her.

My brother-in-law, Thomas W. Bartley, was District Attorney of the United States during the administration of Mr. Polk, and, as he expected a change would be made by the incoming administration of Taylor, he advised me to become a candidate for his place, as that was in the line of my profession. I told him I doubted if my experience of the bar would justify me in making such an application, but he thought differently. I wrote to Mr. Ewing upon the subject and he answered as follows:

"Washington, D. C., Dec. 31, 1848.

"John Sherman, Esq., Mansfield, Ohio.

"My Dear Sir:--I believe you would be able to perform the duties of District Attorney, but your youth would be an objection to your appointment, and in compet.i.tion with one so long known, and so highly esteemed, as Mr. G.o.ddard is both professionally and politically, would probably make your prospects but little encouraging. If you conclude to withdraw your name, signify the fact and the reason by letter to Mr. G.o.ddard and it may be of use to you hereafter. I am, with great regard,

"Yours, T. Ewing."

I complied with his advice, though Mr. G.o.ddard, I think, declined and Mr. Mason was accepted.

On the thirty-first of the same month I was married to Margaret Ceclia Stewart, the only child of Judge Stewart, whom I had known since my removal to Mansfield. She had been carefully educated at the Female College at Granville, Ohio, and at the Patapsco Inst.i.tute, near Baltimore, Maryland. After the usual wedding tour to Niagara Falls, Montreal and Saratoga, we settled in Mansfield, and I returned to my profession, actively pursuing it until elected a member of Congress.

It is not worth while to follow my professional life into further detail. I shall not have occasion to mention that subject again.

Sufficient to say that I was reasonably successful therein. During this period Henry C. Hedges studied law with my brother and myself, and when admitted to the bar became my partner. Mr. Stewart was elected by the legislature a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and after the adoption of the new const.i.tution of 1851, he was elected by the people to the same office.

I had determined in the fall of 1853 to abandon Mansfield and settle in Cleveland, then rapidly growing in importance as the leading city in the northern part of the state. I went so far as to establish an office there and place in it two young lawyers, nominally my partners, but the great political currents of that time soon diverted me from the practice of the law into the political contests that grew out of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.

"The direful spring of woes unnumbered."

Before entering upon an account of my political life it seems appropriate for me to state my political bias and position. I was by inheritance and a.s.sociation a Whig boy, without much care for or knowledge of parties or political principles. No doubt my discharge from the engineer corps by a Democratic Board of Public Works strengthened this bias. I shouted for Harrison in the campaign of 1840. In 1842 I was enthusiastic for "Tom Corwin, the wagon- boy," the Whig candidate for Governor of Ohio. In that canva.s.s Governor Corwin addressed a great meeting at Mansfield. I heard his speech, and was full of enthusiasm. Mr. Corwin was certainly the greatest popular orator of his time. His face was eloquent, changeable at his will. With a look he could cause a laugh or a tear. He would move his audience at his pleasure. I vividly remember the impression he made upon me, though I cannot recall anything he said. At the close of the meeting I was requested by the committee in charge to take Mr. Corwin in a buggy to Bucyrus.

This I cheerfully did. I noticed that Mr. Corwin was very glum and silent, and to cheer him up I spoke of his speech and of the meeting. He turned upon me, and with some show of feeling, said that all the people who heard him would remember only his jokes, and warned me to keep out of politics and attend to my law. He told me that he knew my father, and was present at his death at Lebanon, where he, Mr. Corwin, lived. And then, brightening up, he gave me an interesting account of the early settlement of Ohio, and of the bar and bench, and of his early life as a wagon boy in Harrison's army. His sudden fit of gloom had pa.s.sed away. I do not recall any circ.u.mstance that created a deeper impression on my mind than this interview with Mr. Corwin. His advice to keep out of politics was easy to follow, as no one could then dream of the possibility of a Whig being elected to office in Richland county, then called "the Berks of Ohio." Mr. Corwin was defeated at that election.

I took but little part in the campaign of 1844, when Mr. Clay was a candidate for President, but I then made my first political speech to a popular audience and cast my first vote. The meeting was held at Plymouth, and Honorable Joseph M. Root, the Whig candidate for Congress, was to be the orator. For some reason Mr. Root was delayed, and I was pressed into service. Of what I said I have not the remotest recollection, but my audience was satisfied, and I was doubly so, especially when Mr. Root came in sight. After that I made a few neighborhood speeches in support of the Whig candidate for governor, Mr. Mordecai Partley, a gentleman who for several years had lived in Mansfield, but had long since retired from public office after eight years' service in the United States House of Representatives. Mr. Bartley received 147,378 votes, Mr.

Tod, Democrat, 146,461 votes and Mr. King, Third Party, 8,411 votes; so close were parties divided in Ohio in 1844.

At this time I had but two definite ideas in respect to the public policy of the United States. One was a hearty belief in the doctrine of protection to American industries, as advocated by Mr. Clay, and, second, a strong prejudice against the Democratic party, which was more or less committed to the annexation of Texas, and the extension of slavery. I shared in the general regret at the defeat of Mr. Clay and the election of Mr. Polk. I took some part in the local canva.s.ses in Ohio prior to 1848, but this did not in the least commit me to active political life. I was appointed a delegate to the national Whig convention, held in Philadelphia, in 1848, to nominate a presidential candidate. I accepted this the more readily as it gave me an opportunity to see my future wife at her school at Patapsco, and to fix our engagement for marriage upon her return home. The chief incident of the convention was the struggle between the friends of General Scott and General Taylor.

When the convention was being organized, Colonel Collyer, chairman of the Ohio delegation, said there was a young gentleman in that convention who could never hope to get an office unless that convention gave him one, and nominated me for secretary of the convention. Mr. Defrees said there was a delegate from Indiana in the same condition and moved that Schuyler Colfax be made a.s.sistant secretary. We then marched together to the platform and commenced our political life, in which we were to be closely a.s.sociated for many years.

The nomination of General Taylor, cordially supported by me, was not acceptable to all the Whigs of Ohio. The hostility to slavery had grown chiefly out of the acquisition of Texas as a slave state.

An anti-slavery party headed in Ohio by Salmon P. Chase cast 35,354 votes for Van Buren. General Taylor was defeated in Ohio mainly by this defection, receiving 138,360 votes. General Ca.s.s received 154,755 votes. General Ca.s.s received the vote of Ohio, but General Taylor was elected President, having received a majority of the electoral vote.

General Taylor proved a very conscientious and acceptable President.

His death, on the ninth day of July, 1850, preceded the pa.s.sage of the compromise measures of Henry Clay, commonly known by his name.

They became laws with the approval of Millard Fillmore.

It was my habit during this period to attend the annual state conventions of the Whig party, not so much to influence nominations as to keep up an acquaintance with the princ.i.p.al members of the party. I had not the slightest desire for public office and never became a candidate until 1854. In the state convention of 1850 I heartily supported the nomination of General Scott for President, at the approaching election of 1852. In this convention an effort was made to nominate me for Attorney-General in opposition to Henry Stanbery. I promptly declined to be a candidate, but received a number of votes from personal friends, who, as they said, wanted to introduce some young blood into the Whig party.

I then began seriously to study the political topics of the day.

I was cla.s.sed as a conservative Whig, and heartily supported the compromise measures of 1850, not upon their merits, but as the best solution of dangerous sectional divisions. Prior to this time I do not remember to have given any study, except through the newspapers of the day, to the great national questions that divided the political parties.

In the spring of 1852 I was designated by the state convention as a delegate at large in a.s.sociation with Honorable Samuel F. Vinton to the national Whig convention of that year. I was an earnest advocate of General Scott, and rejoiced in his nomination. Here, again, the slavery question was obtruded into national politics.

The clear and specific indors.e.m.e.nt of the compromise measures, though supported by a great majority, divided the Whig party and led to the election of Franklin Pierce. In this canva.s.s I took for the first time an active part. I was designated as an elector on the Scott ticket. I made speeches in several counties and cities, but was recalled to Wooster by a telegram stating that my mother was dangerously ill. Before I could reach home she died.

This event was wholly unexpected, as she seemed, when I left home, to be in the best of health. She had accompanied her daughter, Mrs. Bartley, to Cleveland to attend the state fair, and there, no doubt, she was attacked with the disease of which she died. I took no further part in the canva.s.s.

I wish here to call special attention to the att.i.tude of the two great parties in respect to the compromise measures.

The Democratic national convention at Baltimore was held in the first of June, 1852. The resolutions of that convention in reference to slavery were as follows:

"12. _Resolved_, That Congress has no power under the const.i.tution to interfere with, or control, the domestic inst.i.tutions of the several states, and that such states are the sole and proper judges of everything appertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the const.i.tution; that all efforts of the Abolitionists or others, made to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences, and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people, and endanger the stability and permanency of the Union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friends of our political inst.i.tutions.

"13. _Resolved_, That the foregoing proposition covers, and is intended to embrace, the whole subject of slavery agitation in Congress, and, therefore, _the Democratic party of the Union, standing on this national platform, will abide by, and adhere to, a faithful execution of the acts known as the compromise measures settled by the last Congress, 'the act for reclaiming fugitives from service labor' included; which act, being designed to carry out an express provision of the const.i.tution, cannot, with fidelity thereto, be repealed, nor so changed as to destroy or impair its efficiency_.

"14. _Resolved, That the Democratic party will resist all attempts at renewing in Congress, or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question, under whatever shape or color the attempt may be made_."

The Whig convention, which met at Baltimore on the 16th of June, 1852, declared as follows:--

"8. _That the series of acts of the 32nd Congress, the act known as The Fugitive Slave Law included, are received and acquiesced in by the Whig party of the United States as a settlement in principle and substance of the dangerous and exciting questions which they embrace, and so far as they are concerned, we will maintain them, and insist upon their strict enforcement_, until time and experience shall demonstrate the necessity of further legislation to guard against the evasion of the laws on the one hand, and the abuse of their powers on the other--not impairing their present efficiency; and we _deprecate all further agitation of the question thus settled as dangerous to our peace, and will discountenance all efforts to continue or renew such agitation whenever, wherever or however the attempt may be made_, and we will maintain the system as essential to the nationality of the Whig party and the integrity of the Union."

It will be noticed that these platforms do not essentialy differ from each other. Both declare in favor of acquiescence in the compromise measures of 1850. The Democratic party more emphatically denounces any renewal in Congress, or out of it, of the agitation of the slavery question under whatever name, shape or color, the attempt may be made. The Whig platform, equally positive in its acquiescence in the settlement made, known as the compromise measures, declared its purpose to: "Maintain them, and to insist upon their strict enforcement until time and experience shall demonstrate the necessity of further legislation to guard against the evasion of the laws."

It would seem that under these platforms both parties were committed to acquiescence in existing laws upon the subject of slavery, and to a resistance of all measures to change or modify them.

I took quite an active part in this canva.s.s and wrote to Mr. Seward, then the great leader of the Whig party, inviting him to attend a ma.s.s meeting in Richland county, to which I received the following reply: