The Memories of Fifty Years Part 26

Judge Wilkinson was such a man, and though as ardently Democratic as Prentiss was Whig, and as uncompromising in his principles, yet these two were friends in the loftiest sense of the term. Judge Wilkinson had a difficulty with a tailor in Louisville, Kentucky, who attempted an imposition upon him to which he would not submit. A quarrel ensued, and the knight of the needle and shears determined on revenge. Collecting about him his ready a.s.sociates, they went to the hotel where Wilkinson lodged, and waylaid him at the door between the dining-parlor and the reception-room, and attacked him on his coming in from supper. In the rencontre three of the a.s.sailants were killed, and the remainder of the gang fled. Immediately surrendering himself, he was incarcerated and held for trial: although a.s.saulted with murderous intent, and acting clearly in self-defence, he was denied bail. He was a stranger, and the prejudices of the court and the people of Louisville were so manifest that he demanded and obtained a change of venire.

The trial came off at Harrodsburg. Prentiss, learning the facts and the situation of his friend, volunteered immediately to defend him in court, and to befriend him in any manner possible to him. The celebrated Ben Hardin was employed to a.s.sist in the prosecution. The eyes of all Mississippi and Kentucky were turned to Harrodsburg when this trial commenced. Others volunteered--and among these was John Rowan--to a.s.sist in the defence. But the case for Wilkinson was conducted exclusively by Prentiss. It continued for some days. John Rowan--so celebrated in the State for his talents and great legal learning, as well as for his transcendent abilities as an advocate--sat by, and trusted all to Prentiss.

There were many sparrings in the course of the trial between Hardin and Prentiss upon points in the law of evidence, and as to the admissibility or rejection of testimony, as also upon many points of the criminal law of England, whether changed or not by statutory provisions of the State.

In one of these, Rowan handed an open authority to Prentiss, and was taunted by Hardin for the act, by saying: "Give your friend all the aid you can: he needs it."

"I only preserved the book open at the page where Mr. Prentiss had marked the law," said Rowan: "he requires no aid from me, brother Hardin. With all your learning and experience, he is more than a match for you."

This Hardin was not long in discovering, and especially did he feel it when Prentiss came to reply to his address to the jury. So long accustomed to defy compet.i.tion as a criminal lawyer, Hardin was not only surprised at the tact and masterly talent displayed by his adversary, but he was annoyed, and felt that to maintain his prestige as the great criminal lawyer of Kentucky, he must put forth all his powers. He had done so; and in his summing up before the jury he seemed more than himself. When he had concluded there were many who deemed conviction sure.

Prentiss followed, and in his grandest manner tore to tatters every argument and every position advanced and a.s.sumed by Hardin. Towering in the majesty of his genius in one of those transcendent flights of imagination so peculiar to him, when his ill.u.s.trations in figures followed each other in such quick and constant succession as to seem inexhaustible, he turned suddenly upon Hardin, and, stooping his face until it almost touched that of the stern old Kentuckian, he hissed forth: "Dare you, sir, ask a verdict of such a jury as is here sitting upon this testimony?--you, sir, who under the verdict of nature must soon appear before the awful bar to which you now strive prematurely to consign this n.o.ble, this gallant young man! Should you succeed, you must meet him there. Could you, in the presence of Almighty G.o.d--He who knows the inmost thoughts--justify your work of to-day? His mandate is not to the gibbet. Eternal Justice dictates there, whose decrees are eternal. Do you think of this? Do you defy it? If not--if you invoke it, do it through your acts toward your fellow-man. Have you to-day done unto this man as you would he should do unto you? I pause for a reply--none. Then shudder and repent, for the record even now is making up against you in that high court from which there is no appeal. You, gentlemen of the jury, are no hired advocates: you are not laboring for blood-money. Though your responsibility to your G.o.d is equal to his, you will not go to the bar of your Creator with blood--guiltless blood--upon your consciences. You will not, as he will, in that awful presence, on that eventful day, look around you for the accusing spirit of him whom you consigned to the gibbet with a consciousness of his innocence of murder. How will it be with you? (turning again to Hardin.) Ah! how will it be with you? Still silent. Despite the hardness of his features, mercy like a halo sweeps over them, and speaks to you, gentlemen, eloquently: 'Acquit the accused!' Look over yonder, gentlemen: within these walls is one awaiting your verdict in tearless agony--she who but for this untoward event would now have been happy as his bride: she who has cheered him in his prison-cell daily with her presence and lovely soul! Hers, not his fate, is in your hands. To him death is nothing: the brave defy death--the good fear it not; then why should he fear? But she! O G.o.d! it is a fearful thing to crush to death with agony the young, hopeful, and loving heart of virtuous woman. His death is only terrible in her future. Go with her, gentlemen, through life; contemplate the wan features of slow decay: see in these the one eternal, harrowing thought; list to the sigh which rives the heart; watch the tear which falls in secret; see her sink into the grave; then turn away, look up into heaven, and from your heart say: 'O G.o.d! I did it.' You will not; you cannot; you dare not."

Hardin's conclusion was tame, and without effect; the demonstrations on the part of the jury dispirited him, and his concluding speech had none of the power of his opening. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty, without hesitation. Wilkinson was immediately discharged, and in company with his friends was repairing to the hotel, when, in the warmth of his emotion, he said, laying his hand on the shoulder of Prentiss: "How shall I pay you, my friend, for this great service you have done me?"

"By never mentioning pay again," was the prompt and decisive reply.

CHAPTER XXV.

A FINANCIAL CRASH.

A WONDERFUL MEMORY--A NATION WITHOUT DEBT--CRUSHING THE NATIONAL BANK--RISE OF STATE BANKS--INFLATED CURRENCY--GRAND FLARE-UP--TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF--COMMENCING ANEW--FAILING TO REACH AN OBTUSE HEART--KING ALCOHOL DOES HIS WORK--PRENTISS AND FOOTE--LOVE ME, LOVE MY DOG--A n.o.bLE SPIRIT OVERCOME--CHARITY COVERETH A MULt.i.tUDE OF SINS.

The rare combination of the elements of the mind in Mr. Prentiss is only occasionally met with in time. Judgment, imagination, and memory were all transcendent and equal in their respective powers. With such a mind, everything possible to man may be accomplished. The invention is rapid; the combining and applying responds as rapidly; the fitting and the proper wait on these in the judgment, and the emanation of the whole is perfect. The imagination conceives, the memory retains, and the judgment applies. The consummate perfection of all of these elements in one mind, a.s.sures greatness. Charles James Fox, one of England's ablest statesmen, said this combination, organized in the brain of Napoleon, was more complete than had existed with any man since the days of Julius Caesar, and would have made him transcendently great in anything to which he might have addressed his powers. As a poet, he would have equalled Homer; as a lawyer, the author of the Pandects; as an architect, Michael Angelo; as an astronomer, Newton or Galileo; as an actor, Garrick, or his beloved Talma--as he had equalled Caesar and Hannibal, and greatly surpa.s.sed Marlborough, Frederick the Great, and Charles XII.; as an orator, Demosthenes; and as a statesman, the greatest the earth ever knew.

This combination in the mind of Prentiss, with the great development of the organ of language, made him the unrivalled orator of his age. His powers of memory were so great as to astonish even those eminently gifted in the same manner. In reading, he involuntarily committed to memory, whether of prose or poetry. He seemed to have memorized the Bible, Shakspeare, Dryden, Ben Jonson, Byron, and many others of the modern poets. The whole range of literature was at his command: to read once, was always to remember. This capacity to acquire was so great that he would in a month master as much as most men could in twelve.

It appeared immaterial to what he applied himself, the consequence was the same. Scientific research, or light literature; the ordinary occurrences of the day, recorded in the newspapers, or detailed by an occasional visitor--all were remembered, and with truthful exactness.

Dates, days, names, and events fastened upon his memory tenaciously, and remained there without an effort. Hence, the fund of information possessed by him astonished the best informed, who were gray with years and reading. The exuberance of his imagination continually supplied new and beautiful imagery to his conversation; and in private intercourse, such was the rich purity of his language, and his ideas so bold and original, that all were willing listeners: no one desired to talk if Prentiss was present and would talk.

The disasters which followed the commercial crisis of 1837 crushed almost every interest in Mississippi: especially was this true of the planting, the great interest of the State. On the healthy condition of him who tills the soil depends that of every other interest. The rapid rise in cotton, commencing in 1832, from the increased demand all over the world for cotton fabrics, caused a heavy immigration to the fertile cotton-lands of the West, and particularly to the extensive and newly acquired lands of Mississippi. The world was at peace, and great prosperity was universal; money was cheap, or rather its representative, bank paper. The system of finance, so wisely conceived and put in practical operation subsequently to the war of 1812, had been disturbed by being made an element in the political struggles of party. It had paid the war debt, and all the expenses of the Government--furnished a uniform currency, equal to, and at the holder's will convertible into coin. Its face was the nation's faith, and its credit equal in New York, London, and Calcutta. A surplus fund was acc.u.mulating in the United States Treasury, and the unexampled instance of a nation out of debt, and with an acc.u.mulating surplus of money in her treasury, was presented to the world by the United States.

The political economist, from this fact, would naturally infer that the people were heavily taxed: not so; there was not on earth a people who contributed, in proportion to their means, so little to the support of their Government. The tax-gatherer of the nation was never seen or known in the house of any citizen; he knew not that he contributed one dollar to the public treasury. So admirably was the source of revenue contrived, that no man knew or felt he paid a national tax. The Bank of the United States received and disbursed the moneys arising from customs, or tariffs upon imports, without one cent of expense to the Government; affording at the same time every healthy facility to the commerce of the country--holding in check and confining the local State banks to a legitimate business--and was the most complete and perfect fiscal agent ever organized. In the struggle for party ascendency, the idea was conceived of using the bank in aid of one of the factions which divided the country. The machinators of this scheme failed to accomplish it, and, being in power at the time, determined to destroy it, upon the plea of its unconst.i.tutionality, and of having been used to overturn the Government--that is, the party in power. It was declared dangerous to the liberties of the country.

At the expiration of its charter, then approaching, it was refused a renewal. So intimately was it connected with every interest in the country, that its pa.s.sing out of existence threatened universal bankruptcy. Its branches located at every important commercial point, its credit was universally employed. It furnished exchange at almost a nominal rate upon every commercial city of the world, and permeated every transaction, giving health and vigor as the circulating fluid does the animal system.

Suddenly to arrest and destroy this, was universal ruin. But to serve the behest of party in a double form, it was crushed. But a subst.i.tute was proposed by the party interested, and upon whom the responsibility rested--the creation of State banks without limit, which were recommended to discount liberally to the people, and supply the wants created by the withdrawal of the capital and accommodations of the national bank. This recommendation was literally and instantly obeyed.

In every State where the dominant party held control--and they did so throughout the South and West--the legislatures made haste to create, without limit, State banks, with power to flood the country with irresponsible bank paper. Each a.s.sumed that it must supply not only its portion, but the entire amount of the banking capital withdrawn, and double or treble the circulation. The natural consequence was immense inflation of the currency, or circulating medium, and the rapid appreciation of every species of property in price. Everybody and every interest flourished most prosperously--gaunt poverty had fled the land, and bloated abundance laughed in every home. Suddenly men sprang into importance who a little while before were humble artizans or employed in the meanest capacities. A new El Dorado had been discovered; fortunes were made in a day, without enterprise or work; and unexampled prosperity seemed to cover the land as with a golden canopy--forests were swept away in a week; labor came in crowds to the South to produce cotton; and where yesterday the wilderness darkened over the land with her wild forests, to-day the cotton plantation whitened the earth--production was quadrupled--labor doubled in value, land rose to fearful prices, the wildest extravagance obtained; costly furniture, expensive equipages, ostentatious display--all were contributing to hasten the catastrophe. The wise saw what was impending, and the foolish thought it impossible. All of this was based on credit. The banks were irresponsible, for they were without capital: they had created a credit and loaned it in the shape of bank paper to every one.

Finally, the hour came when all was to be paid for. The banks failed--like the fame of woman, a whisper destroys it; so a whisper blew away the banks. They could not redeem their promises to pay. These were no longer available for currency: they had driven from the country the coin, and there was no money. The merchants failed, the planters failed, money appreciated to the gold standard, and property correspondingly depreciated; and ruin--financial ruin--swept over the country as a consuming fire.

Nowhere was this destruction so complete as in Mississippi. The people of the State had been collected from all the States of the West and South. There was no common bond but interest; a healthy public sentiment, which must result from a h.o.m.ogeneous population, was unknown; there was no restraining influence upon the conduct of men, save only the law, and, for the want of efficient administration, this was almost powerless. Every one was making haste to be rich; speculation was wild, and everyday was witnessing transactions of doubtful morality. Society was a chaos, and _sauve qui peut_, or, take care of yourself, the rule. Every one who owed money, however inconsiderable the sum, was ruined. Under such circ.u.mstances, Prentiss determined on removing from Mississippi, and selected New Orleans for his future home. The civil law, or Roman Code, was the law in Louisiana, and materially differed from the common or English law, which was the law of authority in Mississippi. Very few lawyers coming from the common-law States, have ever been able to succeed in Louisiana, especially after having practised in other States for any length of time. They have not only to learn the civil law, but to unlearn the common. Some, who did not know the extraordinary powers of Prentiss's mind, feared he, like many others who had made the attempt, would fail; but, almost from the moment of his advent at the New Orleans bar, his success was complete. To realize the expectations of the public, required abilities and attainments of the highest order.

Fame had heralded his name and powers to every one: all had and did expect from him more than from any other man, and none were disappointed. From this time forward he eschewed politics, and devoted himself to his profession.

Some years before leaving Mississippi, Prentiss had married Miss Williams, of Adams County. This lady was the daughter of James C.

Williams, a large planter; her mother was a Percy, descended from the proud Percys of Northumberland, and was a most accomplished and intellectual woman. Her position was the first among the first, and her birth, blood, and attainments ent.i.tled her to the distinction. Her daughter, grown up under her eye and training, was the mother's equal, and fit companion for the man of her choice.

Prentiss had lost everything in the general crash, and was commencing anew, with a growing family to provide for. His business rapidly increased, and his displays at the Bar were frequent and wonderful.

Some of these, recited here, might, if such a necessity existed, serve to ill.u.s.trate his wonderful powers; but there are parties living whose feelings might suffer, and hence I forbear. It is my earnest wish, in recording these recollections, to offend no one; nor will I "set down aught in malice."

The ardent and excitable temperament of Prentiss, combined with his social qualities, required constant excitement. When employed with the duties of his profession, or engaged in any matter of business pertaining to politics, or his relations in any capacity with the world, requiring attention, he was sufficiently excited to afford escape for the restlessness of his mind; nor did this man seem fatigued in such occupations sufficiently to require repose and rest. On the contrary, it seemed to whet his desire for fiercer and more consuming excitement. Whenever he went abroad, the crowd followed him, and the presence of the increasing ma.s.s stimulated his feelings to mild, social delight, and this led him too frequently to indulge beyond a proper temperance in the exhilaration of wine. This, superadded to the fire of his genius, was wearing fearfully his vigorous physique.

For the first time, in the case of fraud against James Irwin, in which he made one of the most powerful efforts of his life, he manifested mental as well as physical fatigue. It was my good fortune to listen to that speech made to a New Orleans jury. I had listened many times to his speeches, and had thought some of these could never be surpa.s.sed by any man, not even by himself, and especially that delivered in Faneuil Hall, Boston, and the one delivered from the steps of the court-house at Vicksburg, after returning from his political campaign when a candidate for Congress. But this one was even grander and more powerful than any I had ever heard from him. Returning from the court-house with him upon that occasion, I remarked a flagging in the brilliancy of his conversation. For a moment he sat silent in the carriage, and then remarked: "I was never so much fatigued; I am afraid I am getting old.

I have not an idea in my brain."

"Certainly, you have poured out enough to-day to empty any brain," was my reply; "and you should be content not to have another for a month.

But I am sorry your invective was so severe."

"Ah! my old friend," he continued, "he deserved it all! From my heart I feel he deserved it all! The magnitude of his iniquities inspired the rebuke, and I exhausted my quiver in the attempt to pierce his shame; but I failed. The integuments of his sensibility are armor against the shafts from my bow; and I feel the failure, but I don't regret the attempt: the intention was as sincere as the failure has been signal."

"Why, what do you mean?" I asked; "for, a.s.suredly, you have to-day made the most powerful and telling speech of your life."

"Yes, telling upon the audience, perhaps, but not upon the victim--he escapes unscathed. I care nothing for the crack of the rifle, if the bullet flies wide of the mark. I wanted to reach his heart, and crush it to remorse; but I have learned his moral obtusity is superior to shame. I have failed in my attempt."

This speech was followed by a challenge to Prentiss from the son of Irwin. This was promptly accepted, and a meeting was only prevented by the interference of parties from Kentucky, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

The settlement was honorable to both parties. Soon after, young Irwin died by his own hand. He was a youth of brilliant parts, and promised a future of usefulness and distinction.

The habits of Prentiss were daily growing worse--the excitement he craved he found in the intoxicating bowl. The influence of his lovely and loving wife greatly restrained him; but when she was away, he was too frequently surrounded by his friends and admirers, and in social conviviality forgot the prudence of restraint, and indulged to excess.

The more this indulgence was tolerated, the more exacting it became.

The great strength of his nervous system had successfully resisted the influence of these indulgences, and after potations deep and long, it was remarked that they had no inebriating effect upon him. This nervous strength by degrees yielded to the power of alcohol, and as he advanced in life it was apparent the poison was doing its work.

Now it was that he found it necessary, in order to stimulate his genius to its wonted activity and vigor, on occasions demanding all his powers, to resort to artificial stimulants. His friends urged upon him temperance, to forbear altogether, to visit his mother and friends in Maine, recreate amidst the scenes of his childhood, and to do so in company with his wife and his lovely children, for they were all a parent could wish them to be. He promised to do so. Sad memory brings up our last meeting, and when the subject of his intemperance was the theme of our parting conversation. We stood together upon the portico of the St. Charles Hotel; he was preparing to leave for Maine; I was leaving for my home in the country.

"You still keep the old cane," he said, taking from my hand his gift many years before.

"I shall do so, Prentiss, while I live."

He continued to view the head, upon which our names were engraved, and a melancholy shade gathered upon his features. "Oh, were I," said he, "to-day, what I was the day I gave you this!" and he paused many minutes; still the shade darkened, and his voice trembled as he proceeded: "We were both young then, and how light our hearts were! We have gathered about us household G.o.ds, and we worship them; how sad to think we shall have to leave them! You married long before I did. Your children will grow up while yet you live; I shall never see mine other than children."

"Say not so, Prentiss. You are yet young. You have but one thing to do, and you will live to see those boys men; and what may you not expect of them, with such a mother to aid you in rearing them!"

"I know what you mean, and I know what I will; but, like Laoc.o.o.n in the folds of the snake, the serpent of habit coils around me, and I fear its strength is too powerful for mine. Perhaps, had my angel of to-day been my angel when first a man, I had never wooed the scorpion which is stinging me to death; but all I can do I will. This is all I can promise. Keep this stick to remember me: it will support you when tottering with the weight of years, and with strength will endure. When age has done her work, and you are in the grave, give it to your son to remember us both. Farewell."

With a clasp of the hand we parted, never to meet again. Not long after, he died at Natchez, and, in the family cemetery of the Sargents, sleeps near the city.

But few of the speeches of Prentiss were ever reported, and though they are like and have the ring of the true metal, yet not one of them is correctly reported. The fragment given in a former chapter is the report of one who heard it, and who wrote it the very hour of its delivery, to myself, that the information of the acquittal might be communicated to the friends of the lady Judge Wilkinson was about to be married to, who resided in my immediate neighborhood. There is not a word of it in the reporter's speech, which was some time after written out from notes. These speeches, with the traditions of his fame, will serve to perpetuate his memory as perhaps the most gifted man, as an orator, that adorned his generation.

In stature he was below the ordinary standard, and his lameness seemed to dwarf even this. His head was large, round, and high; his forehead expansive, high, and rising almost perpendicularly above his eyes, which were gray, deep set, and brilliant; his nose was straight and beautifully chiselled, thin, and the nostrils large, and swelling and expanding when excited. In speaking, his eyes blazed with a most peculiar expression. His chin was broad, square, and strong. His mouth was the most striking feature of his face--large and flexible, with a constant twitching about the corners. The entire contour of the face indicated humor, combined with firmness. This latter trait was also indicated in the large, strong under jaw--no trait was more prominent in his character than this. Yet he was slow to anger, and always conciliatory in language and manners. He was charitable in the extreme toward others for any laches in principle; always ready to find an excuse for the short-comings of others. Yet no man adhered more closely and more steadily to his principles and opinions. He never gave an insult, unless greatly provoked, but never failed to resent one; always loath to quarrel, but, once in, bore himself like a man, and a brave one. The high oval crown of his head confessed high moral qualities; here the moral organs were in wonderful development. Too generous to be malicious, he was ever ready to forgive, and too n.o.ble to permit his worst enemy to be slandered in his presence.

There was once a quarrel between Prentiss and that erratic man of wonderful genius, H.S. Foote. This culminated in a hostile meeting, in which Foote was wounded. In their impulsiveness these two were very like, as also in the generosity of their natures. Neither bore the other malice beyond the conflict, and neither ever permitted an insult to be offered to the name of the other in his absence. A short time after this affair, Prentiss was with some friends in Cincinnati. There is always to be found men who swell their importance by toadying men of character and eminence. Such are as frequently found in Cincinnati as elsewhere.

One of these had sought out Prentiss, and was attempting to make himself agreeable to him by abusing Foote: this abuse wound up by denouncing the distinguished Mississippian as a dog. Prentiss turned sharply upon him with the exclamation: "If he is a dog, sir, he is our dog, and you shall not abuse him in my presence!" The discomfiture of the toady may be easily imagined; he slunk away, nor did he again obtrude his unwanted presence upon Prentiss during his stay.

Few men have ever so fastened themselves upon the affections of their friends as did Prentiss: his qualities of heart and head were fascinating, almost beyond humanity; none ever met him for a day and went away unattached; strangers, who knew him not, listening to him, not only admired, but loved him. He never lost a friend; and all his enemies were political, or from envy. In the society of ladies he was extremely diffident and un.o.btrusive, and always apprehensive lest he should be unable to entertain them agreeably.