Twenty Years of Congress Volume Ii Part 26

For these party a.s.sociations, to whose influence, under the restraint of intelligent patriotism, the wisest legislation is due, Mr. Schurz has neither approbation nor appreciation. He aspires to the t.i.tle of "Independent," and has described his own position as that of a man sitting on a fence, with clean boots, watching carefully which way he may leap to keep out of the mud. A critic might, without carping, suggest that it is the duty of an earnest man to disregard the bespattering which fidelity to principle often incurs, and that a beaten path to safe place for one's self is not an inspiring or worthy object of statesmanship.

Nor is Mr. Schurz's independence of party more p.r.o.nounced or more complete than his independence of true American feeling. He has taken no pride in appearing under the simple but lofty t.i.tle of a citizen of the United States. He stands rather as a representative German-American. He has made his native nationality a political resource, and has thereby fallen short of the full honor due to his adopted nationality. The large body of American citizens of German birth are intensely attached to their new home, and seek the most complete identification of themselves and their descendants with the development and destiny of the Great Republic. This is wise, and is in accordance with the best traditions and best aspirations of the Teutonic race.

But to Mr. Schurz the Republic is not great! "This country," said he, in his Centennial lecture, "is materially great, but morally small."

--Allen G. Thurman came suddenly into prominence in 1867. He was the Democratic nominee for Governor of Ohio against Rutherford B. Hayes.

For the three years immediately preceding his candidacy the Republican majorities in the State had averaged nearly 45,000, while in 1863 Vallandingham had been beaten by 101,699. Without premonition or visible cause, in an election for State officers only, and not for representatives in Congress, the total vote of 1867 proved to be larger than had ever been cast in the State, while the majority of General Hayes was less than three thousand. The Legislature was carried at the same time by the Democrats, and it proved that Mr. Thurman had lost the Governorship only to be promoted at once to the United-States Senate. The political revolution was as remarkable in character as it was sudden in time. Ohio had shown profound loyalty to the Union and an enthusiastic support of all measures for its preservation. Mr.

Thurman had run counter to the principles and prejudices of a large number of the people of Ohio by his bitter hostility to the war, and yet he now received a larger popular vote than had ever before been given even to a Republican candidate, except in the year 1863 when so many Democrats repudiated Vallandingham.

It was at the full maturity of his powers, in the fifty-sixth year of his age, that Mr. Thurman took his seat in the Senate, March 4, 1869.

He had been chosen a representative in Congress for a single term twenty-five years before, and had afterwards served a full term on the Supreme Bench of Ohio, the last two years as Chief Justice of the court. He was not therefore an untried man, but had an established reputation for learning in the law, for experience in affairs, for intellectual qualities of a high order. During the long interval between his service in the House and his installment in the Senate the relation of political parties had essentially changed. Mr. Thurman had changed with the times and with his a.s.sociates. When he took his seat in the Twenty-ninth Congress the issue in regard to the extension of slavery in the Territories was beginning to enlist public interest.

The first impulse of all the representatives from that extensive and opulent domain, which had been saved from the blight of slavery by the Ordinance of 1787, was to aid in extending a similar blessing to all other Territories of the United States. With the exception of Stephen A. Douglas and John A. McClernand of Illinois, and John Pett.i.t of Indiana, all the Democratic representatives from the four North-western States (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan) voted for the anti-slavery proviso offered by Mr. Wilmot. Mr. Douglas, discerning the future more clearly than his party a.s.sociates, realized that the chief strength of the Democracy must continue to lie in the South, and that an anti-slavery att.i.tude on the part of the North-western Democrats would destroy the National prestige of the party and lead to its defeat. The Democratic supporters of the Wilmot Proviso had therefore choice of two paths: they must abandon their anti-slavery att.i.tude or they must leave the party. Mr. Thurman adhered to his party. With this exception, his political course has been one of unswerving constancy and fidelity to all the extreme demands and severe creeds imposed upon the Democracy by the South. His Virginia birth, his rearing within the lines of the old Virginia Military reservation in Southern Ohio, his early a.s.sociations with kindred and his friends, all contributed to his education as a Democrat. He naturally grew to strong influence with his a.s.sociates, and when he came to the Senate was ent.i.tled to be considered the foremost man of his party in the Nation.

His rank in the Senate was established from the day he took his seat, and was never lowered during the period of his service. He was an admirable disciplined debater, was fair in his method of statement, logical in his argument, honest in his conclusions. He had no tricks in discussion, no catch-phrases to secure attention, but was always direct and manly. His mind was not pre-occupied and engrossed with political contests or with affairs of state. He had natural and cultivated tastes outside of those fields. He was a discriminating reader, and enjoyed not only serious books, but inclined also to the lighter indulgence of romance and poetry. He was especially fond of the best French writers. He loved Moliere and Racine, and could quote with rare enjoyment the humorous scenes depicted by Balzac. He took pleasure in the drama, and was devoted to music. In Washington he could usually be found in the best seat of the theatre when a good play was to be presented or an opera was to be given. These tastes ill.u.s.trate the genial side of his nature, and were a fitting complement to the stronger and sterner elements of the man. His retirement from the Senate was a serious loss to his party--a loss indeed to the body.

He left behind him pleasant memories, and carried with him the respect of all with whom he had been a.s.sociated during his twelve years of honorable service.

--William G. Brownlow, a quaint and eccentric man, took his seat as senator from Tennessee. He was in the sixty-fourth year of his age, and in impaired health. He was born in South-western Virginia in the wild and mountainous region adjacent to the borders of three other States. In early life he was a Methodist preacher of peculiar earnestness and force, with special adaptations to the people among whom his ministry lay. To his Church he always retained an intense attachment and devotion. In his later years he published a work on Methodism, under the strange t.i.tle of "The Iron Wheel examined, and its False Spokes extracted." He came into public and general notice as the editor of the Knoxville _Whig_, which, though printed in the mountains of Tennessee when facilities of communication were restricted, attained wide circulation and influence. Its editor was known as "Parson"

Brownlow, a _sobriquet_ which attached to him through life. His paper was strongly anti-Jackson, warmly espoused the cause of Mr. Clay, and was distinguished in its editorials by a treatment of public questions so original that for nearly a quarter of a century it was known and quoted by the journals of the whole country.

But the odd and humorous editor, hitherto notorious for his partisan intensity and for the extravagance of his diction, was suddenly transformed into a moral hero. When the wild movement for secession swept over Tennessee, and carried with it even such men as John Bell, Brownlow took his stand for the Union. Threats could not move him, persecution could not break him, the prison had no terrors for him.

His devotion to the National cause did not mean simply the waving of the flag and the delivery of patriotic orations; it meant cold and hunger, separation from his family, loss of property, possibly loss of life. He endured all, and faced his bloodthirsty enemies with a courage superior to their own. He won their respect by his brave resistance, and was finally released from jail and banished from the Confederacy. He came North, and remained until the progress of the National arms enabled him to return to his home. His patriotic devotion was rewarded by the boundless confidence of the loyal people of Tennessee. At the close of the war he was chosen Governor, and was now promoted to the Senate of the United States--too late for the exertion of his once strong mental qualities, but early enough to testify by his presence the triumph of loyalty and manhood in the b.l.o.o.d.y strife through which he had pa.s.sed.

--Thomas F. Bayard, who entered the Senate at the opening of the Forty-first congress, was little known to the public, except as a member of a family which had been for a considerable period prominent in the political affairs of Delaware. His service in the Senate has been remarkable for one leading characteristic,--the power, or the accidental fortune, to create a public impression as to his career precisely the reverse of its actual history. The ill.u.s.trations are many:--

In financial circles Mr. Bayard has been held as a fair and conservative exponent of sound views, a jealous guardian of the public credit. As matter of fact, he joined in a political crusade to enforce the payment of the National debt in depreciated paper money, and almost the first vote he ever gave in the Senate was against the bill declaring the National debt to be payable in coin. He voted to except specifically the fifteen hundred millions of 5-20 bonds from coin payment, argued earnestly in favor of taxing the bonds of the Government, refused to support the bill for the resumption of specie payments, and united with others in a National movement to repeal the Act after it had been for a considerable period in operation.

On the Southern question, in all its phases, Mr. Bayard has been proclaimed by his supporters as calm, considerate, and just. In truth he has gone as far as the most rancorous rebel leader of the South, touching the Reconstruction laws and the suffrage of the negro. In the Forty-second Congress, in an official report on the condition of the South, Mr. Bayard joined with the minority of the committee in the distinct avowal that negro suffrage would practically cease when the Republican party should be defeated. These are the exact words in which Mr. Bayard concurred: "_But whenever that party (the Republican) shall go down, as go down it will at some time not long in the future, that will be the end of the political power of the negro among white men on this continent_." When Mr. Bayard united with other Democrats in this declaration the right of the negro to vote had already been protected by an Amendment to the Const.i.tution. His language was, therefore, a distinct threat to override the Const.i.tution in order to strip the negro of the political power which the Const.i.tution had conferred upon him. This threat was so serious and so lawless that it should have received more attention than was bestowed upon it when first put forth. It was not uncommon to hear brazen defiance of Const.i.tutional obligations from Southern speakers addressing Southern audiences for mere sensational effect. But his was an announcement made in the Senate of the United States, not hastily and angrily in the excitement of debate, but with reflection and deliberation, in an official report which had been studied for months and subscribed to in writing by Mr. Bayard.

The common apprehension a.s.signs to Mr. Bayard a high standing at the bar and positive rank as a man of culture. As a lawyer Mr. Bayard has doubtless cherished no ambition as he has attained no prominence, while in point of education he never enjoyed facilities beyond those of the common school or the private academy. Originally destined for mercantile life, he did not receive in his early years the benefit of liberal training; nor did his tastes lead him into any special personal pursuit of literature or science, or even into a close, careful study of the history of his own country,--a study which would have exempted his public career from some of his more notable mistakes.

For obvious reasons Mr. Bayard has acquired exceptional popularity in the South, and especially with Southern men in Congress. When those who partic.i.p.ated in the Rebellion were freed from their disabilities and regained their old seats in the Senate and House, they found Mr.

Bayard in position, and they naturally accepted him as a leader. It was fresh in the memory of these men that Mr. Bayard's friendship for them had been constant and unremitting; that even in the fatal folly and wrong of secession in 1861 they had his sympathy, to such an extent that he advocated in a public speech the policy of permitting them to separate peacefully from the Union. He spoke earnestly against the use of the National power to hold these States to their duty as members of a common government, and expressed the belief that it would be better to have two republics, than to have one strong enough to command respect for its laws and to enforce obedience at the cannon's mouth.

The avowal of these opinions north of the National Capital was greater aid to the Southern conspirators than if Mr. Bayard had openly joined their councils or expended his valor in the ranks of their army.

It was evidently not deemed prudent by Mr. Bayard to repeat his disunion views. After Fort Lafayette, at Mr. Seward's command, had opened its doors to men who publicly expressed disloyal sentiments in the North, Mr. Bayard gave to the rebellion the benefit of his silence.

The great struggle went on; myriads of patriots stepped to the ranks of the Union Army; the people were fired with love of country; from every loyal platform and every loyal pulpit rang out words of faith and hope for the cause and for its brave defenders. But Mr. Bayard's silence was unbroken even by the thunders of Gettysburg almost within sound of his home, or by the closing and complete triumph of the National arms.

He had spoken words of sympathy and encouragement to the enemies of the Union. He never uttered a word of cheer for its friends.(1)

The organization of Governor Fenton's friends in New York, which had failed to secure him the nomination for Vice-President at the Chicago Convention, was strong enough to elect him to the Senate, even against so worthy a compet.i.tor as Governor Morgan, who had the advantage of being in the seat. It was a strong attestation of Mr. Fenton's strength in his own State.--William A. Buckingham, whose distinction as War Governor of Connecticut reached far beyond the limits of his State, was now promoted to a seat in the Senate.--Daniel D. Pratt, afterwards Commissioner of Internal Revenue, appeared from Indiana as the successor of Thomas A. Hendricks.--John Scott, whose father had been a representative in Congress, succeeded Mr. Buckalew as senator from Pennsylvania. Mr. Scott had taken little part in politics, and had been altogether devoted to his profession as a lawyer; but his service in the Senate was distinguished by intelligence and fidelity.

No man wrought so effectively in exposing the condemnation of public opinion the evil work of the Ku-Klux organizations in the South. At the close of his term he returned to the practice of law, and was honored by the appointment of chief solicitor to one of the largest corporations in the world--the Pennsylvania Railroad Company.--Thomas C. McCreery took his seat as senator from Kentucky. Originally a lawyer, he had for many years devoted his attention to farming. He had acquired prominence in his party by carefully preparing and accurately committing to memory a political oration each year, which he delivered at the Democratic State Convention. He was an upright, good-natured man, with extreme Democratic views always amiably expressed.--John P.

Stockton, who was deprived of his seat three years before under circ.u.mstances which seemed to impose a hardship upon him, now entered with undisputed credentials from New Jersey.

The senators first admitted from the reconstructed States were about equally divided between native Southerners and those who had gone from the North at the close of the war; but all were Republicans except one in Virginia and one in Georgia. John F. Lewis and John W. Johnston were natives of the state, belonging to old and influential families.

The former was a Republican; the latter a Democrat.--In North Carolina, John Pool was an old Whig, prominent in the politics of his State before the war. Joseph C. Abbot was from New Hampshire, a Brigadier-General in the Union Army.--Thomas J. Robertson of South Carolina was a native of the State, and Frederick A. Sawyer was from Ma.s.sachusetts, but had lived in the State since 1859.--Joshua Hill and Thomas M. Norwood of Georgia were both Southern men by birth. Mr. Hill was a representative in the Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth Congresses, and when the State seceded refused to resign. He joined the Republican party after the war. Mr. Norwood entered the Senate as a Democrat.--Thomas W. Osborn and Abijah Gilbert, senators from Florida, were both from the North, the former a native of New Jersey, the latter of New York.--The senators from Alabama, Willard Warner and George E.

Spencer, the former born in Ohio, the latter in New York, were both officers of the Union Army.--Hiram R. Revels and Adalbert Ames were the senators from Mississippi. The former was born in the South. The latter was born in Maine, was a graduate of West Point and became highly distinguished as an officer in the war.--John S. Harris and William Pitt Kellogg were senators from Louisiana. The former was a native of New York. The latter was born in Vermont, but had long resided in Illinois. He served in the Union Army with the rank of Colonel in the Donelson and Shiloh campaigns under General Grant.--The senators from Texas, Morgan C. Hamilton and J. W. Flanagan, were both natives of the State and long domiciled in Texas.--Of the Tennessee senators one was born in the South and one in the North.

The representation of the Southern States being complete in both Houses before the close of the first session of the Forty-first Congress, an impartial estimate could be made of the strength and capacity of the men who were opprobriously designated in the South either as Carpet-baggers or Scalawags. It was soon ascertained that the unstinted abuse heaped upon them as a cla.s.s was unjust and often malicious. The large proportion, and notably those who remained in Congress beyond two years, were men of character and respectability, in many cases indeed of decided cleverness. But their misfortune was that they had a.s.sumed a responsibility which could be successfully discharged only by men of extraordinary endowments. If any considerable number of them had been gifted in a high degree as orators, they would have had great advantages among a people who rate mere eloquence above its true value.

If any of them had been men of large fortune (invested in Southern property), and able to make lavish expenditure, they could have produced a deep impression upon a people more given to admiration of mere wealth than the people of the North. But of the entire list of Republican senators and representatives from the reconstructed States, there was not one who was regarded as exceptionally eloquent or exceptionally rich; and hence they were compelled to enter the contest without personal prestige, without advent.i.tious aid of any kind. They were doomed to a hopeless struggle against the influence, the traditions, the hatred of a large majority of the white men of the South.

The Fifteenth Article of Amendment to the Const.i.tution, now pending and about to be adopted, would confirm the colored man's elective franchise and add the right of holding office. One of the senators just admitted from Mississippi in advance of the ratification of the amendment (Hiram R. Revels) was a colored man of respectable character and intelligence. He sat in the seat which Jefferson Davis had wrathfully deserted to take up arms against the Republic and become the ruler of a hostile government. Poetic justice, historic revenge, personal retribution were all complete when Mr. Revels' name was called on the roll of the Senate. But his presence, while demonstrating the extent to which the a.s.sertion of equal rights had been carried, served to increase and stimulate the Southern resistance to the whole system of Republican reconstruction. Those who anxiously and intelligently studied the political situation in the South could see how unequal the contest would be and how soon the men who organized the rebellion would again wield the political power of their States--wield it lawfully if they could, but unlawfully if they must; peaceably if that would suffice, but violently if violence in their judgment became necessary.

President Grant had scarcely taken a step in the duty of administration before he realized that as soon as the current session of Congress should terminate his hands would be completely tied, respecting the removal and appointment of Federal officers, by the Tenure-of-office Act. With his prompt and determined mode of procedure he caused it to be known to Republican senators and representatives that so long as the statute was in force he would simply stand still in the matter of appointments and permit the inc.u.mbents to remain in position, except where flagrant misconduct should call for suspension under the law.

This position was startling to all those who were desirous of securing the appointment of political favorites, who in a party sense had earned their reward and were waiting to receive it. There was a general desire to remove the men whom President Johnson had forced into office before the restraining Act was pa.s.sed. But General Grant was resolved that neither he nor the members of his Cabinet would go through the disagreeable and undignified process of filing reasons for suspending an officer, when in fact no reason existed aside from obnoxious political opinion. The Republican members of both branches quickly perceived that tying the hands of a hostile President like Andrew Johnson afforded more satisfaction than the same process applied to a friendly President like General Grant.

It was therefore determined by the Republicans to escape from their embarra.s.sment, even at the expense of an inconsistency which could but prove humiliating to them. On the 9th of March, just five days after Andrew Johnson had left the Presidency, General Butler introduced in the morning hour of the House, a bill of two lines, absolutely repealing the Tenure-of-office Act, for a constructive violation of which he had ten months before urged the impeachment of President Johnson and his expulsion from office. The standing committees had not yet been announced; and therefore without reference or a moment's debate or consideration of the measure, General Butler demanded the _previous question_, which was sustained, and under a call of the _ayes_ and _noes_, the bill was pa.s.sed by 138 to 16. The small minority was composed of Republicans. The Democrats, who had solidly voted against the Tenure-of-office bill two years before, voted now with entire consistency for its repeal, and with them also, in solid ranks, voted the men who, in the preceding Congress, had clamored most loudly for Johnson's decapitation.

When the bill reached the Senate, there was a disposition on the part of some leading members of that body to pa.s.s it as promptly as it had been pa.s.sed by the House. Mr. Morton urged that it be put on its pa.s.sage without referring it; but the Senate was not prepared for such haste, and on motion of Mr. Trumbull, the Bill was sent to the Judiciary Committee. That Committee reported it without delay to the Senate, with an amendment in the form of a subst.i.tute. The House bill was a simple repeal in the fewest possible words. The Judiciary Committee now proposed that instead of an absolute repeal, the Tenure-of-office Act "be, and the same is, hereby suspended until the next session of Congress."

This was a lame and impotent conclusion, and did not commend the support or even the respect of the Senate. Mr. Thurman, a member of the committee that reported it, made haste to announce that he had not approved it. He treated the proposition for suspension as a practical confession that the Tenure-of-office Act "is to be enforced when it will have no practical effect, and is not to be enforced when it would have practical effect." The chief defenders of the proposition to suspend the Act were Mr. Trumbull, Mr. Edmunds, and Mr.

Schurz. Mr. Edmunds, pressed by Mr. Grimes to furnish a good reason for suspending the Act, replied that "owing to the peculiar circ.u.mstances that have attended the last administration, it is desirable that there should be an immediate and general removal of the office-holders of the country as a rule; and as an agency of that removal, subject to our approval when we meet again in confirmation of their successors, these bad men being put out, we are willing to trust this Executive with that discretion."

Coming from a senator of the United States, this declaration was regarded as extraordinary. The "bad men" to whom Mr. Edmunds referred were the appointees of President Johnson, and every one of them had been confirmed by the Senate of the United States when the Republicans had more than two-thirds of the body. If these appointees were "bad men," why, it was pertinently and forcibly asked by the aggrieved, did not Mr. Edmunds submit proof of that fact to his Republican a.s.sociates and procure their rejection? He knew, the accused men declared, as much about their character when their names were before the Senate, as he knew now when he sought, behind the protection of his privilege, to brand them with infamy. To permit them to be confirmed in the silence and confidence of an executive session, and then in open Senate, when their places were wanted for others, to describe them as "bad men," seemed to them a procedure not to be explained on the broad principles of statesmanship, or even on the common law of fair dealing.

Mr. Schurz was as anxious as Mr. Edmunds to give the President full power to remove the office-holders. He declared that he "would be the last man to hamper the President in the good work of cleaning out the Augean stable, which he is now about to undertake." He was sure that "the rings must be broken up," that "the thieves must be driven out of the public service." He eulogized President Grant as especially fit for the work. "We have," said he, "a President who is willing to do what we and the country desire him to do." Mr. Schurz expressed at the same time his "heartfelt concern" regarding a rumor that the President was very sensitive touching the proposition reported by the Judiciary Committee, and that "he will make no removals unless the civil-tenure bill be repealed instead of being suspended." Mr. Schurz was sure that "on all the great questions of policy the President and Congress heartily agree," and he condemned "the attempts made to sow the seeds of distrust and discord." It is somewhat amusing as well as instructive to recall that in a little more than two years from that time, when nearly all the appointees of President Johnson had been turned out of office, Mr. Schurz began work again at "the Augean stable," now locating it in the Grant administration, and demanding that it should be cleansed, that "the rings" should be broken up, that "the thieves must be driven out of the public service." He imputed to President Grant's administration even greater corruption than he had charged upon the administration of his predecessor, and from his ever-teeming storehouse lavished abuse with even a more generous hand upon the one that he had upon the other.

The amendment of the Judiciary Committee providing for a suspension of the law until Congress should meet again--a period of about eight months--was so objectionable that it won no substantial support from senators. There was something so baldly and shamelessly partisan in the proposition to suspend the Act just long enough to permit President Grant, without obstruction or enc.u.mbrance, to remove the Democrats whom President Johnson had appointed to office, that the common instinct of justice, and even of public decency, revolted. The Tenure- of-office Act was either right or wrong, expedient or inexpedient, Const.i.tutional or unconst.i.tutional, and it was easy to see that men could honestly differ as to its character in these respects. But it was impossible to comprehend how a candid legislator could maintain the Const.i.tutionality and expediency of the Act, and then propose to suspend it for that specific period of General Grant's administration, when, if needed at all, it would be most needed. Within eight months next ensuing the President would probably make more removals and appointments than for the remainder of his term, and it was just for this period that Mr. Trumbull, Mr. Edmunds, and Mr. Schurz urged that the law be made inoperative,--inoperative in order that removals of Democratic office-holders for good cause, and for no cause except that they were Democrats, might in every way be expedited.

It was soon perceived that if the question before the Senate should be reduced to a choice between suspension of the Act or to total repeal, there was a danger that the majority would vote for repeal. To avert that result, Mr. Edmunds asked to withdraw the proposition, and it was accordingly recommitted to the Judiciary Committee on the 23d of March.

On the next day Mr. Trumbull reported a subst.i.tute for the existing law, and the Senate, after brief discussion, agreed to it by _ayes_ 37, _noes_ 15. The amendment seemed to be ingeniously framed to destroy the original Act and yet appear to maintain it in another form. The senators apparently wished to gratify General Grant and promote their own purposes by rendering the removal of President Johnson's appointees easy, and at the same time avoid the inconsistency involved in the repeal of a law for whose enactment they had so strenuously contended only two years before.

The first modification of the original Act, as embodied in the Senate amendment, was to relieve the President altogether from the necessity of filing charges against an officer whom he desired to suspend. In the second place, all provisions of the original law authorizing the Senate to pa.s.s specific judgment on the propriety of the suspension and declaring that if the Senate did not approve the President's act the person suspended should "forthwith" resume his office, were now abandoned. The President was left at liberty to suspend any officer without a.s.signing a cause, and to nominate his successor. If the nomination should be rejected, another might be made, and another, and another, until the Senate should confirm. If the Senate should stubbornly reject all the nominations and the session of Congress end without a confirmation, then, in that remote and highly improbably event, the suspended officer, according to the proposed law, should be restored to his place. The substance of the original Act was gone, but the Senate sought shelter from its record of inconsistency under the small shadow of this distant and hypothetical restoration of the suspended officer.

But the House would not consent that even the small shadow should remain. Representatives well knew that it was not agreeable to President Grant that any authority should be retained by the Senate whereby an obnoxious officer could in any event be kept in place against his wishes, and they were in hearty accord with him. The House had always been jealous of the power of the Senate over appointments to office, and but for the desire to punish President Johnson the representatives would never have consented to the Tenure-of-office Act. They were now determined, if possible, to strip the Senate of its great aggrandizement of power. The feeling of many members of the House was to sustain an amendment offered by General Logan directing that "all civil offices, except those of judges of the United-States courts, filled by appointment before the 4th of March, 1869, shall become vacant on the 30th of June, 1869." This would have been a wholesale removal beyond any scheme attempted since the organization of the Government; but it was not deemed wise even to bring it to a test, and the House contented itself with the rejection of the Senate amendments by a decisive vote.

The subject was then referred to a Conference Committee, consisting of Messrs. Trumbull, Edmunds, and Grimes of the Senate, and Messrs.

Benjamin F. Butler, C. C. Washburn, and John A. Bingham of the House.

The Bill reported by this committee to both Houses is the present law on the subject.(2) Mr. Trumbull, in making the report, gave this a.s.surance to the Senate: "As the Committee of Conference report the bill, the suspended officer would go back at the end of the session unless somebody else was confirmed in the place." On the same day in the House, in answer to a pressing question from Mr. h.o.a.r of Ma.s.sachusetts, Mr. Bingham expressed the opinion that "no authority without the consent of the President can get a suspended officer back into the same office again." General Butler, another of the House conferees, said: "I am free to say that I think this amendment upon the question of removal and re-instatement of officers leaves the Tenure-of-office Act as though it had never been pa.s.sed, so far as the power of the President over the Executive officers is concerned."

It was certainly an extraordinary spectacle, without precedent or parallel, that the report of the conference should have one meaning a.s.signed to it in the Senate, and a diametrically opposite meaning a.s.signed to it in the House, and that these antagonistic meanings should be made on the same day, and put forth by the conferees whose names were attached to the report. Such a legislative proceeding cannot be too strongly characterized.

But the popular understanding among Democrats and Republicans alike was that the Tenure-of-office Act had been destroyed, and that Mr.

Trumbull's technical construction of the amendment was made merely to cover the retreat of the Senate. By the new enactment, the provisions which had led to the dispute between President Johnson and Congress were practically extirpated; and thus a voluntary confession was recorded by both Senate and House that they had forced an issue with one Executive on an a.s.sumed question of right, which they would not attempt with his successor. The members of the present House who in the preceding Congress had voted to impeach the President, and the great ma.s.s of the senators who voted to convict him, now voted to blot out the identical clause of the Act under which they held the President to be deserving of removal for even venturing to act upon his own fair construction of its meaning. With all the plausible defenses that can be made for this contradictory course, the fact remains that the authors of the law precipitately fled from its enforcement the moment a President with whom they were in sympathy was installed in office.

They thereby admitted the partisan intent that had governed the enactment, just as they admitted the partisan intent that now led to the practical repeal. Casting off all political disguises and personal pretenses, the simple truth remains that the Tenure-of-office Law was enacted lest President Johnson should remove Republican office-holders too rapidly; and it was practically repealed lest President Grant should not remove Democratic office-holders rapidly enough.

While President Grant did not find himself in the least degree embarra.s.sed by the Tenure-of-office Act as amended, he did not surrender his hostility to its existence in any form whatever. In his first annual message (nine months after the legislation just narrated) he earnestly recommended its total repeal. "It could not," said the President, "have been the intention of the framers of the Const.i.tution, when providing that appointments made by the President should receive the consent of the Senate, that the latter should have the power to retain in office persons placed there by Federal appointment against the will of the President. _The law is inconsistent with a faithful and efficient administration of the Government. What faith can an Executive put in officials forced upon him, and those, too, whom he has suspended for reason?_ How will such officials be likely to serve an Administration which they know does not trust them?"

The President was evidently of the opinion that the doubtful and contradictory construction of the Act as amended left the whole matter (as described by Mr. Niblack of Indiana when the Committee report was under consideration) "in a muddle;" with the inevitable result that certain parties would be deceived and misled by the peculiarly tortuous language which the Senate insisted upon introducing in the amendment.

The House had acted throughout in a straightforward manner, but the most lenient critic would be compelled to say that the course of the Senate was indirect and evasive. That body had evidently sought to gratify the wishes of President Grant, on the one hand, and to preserve some semblance of its power over appointments, on the other. It was freely predicted at the time that so long as the Senate and the President were in political harmony nothing would be heard of the Tenure-of-office Act, but that when the political interests of the Executive should come in conflict with those of the Senate there would be a renewal of the trouble which had characterized the relations of President Johnson and the Senate, and which led to the original Tenure-of-office Act with its positive a.s.sertion of senatorial power over the whole question of appointment and removal.

William Pitt Fessenden took part in the first session of Congress under the Presidency of General Grant. It was his last public service. On the eighth day of the following September (1869) he died at his residence in Portland, Maine, in the sixty-third year of his age.

He was one of the many victims of that strange malady which, breaking out with virulence at the National Hotel in Washington on the eve of Mr. Buchanan's inauguration (1856-57), destroyed many lives. Its deadly poison undermined the const.i.tutions of some who apparently recovered health. Of these Mr. Fessenden was one. He regained the vigor that carried him through those critical years of senatorial work on which his fame chiefly rests; yet he always felt that he had been irreparably injured by the insidious attack. The irritability and impatience which he occasionally displayed in public and in private came undoubtedly from suffering which he bore with heroic endurance through the years when his public burdens were heaviest.

--His death was announced by his successor, Lot M. Morrill, who delivered an appreciate eulogy upon his character and public service.

Mr. Sumner bore testimony to the greatness of his career in the Senate.

"All that our best generals were in arms, Mr. Fessenden was in the financial field," said the Ma.s.sachusetts senator. Describing Mr.

Fessenden's "extraordinary powers in debate--powers which he commanded so readily," Mr. Sumner said, "His words warmed as the Olympic wheel caught fire in the swiftness of the race. If on these occasions there were sparkles which fell where they should not have fallen, they cannot be remembered now." This reference was well understood. Mr. Fessenden and Mr. Sumner were never cordial. Members of the same party, supporters of the same general measures, with perfect appreciation and with profound respect each for the other, it seemed as impossible to unite them cordially, as in earlier days it was to unite Adams and Hamilton in the ranks of the Federalists.

--Mr. Fessenden had maintained a brilliant reputation for a long period. When Mr. Webster, at the height of his senatorial fame, made his celebrated tour through the Middle and Western States in 1837, he selected Mr. Fessenden, a young man of thirty, as his traveling companion,--selected him for his brilliancy, when he had choice of the brilliancy of all New England. Mr. Garrett Davis, a senator from Kentucky, in his eulogy of Mr. Fessenden, referred to Mr. Webster's visit to that State, and described the warm greeting which Mr.

Fessenden received, the deep impression made upon him by Mr. Clay's hospitality at Ashland, and the impression which the young man made upon Mr. Clay, with whom he thenceforward became a marked favorite.

Mr. Davis and Mr. Fessenden met not long after as members of the House in the Twenty-seventh Congress (under Harrison and Tyler). "Mr.