USA > Arkansas > Biographical and pictorial history of Arkansas. Vol I > Part 12
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HON. CHESTER ASHLEY.
Colonel Chester Ashley was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, June 1, 1791. His parents moved to Hudson city, New York, when he was an infant, and here he grew up to man's estate. He acquired a classical education and was graduated from Williams College in 1813. From college he went into the law office of Elisha Williams, and was there qualified to enter the law school at Litchfield, Connecticut, then the only law school in the United States. Here he laid the solid foundations of his fame in after life.
Early in 1818 he moved to Illinois, where he remained near two years in the practice of his profession. In 1819 he changed his location to the territory of Missouri. Here he came in contact with the celebrated William Russell, the great- est land speculator in the western country, who recognized the abilities of the young lawyer, who argued and gained an im- portant land suit for his adversary.
Russell had very large landed interests in the territory of Arkansas and elsewhere, and wanted that interest represented and protected by the best talent he could command. This led to the relation of client and attorney between him and Colonel Ashley, and to the latter's removal to Little Rock in 1820.
He was soon engaged in most of the important land litiga -. tion in the territory, and was, by common consent, acknowl- edged to be the ablest lawyer in the jurisdiction ; and this at a period when Arkansas was represented by an able bar.
Robert Crittenden came in 1819 as secretary of the territory by appointment from President Monroe. He was the younger 16
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brother of John J. Crittenden, was a brilliant orator and in- tensely ambitious. Mutual admiration and professional inter- ests soon united these young men in the business relation of law partners.
But this relation was destined to be of short duration. Crit- tenden soon became absorbed in the exciting politics of the day, and nursed his ambition for office with an idolatry that admitted of little restraint within the limits of perfect probity; beyond that his lofty nature and daring soul never enticed him. Ashley had the same lofty ambition, but he held it in per- fect subjection at this stage of his career. He was method- ical, laborious and patient in the minutest detail of every un- dertaking. Necessity had taught him her inexorable laws, her imperious restraint ; and prudence and wisdom had placed their seal on his nature and made him perfect master of his passions. In the beginning he subordinated his inclination for office, that his talents might be employed in the acquisition of pecuniary resources necessary to support the flight marked out by his ambition. Crittenden cared nothing for wealth and underestimated its efficiency as a factor in promoting his ambi- tion. Talent leading to and expanding in such opposite direc- tions was too frail a bond of union to continue this business relation long. Crittenden became an ardent, impulsive whig; Ashley a cool, patient, wary, self-possessed democrat. Critten- den was led by the fiery eloquence and impetuosity of his own dauntless nature ; Ashley by the greater brain power and the cool precision of mathematical calculation from which nothing ever impelled him to deviate.
The distinguishing traits in the character of the two men are powerful factors in their respective spheres, but the ends they promote are widely different ; the one flashes like a meteoric apparition and is seen no more; the other leisurely ascends to the meridian and burns with the fixed steadiness of the sun. They parted as great leaders of powerful political parties to be friends no more on earth. Had Crittenden lived longer, time might have healed the breach, but he died suddenly, in 1834, before the debris of the political cyclone which swept Arkansas had been cleared away. Crittenden as an orator had few equals and no superiors, and as a genius was superior to his
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great brother, John J. Crittenden, so long eminent in the coun- cils of the nation.
William Russell, the generous and powerful client of Colonel Ashley, was the father-in-law of Thomas H. Allen, who mar- ried his only child, to whom he left his immense landed for- tune, which made it possible for his son-in-law to become the owner of a great corporation like the St. Louis and Iron Moun- tain railway. Thomas H. Allen was a young, moneyless graduate of Yale, who went from his native New England to St. Louis a decade after Colonel Ashley did, and there found employment in the office of Mr. Russell as the manager of his great landed and other interests.
Russell soon discovered his great business capacity and exec- utive ability, and without ceremony said to him : " Allen, I know your worth and ability perhaps much better than you do. I want my daughter to marry such a man ; she is educated and accomplished with all the graces that money can impart. But I am now consulting considerations infinitely superior to bank accounts. If you should, after mature consideration, feel so inclined, you can address her and I will favor your suit. If you should succeed, it may be more satisfactory to you to know you are managing your own inheritance."
The accomplished bride found in her husband a rich dowry of brains and a father's happiness in his declining years.
Russell himself was a great man, and in any other than a field of ledger balances would have become distinguished. His sagacity in discovering and measuring men's capacity was equal to that of Bonaparte's in recognizing military genius. The career of the two young men he singled out in St. Louis con- firms this conclusion.
On the 4th of July, 1821 at St. Genevieve, Missouri, Colonel Ashley married Mary W. W. Elliott, the daughter of Benjamin Elliott, a descendant of the old apostle, John Elliott of New England, but of the Virginia branch of that old colonial family. which sent many sons to the battle fields of the revolution. She was possessed of great, good practical sense, and adorned with equal grace the unpretentious cabin of the pioneer and the stately mansion of the senator.
That grand old man Judge Edward Cross, whose life is a
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part of the better history of Arkansas, married Laura Francis, the younger sister of Mrs. Ashley. These honored matrons in our early history were cousins to General Stephen F. Austin, the colonizer of Texas, whose name and fame will live as long as the literature which preserves our language. They bore the same relation to the wife of General. Grandison D. Royston and to the wife of that very distinguished Kentuckian, Governor John Pope, who was the rival of Henry Clay and a genius of the highest order of talent.
Colonel Ashley was possessed of great moral and physical courage, but there was nothing more abhorrent to his nature than the dueling code and the bloody conflicts which characterized and shadowed the early history of Arkansas. Between him and that old Nestor of the Arkansas press, Colonel William E. Woodruff, there existed from their first meeting in 1820 to Colonel Ashley's death in 1848, the warmest personal friend- ship and the most intimate relations. This statement is prefa- tory to the relation of one of those unfortunate tragedies which sometimes cross and darken the pathway of the greatest and best of mankind, and for which they can in nowise be held legally or morally responsible.
In 1828 a desperado named John Garrett conceived great animosity to Colonel Ashley without just cause or provocation, and publicly announced on the street that he intended to kill him on sight. He took up a position on the street corner over- looking Colonel Ashley's residence and maintained it two or three days awaiting the exit of his intended victim.
Colonel Ashley, to avoid collision with such a character and the inevitable necessity to shed the blood of a fellow mortal, kept his house until the third day, when, as he supposed, the desperado had retired. Laboring under this impression he crossed over to the Gazette office. But Garrett observed the movement and followed in hot pursuit, pistol in hand, un- observed by his intended victim. In the overt act of execut- ing his threat, he forced the door of the Gazette office and en- tered, but Colonel Woodruff observed him in time to grapple him before he could execute his threat. He fired at Colonel Ashley and missed him, was himself shot and died in a few hours, but the question as to who shot him has always been a disputed one.
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Woodruff and Ashley sustained and ennobled the relation of Damon and Pythias for twenty-eight years. During that long transition period when Arkansas was struggling and gradually rising up out of the baneful influences which shadowed her early history and wrote many of its pages in blood, these two men, with many other noble coadjutors, struggled with Spartan firm- ness to advance the highest interests of the people. In that great labor they became historic characters, and their fame is the State's heritage. Will the generous and noble Arkansas of to-day, who owes so much to these, her sons, build a monu- ment to them worthy of their achievements for her civilization and fame? Their names ought to be written on the dome of her Pantheon. Poor indeed must be the State, which, to save a few dollars, will deny an appropriation to honor the sons who made her great. It would cost but little to place a statue of each of these men in the capitol grounds.
Will some patriotic citizen in the halls of legislation take the initiative ? Colonel Ashley was a skillful gladiator in the forensic arena. Often when his adversary thought he had him crippled beyond recovery he would, with the greatest facility, seize on some unguarded point and drive him to dismay and defeat. His intellect was of massive and well-balanced propor- tions, and it shone with equal splendor in the social circle, the council, the forum or the senate. There was no aristocratic hauteur about him, but there was a lofty bearing and dignity which commanded respect in every presence. When his mind was lighted up in discussion his countenance became radiant with conscious power, and his auditory was carried along with the genius of his inspiration. If for nothing else, let us kneel at the shrine of our country's greatness and renew our fealty to institutions which prohibit the creation of privileged orders and an artificial aristocracy to deny man the fruits and precedence of his genius and the splendor of his inheritance from God. And may we never forget to venerate the only government on earth that reaches out its fostering hand to an humble freehold in New England for a Webster; to an Irish cottage in South Carolina for a Jackson ; to a cobbler's bench for a Wilson ; to a tailor's shop for a Johnson ; to an emigrant ship for a Benja- min ; to the glaciers of Switzerland for a Gallatin, and to the
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tropical isles of the sea for a Hamilton ; that their brains might be wrought with their own genius into the service and frame- work of the government.
The first hero killed in the revolution was shot down on his way to Concord by the British. In his dying agonies he prophetically exclaimed, " I had a right to go to Concord." The spirit of this first sacrifice has paralyzed the arm of tyranny in every region inhabited by civilized man and has changed the history of the world, and next to the Nazarene, has blest man most. Oh, may God in infinite mercy for His children for- ever preserve "the patriotic tide" that opened up at Concord and Lexington, and sealed at Yorktown such grand possibili- ties to mankind.
From the spirit and genius of such institutions spring and rise " Phoenix like" from the ranks of the people such men as Ashley to make, and bless and glorify a nation's greatness. Colonel Ashley was the acknowledged head of the bar as long as he remained in active practice. He was always an active dem- ocratic politician but he never left the ranks to seek or accept office until he had accomplished all his professional ambition had marked out in early life, and then he sprang from the ranks, like Minerva from the brain of Jove, into the senate of the United States, without filling any intermediate station. Few men have ever so long held the reins of party in hand whilst serving in the ranks. None but a great genius can do it. The active opposition always held him responsible for the acts of the democratic party. He was the power behind the throne that directed all of its movements. In the twenty-five years preceding the close of his professional career, in 1844, he had achieved fortune and fame. His fame crossed the boun- daries of his adopted State and echoed, not only throughout his native New England, where his name with that of many other of her pilgrim sons is blessed, but it compassed the United States.
To the great political contest of 1844 he devoted his masterly energies in the field as a democratic elector for the State at large and canvassed the entire State. The whig party matched him with Alfred W. Arrington, who was not inferior as an orator to any man known to our history. But Arrington did
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not follow him long. He quit the canvass and left the State, assigning as a reason for it that Colonel Ashley's masterly discus- sion and unanswerable argument on the tariff issue convinced him that the whig party was wrong. This was the tribute of genius to transcendent talent under very extraordinary circum- stances. And it was not the only compliment paid to his abili- ties by great opponents under similar circumstances. After Arrington abandoned the contest the whig party was sorely pressed for men to meet him on the stump.
John W. Cocke, a brilliant whig lawyer, met him at Little Rock, and perhaps a few other places, but soon abandoned the contest and left Colonel Ashley again alone in the field. One of the ripest lawyers in the State (then a very young man), rode twenty-five miles to hear the discussion at Little Rock. He described it to the author as "the battle of the giants," and as forever settling his convictions on the tariff issues in con- sonance with democratic teachings.
The courtly and celebrated Charles Fenton Mercer, of Vir- ginia, a great popular orator, and long a member of congress from a whig district in his State, passed through Arkansas in 1844 on a trip to Texas. He arrived at Washington, in Hemp. stead county, a few days, or perhaps only one day, before Colonel Ashley spoke there. At the earnest solicitation of his whig friends he remained to reply to the great private citizen, not believing he would come up to the standard local fame had accorded the backwoodsman of Arkansas. Mercer listened to the fluent speech and cogent reasoning of the great elector with profound attention, and when he came to reply, generously and nobly said to the vast auditory : " I have met able men in con- gress from Arkansas, but none of the distinguished ability of your fellow-citizen, Colonel Ashley. I am astonished that a gentleman of such commanding abilities is not in the councils of the nation."
The Hon. Jesse Turner, who was an active uncompromising whig in those days, and a " sincere mourner at the grave of his party," says "Colonel Ashley was a man of great ability."
The amiable and estimable Fulton died in Angust, 1844, leaving two years of his senatorial term unexpired. All eyes were turned to Colonel Ashley as his successor, and when the
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legislature met in November of that year he was elected with- out organized opposition, and almost unanimously. He took his seat in March, 1845, with the incoming administration of Presi- dent Polk. That able lawyer and accomplished scholar, George M. Dallas, vice-president of the United States, in organiz- ing the committees of the senate, placed the new senator from Arkansas at the head of the judiciary committee. No higher position could have been assigned him.
Ambrose H. Sevier, a name forever honored in the history of Arkansas, had then been in the senate eleven years, and was chairman of the committee on foreign relations, a position equal to that of his distinguished colleague. This certainly was one of the proudest eras Arkansas has ever had in the councils of the nation. The severest trial to which a senator is ever sub- jected is generally found in the embarrassment which attends his first address to the senate. We have two witnesses to this ordeal which our senator passed early in the first session of the twenty-ninth congress (1845).
The celebrated George McDuffie of South Carolina was one of the auditors. He was then in the zenith and greatness of his wonderful career, and to those who may not be acquainted with his history, a short digression to outline it will be pardoned. He was born in humble obscurity in eastern Georgia, with massive brain and great possibilities, and was the only one of his family ever known to rise above obscure mediocrity. When verging on manhood he was fortuitously brought to the notice of John C. Calhoun, who at once predicted a great future if his re- sources were cultivated. He became the protege of the favored son of South Carolina, who sent him to school and graduated him at Columbia College in the Palmetto State. Soon after this he was admitted to the bar. His advent on the legal horizon was that of a star of the first magnitude. His fame soon filled the State and he was toasted as " the pride of South Carolina."
This State soon honored herself no less than him by delegat- ing him to the national councils. His fame preceded him to the halls of congress. It excited the disdain and contempt of that long dreaded churl and tyrant of the house, John Randolph. who had so long with lordly mien and iron rod ruled the house. Not long after he was sworn in, Randolph, with concentrated
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irony and withering sarcasm, undertook to whip in "the pride of South Carolina," and teach him humility and submission. As usual, Randolph was the aggressor. He had vanquished scores before, and why not the protege of Calhoun. His obscure ori- gin had no claims on fame that might not be dashed to pieces by one thrust from Randolph's lance. Those who did not know McDuffie did not think he would reply. But in the fearless pride and dauntless courage of a great intellect, he took the floor with perfect composure. Webster, Benton, Calhoun, Crit- tenden and many others left their seats in the senate and went to the house to witness " the battle of the giants." The world has rarely witnessed such an auditory. Certainly no young man like MeDuffie had ever before in the world's history com- manded such an intellectual audience, unless, perhaps, young Earl Gray on the trial of Warren Hastings before the house of lords. Men, whose renown will be handed down as long as our history is preserved, paid willing tribute to his genius and his glory. Before the assembled talent of the nation, McDuffie stood the majestic personification of intellectual greatness with the patent and signet of the Creator on his brow.
As he glanced around over the parliament before him, some one cried out from the gallery : " Lay on McDuff, and damned be he who first cries, hold, enough." The effect of this sally from the gallery was electrical, but it fell like a pall of death on Randolph, who, from the noble defiance of his young adversary, felt that a cyclone was coming. Cicero's denuncia- tion of Cataline in the Roman senate was not, more terrible than the classic fire and polished phillipic which drove Ran- dolph from the house in disinay to escape it. The old Vir- ginia lion was bearded by "the pride of South Carolina" in his lair where he had lorded it so long. The press of two hemispheres heralded it to the world, and the world was glad.
McDuffie was one of those brilliant creations whose talents startle and dazzle the world. His morals were as pure and exalted as his genius. He greatly admired Ashley.
The venerable Judge Cross, who was a member of the twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth congresses, was the other witness to Colonel Ashley's maiden effort in the senate. He " messed" with the South Carolina delegation 17
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which included Calhoun, Woodson, Burt (who married the niece of Calhoun), MeDuffie and others.
The new senator first addressed the senate on the bill for the annexation of Texas. Judge Cross with many others left the house and went over to the senate chamber to hear him. Here let the venerable and honored old gentleman speak for himself: "I knew he possessed great abilities, and for that reason wanted to hear him. I went to the senate chamber just after Colonel Ashley obtained the floor. To my aston- ishinent he was greatly embarrassed, but I thought that would wear away in a few moments, but he commenced choking up, and I thought was going to end in inevitable failure, and I left the senate chamber suffering intense mortification. Dis- tress and a sense of oppression followed me all day. No mem- ber of my 'mess' knew that Colonel Ashley was my brother- in-law. That evening at tea McDuffie was in fine spirits; he turned to me and asked: 'Did you hear your new senator, to-day ?' Fearing a new installment of mortification, I replied, no, and he said : 'Then you have been unfortunate. You have lost a great opportunity for intellectual enjoyment ; he made the best speech yet delivered in the senate on the bill for the annexation of Texas; he presented new and original ideas with wonderful power.'"
Colonel Ashley's embarrassment wore away as ne advanced with his great subject, and his face lighted up with a halo which nothing can inspire and sustain but mental power.
A greater theme than the annexation of a kindred empire could scarcely engage the attention of a statesman. The . · matchless reasoning of the profound lawyer was then tributary and subsidiary to the higher compass of the statesman's com- prehensive grasp. In 1846 there was strongly organized opposition to his re-election to the senate, which involved a protracted and exciting contest. Hon. Robert W. John- son, afterward a senator in congress from Arkansas, said of that contest : "For his success in that instance he wa: not less indebted to his own strong will, his habits of industry, his energy and admitted ability, than to the ardent devotion of friends." Colonel Ashley continued chairman of the judiciary committee until his death, which occurred on the 29th of April,
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1848, at his hotel in Washington city, in the bosom of his devoted family. Mr. White, of New York, and Robert W. Johnson, of Arkansas, pronounced eloquent funeral orations in the house. Solon Borland, the successor of Sevier, and Sidney Breese, of Illinois, performed the same office in the senate. In the oration of Judge Breese there is a simple, yet pathetic and sublime passage which seizes on the heart and inspires a sense of profound obligation and love for the government made by our fathers.
In 1818, "in the then far off wilderness of the west," Colonel Ashley and Judge Sidney Breese, then a law student, met in an obscure village in central Illinois. Both had come pilgrims from the east to seek and make fame and fortune in the rising west. Each was poor in this world's goods, but rich in that noble pride which leads man to the highest heritage to which his fellow man can elevate him. Nature had given both the same titular guides and had formed them on the same grand model. A good brain and noble ambition was the com- mon blessing of both. Under these circumstances the young men met in the wilderness and formed a very close attachment; but the ever-changing vicissitudes of this life soon separated them for twenty-seven years. The next meeting of the poor boys of 1818 was in March, 1845, on the floor of the senate as councillors of the greatest nation since the twelve Cæsars made Rome mistress of the east. Sidney Breese, the student, had ripened into jurist and statesman. As a jurist he has left an inheritance to Illinois which will survive the vicissitudes of ordinary fame. His attainments as a jurist for twenty years were wrought into the foundations of her jurisprudence. Hon. Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, in a letter addressed to Hon. A. H. Garland on the 15th of March, 1880, says : " I remember Senator Ashley from Arkansas well. He came into the senate in 1844, the year after I entered the house. He was a man of fine personal appearance. He was an able lawyer and soon tool high position in that body, and was placed at the head of the judiciary committee. His oratory, while not of the highest order, was very persuasive and convincing. IIe was eminently a business man. Socially, he shone to great advan- tage. He was usually one of the leading spirits of the dinner
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