History of Buchanan County, Iowa, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 122

Author: Williams bros., Cleveland, pub. [from old catalog]; Riddle, A. G. (Albert Gallatin), 1816-1902
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, Williams brothers
Number of Pages: 574

USA > Iowa > Buchanan County > History of Buchanan County, Iowa, with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 122

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Ere I enter upon my task, something must be said of the personnel of his associates of the house. Those whom he found there, the more marked who entered with him-a glance at their careers, as of the later comers and goers of the years to follow, and something of the spirit of congressional life may also be found in my pages.

The places of the eleven seceding States were vacant in the hall of the house. Schuyler Colfax was elected speaker. This was his fifth congress. He was now forty years of age, of good person, pleasant address, a rapid, persuasive speaker, able, politic, admired, and immensely popular; no man at the capital ever more so. Though not a lawyer, he mastered, as well as man may, the laws of the house, and ruled it with dignity and suavity, for six years. The speaker of the house fills the real second place in the American government. From this he re- tired, through the vice-presidency-than which there is no easier or more effective avenue-to private life.

Thaddeus Stevens, chairman of the ways and means, and titular leader of the house; strong, masterful and arbitrary-not the leader, not a leader of men in any sense ; a driver rather. Though in private life the gentlest and tenderest of men, in a public body, stormy, sharp, sarcastic, with a merciless, caustic wit. Not an eloquent, scarcely a good speaker, who put an end to an ordinary man with a sarcasm, and sometimes answered inquiry for information with aquafortis. He was then seventy-one, and had served in many congresses ; was the peer of the Blacks and Merediths of Pennsylvania, and the greatest embodiment of revolutionary forces in the two houses.

Elihu B. Washburn, the titular father of the house, though then but forty-seven ; strong, able, forceful, hon- est and brave; more of a leader, and not less masterful, than Stevens; always direct and above-board, with a temper not of the politic cast, and which sometimes was troublesome- a good man for any time, and one of the men for that time.

Justin S. Morrill was one of the prominent men of the Thirty-eighth congress, and one of the most valuable in the history of our legislation. Second on the ways and means, he was by far its best man. Tariffs and indus- tries were his specialties. Mr. Garfield early attracted his notice, and when he became the head of the com- mittee in the Thirty-ninth congress, the young Ohio re- presentative, at his special request, became his second.

William D. Kelley entered the Thirty-seventh con- gress, was conspicuous in the Thirty-eighth, and has filled a large place in the public vision ever since. A man of fine literary tastes, with a quick, eager, sagacious mind, he early took one of the first places as an orator and debater, which he retains.

Robert C. Schenck, after an absence of many years, returned to his old seat; coming with the memory of his former high position to fill a larger and higher place. One of the ablest of the hard-workers who ever sat there, and whom it is now the fashion to slur over by men never his peers in ability and usefulness.

John A. Bingham, the orator of the house, and one of the hundred best speakers who ever sat in it, and a statesman as well, missed the Thirty-eighth congress, re- appearing in the Thirty-ninth.

So of Roscoe Conkling, three years the senior of Garfield-in some respects, one of the strongest men of either house, one of the masters of sarcasm, with a power of producing his thought better and more sharply de- fined and cleaner cut than almost any debater in our parliamentary history.

Henry Winter Davis returned to Congress this year -- an event in itself. Proudest and most reticent of men, with the gift of genius, and a rare power of speech, he seems to have added little to his former great reputation. He died in December, 1865.

Henry L. Dawes, of Massachusetts, was there at the height of his great usefulness, perhaps better adapted to the house, where he was educated, than to the senate, to which he has been transferred.

Samuel S. Cox, the wit and wag of the house, and a good deal more. He was then from Ohio, and had man- aged to get his growth early.

James E. English, of Connecticut, one of the ablest of the Democrats, and a high-minded man.

And old melancholy Governor Francis Thomas, of Maryland, was in the house.

Daniel W. Voorhees, an orator, young, vigorous, and growing to the head of the western Democracy.

William H. Wadsworth, of Kentucky, who maintained its fame for eloquence.

James F. Wilson, of Iowa, a man of more sturdy vigor and strength that often reaches Congress in one man.

CONGRESSIONAL LIFE

William Windom, of Minnesota, who has grown steadily, silently and naturally, to the front rank. And there were scores of good men. There was Isaac N. Arnold, one of the two only outspoken friends of President Lincoln, at the close of theThirty-seventh congress ; Fernando C. Beaman, and Portus Baxter; William S. Holman, of Indiana, and George W. Julian, one of the strongest and best cultured men of the house; Frederick Pike, of Maine; Theodore Pomeroy, of New York, and Alexander H. Rice, of Mas- sachusetts; and certainly the able and accomplished George H. Pendleton should have distinguished mention. Vallandigham was still in exile, while J. M. Ashley, of Ohio, was a very. conspicuous figure on the floor and filled much space in the field of general politics.

The Thirty-eighth congress is marked in our annals by the appearance of new and strong men upon the national boards; some of whom are remarkable. Among the first stands James G. Blaine, but a year older than Gar- . field ; a born parliamentary leader --- a leader of men every- where ; gifted with great personal advantages, a strong, quick, brilliant intellect, rare powers of speech, with inflex- ibility of will, and great force of character. Aggressive, heroic, no civilian since Henry Clay has had so much magnetism, as certainly since his day there has not appeared in the national lists so intrepid and gallant a leader, or one who dashes along the front of the adverse host so fearlessly.

J. A. J. Cresswell also, three years the senior of Gar- field, came in from Maryland, was transferred to the senate, from which he entered the cabinet of President Grant. Able and brilliant, he was selected by the house of representatives to deliver the eulogy on his friend and colleague, Henry Winter Davis, a distinguished honor to each.

George S. Boutwell had been governor of Massachu- setts, and now made his advent upon the national plat- form. Sharp, ready, incisive. He went through the treasury department as secretary and from thence into the senate.

James Brooks, able, a man of unusual accomplish- ments, and enviable position, whose sad ending would go far to condone even grave faults.

William B. Allison, of Iowa. now senator, first en- tered the house in this congress, as did John A. Kasson, minister to Austria, and Senator Kernan, and William R. Morrison, of Illinois; also Godlove S. Orth, of Indiana, and Samuel J. Randall.

This congress also received Rufus P. Spalding and Fernando Wood, both able men, with the airs of grand seignieurs. John A. Griswold and John Ganson of

New York; Ebon C. Ingersoll, of Illinois; T. A. Jencks, of Rhode Island; E. R. Eckly, of Ohio, and some others.

Distinguished and able men thronged the senate. Sumner and Wilson still represented Massachusetts, and Wade and Sherman, Ohio; Collamer and Foot, Ver- mont. Pennsylvania had Buckalew and Cowan. One wants to ask what has become of them. Chandler and Howard bore up the honor of Michigan. Grimes and Harlan cared for that of Iowa. John P. Hale was still there, growing lazy and careless. Harris and E. D. Morgan silently sustained the position of New York. Doolittle was there for Wisconsin. Howe was by his side when not in advance of him. Lyman Trumbull was there for Illinois, with strong, rough Richardson. Rev- erdy Johnson sustained the old fame of Maryland, and McDougal, wittiest and frailest of senators, stood up, when he could stand, for California. Lott M. Morrell represented Maine, while Fessenden was secretary of the treasury. Alexander Ramsey, of Minnesota, was also then in the senate. It had many conspicuous and able men not here namcd.

On this stage, among these men, old and new, the young general, sun-browned and battle-scorched, from the war, made his appearance, as one of the joint body. He is to know them and be known by them, associate with them, become a friend, a rival, an opponent, an enemy never. Will live with them, and grow up with and become a conspicuous part of the legislative history of the Republic, for all the succeeding years to this day. Will remain such part or pass to the highest and most solitary.

At his election, he was a resident of the county of Portage. The rest of his district, Ashtabula, Geauga, Lake, Trumbull and Mahoning, constituted the old dis- tiict of Joshua R. Giddings-so much of New England translated into the freer, broader and more fertile west. The people, intelligent, shrewd, not given to enthusiasm, understanding men, and knowing the cash values of things, they had taken to the young man, and nomi- nated and elected him without especially consulting him, which somehow set the fashion in his career. Not all fair weather will it be between them and the youth of their love. Bickerings, misconceptions, and busy tongues, ambitious intriguers will intervene, and he will turn and face them and have a fair and square set-to, and they will never, never doubt him again.

LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD.

CHAPTER II. LIFE AT THE CAPITAL.

Lincoln's Offer .- Committee on Military Affairs .- State of the Army. -Increase of Bounties' Speech .- A Crisis .- Meets It .- Chief Jus- tice Chase .- New Army Bill .- Defeated .- Lincoln Meets the Com- mittee .- Substitute .- Speech .- Passage of Bill .- Proclamation and Answer .- Reply to Long .- Presidential Canvass .- Defies the Nomi- nating Convention at Warren .- Thirteenth Amendment .- Speech in Reply to Pendleton.

We resume the thread of our narrative. It was stated in chapter third that General Garfield went to Washing- ton with a mission from his military chief to the Presi- dent and secretary of war. It was late in the season, and near the time of the assembling of congress. On his way, he went around by his home in Hiram. There he found his-first born, "Little Trot," less than three years old, one of the rare sweet buds that perish ere opening, seemingly waiting for his parting kiss ere her departure, and left him as if to show how sweet death might seem, and how near and precious the unseen. He held her in his arms, to secure the last presentiment of her dead face, and left the stricken mother by the little grave's side, to make his darkened, solitary way, to the life and scenes of the capital. The result of his mission to the President has been stated. Nothing could save Rosecrans. Garfield had received a letter from General Thomas, now at the head of the army of the Cumber- land, offering him the command of a division, and had determined to resign his seat in the house and accept it Every motive and impulse of his heart urged him to this. On expressing his purpose to the President, Mr. Lincoln earnestly dissuaded him from it. He represented that the Republicans had a very slender, if not a doubtful, majority in the house, that he was greatly needed, with his perfect knowledge of the wants of the army; that at least he must remain till the house was organized, and at work, saying that he had assured General Frank Blair, returned to the same house, that as soon as he could be spared he would restore him his resigned commission, and would do the same by Schenk and himself. It will be remembered that the President carried out this promise to Blair, simply by an order restoring him, contrary to the opinion at this time expressed to him, by Schenk, that, hav- ing resigned, nothing but a reappointment could return him, which was undoubtedly the law. Thus strongly urged, Garfield acquiesced, and on Saturday, December 3d, resigned his commission as major general, and the next Monday was sworn as a representative in the house, and took his seat.

General Schenk was placed at the head of the com- mittee on military affairs, and General Garfield received an honorable place with him. It made little difference what figure of the seven represented it, he would soon find his true place; the military was the great brilliant committee of the house and war. The Republic was in the midst of a gigantic struggle, all the people were at war, intense and terrible; all the resources of the Nation were employed; all the powers of the executive and legislative departments were welded into one; a com- pound arm wielded to place and command immense armies in the field. At the head of the legislative stood the military committee of the house .. More than one million two hundred thousand soldiers had been in the Union armies during 1873; nearly three hundred thou- sand had left the ranks without leave. That was the last year of Halleck, the year of the first ineffective draft, of the ruinous system of bounties so fatal to the army. Vicksburgh and Port Hudson, and with them the Missis- sippi were captured that year; Gettysburgh, Stone River and Chickamauga had been fought. The armies of the Tennessee, Cumberland and Ohio were consolidated, and placed under General Grant; and the season closed with less than five hundred and fifty thousand effective men of all arms in the field. The military committee was the legislative hand that formulated the laws, devised the ma- chinery by which the last raw reserve of material, of men and arms, were to be rendered effective, as well as to pre- serve and make more perfect the vast armies still in the field.

Here was an immense, conspicuous field for all the re- sources of ability, invention and experience of the wisest, most energetic and heroic men in the land; the last quality was as much in requisition in congress as in the field. An experience at the front was but little less need- ful to fit a man for great usefulness in congress at that time, than at the head of the armies. In certain direc- tions the educational process of actual service is effective ; the soldier goes with a bold directness to his purpose, and is a stranger to the doubts and hesitancy, the timid policies, the fear of personal consequences, which para- lyze the average politician, of even good parts. The politician usually feels obliged to devote his time, ability and strength to protect and defend his own rear. Proba- bly no two men were ever better fitted for their places than the chief of the military committee and he who quite at once became his lieutenant and friend. Garfield had been in Washington during the trial of General Por- ter. He now took up his solitary residence at the north- east corner of New York avenue and Thirteenth street, just a square below his present residence. Here he re-

LIFE AT THE CAPITAL.

mained till the holiday vacation, when, at the invitation of General Schenk, he joined him at Mrs. Lecont's house on C, near 412, a historic neighborhood of many mem- ories. On one side of it was the house which long shel- tered Professor Morse, on the other the old residence of Dr. Baily, of the National Era, opposite were the residences of Daniel Webster, and of Lewis Cass. This place soon became a sort of army headquarters, where one might meet all the distinguished and other generals when they happened to be at the capital; as all the in- ventors of new arms, projectiles run mad with plans to end the war, enthusiasts, visionaries, the unfortunate and unappreciated great men, with bummers, and loafers on the outside. Here were drawn out, discussed, and ma- tured the great bills to be submitted to the committee, and launched upon the house.

During the first week of the session, an incident oc- curred in the young representative's career, so illustrative of the man, as well as of the new service, that I mention it. The use of chloroform and ether, and the history of their discovery and introduction was then little known, and probably nothing in use could then be men- tioned of which a congressman knew less. Anæesthetics were extensively used in the hospitals, and the matter came before the committee, on Dr. Morton's memorial, accompanied by ample testimonials from eminent men of Boston. It was referred to the committee. Dr. Morton claimed to be the discoverer of chloroform, and de- manded a large sum as compensation, for its use, in the hospitals. An inscription, in cuneiform characters, would have been barely more embarrassing to the military com- mittee. The chairman read it, and ran his eyes over the faces of his committee, to choose a luckless victim of chloroform. They nearly all made shuddering haste to disclaim the slightest knowledge of the subject. Garfield casually remarked that it was a remarkable claim. It was at once assigned to him, and the clerk so entered it on the committee's calendar. It had long been Garfield's habit to secure some odd out of the way thing to read up in his hours of leisure on the cars or elsewhere. Some years before, on taking the cars for home from a remote city, he stepped into a bookstore, to secure the required unusual thing. Running his eye along the backs of a row of books, it was arrested by ".\næsthesia," on the back of one of them. He purchased it. It was an ex- haustive discussion of chloroform and ether, and of the claims of Dr. Morton who was a dentist; Prof. Jackson, a man of science; Dr. Wells, and perhaps, some others, to be the discoverer. Of course, he mastered it, and this led him to note the current literature upon the sub- ject since. At the next session of the committee, he

produced a clear, tersely written, full report, upon the subject. The members were amazed. It settled his place at once. Here was a young man who, off hand, knew all about anæsthesia. Good Lord! what might not such a man know! *

On the twenty-eighth of January, he made his first speech. The confiscation bill was under discussion. He had already had occasion to make short explanatory statements on the floor, characterized by clearness and directness, and the house came at once to see that the youthful hero of Chickamauga had the power of exposi- tion. Confiscation remained what it was in theThirty- seventh congress-an endless labyrinth, where the law- yers, were like Milton's devils,

" Wandering in tangled mazes lost,"

in the technics and provisions of the English stat- utes. The bill had military features, which made his occasion. There was the never worked out native puzzle, what was the status of the seceded States? Were they still States in contemplation of law? And were they in or out of the Union? If in the Union, what were the rights of their people, and what the powers of congress over them? Of course, the malign thing, slavery, was ever present. As we know, Mr. Garfield brought to the discussion of the complex subject the light to be gained from an exhaustive study of English history and statutes, and he shed through and over the whole a clear, strong light. His replies to the points made by the Democrats were exceedingly well done, and in off-hand answers to their numerous interruptions, he showed a readiness ot resource, and flexible use of his powers, more than sug- gestive of what time and practice were to make of him-

* During his school days, he had as a fellow-student, the late Miss Almeda Booth, quite an equal mental associate, and they made it a rule never to pass a word without mastering it. One day they came upon "depositary." supposing it a misprint, for depository, they went on. They came upon it again, and on investigation found it to mean the person with whom a thing was deposited. Early in the Ohio senate, a bill came up for consideration, to protect the moneys of the State from the Breslins or others, modelled after the sub-treasury of the general government, in which ample provisions were made to secure the vaults, safes and all the depositories, but using depositary, to designate the place. Almeda's classmate, called attention to the word, assuming that it was an inadvertent slip, and moved a correction. He was about the youngest man ever in the senate, and as little known there then, and the proposition was received with derision. One senator thought he was more nice than wise; another, that he was very hypercritical, while a third suggested that the senate had little need of the school-master. He made a snappy rejoinder, defined the words, when there was a rush for the big dictionary on the clerk's desk, when congratulating the senators for resorting to what they seem to have before missed, the school master, he sat down. A brief consultation of the "unabridged" was followed by a recommittal of the bill. The senate soon learned that the school-master was but a minor character of the young man's repertory. The reader will also remember the club of young critics.

LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD.

one of the very ablest parliamentary debaters of his time. The speech produced a marked impression, alike upon the course of the debate, as well upon the fortunes of the new power, which had entered upon the national forum. As was their wont, the members gathered about him when he began, to take his measure and estimate his weight. Those who came to criticise remained to admire, and finally to be enlightened. His position in the army, his campaign against Humphrey Marshall, the ability he had shown as chief of staff, his great exertions at Chickamauga, around which the tales of his dashing courage had thrown the halo of heroism, were all in his favor. His fine person, splendid head, musical, sonorous voice and good manner, above all, the firm grasp of his subject, his broad mastery of historic accessories, and thorough study of the law involved, which gave him easy play in the new field, with his flowing, facile delivery, stamped the effort as above a high average of good speeches, ranking it with the remarkable first speeches in the house. To those who wish for a concise statement of English history, covering the period of the expulsion of the second James, or a forcible statement of the con- stitutional problem of the position of the rebel States, under clear, strong light, will find it of great service. It fixed the position of the young representative on the floor of the house, and opened the paths to reputation through the country.

In April following, on the bill to increase the bounties to soldiers, he made a startling five minute speech against it. Short as it was, it pictured the fatal results of buying, bribing our countrymen to fight their own battles, where- by we secured the bribers' purchase-the very poorest material-did not secure it, for the thus bought at once deserted to re-enlist elsewhere, and flee again. The only gain was a new name to our language-"bounty-jumper." Alas! it was on the eve of a new election, then more im- portant than the pending march through the wilderness. On the passage of the bill, one hundred and twelve re- corded their names in favor of it, to James A. Garfield, solus, against it. Moved by his sublime courage, in view of the pendency of his own re-election, Grinnell,' of Iowa, plucked his name away from the herd who would supplement the evil, and secure their own seats, and placed himself by the side of him who heard only the calls of his country.

An artist who would seize an incident in our congres- sional history, the portrayal of which should embody the immovable granite which is the basis of heroic charac- ter, and crown it with a courage that will not calculate consequences, will find it in the defiant figure of the young representative, the most youthful of the body,

haughtily confronting the whole house of representatives on this vote.

The late Chief Justice Chase, then secretary of the treasury, the embodiment of inflexible will, and calm, cold resolution, sought him, and gave him his warmest congratulation. He had measured himself with a great crisis, and towered above it. But he prudently admon- ished him not to go rashly in pursuit of occasions person- ally so perilous to himself. Meet them, if they came, as he did this, but it was very important that he remain in public life. Do the heroic sparingly. We shall see how he acted under this characteristic advice.

The existing draft-law, framed with such painstaking care, to not draft soldiers for the army, had fully developed its efficiency for that purpose. It had thirteen classes of exemptions, and the man who escaped through none of them could lay down his three hundred dollars, and walk back to his peaceful pursuits. The three hundred thous- and drafted under it in 1863 yielded to the army twelve thousand men. The two generals elaborated a new bill. The first section repealed the commutation clause, and the exempting grounds were frightfully reduced. Six weeks the debate upon it ran on in the house, and Grant was wading his weltering way through the Wilderness. Then came a motion to strike out the first section. In a shot-and-shell speech, Garfield declared that the men who were in favor of striking out did not want to crush the rebellion. On the vote, the motion prevailed, one hundred to fifty.

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History of Buchanan County, Iowa, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 122

Author: Williams bros., Cleveland, pub. [from old catalog]; Riddle, A. G. (Albert Gallatin), 1816-1902 Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Cleveland, Williams brothers Number of Pages: 574

Author: Williams bros., Cleveland, pub. [from old catalog]; Riddle, A. G. (Albert Gallatin), 1816-1902
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, Williams brothers
Number of Pages: 574