USA > Indiana > Early Indiana trials: and sketches. Reminiscences > Part 58
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EARLY INDIANA TRIALS.
during his address, looked as if he was not in full carnest; but when you are all as well acquainted with the Senator as I am, you will give him full credit for sincerity, for any remarks he may make before ten o'clock at night, after that there may be some doubts." He closed amid bursts of applause from all parts of the room. Other Senators followed with eloquent remarks. At twelve o'clock the caucus was adjourned sine die; we shook a parting hand and separated for our boarding-houses. The next morning found us on our way to our homes, in the different sections of the United States.
THE ONE HOUR RULE.
I SEE the Hou. Thomas H. Benton in his "Thirty Years," speaks in strong terms of condemnation of the hour rule, limiting the time allowed each speaker to one hour, in the House of Representatives. Happening to be in the House, while that measure was under debate, and again under the operation of the rule after it was adopted, I saw and noticed its operation ; and candor compels me to say, that I differ widely from Col. Benton on the propriety of the limitation. I consider it an enlargement of the area of debate, while it may be a limitation as to the particular member entitled to the floor. The House was composed of some 220 members, each anxions for the floor, ready and charged with speeches for home consumption ; not more than one-half of which could be accommodated in the course of an ordinary session.
The rule was said to be an abridgment of the right of debate, be- cause it confined the speaker to one hour. Of course it gave the bal- ance of the time he might have held out to others desiring the floor ; and as none of them spoke for the House, the one hour speech deliv- ered, was quite sufficient to hang all that he desire to print, and send home upon, to enlighten his constituents. While the debate upon the one-hour rule was going on, a little sqeaking Member was address- ing the House, in most bitter denunciations of the rule. "I say upon my personal responsibility, that it is worse than the Gag Law of old John Adams ; it is a stop law, a perfect injunction, and for one in the name of my outraged constituency, I enter my solemn protest against any abridgment of my speeches," and down he sat evidently well sat- isfied with himself. A few days after the passage of the rule, the same member got the floor, and had been speaking when I entered I learned, about fifteen minutes. As I caught his voice, "I say, Mr. Speaker," looking at the clock, " as I was saying, Mr. Speaker," another look at the clock ; "as I said when I first rose, I opposed the Gag Law with all my might, as an outrage on my constituents in my
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THE DUKE DE JOINVILLE, ETC.
person, and I never will submit to it." Looks at the clock again-"Only half an hour yet ! Mr. Speaker, I am of opinion the clock has stopped, if I am mistaken in that, I yield the balance of my hour to the next speaker, and take my seat." Half the house jumped to their feet,. and roared out " Mr. Speaker," " Mr. Speaker." One only, of course, got the floor, while forty others were anxiously waiting for his hour to expire.
The freedom of debate abridged ! Far from it; the area of debate is much enlarged. Hundreds of members will now be able to give their views under the one-hour rule, that could never open their mouths but for the rule, while the one hour gives all the time absolutely nec- essary, to those who speak to the question. Mr. Calhoun seldom occupied longer than an hour in his ablest speeches.
THE DUKE DE JOINVILLE
ONE evening as I was passing down the avenue, at Washington City, I noticed a horseman coming from the west end at full speed. I soon saw that the horse was running away with his rider, as he came nearly opposite the Indian Queen hotel. The rider fell near the pavement, turning a complete somerset, a short distance from where I was stand- ing. I ran to the fallen horseman, when a foreigner raised him up, and inquired, " Are you hurt, Prince?" " Not much." I inquired who it was. "It is the Prince de Joinville of France, the Admiral of the Navy." He stood before me, a royal scion of the House of Bourbon, a youth above the medium hight, slim, black hair, eyes and moustache. He walked away, limping ; and I learned afterward, that he had re- turned to France, before he entirely recovered from his fall. He could command the French navy, but not an American pony.
DICKENS-BOZ
THE Senate had just met one morning, or rather noon, I was in my seat next to Mr. Buchanan, when we noticed the Senators on the opposite side of the chamber coming round to our side, and one after another being introduced to a small, full-faced, light-haired, blue-eyed man, with a laughing countenance, seated on the side sofa. Mr. Buchanan .- " Mr. Smith, how do you like the looks of Mr. Dick- ens ?" "What Mr. Dickens ?" "Boz." "Is that Boz ?" "Yes, the identical Boz." " Are you going to be introduced to him, Mr. Buchanan ?" " I am in no hurry about it. I never run after strangers." I was afterward introduced to him by Mr. Merrick, of
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Maryland. I confess I did not see in him the greatest living writer of fiction of the age, and yet such was his position at the time. I conversed a few minutes with him, he seemed to have social qualities of a high order. Perhaps I have read his works with more interest, since I have seen and conversed with him.
GRAVES AND CILLEY.
THE day was cold and blustering. I left my boarding-house about ten o'clock in the morning, and went up to the Capitol. Neither House was in session, I crossed the rotunda, to the hall of the House of Representatives, where I saw two groups of members in seeming earnest conversation. I soon learned from one of them that William J. Graves, of Kentucky, and Jonathan Cilley, of New Hamp- shire, had left the city with their seconds to fight a ducl; that Mr. Crittenden had gone with them; that Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, was the second of Graves, and George W. Jones, of Iowa, the second of Cilley ; that Graves would fight with a rifle of Francis P. Blair, carrying about eighty to the pound, and Cilley with a rifle of Dr. Duncan, of Cincinnati, carrying about one hundred and fifty to the pound; that Cilley was the best shot, but the difference in the weight of the balls, at the distance of a hundred yards, in such a cold, windy day, would place them upon terms of equality. I learned further from those who seemed to know, that the quarrel or difficulty out of which the duel had grown, was after this wise : Mr. Cilley, a member of the House, in debate, had reflected upon the character of James Watson Webb, of New York. Webb demanded a retraction. Cilley refused to have any thing to say to bim. Webb applied to Mr. Graves as his friend, to carry a challenge to Cilley. It was said that Mr. Graves consented without much reflection ; he not having the remotest idea that the challenge would be refused by Mr. Cilley, who was known to be a man of courage, and recognizing the obligation of the Code of Honor. But in this he was mistaken; on presenting the challenge, Mr. Cilley informed Mr. Graves that he chose to have nothing to do with Jas. Watson Webb. This placed Mr. Graves, under the Code of Honor, as the friend of Mr. Webb, in a critical position ; he was com- pelled to demand of Mr. Cilley the grounds of his refusal. Was it because Mr. Cilley did not recognize Mr. Webb as a gentleman ? if so, it became the duty of Mr. Graves, under the Code, to stand in the place of Mr. Webb and challenge Mr. Cilley. Every effort was made to induce Mr. Cilley to relieve Mr. Graves from his position, by plac- ing his refusal to accept the challenge of Mr. Webb, on a ground that
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GRAVES AND CILLEY.
would enable the friends of Mr. Graves to say that he could get out of the controversy with honor. Mr. Cilley refused to say more, than that he did not choose to be drawn into any controversy with Mr. Webb. This was decided by the friends of Mr. Graves to be insuffi- cient to relieve him, and he immediately challenged Mr. Cilley, select- ing Henry A. Wise for his second. Mr. Cilley accepted the challenge, and chose George W. Jones, of Iowa, as his second. The rifles were obtained as I have stated, and such was the secrecy with which the matter was carried on, that neither Mr. Webb, nor the police of Washington, could find their whereabouts until the duel was fought, and Mr. Cilley was killed. At the time I went over to the House, the parties were in the field, their friends and partisans greatly excit- ed. Mr. Graves was a Whig, and Mr. Cilley a Democrat. The first report that reached us was, that Mr. Graves fell at the first fire. This was soon contradicted by a rumor that neither was touched, at the first and second fires, and the third was about to take place ; a moment afterward a man rushed into the hall and cried with a loud voice, " Cilley is dead; he fell at the third fire." Such an exhibition of feeling I never witnessed as upon this announcement. Some thirty minutes elapsed, and I saw from the window of my room, on the west of the Capitol, the wagon containing the body of Mr. Cilley, slowly moving down the avenue to Third-street, where it turned up to his late boarding-house. Such was the end of Jonathan Cilley, as honor- able a man as ever lived. Mr. Graves lived a few years longer. He was at my house, in Indianapolis, some years after, but it was too evident from the change in his appearance, that life with him had become a burden. I am opposed to the whole dueling Code, both in theory and practice. I thought at the time, that Mr. Cilley fell a victim to a false principle of honor ; that the punctilio of the Code requiring Mr. Graves to give the challenge, had been more than satis- fied on both sides by the first fire, and no other fire should ever have been permitted by those having control of the lives of these brave men, who were driven to the field without any personal difficulty whatever between them.
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JOHN J. CRITTENDEN.
ONE of the noblest sons of Kentucky, was the subject of this sketch. I have uo purpose of attempting even a brief eulogy upon his life and character, much less to analyze his public acts. I speak of him as I saw him in the Senate of the United States. We were six years together in open and private sessions, and I am free to say, a more open, frank, honorable gentleman I never met. He was a true representative of the generosity, hospitality, urbanity, talents, and moral and personal courage of his State. To say that Mr. Crit- tenden possessed a mind of the highest order-to say that he possessed off-hand dehating powers equal to any member of the Senate, would only express the opinion of all who ever served with him. My opportunities of judging and appreciating him, were such as to entitle me to form an opinion of my own of that great man. It has been said, that no Senator can get credit for more than his talents enable him to in that body, nor will he fall below his proper position, but like water, he will find his level. This may be true; but if the level of Mr. Crittenden, in public opinion, has been below any other Sena- tor, he forms an exception to the rule. Mr. Crittenden was about a medium hight, very large head, full capacious brain, dark hair, falling carelessly over his forehead, dark intelligent eye, prominent mouth, projecting teeth. As a speaker, he was clear, strong, forcible, impul- sive, with a voice of high-toned sarcasm, that made him a dreaded competitor in personal contests. On one occasion he came in col- lision with Mr. Buchanan, in quite an exciting debate. I remarked to Mr. Buchanan, pleasantly, that it was well for him that it was not Mr. Clay that he had to deal with. "You are mistaken; I would rather meet Mr. Clay than Mr. Crittenden."
The high-toned eloquence of Mr. Crittenden seemed to flow from his lips without an effort. He was always prepared, always eloquent, always prompt and ready. I have looked over the many able speeches of Mr. Crittenden, for the purpose of making a selection for the eye of the reader, of his style in debate, and present a short one from his remarks on the Revolutionary Claim Bill, as showing the character and qualities of his heart. Mr. Crittenden is at this day the only remaining Senator in the body with whom I served during an entire term ; and after the 7th of December he will have but a single other co-Senator of 1841, in the person of James F. Simmons, the able Senator from Rhode Island. Mr. Crittenden bears upon his counten- ance a green old age ; long may he live to enjoy it.
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JOHN J. CRITTENDEN.
" Now, sir, is it a debt of mere gratitude ? Is it a mere gratuity that we are paying ? Is it a debt in respect to which our Constitu- tional rights can be invoked, as they have been by the gentleman from Michigan ? The debt is extinguished, in one sense of the term. In the legal, technical sense of the term, the debt is extinguished. That I admit. But is there not a moral obligation on us to make good, to the uttermost, when we are able to do so, our obligations, founded on such meritorious considerations ? That is the question. If a debt which I owe to you is barred by the statute of limitations, does it not extinguish the legal obligation ? But am I under no moral obligations growing out of the matter ? Is it a mere matter of gratitude if afterward, when I become able to do so, I feel under obli- gations to acquit myself of my debt, and pay you that debt so barred, and which bar, in a time of distress, I was obliged to shelter myself under ? What was the condition of the Government when it made this proposition to the officers? They come out of the war victorious and naked. They come out of the war triumphant and penniless. The Government was in no condition to execute its obligations. Promises of half-pay they could not satisfy. They sought for them- selves some little exemption and procrastination of this obligation by giving the promise of full-pay for five years, the payment of the principal to be postponed for ten years. By these hopes your needy, and naked, and hungry officers, as many of them were, were tempted to accept the terms. They have received the commutation. If they give credit for that on account, when you become able and prosperous, where is there any restraint in the Constitution to prevent your satis- fying your sense of moral obligation by paying the full balance ? Is it no debt because it is not recoverable by law ? No national debt is recoverable by law. The creditor must depend on the sovereignty and on the gratitude of the Government. It is to measure its own obligation. There is no legal tribunal before which you could go and drag this nation to answer.
" Your courts of law have decided that, as to a debt barred, and which is no longer one of legal obligation, if the party promise to pay it, the previous debt, barred though it be, is an ample consideration for the subsequent promise. That was your condition. You were unable to pay, as you had promised, half-pay for life ; you gave some- thing like security for a smaller sum. Your honest creditor accepted it. You have paid that ; and if you feel any moral obligation to do so, you are able to pay the balance. Will you do it ? It is not a case of mere gratuity, certainly, nor a case of a merc debt of gratitude. That is not it ; it is a money obligation, which, under your invitation,
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your creditor departed from, and took for it that which was not an ample consideration, that which was not a fair equivalent. Half-pay for life was given up for full pay for five years. Now, when the Gov- ernment is rich, and prosperous, and abundantly able to pay, the House of Representatives, at least, have said : ' We will settle with these men fairly; we will credit them for the sum they received as full pay for five years, and if there be any of the half-pay for life due to any of them, we will pay that.' I say this is not a gratuity. There was a moral obligation, a high obligation, to satisfy this debt of the Revolution. It was out of that we derived our very being as an inde- pendent and sovereign Government. We may as well look back on all the transactions of that day as somewhat more hallowed than the ordinary transactions of life, or even the ordinary transactions of Gov- ernment. It was a sacred generation ; a day sacred to liberty. Every thing belonging to it ought to be sanctified in our view, and to our feelings. This is the way in which I regard it.
" Standing here, and respecting the Constitution as much as any one, and no more willing than another to give away the public money, I feel that there is in this transaction a moral obligation upon which we are as fully authorized under the Constitution to pay, as we are to pay any debt of the most strictly legal and technical character. I am therefore for this bill. It embraces only those who received the com- mutation of five years' full pay. They are known on the record. There can be no ambiguity ; there cau be no room for imposition, by means of fraudulent testimony. It is only to the descendants of those who are on record, and are named and ascertained, that any payment can be made. I think, therefore, my friend from Michigan may dis- miss some of the fears with which he regarded the necromancy and wickedness of those agents. They must find the man's name on record, and all that remains to be ascertained by testimony and inquiry is, who are his children and grand-children ? They, and they alone, are entitled. I beg gentlemen to recollect, that it was under a resolution of 1783, that the commutation of five years' full pay was accepted ; and it was ten years from that time before the principal became due. What was the condition of those certificates during that time? The country was under the government of the Confederation ; a weak and feeble Government, impoverished, without power and with- out means. What was to be its destiny, the wisest men could not tell-the wisest could not foresee; and the humblest, and the most uninformed might well dread its termination -its falling to pieces from mere inability and want of cohesion, at any time. They accepted these certificates, payable ten years afterward. Of credit it had none.
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JOHN J. CRITTENDEN.
What was the value of a certificate payable ten years afterward, upon such a security ? Could prompt payment be calculated upon, at the time it fell due? Was it ealeulated upon ? or did these certificates depreciate to a mere nominal value ? They did so depreciate. What was the needy soldier to do? He was no longer in the army; his means consisted in his certificate; perhaps nothing, or little else. What was he to do with it; and what did he, in point of fact, do with it? Nine out of ten sold these certificates for a nominal priee. They were afterward funded by the Government, to be sure, after the adop- tion of the present Constitution ; but during that term of ten years they depreciated, day by day, and were sold for what the poor officer could get for them. Look now at the condition of the officer thus placed, and see if he is not worthy of some little consideration ; and if we ean not in our present prosperity, and in our present plenty (though legally we are discharged), in justice, and under the Consti- tution, make to him some indemnity for the loss sustained. I think so, aud it is therefore that I shall vote for this bill."
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EARLY INDIANA TRIALS.
SCHUYLER COLFAX.
FEW men of his age have acquired so much reputation at home and abroad, within the last few years, as the subject of this sketch. I had known Mr. Colfax but partially, before he took his seat as a delegate in the Constitutional Convention of 1850. It was in that body that he developed the character of his mind, and showed that he possessed powers of no ordinary character; he deservedly stood among the most active and useful members of the Convention, after which he repre- sented his district with signal ability in Congress. Mr. Colfax is a self-made man, who by the force of his native powers, aud, in despite of the want of a classical education, has raised himself to the high position which he occupies among his cotemporaries. As a speaker he is plain, distinct, fluent, forcible. Mr. Colfax is under the medium hight, slim and spare, large forehead, light hair and eyes, pale face, good features.
Mr. Colfax was an ardent Whig, while that party existed, and after their dissolution, became a leader in the Republican party in support of John C. Fremont. He took a very active part in the debate upon the Kansas and Nebraska question. It is no purpose of these sketches to enter into contested party questions on either side, and when abstracts from speeches are given, it is not to favor one side or the other in a party light, but merely to place the subject of the sketch and his style, prominently before the reader. For that purpose I give an extract from the speech of Mr. Colfax, in the House of Represent- atives, June 21, 1856.
" My especial object to-day is to speak relative to the code of laws, now in my hand, which has emanated from a so-called Legislative Assembly in Kansas ; and for the making of which your constituents, in common with mine, have paid their proportion-the whole having been paid for out of the Treasury of the United States, In speaking of the provisions embodied iu this voluminous document, and of the manner in which these ' laws' have been enforced, I may feel it my duty to use plain and direct language ; and I find my exemplar, as well as my justification for it, in the unlimited freedom of debate which, from the first day of the session, has been claimed and exer- cised by gentlemen of the other side of the House. And, recognizing that freedom of debate as we have, to the fullest extent, subject only to the rules of the House, we intend to exercise it on this side, when we see fit to do so, in the same ample manner. Hence, when we have been so frequently called ' fanatics,' and other epithets of denuncia-
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SCHUYLER COLFAX.
tion, no one, on these seats, has even called gentlemen of the other side to order. When it has pleased them to denounce us as Black Republicans or colored Republicans, we have taken no exception to the attack, for we regard freedom of speech as one of the pillars of our free institutions. When, not content with this, they have charged us with implied perjury, in being hostile to the Constitution, and unfaith- ful to the Union, we have been content to leave the world to judge between us and our accusers-a serutiny in which principles will have more weight than denunciation. In spite of all these attacks we have not been moved to any attempt to restrict the perfect and most unlim- ited freedom of speech on the part of our denouncers ; for we acknowl- edged the truth of Jefferson's sentiment, that 'Error ceases to be dangerous when Reason is left free to combat it.'
" Mr. Chairman, I feel compelled, on this occasion, therefore, by truth, and by a conscientious conviction of what I know to be the feelings of my constituents-for whom I speak as much as I do for myself-to denounce, as I do this day, the 'code' of the so-called Legislature of Kansas as a code of tyranny and oppression, a code of outrage and wrong, which would disgrace the Legislature of any State of the Union, as it disgraces the Goths and Vandals, who, after inva- ding and conquering the Territory, thus attempted to play the des- pot over its people, and to make the white citizens of Kansas greater slaves than the blacks of Missouri. No man can examine the decrees of Louis Napoleon, no matter how ignorant he may have been of the procession of events in France for the past six years, without having the conviction forced upon his mind that they emanated from a usurper and a despot. The very enactments embodied in these decrees bear testimony against him. The limitations on the right of the sub- ject ; the mockery of the pretended freedom of elections which he has vouchsafed to the people; the rigid censorship of the press; the shackles upon the freedom of speech ; all combine to prove that they emanate from an autocrat, who, however men may differ as to the wis- dom of his statesmanship, undoubtedly governs France with a strong arm and an iron rule. And so, sir, no unprejudiced man can rise from a candid perusal of this code without being thoroughly convineed that it never emanated from a Legislature voluntarily chosen by the people whom it professes to govern; but that it was dictated and enacted by usurpers and tyrants, whose leading object was to crush out some sentiment predominant among that people, but distasteful and offensive to these usurping legislators. I know this is a strong asser- tion ; but, in the hour of your time which I shall occupy, I shall prove this assertion from the intrinsic evidence of the code itself.
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EARLY INDIANA TRIALS.
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