USA > Indiana > Public men of Indiana : a political history from 1860 to 1890, v. 1 > Part 4
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This statement about "colored state govern- ments" had reference to what he contended was inevitable in the Southern States.
The writer regrets that it is not convenient to here reproduce at full length this great speech that his biographers omitted to publish or comment upon. No doubt the speeches of these great men, one a member of the cabinet of both Lincoln and Johnson, the other the great war governor of In- diana had much effect in turning back the tide that had set in against Jolinson.
So much of the speech of Mccullough as defined
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the issues and stated his views is here reproduced, reading as follows:
"Under his direction the great work of re-estab- lishing civil government at the South under the Federal Constitution is going rapidly forward- too rapidly, it seems, according to the opinion of many at the North, whose opinions are entitled to great consideration. I know, sir, that many doubt the wisdom of Mr. Johnson's policy; that many are of the opinion that by their ordinance of seces- sion the rebellious States had ceased to be States under the Constitution, and that nothing should be done by the executive in aid of the restoration of their State governments until congress had deter- mined on what terms they should be restored to the Union which they had voluntarily abandoned and attempted to destroy; that as the people of these States had appealed to the sword and had been subjugated by the sword, they should be gov- erned by the sword until the law-making power had disposed of the subject of reconstruction; that no State that had passed ordinances of secession and united with the so-called Confederate Govern- ment should ever be admitted again into the Union unless in its preliminary proceedings all men, ir- respective of color, should be permitted to vote, nor without provisions in its Constitution for the absolute enfranchisement of the negro. Some go even further than this and demand the confiscation of the property of all rebels and the application of the proceeds to the payment of the national debt.
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"These are not, I apprehend, the views of a respectable minority. I know they are not the views of a majority of the people of the North. The better opinion is that the States which at- tempted to secede never ceased to be States in the Union; that all their acts of secession were of no effect; that during the progress of the revolt the exercise of the Federal authority was merely sus- pended, and that there never was a moment when the allegiance of the people of the insurrectionary States was not due to the Government, and when the Government was not bound to maintain its au- thority over them and extend protection to those who required it. When the rebellion was over- come, the so-called Confederate Government and all the State governments which had been formed in opposition to the Federal Government ceased to have even a nominal existence, and the people who had been subject to them were left for the time being without any government whatever. The term of office of the Federal officers had expired or the offices had become vacant by the treason of those who held them. There were no Federal revenue officers, no competent Federal judges, and no organized Federal courts. Nor were the peo- ple any better off so far as State authority was regarded. When the Confederacy collapsed all the rebel State governments collapsed with it, so that, with a few exceptions, there were no persons holding civil office at the South by the authority of any legitimate government.
"Now, as government is at all times a necessity
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among men, and as it was especially so at the South, where violence and lawlessness had full sway, the question to be decided by the president was simply this: Shall the people of the recently rebellious States be held under military rule until congress shall act upon the question, or shall im- mediate measures be taken by the executive to re- store to them civil governments?
"After mature consideration the president con- cluded it to be his duty to adopt the latter course, and I am satisfied that in this conclusion he was right. And here let me say that in doing so he was carrying out the very policy which had been de- termined upon by Mr. Lincoln and his Cabinet.
"Military rule will not be endured by the people of the United States one moment longer than there is an absolute necessity for it. Such an army as would have been requisite for the government of the people of the South, as a subjugated people, until congress might prescribe the terms on which they could be restored to the Union, would have been too severe a strain upon our Republican in- stitutions, and too expensive for the present con- dition of the treasury. The president has, there- fore, gone to work to restore the Union by the use. from the necessity of the case, of a portion of those who have been recently in arms to overthrow it. The experiment may be regarded as a dangerous one, but it will be proved, I apprehend, to have been a judicious one. Never were a people so dis- gusted with the work of their own hands as were the great mass of the people of the South (even
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before the collapse of the rebellion) with the gov- ernment which was attempted to be set up by the overthrow of the government of their forefathers; never were a people so completely subjugated as have been the people of the rebel States. I have met a great many of those whom the president is using in his restoration policy, and they have im- pressed most favorably. I believe them to be hon- est in taking the amnesty oath, and in their pledges of fidelity to the Constitution and the Union. Slavery has perished-this all acknowledge-and with it has gone down the doctrine of secession. State sovereignty has been discussed in congress, before courts, in the public journals, and among the people, and at last, "when madness ruled the hour," this vexed question was submitted to the final arbitrament of the sword. The question, as all admit, has been fairly and definitely decided, and from this decision of the sword there will be no appeal. It is undoubtedly true that the men of the South feel sore at the result, but they accept the situation, and are preparing for the changes which the war has produced in their domestic in- stitutions with an alacrity and an exhibition of good feeling which has, I confess, surprised, as it has gratified me.
"In the work of restoration the President has aimed to do only that which was necessary to be done, exercising only that power which could be properly exercised under the Constitution, which guarantees to every State a republican form of government. Regarding slavery as having perished
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و
in the rebellious States, either by the proclamation of his predecessor or by the result of the war, and determining that no rebel who had not purged him- self of his treason should have any part in the res- toration of the civil governments which he is aiding to establish, he has not considered it within the scope of his authority to go further and enfran- chise the negro. For this he is censured by many true men at the North and a few extreme men at the South, but I have no doubt that he will be sus- tained by the people, and that the result will vindi- cate the wisdom of his course."
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CHAPTER IV
H UGH McCULLOCH was a man of high scholastic attainments and eminent as a finan- cier, was Secretary of the Treasury of the United States from 1863 to 1869, and credited with the inauguration of a business system that relieved the National Treasury from the menaces of bankruptcy.
Thomas A. Hendricks, William H. English, William E. Niblack, Joseph E. McDonald, Michael C. Kerr, Daniel W. Voorhees, Generals Mahlon D. Mauson, James R. Slack, and in fact all Indiana Democrats and many conservative Re- publicans supported President Johnson, and his policies, and from motives of party expediency if not from any higher motives his policies were endorsed by the Democratic party in the Presiden- tial contest that followed in 1868.
The first attempt to impeach him failed, but the second attempt was made on the 5th day of March, 1868, under the leadership of Thaddeus Stephens, a congressman from Pennsylvania.
The first instance in the world's history in which the impeachment of the head of a Nation was pro- posed was expressed in a resolution that Stephens then presented and had passed calling upon the United States Senate to convene as a court of Im-
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peachment, and the organization of that body into a court was effected by calling upon Honorable Salmon P. Chase, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to preside over its pro- ceedings and deliberations.
Honorable Benjamin F. Wade, United States Senator from Ohio, had previously been elected as President of the Senate to preside in the absence of the Vice-President and in the event of the con- viction and removal of Johnson would become President of the United States.
It was Senator Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana, as the first step in the proceedings, who challenged the right of the Senator from Ohio to sit in the court because of his interest in the result of the trial. The question presented by the chal- lenge was debated at length, its supporters con- tending that the question was one for decision by the chief justice, but he excused himself from deciding it, because by a rule previously adopted by a majority of the senate, the power to do so, was denied to him and as a consequence the chal- lenge was withdrawn and Wade was sworn in and on the final vote on the question of the guilt or innocence of the accused, unhesitatingly voted guilty.
To prevent Johnson from removing government officials from office, and to continue in his cabinet, as one of his advisers, Edwin M. Stanton, who was his political and possibly his personal enemy, con- gress had passed what was called the Tenure of Office Act.
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The first of the articles of impeachment charged that Johnson had violated that act by excluding Stanton from the office of Secretary of War and installing General Lorenzo Thomas.
Another of the articles, that in form corre- sponded with indictments in courts of criminal jurisdiction, as did the first, charged that he had attempted to bring into disgrace, ridicule and con- tempt the Congress of the United States in certain public speeches he had made throughout the coun- try.
Upon the presentation of these charges many questions as to their sufficiency arose. Among other objections urged by his counsel against the count in regard to the speeches he had made, it was argued that it was an attempt to make freedom of speech a public offense. This objection was answered by the impeachment managers by say- ing that it was indecency of speech and not free- dom of speech that was condemned. The proceed- ings in the impeachment court were very much the same as in courts of criminal jurisdiction, but the accused was not required to be present in court at any stage of the proceedings. but probably would have been allowed that privilege and the right to testify in his own behalf had he so desired. A two- thirds vote was required to convict.
There were only twelve Democrats in the senate: they were unanimous in their votes of not guilty and were joined by seven Republicans. and his acquittal followed, and four years later his policies were supported by many senators who had urged
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his conviction. Among these was United States Senator Sumner of Massachusetts. The Republi- can senators who voted for Johnson's acquittal were Trumbull of Illinois, Doolittle of Wisconsin, Grimes of Iowa, Henderson of Missouri, Fessen- den of Maine, Norton of Nebraska, and Ross of Kansas.
Among other journals that supported the poli- cies of Johnson was the great New York Tribune, founded and edited by Horace Greeley, the fore- most American journalist, the most unique char- acter of the Civil War period, and gifted with gigantic intellect, but not free from foibles, ill temper, and inconsistencies. He was the uncom- promising foe of human slavery, and yet told the Southern States who wanted to secede-with their slaves-to "depart in peace with them," and a little later complained of General Mcclellan because he did not move faster with his army in destroying the enemy, and almost immediately upon the col- lapse of the rebellion startled the communities of the North and surprised the leaders in secession by signing the bail bond of Jeff Davis, when he was held under an indictment for treason, and urged the dismissal of his prosecution.
The Union League Club of New York was so angered at him for this act that its governors cited him to appear before them and show cause why he should not be expelled from membership in it. In answer to their citation he wrote them a letter that deserves a place here because of the vigor of its phraseology and of its reflections of the char-
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acter of its author. Following is a copy of it as it appears in his Tribune of May 23, 1867:
Gentlemen: I shall not attend your meeting this evening. I have an engagement out of town and shall keep it. I do not recognize you as capable of judging or even fully apprehending me. You evidently regard me as a weak sentimentalist, misled by a maudlin philosophy. I arraign you as narrow-minded block- heads, who would like to be useful to a great and good cause, but don't know how. Your attempt to base a great, enduring party on the hate and wrath necessarily engendered by a bloody civil war, is as though you should plant a colony on an iceberg which had somehow drifted into a tropical ocean. I tell you here, that out of a life earnestly devoted to the good of human kind, your children will select my going to Richmond and signing that bail bond as the wisest act, and will feel that it did more for freedom and humanity than all of you were com- petent to do, though you had lived to the age of Methuselah.
I ask nothing of you, then, but that you proceed to your end by a direct, frank, manly way. Don't sidle off into a mild resolution of censure, but move the expulsion which you proposed, and which I de- serve, if I deserve any reproach whatever.
All I care for is, that you make a square stand up fight, and record your judgment by yeas and nays, I care not how few vote with me, nor how many vote against me; for I know that the latter will repent it in dust and ashes before three years have passed.
Understand, once for all, that I dare you and defy you, and that I propose to fight it out on the line that I have held from the day of Lee's surrender. So long as any man was seeking to overthrow our gov- ernment, he was my enemy; from the hour in which
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he laid down his arms he was my formerly erring countryman. So long as any is at heart opposed to national unity, the Federal authority, or to that as- sertion of the equal rights of all men which has be- come practically identified with loyalty and national- ity, I shall do my best to deprive him of power; but whenever he ceases to be thus, I demand his resto- ration to all the privileges of American citizenship. I give you fair notice that I shall urge the re-en- franchisement of those now prescribed for participa- tion in rebellion so soon as I shall feel confident that this course is consistent with the freedom of the blacks and the unity of the Republic, and that I shall demand a recall of all now in exile only for partici- pation in the rebellion, whenever the country shall have been so throughly pacified that its safety will not thereby be endangered. And so, gentlemen, hop- ing that you will henceforth comprehend me some- what better than you have done I remain yours.
HORACE GREELEY.
This pungent philippic was responded to by the Union League Club by a resolution it passed stat- ing that, "There had been nothing in the action of Horace Greeley relative to the bailing of Jefferson Davis calling for proceedings by this club."
While the controversy as to whether the course should be pacific or punitive in dealing with the erring people of the Southern States was going on, there were many conservative and patriotic peo- ple who believed that the logic of future events would have more efficacy than the wisdom of polit- ical sages in determining what the better course should be, and they turned their attention from the controversy to a contemplation of the glory and
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grandeur of the country when a firmly cemented Union would finally be assured. They looked for- ward to the approaching one hundredth anniver- sary of American Independence as the occasion when all would be as firmly united in their loyalty to the flag of their country as were their forefathers a century before, and to one of Indiana's greatest citizens and scholars must be given the credit for being the first proponent of an appropriate cele- bration of that anniversary at Philadelphia on July 4, 1876.
Professor John L. Campbell, of Wabash College, in 1864, delivered a lecture at the Smithsonian In- stitute, in Washington, commemorative of the third centennial anniversary of the birth of Galileo and so firmly were his convictions upon the subject of commemorating important centennial events that as early as 1866 he began the agitation of the subject of a proper celebration of the one hun- dredth anniversary of American independence to be held at Philadelphia, and to further the project, addressed a letter to the then mayor of that city, urging it. This letter was at once acted upon and preparations for the celebration then began. On the recommendation of Governor Baker, Campbell was appointed by President Grant as the Indiana commissioner of the exposition, and was chosen as secretary of it and chairman of its committee on foreign affairs. By means of his great energy other nations of the earth were brought into activ- ity as participants in the celebration, including the great empire from which the United States gained
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its independence, and through his great work, In- diana was awarded the great honor of being first in the United States in its educational progress, a position that it has since so well maintained.
As a reward for his achievements in that respect and as a deserved honor he was, in 1891, also ap- pointed by Governor Alvin P. Hovey as a mem- ber of the Board of Managers for Indiana at the Columbian Exposition at Chicago and it was his building plans that were adopted in the construc- tion of the great structures that covered the expo- sition grounds.
To him must also be given the credit for devis- ing the original plans for the improvement of the Kankakee River, that years afterwards resulted in the reelamation of the great body of Kankakee valley lands in Northern Indiana. Under a reso- lution of the General Assembly of the State adopted in 1881 Governor Porter appointed him to make a survey of this river and of the lands of its valleys as a step in their drainage. A further mention of his work in that matter will be made in connection with a history of Governor Porter's ad- ministration that will hereafter follow.
Professor Campbell was a native of Indiana, born at Salem, Washington County. He got his early education at the celebrated Morrison School of that county and later entered and graduated from Wabash College in which he became a tutor. Its records show his connection with that institu- tion for four years as a student and fifty years as an instructor.
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CHAPTER V
B Y reason of his prominence in the senate and because of his general popularity, Hendricks was prominently mentioned as the Democratic nominee for president in 1868 and received the next highest vote for the nomination, it going to Horatio Seymour, of New York, who had been governor of that State during the Civil War pe- riod, elected in 1862. He was then urged to accept the nomination for vice-president but refused it, and General Francis P. Blair, of Missouri, who had been a prominent Union general during the war, and had kept his state from seceding, was nominated. Hendricks had, before the national convention was held, been nominated for governor of Indiana, and Alfred P. Edgerton of Fort Wayne, for lieutenant governor. General Grant was the Republican nominee for president and Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, then speaker of the national house of representatives, was the nominee for vice-president.
The state elections in Indiana were then held in October. The great popularity of Grant and Colfax and the conditions that followed the Civil War indicated a victory for the Republicans, and that the presidential election in November would go as it was believed it would in October. In-
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diana's vote in October was looked upon as deter- mining the presidential contest. Grant and Col- fax carried it by nine thousand majority.
The Democrats had nominated as associates of Hendricks and Edgerton candidates for other state offices men who had given honorable service to their country as Union soldiers, among them General Reuben C. Kise, of Lebanon, for secre- tary of state, and Colonel Joseph V. Bemusdaffer for auditor of state.
The Republican nominee for governor was Col- onel Conrad Baker, who was then acting as gov- ernor, having been elected as lieutenant governor with Morton, who had been elected to the senate. His associates on the state ticket were also mostly Union soldiers, among them Colonel Will Cum- back for lieutenant governor, Major John D. Evans, of Hamilton County, for auditor of state, and Colonel James B. Black of Marion County, for reporter of the Supreme court.
The Republican nominees were all elected, but the vote for governor was so close that it was not known for several days who had been elected, but Baker was finally declared elected by about one thousand majority, and it was claimed that this majority had been produced by holding back and doctoring the returns from Hamilton and other strong Republican counties where Democrats were not members of the election boards. The house of Indiana representatives elected in 1868 was Democratic by a small majority, the senate was Republican, and the Republicans had a majority
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on joint ballot. Henry S. Cauthorne of Vin- cennes, was the Democratic speaker of the house and was again speaker of the house ten years later.
The defeat of Hendricks for governor did not take him out of public life, as his term of senator did not expire until 1869. Upon his retiring from the senate he again became the head of the great law firm of Hendricks, Hord & Hendricks at In- dianapolis, composed of himself, Oscar B. Hord, and Major Abram W. Hendricks. Hord was an able and active lawyer. Major Abram W. Hen- dricks was a cousin of Thomas A., and though the junior member of the firm, was generally regarded by lawyers as superior to his associates in legal lore.
An event worthy of mention as showing the per- sonal friendship and high regard of Hendricks and Governor Baker for each other, was in their ex- change of places in 1873, Hendricks was elected governor in 1872 and Baker in his last message to the legislature urged an increase of the salary of governor, and it was increased, and Governor Ba- ker went from the governor's office to the head of the law firm from which Hendricks retired on be- coming governor, and the law firm was thereafter, Baker, Hord and Hendricks. Baker preferred the position at the head of this firm above that of any political office and declined to become a candi- date for United States Senator, as it was thought he would be, in accordance with the precedents of his party in promoting its governors as it did when Lane and Morton were elected to the senate.
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Will Cumback, who had been elected lieutenant governor when Baker was elected Governor, was very ambitious for promotion to the office of gov- ernor, or if he could not gain that honor, wanted to be selected as senator, and was so determined to bring an expression from Baker as to whether or not he would be a candidate for senator, that he addressed a letter to him soliciting his aid in mak- ing him senator if he did not want the honor. This letter became public later, and had the effect to prevent Cumback from becoming either governor or senator.
When the legislature convened in 1869 Baker was governor by reason of his election in 1864 as lieutenant governor, and was to be inaugurated as governor because of his election in 1868. He made it known that it was his purpose to serve out the term of four years for which the people had elected him as governor, and by that course eliminated himself from consideration as the senator that was to be elected. The letter that Cumback had writ- ten to him was preserved among other documents, in the files of the governor's office, as was a copy of Baker's answer to it declaring that the proposi- tion it contained was "corrupt and indecent," but neither the letter or the answer to it had become public until after the Republican caucus had nom- inated Cumback for senator and a bolt had fol- lowed. Judge James Hughes, a former member of congress and judge of the Court of Claims at Washington, and then a belligerent and able sen- ator from Monroe County, led the bolters, while
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