USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Proceedings of the Worcester Society of Antiquity, for the year 1881-1882 > Part 4
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Correspondence was read from the Librarian of Harvard College and the Rev. A. P. Marvin, of Lancaster. Messrs. Frank E. Lancaster, John G. Brady and Thomas Stansfield, of Worcester, and Manning Leonard Esq., of Southbridge, were elected active members. William T. Harlow Esq. read some extracts from, and made some remarks upon the trial of John Horne for libel, reported in Vol. XX. of English State Trials. He was better known as John Horne Tooke, author of the Diversions of Pur- ley. His offence consisted in raising a subscription for the benefit of the widows and orphans of those "murdered" by the king's troops at Lexington.
The following was presented by the Secretary and adopted :-
Voted, That the Society will publish the Worcester Town Records from 1753 to 1783, edited by Franklin P. Rice, in three parts or volumes, to be numbered in regular order with its pub- lications.
The Hon. Clark Jillson read a paper on the Death Penalty in Worcester County, with special details
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regarding the execution of Hugh Henderson alias John Hamilton for burglary, Nov. 24, 1737, and of Jabez Green for murder, Oct. 21, 1742. This paper comprised much valuable historical matter the fruit of patient and extended research.# Remarks upon the subject were made by Messrs. Harlow, Comins and Lamb. Mr. C. R. Johnson made brief allusion to the archæological researches now in progress in the central portion of this continent followed by a general commentary on this topic. Mr. Thomas E. Bartlett, of Cambridge, made brief remarks concern- ing the progress and success of the Society and its reputation abroad.
The June meeting was held on the evening of Tuesday the 7th. Forty members and visitors were present. In the absence of Mr. Shumway, Mr. Dan- iel Seagrave was chosen Secretary pro tem. Mr. Charles F. Rugg of Worcester was elected an active member.
Appropriate action was taken upon the death of the Hon. Charles Hudson, an honorary member of this Society, and Mr. Henry M. Smith read the fol- lowing Memorial and Biographical Sketch, prepared by request for the occasion.
* This paper forms part of a work now in progress by Judge Jillson, upon the Death Penalty in Worcester County.
CHARLES HUDSON.
BY HENRY M. SMITH.
"YINCE our last meeting an esteemed honorary member of this Society has ended his long and useful career. Hon. Charles Hudson died at his residence in Lexington, Mass., on the 4th of May, in the eighty-sixth year of his age. There are very few human lives that like his resemble some rare day in summer, when the sun from rising to setting shines through every hour on usefulness and occupation. All his relations to this Society we have had frequent occasions to value. The more broadly useful and eminent portion of his life was associated with Worces- ter County. Throughout two generations he has had identifica- tion with important facts of the history and progress of his own state of Massachusetts and of this nation. My associates have therefore desired to bring into suitable form for our own records some of the features of his extended usefulness and have devol- ved upon me this task, on an occasion where I would prefer to sit a listener.
Every human life of four score or more years, however hum- ble, if given in faithful record, registers the essential human facts of its epoch. Too much of permanent history has been written without the light that biography supplies. When, as in the present instance, a human mind well endowed and well train- ed and helped by opportunity, which even endowment and train- ing do not always command, leaves its own impress and shaping on the events of over sixty years, the story of such service is part of the history of that period.
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Charles Hudson was born at Marlborough, Mass., in 1795. Of his birth and ancestry he says in his address at the celebra- tion of the 200th anniversary of that town, in March, 1859 :
"My parents and grandparents have been residents among you. My ma- ternal ancestors extend back to the first settlement of this township. My paternal ancestor, John Hudson, with two of his sons, took the field with other stout hearted citizens to defend the colony against the combined attack of French and Indians. And in the struggle for Independence the same ancestor with eight hardy sons showed their devotion to Liberty by arming in its defence. My parents and three sisters found a resting place beneath your soil, while I the sole member of the family remain. Here were the sports of my childhood. In your venerable meeting-house I was offered up to Him in whose service I have attempted to labor in this community. In your schools I received my first lessons of instruction, and in the same little seminaries, forty years ago, I attempted to impart the rudiments of science to your children."
This strongly outlines the common characteristics of New England village life and training in that earlier day. In Mr. Hudson's instance, it was the case of a boy early taught by cir- cumstances and surroundings to be earnest and self reliant, and to struggle upward and outward. So well was this life duty accomplished that Marlborough holds him as one of her most honored sons, and when her territory was divided the new town was given his name, Hudson.
His first work was as a farm helper, his first step forward was towards self sustaining sturdy industry. But books were his companions and helpers, and from farm work he passed into the charge of the village school. All the testimony of those who knew him in this period of his life declares that he was a great reader and student, with a strong retentive mental grasp, good in selections of models, and close in power of analysis. He taught with acceptability and far in advance of the common modes of those times, in several Massachusetts towns. A mer- chant of Worcester whose own head is now well silvered, showed me, a few days since, a little pile of carefully treasured " Rewards of Merit" given to himself in his boyhood in a district school in Leominster, signed by Charles Hudson in 1819. And this early pupil remembers his school master as a man of great earnest- ness and industry, a most rare, skillful and friendly guide to his scholars. From teacher to preacher transition was casy and natural. Hle was ordained in 1819 and first preached to a
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small society in Danvers. So well had he wrought in the mas- tery of topies, and such were his traits of research and construc- tion that when, a few years later, he removed to Westminster in the north part of this county to take charge of the Universalist Church in that town, a position he filled more or less associated with other duties and public services for twenty years following, he became a controversialist who left his mark broadly on the doctrinal discussions of that period. His "Letters to Hosea Ballou" on Future Retribution, 1827; "Reply to Balfour's es- says," 1829, are printed volumes that had much circulation and can never be omitted from the study of any who desire to ac- quaint themselves with all active agencies in the denominational religious history of that remarkable epoch of New England thought. In the same vein were his "Sacred Memoirs" pub- lished in two volumes in 1835, and his "Doubts concerning the Battle of Bunker Hill," an ingenious rejoinder to "Skepticism," . published during his more engrossing public labors in 1846.
He believed in the power of the printing press, and frequently sought its help, both in the newspapers of the day, largely those of Worcester, Fitchburg and Barre, and in books and pamplilets,. the latter an especial resort of public writers in that era. I find in Sabin's collections of Americana quite a list of Mr. Hudson's pamphlets that bore their part in the memorable controversy and clash of doctrine and dogma half a centary ago. It was then and always a trait of Mr. Hudson's life, thorough heedful- ness of all current topics and issues. Whatever occupied or challenged public thought he carefully studied. first for himself, and then for the enlightenment of others. Thus he came into the early period of man's estate, well trained in mental industry, careful and painstaking in all he set his brain or his hands to do. His five acre homestead on Academy Hill in Westminster. with its solid walls and smooth fields was the model and example for all farmers and housekeepers round about. He had from early associations and robust traits that shrank from no labor needed for honorable results, a thorough love for the farmer's calling. Some of his early addresses to Farmers' and Agricul- tural Societies, on more or less formal occasions, are excellent wisdom that helped forward the era of more intelligent husbandry
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in this state. He was faithful and zealous in all the duties that came to him from parish or townspeople, and it came to pass that the more secular publie behests outgrew the former. He had been an educator, and began by educating himself, but he never for that reason believed that it was safe to leave the boys and girls of the Bay State to be self-taught. Some of his best efforts in early manhood were put forth in behalf of our Massa- chusetts Public School system. If Massachusetts in her Board of Education became a natural example and in such connection wrote the name of Horace Mann among her most honored sons, it was largely because he had co-workers that represented the best thought of that period. The Massachusetts Board of Ed- ucation was established in 1837, and in its earliest foundation work Mr. Hudson was associated in membership with such men as Everett, Dwight, Putnam, Rantoul, Robbins and Sparks, all of whom honored his genial services.
After his intelligent and wide relation to local topics and in- terests in central Massachusetts had suggested the pattern of the man, he began in 1828 what continued until the close of his more active career his broader service of public interests. I can give the chronicle to-night scarcely more expansion than the crisp chronology of Drake's American Biography, Lanman's Dictionary of Congress and other similar registers of the men of their time.
He was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representa- tives from 1828 to 1833, and again for a shorter period near the close of his life was sent to represent his town of Lexington in the same body. Ile was a State Senator from 1833 to 1837 ; a member of the Governor's Council from 1839 to 1841 ; a Rep- resentative in Congress four successive terms, from 1841 to 1849 ; one of the early members of the Massachusetts State Board of Education ; a member of the early Legislative Railroad Committees : a State Director of the Boston and Albany, and years later State Commissioner of the Hoosick Tunnel, as an associate of the late Ilon. Alvah Crocker. For eight years, at two different periods, he filled important Federal positions in Boston and vicinity.
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But when this little chain of dates is measured upon the pub- lic records of the time how much of human progress and public vicissitude is seen to be included. As already stated it records a helpful part of our noble system of Public School education. It covers the entire railroad history of Massachusetts which largely engaged Mr. Hudson's attention and services in its formative era. He was an earnest advocate of development of transit facilities. At one time he fondly looked to see canal boats climb the levels of the Nashua, and pass down the lockage of Miller's river, on the projected water route from Boston to Albany. But he was among the first to welcome the new rail- road and its possibilites. He was among the earliest public writers, and a member of the first Legislative Committees to give direction and prepare the way for the railroad era. I am glad I had written thus far in this part of my theme before there came to me, as to yourselves, the testimony of Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, in his remarks before the Massachusetts Historical Society on Thursday evening of the last week. On this very point Mr. Winthrop says :
"My earliest association with Mr. Hudson was in the Legislature of Mas- sachusetts more than forty years ago, where he did more than any other member of either branch in the organization of our then infant railroad sys- tem. Our former associate, the late Nathan Hale, with whom Mr. Hudson actively eo-operated eould alone, as it seems to me, be named as having rendered equal serviee."
This is evidence that will not be questioned, fixing Mr. Hud- son's place in Massachusetts railroad annals. Most of my associates, certainly the elders among them, remember the familiar sign-board that so long held its place over our highways, in kindly warning of the unaccustomed perils of the public, written by Mr. Hudson, years before the invention of the steam whistle or the word Locomotive. "Railroad Crossing ; look out for the Engine while the bell rings."
But Mr. Hudson became most widely known and most broadly useful to his time in his relation to national affairs, during the eight years of his congressional services. In 1841 he succeeded Hon. Levi Lincoln whose immediate predecessor was Hon. John Davis, as the representative of the 5th Mass. District. Men of
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our own day who have passed through the era of Rebellion and Reconstruction, if they would have the full meaning of the mighty questions. whose solution has cost our time so much blood and treasure must study intelligently the immediately preceding epoch. Able writers have given us the history of the Anti- Slavery struggle, on pages written too near, in point of time, to the events themselves, to be free from coloring of pique and prejudice. The permanent historian will be sure to give the grand old Whig party as its standards were borne by Mas- sachusetts men in Congress, its share in that consolidation and sympathy of our Americanism which was needed to carry us as a people beyond the perils of foreign interference and civil com- motion, and make us strong enough to withstand and survive the death struggles of the infamous institution of human bond- age whose ultimate doom was indeed forecast when it was first wind-drifted a noxious weed over the walls of our Garden of Liberty.
Charles Hudson will stand as a solid type of the Massachusetts Whig of his period, sturdy, faithful and earnest in the first work that came to him, the protection of American Industry, and the first defences against slavery aggressions in the interests of slave labor. He came into congressional life, when, (inspired by sla- very co-operating with British policy, ) free trade had bequeathed to us in the language of that most competent writer, Henry C. Carey,
"A commerce that gave an excess of speeie, a people ruined, then govern- ments in a state of repudiation, a public treasury bankrupt and begging everywhere for loans at the highest rate of interest, a revenue collected and disbursed in irredeemable paper money, and a very large foreign debt."
For years southern slaveholding policy had dominated in the promotion of the cotton export and the free importation of all manufactured products of the forge, the loom, and the shop. The system of Compromises begun in 1833 had reduced well nigh to nothing all rates on dutiable imposts. Our national revenues had fallen to 12 millions. We need not write of these things hotly, but it would be un-American and not altogether of present unwisdom to forget that behind the imperious demand of the slave owners had stood for a quarter of a century the
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boldly declared menace of more than one British premier that the people of the United States must and would be "forced to give up their Tariff or their Union."
It was at such a time as this that the new member from Wor- cester County entered Congress. Ile came full of his subject. IIe came from a manufacturing region of crushed mannfactures. He had looked deep beneath the outer meaning of the familiar signs of the village stores of that period, "English and West India Goods." He came to stand among sons of Massachusetts whose names will live in a shining galaxy as long as the Bay State endures ; Webster, Adams, Davis, Choate, Briggs, Lin- coln, Rantoul. It was not a company wherein a light and su- perficial man could make place or mark. But he was already trained in thought and its presentation. His first formal speech was delivered in his first term in Congress. Ilis cherished col- league and life-long friend, George N. Briggs, of more experi- ence at the Capitol, kindly hinted to Mr. Iludson the possible peril of taking the floor while so much a stranger to his sur- roundings, but he knew his own powers, and with modesty yet perfect self possession, delivered his speech on Discriminating Duties, Dec. 27th and 28th, 1841. It was strong. earnest, full of fact and statistics, in good temper, and yet direct and to the point, and stamped him as a doctrinaire of the first order. Mr. Adams in his Diary refers to it as "an excellent speech." It was at once, and has always been regarded as a most admirable exposition of an American doctrine, which our own recent presi- dential canvass has shown to be not yet extinct in value and meaning in our national affairs. It had the merit of clear com- pact statement, and it was read more widely through the coun- try than any speech of its period. Of laborious habits, rugged physical strength and thoroughly attentive to all the general and special calls upon a legislator. Mr. Hudson made in the course of his congressional life from twelve to fourteen speeches and several formal committee reports. He never engrossed time, or the floor unless he had something to say. His speeches I have before me and they discuss the live topics of a vivid time.
Discriminating Duties, (1841) The Annexation of Texas, (1845) The Tariff, (1846) The Wheat Trade of the Country,
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(1846) The Mexican War, (1846) The President's Message on the War with Mexico, (1846) The Three Million Appropriation Bill, (1847) The Cost of the Mexican War and the Finances of the Country, (1848) The Constitutional power of Congress over the Territories and the Right of excluding Slavery therefrom, (1848). In all of these speeches are the utterances of the broadly national, liberty loving, old fashioned Massachusetts Whig, hating Slavery, bold against its aggressions, and free spoken in warnings of its inseperable evils and perils. By his open and manly opposition to the Mexican war he was honored by the advocates of slavery extension, with classification among the "ignoble fourteen" who voted according to the dictates of their own consciences. While we honor duly the early aboli- tionists who carried their hot picket lines far beyond the possible issues of that day, and see a mission for the Garrisonite and the "Come-onter, " we must honor and permanent history will honor the earnest, honest Massachusetts Whig who fought the broader battle of the period just where he found it, in the ordinance of 1787 and the Wihnot Proviso, and carried its victorious stand- ards forward to sterner lines of embattlement. The country was not ready in 1840 for the work of 1860. We must give due credit to those who shaped and held together in onward progress the main body of our northern people, until God's own time for national deliverance from perils and shame. Of the Congress of 1841 of which Mr. Hudson was first a member, Charles Sum- ner an onlooker in Washington wrote to Dr. Francis Leiber in South Carolina declaring against its brutality and ruffianism. "One of its worst signs is subversion of the rules. No person- ality is too low." If there be a fear lest this be the over-nice criticism of an elegant man of letters, not yet become the states- man and martyr to this same Pro-slavery brutalism, let us take the testimony of one who occupied the reverse standpoint. In this same period Mr. Wise a member from Virginia in the course of debate on the floor of the House uttered this plaintive note of rebuke : "The anti-duelling law is producing its fruits. It is making this House a Bear Garden. We see and hear one mem- ber branded as a coward on this floor. The other says back that he is a liar. And, sir, there the matter will stop, there
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will be no fight." The representative Southern man of that time was imperious, willing to be thought personally dangerous to all opponents. Northern men of Mr. Hudson's cool, large and sturdy type who would talk freely and even sharply and yet be good natured, with whom a personal encounter was not to be thought of, and most likely to be avoided when considered, became at that time broadly useful in rallying Northern senti- ment, teaching the North its rights, opening its eyes to the bul- lying of the South, and battling to hold Slavery fast and firm within its limits until the appointed time when like a reptile in a ring of fire it should sting itself to death, in the blaze of battle.
A scene which took place in the House on the 10th of Jan., 1846, shows that Mr. Hudson was sufficiently prominent for virulent attack on the part of the Pro-Slavery administration organs and managers, and when he appealed to the House in the face of insult and ruffianly abuse standing cool and steady to his purpose, so much was his assailant shown to be in the wrong, that though connected with the Washington party news- paper he escaped expulsion as public printer by only a few votes. The incident is given in Mr. Adams' Diary. And this Congress justly represented a dominant national sentiment of the period. There was much remaining to be done in Northerp states before they might struggle out from the dark penumbra of Slavery. Lovejoy was then scarcely a regretted martyr. Few of the black laws had been repealed from Northern statute books. The North needed the burning lessons of the Chained Court House in Boston, the mobbing of Judge Hoar in Charleston, the rendition of fugitives from her free communities, the story of Uncle Tom's Cabin and bleeding Kansas, before the heat of her hostility to slavery should rise high enough for the task that came in its own time and created the Free Soil and the Repub- lican party. History might have written of a grappling like our late struggle, without this change in Northern sentiment first secured, a scene of confusion and peril unimaginable in its hor- rors and results to the world's civilization. In this middle ground of preparation were borne the standards and won the victories of the old Whig party.
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When the nomination and election of Gen. Taylor brought disruption to the Whig organization, Mr. Hudson's district of Worcester County was too strongly Anti-Slavery to sustain the position he chose manfully to occupy with reference to the canvass, fidelity to the nominees. In his farewell address to his constituents, written at Washington in February, 1849, he expresses the sentiments of his class of Massachusetts Whigs :
"I had no doubt that Gen. Taylor would sign a bill sustaining the Wilmot Proviso, and that Gen. Cass would veto such a bill. Entertaining these views I never gave a more sincere Anti-Slavery vote in my life than the one I gave for Gen, Taylor."
In Mr. Hudson's speech on the constitutional power of Con- gress over the territories and the right of excluding Slavery therefrom, delivered in the House June 20th, 1848, he was in- terrupted by an Ohio member, Mr. Lahm, who asked : "Enter- taining these views on Slavery, will the gentleman from Massa- chusetts vote for Gen. Taylor? I give Mr. Hudson's reply :
"I will answer the gentleman from Ohio. He knows, I presume, that there are two classes of men in this country devoted to the institution of slavery ; a class from the South, who living with the institution about them, and all their early associations being connected with it, have reconciled themselves to it, and see less evil in it than northern men are supposed to see ; some may even believe that under all the circumstances of the case, it is no moral wrong-though all admit that it is a calamity.
There is another class from the North, who are often known as dough- faces, who regard the institution precisely as I do; but who, nevertheless, for the sake of the loaves and fishes, are willing to bow to the slave power -- to the slave institution-to do anything and every thing for the purpose of promotion. Now, if I am called upon to select between men of these de- scriptions-if I am compelled to vote for either, I should vote for General Taylor in preference to Gen. Cass, just as I would vote for an honest man in preferenee to a hypocrite."
Mr. Hudson was not an orator. His language was plain and strongly wrought and without passionate appeals. All classes of readers understood him, and congressional speeches were read in those times. Years after their delivery I found in the West many intelligent citizens who remembered and credited instruction to Mr. Hudson's tariff and anti-slavery utterances. He was in the House with Lincoln and Douglas, and more than once grappled in debate with the latter. With Abraham Lin- coln his friendship was warm and for a lifetime ; and slavery had no better haters than such representative Whigs as these.
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