USA > Maryland > Talbot County > History of Talbot county, Maryland, 1661-1861, Volume I > Part 43
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69
Your committee are fully satisfied that the statements contained in the memorial of the Agent present a just and true representation of the intrinsic difficulties, both as to the principles and detail of his nego- tiation and adjustment of the State's claim, but by no means an ade- quate view of his anxious, expensive and responsible services, nor of his private sacrifices necessarily incurred, by the devotion of so much of his time and attention to this public concern during the last four years. * * When the committee * brought unto their mature con- sideration the importance and the responsibility of the trust reposed in him, in being charged with the prosecution of a doubtful claim, actually deemed hopeless by a large portion of the citizens of the State; the whole course and proceedings of the Agent in the management of the business confided to him; the real difficulties and obstacles which have been obviated and removed by his exertions and representations of the peculiar nature of the case; the actual personal expenses which must have been necessarily incurred by him in pursuing the business of his agency abroad, and the successful event of his actual payment into the treasury of so large a portion of the claim as $273,710.21, they cannot hesitate to report their opinion that the Agent has a just claim upon the State, for a liberal reward of his services.
394
THE WORTHIES OF TALBOT
After the very free expression of the favorable opinions of other members, the House declared by vote its appreciation of "the zeal, ability and success of the Agent." The amount of compensation how- ever, caused much discussion, in which one of the members from Talbot, Mr. Samuel Stevens, Jr., participated, favoring the smallest pay, and undervaluing the services rendered. The remarks of Mr. Stevens only served to afford Mr. Kerr's friends, particularly Mr. Lecompte, of Dor- chester, the opportunity of presenting in bolder relief the character and worth of his services. The question was finally determined by voting to Mr. Kerr a commission of one and three-quarter per centum on all moneys that had been collected through his agency. Viewing the whole matter at this distance of time there can be but one opinion that Mr. Kerr performed the task assigned to him with most commendable skill, and that his compensation was anything but excessive.
Up to about this time Mr. Kerr had never been an active politician, though a man of decided views upon political questions. He had been content with the distinction which was given him by a successful prac- tice of his profession, and the emoluments of office were not then such as to invite him to abandon a lucrative business at the bar. If he had political aspirations they were curbed by the consciousness that the opinions he had espoused, or rather which he had inherited, were not the opinions which had the popular favor. He was born a Federalist and nurtured in the school of Federalism by his distinguished uncle, Mr. Bozman. The principles of that party he never abandoned, even after that party had become extinct and its very name a term of reproach. At last, however, he seems to have caught the infection which to coun- try gentlemen seems inevitable, of political ambition, In the year 1824 at the time when there was a complete disorganization of the old parties and when men had not arranged themselves anew, Mr Kerr was im- pelled to offer himself as candidate for Congress for the 7th District, composed of Queen Anne's, Talbot and Caroline counties, to succeed Mr. William Hayward. He had for his competitor Col. Thomas Emory of Queen Anne's. Mr. Kerr declared himself "a candidate independent of all party views," and therefore solicited the votes of both Democrats and Federalists. This year was the year of the Presidential election when there were four candidates in the field, and as Mr. Will. H. Craw- ford was the nominee of the "Congressional Caucus," the electors in Talbot were divided as far as there was definite division into Caucus and Anti-Caucus parties, the favorite candidate of the latter being Mr. John Quincy Adams. If Mr. Kerr favored the election of either of
395
HON. JOHN LEEDS KERR
these gentlemen, it was the latter. He opened the campaign in a speech at Easton on the 14th of September, and followed it up with addresses to the people throughout the district. At the same meetings, the two congressional candidates frequently spoke. But these oratorical appeals were supplemented by newspaper addresses and handbills which afford curious reading to the local antiquary, as showing with what trifles a spirited campaign could be fought. It is difficult to determine how or upon what these two respectable gentlemen, the candidates, differed. One feature of the campaign is an prominent as it is admirable-the perfect courtesy with which the opponents spoke of each other. The result of the canvass was the election of Mr. Kerr by the handsome majority of 494 in his own county, which was somewhat reduced in the whole district. It may not be amiss to say that at the presidential election in the same year, Mr. Daniel Martin, the anti-caucus, or Adams elector received a majority over Mr. James Sangston, of Caroline, the caucus, or Crawford elector, in this county, but Mr. Sangston was chosen in the district at large. There was practically no Jackson elector, Mr. Daniel S. Haddaway, named for that functionary, having with- drawn. The vote for the President being thrown into the House of Representatives, as is known to all, Mr. William Hayward, then the representative from this District, cast his vote for Mr. Crawford. Again Mr. Kerr offered himself as a candidate for Congress in 1826 having Mr. Philemon B. Hopper, of Queen Anne's, as his competitor. Again he took an independent position, receiving the votes of both the Democrats and Federalists. At this date, however, the new lines of the parties began to be distinguishable, the election of Mr. Adams by the House of Representatives and the defeat of General Jackson before the same body being the occasion of the drawing of such lines. An independ- ent position is apt to be regarded among party men as an equivocal one. There is always a suspicion of the sincerity of one who attempts to occupy such a relation to opposing bodies. Mr. Kerr did not escape the penalty which partisans inflict upon one who attempts to placate old foes while he aims to retain old friends. He was accused of vacil- lating and hedging-terms which most are too ready to apply to public men when their relations to no one measure before the people suffice to indicate their party preferences, and when intelligent men differ who once agreed, and agree who formerly differed. That Mr. Kerr should have been accused by the Federalists of having turned Democrat, and by Democrats of never having abandoned his "high toned" Federalism, is very conclusive evidence at this day that neither was correct, and
396
THE WORTHIES OF TALBOT
that he maintained his position of independence with great tact and doubtless with perfect integrity of mind. In truth while retaining all his old party attachments which in his case, as in many others, was founded more upon mere sentiment and long association than upon deliberate conviction of principles, he had lost much of his old party hostility which had no firmer basis, it may be, than the feeling or the habit of antagonism. He had discovered that the old Federalists had not always been in the right and the old Democrats not always in the wrong. It must be remembered that the times now referred to were a period of calmness of the political passions and of coolness of the political judgment. It was the famous "era of good feeling," though it was near the close of that era when as yet no one saw how near was the time when those passions were to glow with new and even unwonted intensity, and when that judgment was to be shrouded by intense partisan preju- dice. Thus in the absence of any great question of public policy to divide the candidates, they sought to gain advantage one of the other by discussing matters almost personal. Even the subject of religion was dragged in, and as the opponents were representatives of the two pre- vailing denominations, attempts were made to secure support for one or the other by appeals to religious prejudices. Mr. Kerr was no zealot though a member of the Protestant Episcopal church, which was thought to embrace most of the so-called aristocracy of this county and district. Mr. Hopper was a very earnest Methodist and fancied that the older church looked rather superciliously upon the younger. Mr. Hopper in a public speech intimated that Mr. Kerr had made his Methodism "an objection to him." Mr. Kerr deftly parried this charge by saying that if he had made any such intimations, which he had not, he would have been acting a very foolish part to arouse any religious prejudices in a community where the Methodists were in the majority, but that Mr. Hopper had shown himself the very adroit politician by exciting the im- pression that he, Mr. Kerr, had shown his illiberality towards these people by objecting to the religious profession of his opponent. This introduction of denominational differences was the survival of a custom prevalent in the early part of the century when the lines of the two churches in this county were very nearly coincident with those of the two parties. It may be very well to note, too, that the Socinian opinions of Mr. Adams were in 1824, and again in 1828, made the ground of objection to his election to the presidency. These petty disputes be- tween these notabilities would not be worth their recording but that they serve to characterize the local politics of the day. Perhaps their
397
HON. JOHN LEEDS KERR
omission would be better that the illusion, harmless or wholesome, might not be dispelled of the lofty dignity of our predecessors, and of the weightiness of those questions which exercised their powerful minds, or agitated their capacious breasts. The result of the campaign of 1826 was favorable to Mr. Kerr, he receiving a majority in the district over his opponent of 210 votes.
By an Act of Assembly of the session of 1826, a change was made in the time for holding elections of members of Congress, so that the next election for this purpose after the passage of the Act took place in October, 1829, on the first Monday of that month. In this year Mr. Kerr was again a candidate. During the time that he had served in Congress the new parties had become defined. He had given a cordial support to the administration under Mr. Adams, but his course had not been that of a strict partisan. The fact that in casting his votes in Congress he had sometimes acted with the opposition, gave umbrage to many who thought it was his duty to act otherwise than in this inde- pendent manner. At a convention held at Hillsborough, in Caroline county for the naming of a candidate for Congress from the 7th District, by the Anti-Jackson party, Mr. Robt. Henry Goldsborough was selected.3 This gentleman thought it his duty to decline the nomination, on the grounds that the convention was not properly organized and did not represent the whole district, Talbot in fact having no delegates present and Caroline being only partially represented. But anterior to the assembling of this convention, namely in June, Mr. Kerr had published a brief address, offering himself a third time as a candidate for Congress, and soliciting the suffrages of members of all parties. In this address there is no annunciation of the relation he held to the then existing ad- ministration, although it was known to Mr. Kerr's friends that he was of the opposition. This silence was used by his antagonists who were not confined to the Jackson party to his detriment. One of his former most intimate friend and co-partisans was the most severe in his condemnation of his alleged neutrality, and this led to an estrangement which was never healed. In a long address to the electors of the dis- trict published in the newspapers of the county and in handbill, he de- fended himself with great ability from the charges of a want of frank- ness in the avowal of his political relations to the two parties which at this date were marshalled in full array, and a want of consistency in his
3 The Jackson Convention had met in Hillsborough on the 10th Sept., and had resolved to make no nomination.
398
THE WORTHIES OF TALBOT
conduct while in Congress. The following extract from this address will serve to define his position, and display his motives of action.
I am not called on to vindicate myself against specific charges of im- proper votes: it seems that my general sentiments and conduct in rela- tion to the late struggle for the Presidency [between Jackson and Adams, in 1828] are called in question, and I am represented as a man who ex- presses no opinion with decision, nor gives support to that which he professes, as becomes one in the responsible public station which I had lately the honor to hold at your hands; nay it has been in effect insin- uated by some that my opinions could never be ascertained; and that in Congress and elsewhere they have been cautiously concealed. * * * At the earliest period of the first contest [in 1824] which resulted in the election of the late President Adams, when but few of those in this district who have since so warmly advocated his election, had ventured forth in his support, my preference for him solely on the score of emi- nent talents and appropriate knowledge and learning was openly expressed; and at all subsequent periods, and in every competition, the same opinion was unreservedly maintained. * * *
In the late contest, my opinion remained the same; and although from the cross purposes of politicians-to say no worse of the movements of some Adams' partisans towards me-I had such motives and cue to change, as might have had a tendency to seduce an unsteady or selfish politician, my real opinion was freely given to every man of every party, with whom I conversed upon the subject. So far from preserving a politic silence, not only on the approach of the crisis of election, but long before, I felt it to be a duty I owed to myself, on so great a public question to express my unequivocal opinion, and this too I sedulously communicated to those leading advocates of the present Chief Magis- trate, who had liberally supported me in my own election. Still my determination had been early formed, and had irrevocably fixed not to enter the lists as a partisan or leader,-if I could have so aspired- on the public stand: and this is
"The very head and front of my offending."
I had been chosen by the people as their Representative in
Congress, * and I did consider it derogatory of the station of direct responsibility which I held to them, should I exhibit myself, during my term of actual service, in the character of a violent and sub- servient partisan electioneering for any candidate for the Presidency. * * He who takes upon himself the sacred duty of representing the People ought to hold himself free from all influence, and all entangling party connections with either the incumbent in the executive chair, or any other candidate for that high office, who may be able to hold such a mighty struggle for it as that which lately convulsed the nation. The immediate representatives of the people are the proper checks to the encroachments or unpatriotic measures of the executive department, and that kind of zealous warfare in which a thorough-going partisan
399
HON. JOHN LEEDS KERR
ยท must necessarily engage, is but ill calculated to preserve the independ- ence of his mind in any subsequent judgment upon the measures of his favorite. * * * To my associates in the House of Representatives I think I may safely appeal as to the fearless independence of my votes upon every question.
Mr. Kerr proceeds to say that he voted against Gen'l Jackson, and that the earliest measures of his administration had not met with his approval; but
should it be expected of me by any man, at this stage of the new admin- istration to enlist myself under the banner of an indiscriminate opposi- tion-right or wrong-to him I say that I cannot adopt such a course * * but in the fullness and sincerity of truth I pledge myself, in case I am honored with a seat in Congress, that * * I will give a fair and just support to every measure of this administration I may think right and will oppose every one I disapprove.
There are few persons at the present who would not, after reading this able paper, be willing to concede that he had made a satisfactory defense of his course: but it was not satisfactory to many men of his day who in the midst of the heat of political contests of that time, and they were never warmer, demanded that every one who aspired to official position should enroll himself in one or other of the opposing parties-should be either Greek or Trojan. Mr. Kerr's conception of the duties of a Representative were lofty-so lofty, perhaps, as to be above the appreciation of the larger part of those upon whom he depended for support. Those who are acquainted with the history of parties in this country know that the election of Jackson inaugurated a new era in political morals as well as in political methods, when senti- ments which once might have been received with applause, were looked upon as the conceits of idealists and unbecoming the practical statesman.
It was thought Mr. Kerr would have no competitor, as a convention of the Jackson party had adjourned without making a nomination. But a few weeks before the day of election, Mr. Richard Spencer, a gentleman of most respectable character and abilities and a native citi- zen of Talbot county, announced his intention to contest the campaign with Mr. Kerr. Mr. Kerr treated the candidacy of Mr. Spencer cava- lierly, but he evidently misconceived the strength of his opponent, as regards his capacity, popularity, or political following, as was proven by the result of the canvass. Though the district was conceded to be strongly Federal, or National Republican, as the opposition claimed to be called, yet Mr. Spencer, the Jackson candidate, was successful in his
400
THE WORTHIES OF TALBOT
election over Mr. Kerr by the small majority of six votes. Mr. Kerr at- tributed his defeat, and probably with justice, to the disaffection of the friends of Mr. Robert H. Goldsborough.
Again in 1831 he was a candidate for Congress having been regularly nominated by a convention of delegates at Hillsborough, representing the National Republican or Anti-Jackson party. In this convention Mr. Robt. H. Goldsborough competed with him for the nomination. Mr. Kerr's friends contended that Mr. Goldsborough retained too much of his old Federalism to be an available candidate for the new party, com- posed largely of seceding Democrats, while Mr. Goldsborough's friends insisted that Mr. Kerr was not sufficiently pronounced in his opposition to the executive to represent the same party whose strongest sentiment was its Anti-Jacksonism. The defeat of Mr. Goldsborough in this convention gave rise to an angry controversy conducted through the papers, but as the details of this would serve no good end it need not be further noticed. Mr. Kerr had for his Democratic competitor, his former opponent, Mr. Richard Spencer. He had to encounter the old charges which he repelled in the same manner as has heretofore been related. Now, however, Mr. Kerr's anti-Jacksonism was more dis- tinctly announced, as Jacksonism had become more distinctly displayed. Indeed, that great wave of political sentiment which was pouring over the country, the final ebbing of which we have hardly yet seen, was then at its flood. Mr. Kerr had to encounter this wave, and besides had to withstand the concealed undertow of opposition in his own party. He, however, was successful, beating Mr. Spencer by the small majority of eighteen votes, with his own county voting against him.
In 1833 Mr. Kerr did not stand for Congress. The National Repub- lican, or Anti-Jackson Convention, after first nominating Mr. Robt. H. Goldsborough who declined serving, named Mr. Daniel C. Hopper, of Queen Anne's. This gentleman, however, was defeated by Mr. Richard B. Carmishael of the same county. A change of the Congres- sional district by the addition of Kent and Cecil had destroyed the supremacy of the opponents of the administration.
After the expiration of his term in Congress, Mr. Kerr returned to his practice at Easton, yet taking an earnest interest in the politics of the day which were of as an absorbing a nature during the incumbency of Gen. Jackson as at any other period in our history. But he was a candidate for no office, though identified with the Whig party after it had been organized under the leadership of Mr. Clay, of whom he was the warm personal as well as political friend. On the occasion in 1836
401
HON. JOHN LEEDS KERR
of the refusal of nineteen of the electors of the state electoral college to unite in the election of senators, when there were apprehensions of revolutionary violence, Mr. Kerr in offering a series of resolutions addressed a meeting of the citizens of Talbot, in condemnation of the course of the recusant electors; and in compliance with the sixth of these resolutions he was made one of a committee of vigilance and corre- spondence "for obtaining and communicating timely information to the people of the actual state of public affairs and to hold correspond- ence with their fellow citizens in other counties." In 1839 he was one of the delegates to the great national convention that assembled at Harrisburg and nominated Gen. Harrison as the candidate of the Whigs for the presidency, and in the extraordinary campaign which followed he took an active and prominent part. He, however, had been sent to the convention as the friend of Mr. Clay, whose nomination he favored until it was seen to be hopeless. He rendered loyal service to the can- didate of the party, though not esteeming him the most fitting man for the position. He was selected as one of the presidential electors for the state at large, and as such aided in securing the vote of Maryland for General Harrison. The opportunity which this canvass afforded to him of exhibiting those abilities which had never had their due recogni- tion, secured the notice of the leaders of the party in this State which led to his being chosen (Dec. 31st, 1840) by the legislature to fill the vacancy in the United States Senate, caused by the death of the Hon. John S. Spence. He immediately took his seat in this august body and he continued to fill it with like honor to himself and his State, until the expiration of the term for which he had been elected, March 4th, 1843. He was succeeded by the Hon. James Alfred Pearce, of Kent, who not less worthily represented Maryland in this our highest national council.
From this recital, which needs apology for its length, it will have been seen that Mr. Kerr served three full terms in the House and part of a term in the Senate: that is to say he was a member of the XIXth, XXth, XXIInd, and XXVIIth Congresses. He took his seat in Dec. 1825 at the first session after the seating of President Adams whose election, as he himself says, he was among the first in his county and State to advocate, before more violent partisans had determined to support one who from having been a Federalist, had long acted with the Democrats. He entered the public service when the old parties that had divided the country were either dead or moribund, and when the discord, confusion and tumult attendant upon the formation of new
402
THE WORTHIES OF TALBOT
ones, were at their height. It was his misfortune to experience the jealousies, the suspicions, the misrepresentations and recriminations that arise in all periods of revolution, most so in the pacific revolutions of party, and that follow those, especially, who would avoid the extremes of either side. The administration of Mr. Adams had a generous but not a servile supporter in Mr. Kerr. His relations to the executive branch of the government were those of friendliness but also of entire independence, as was shown by his votes which were cast sometimes with those of its friends, and at other times with those of its opponents. There were really no great questions of national policy upon which parties could divide. The question of the succession to the Presidency was the one that absorbed the most attention. On this his opinions were pronounced-decidedly in opposition to Gen. Jackson, whom he did not consider fitted for the chief magistracy either by political experience or by personal character. After the election of this great military and party leader, and parties acquired defined limits, Mr. Kerr was found in the opposition. The part taken by him in the proceedings of the House was not a conspicuous nor was it an obscure one. He was neither obtrusive nor retiring. Leaving the debates to be conducted chiefly by the great orators and parliamentarians, of whom the two houses during his time contained a larger number than have appeared in that arena before or since, he contented himself with the performance of the less prominent duties of legislator and only occasionally claimed the floor and occupied the attention of the houses. His first, or maiden speech, was made Jan. 24, 1826, upon a resolution to amend the judicial system of the country, with a veiw to extend the system into sections inadequately served. This was a subject in the treatment of which his professional knowledge and experience stood him in good stead. He had the satisfaction of seeing the bill become a law. He again addressed the House Feb. 7, 1826, upon the occasion of his presenting a Resolu- tion of the Legislature of Maryland, on the subject of establishing a naval school. Mr. Kerr said:
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.