USA > Maine > Biographical encyclopedia of Maine of the nineteenth century > Part 3
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
24
BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPÆDIA
tion into Congress of the Nebraska Bill, which admitted slaveholders with their slaves into those Territories from which slavery had been prohibited by the Missouri Compromise. The excitement caused by this measure led to Mr. Fessenden's election, from his known hostility to slavery, to the United States Senate in February, 1854, in which body he took his seat on February 23. The Senate was then strongly Democratic, and that party was never more ably represented in that branch of Congress. Benjamin, Jefferson Davis, Toombs, and Douglas dictated the national politics, while the antislavery Senators, few in numbers and helpless to resist the measures forced upon the Senate, could only demonstrate the wrong of the Democratic policy and appeal to the country. The few Northern men who denounced the aggressions of slavery were haughtily told that their course would cause a dissolution of the Union. The antislavery members, though few, were soon to prove themselves able to uphold the cause of the North. Among them were Seward, and Chase, and Collamer, and Sumner. When Mr. Fessenden entered the Senate the Nebraska Bill was pending, and was approaching the final vote. The country was convulsed by it. Mr. Fessenden did not intend to make a speech, and had not prepared one. But on the 3d of March, a few days after he had entered the body, at one o'clock in the morning, when the vote was taken, he made a short speech of an hour's length against the bill, which electrified the Senate, and made him at once one of the leading men in it. The speech proved him to be a ready and able debater, and was marked by those characteristics which afterward shone so conspicuously in the Senate. It was bold, intrepid, and clear; and the interrogatories of his opponents were met so promptly and completely that, in the language of Mr. Sumner, " all present felt that a champion had come."
The compromise measures of 1850, the enforcement of the fugitive slave laws, and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, followed by the attempt to fasten a slave constitution upon Kansas, broke up the old parties and brought on the rise of the Republican party. Mr. Fessenden was one of the first to advocate a new party, and exerted himself to have it organized, taking an active part in the campaign of 1855 in Maine-the first year in which the new party tried its strength at the polls. It was defeated, but in 1856 it swept the State by a larger majority than ever before known in the politics of Maine, bringing into power that party which has controlled the State since that time and the National Government since 1861. In all these movements Mr. Fessenden was conspicuous. In the Senate he was a recognized leader and the ablest debater of the new party. Mr. Trumbull declared in his obituary address to the Senate that his party always felt that there need be no appre- hension when Mr. Fessenden maintained their side in a political discussion. During the session of 1856-57, pending the debate upon the President's Message, Mr. Fessenden de- fended the Republican Party, criticised the Message, and in encounters with the leading slaveholders displayed anew his skill and readiness in debate. His speech at the ensuing session upon the relations of this country with Great Britain under the Clayton-Bulwer
25
OF MAINE.
Treaty as affected by the principles of international law received the highest praise, particu- larly from Mr. Clayton, who was Secretary of State, under whom the treaty was made. Mr. Fessenden was foremost in the debate upon the Lecompton Constitution in 1858, criticising the opinion of the Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott, and showing his mastery of constitutional principles. In this discussion Benjamin, Toombs, and Davis undertook to interrogate him, but he proved himself able to meet all his antagonists. Maine had now become a strong Republican State. That party controlled all the Con- gressional districts, and held the Legislature by an overwhelming majority. Mr. Fessen- den's first term having expired, the Legislature in 1858 again elected him United States Senator for a full term of six years without the formality of a previous nomination. Dur- ing his service in the Senate he had represented his party on the Finance Committee, and had thus been familiarizing himself with those duties connected with the appropriations for the different branches of the Government which made him so prominent during the coming conflict. The Finance Committee at that time, as well as during the long period while Mr. Fessenden was its chairman, had charge of all bills touching taxation and revenue, as well as of all appropriations for the Government, though these duties have since been divided between two committees. Mr. Hunter of Virginia had been chairman till 1861. He was a very able and upright statesman. To show how little even the ablest men com- prehended the magnitude of the coming struggle, it may be related that in conversation with Mr. Fessenden one day Mr. Hunter remarked that he did not believe the North would permit the Government to go to war with the South to prevent secession, on account of its cost. "Why," said Mr. Hunter, "it would cost you one hundred millions." The real cost of the war has been estimated at eighty times this amount, of which the Govern- ment spent about four billions. Nor does this estimate include the expenditure by the South.
In the struggle of 1860 Mr. Fessenden labored zealously for the election of Lincoln and Hamlin, making numerous speeches and assisting in carrying his own State, which went for Lincoln and Hamlin with a tremendous majority. He was a member of the Peace Congress in 1860, though he did not anticipate any results from its deliberations. Upon the secession of the Southern States, by which the Senate fell into the control of the Repub- licans, he was at once placed at the head of the Committee on Finance. This position was regarded as the leading position in the Senate, and in time of war was especially so. In ordinary times, from the fact that the appropriation bills are reported to the Senate by the chairman, and their discussion managed by him, he necessarily becomes the leader in the Senate, controlling and directing its course of business. The position requires not only a statesman of the greatest abilities, wisdom, and debating powers, but the highest tact, the most painstaking industry, and the most unquestioned integrity. These requirements are increased tenfold in time of war, when enormous appropriations are incessantly called for,
26
BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPÆDIA
and every industry of the country has to be strained to the utmost by the burdens of tax- ation and revenue. Mr. Chase had become the Secretary of the Treasury of the new Ad- ministration, and requested Mr. Fessenden to visit him in Washington before the assembling of Congress in June, in order to confer with him upon the financial measures for supplying the Government with means to crush the gathering Rebellion. During the ensuing session, Mr. Fessenden, as Chairman of the Finance Committee, reported to the Senate the various bills of supply for the Government, advocating their passage, and speaking upon the sub- jects of revenue, taxation, fortifications, pay of the army, the army bill, to increase the Quartermaster Department, to amend the militia act, the conduct of the war, arrests by the State Department, powers of Congress, railroad and telegraph lines, Benjamin Stark, the extension of the Capitol, confiscation of property, on ways and means, as well as upon the numerous appropriation and deficiency bills. His labors during the Rebellion were overwhelming, and no man in Congress was more completely absorbed in public duties which permitted no time for rest or relaxation. These labors increased with the progress of the war as new means had to be devised for raising an enormous revenue. Mr. Fessen- den opposed the bill making the Treasury notes a legal tender, considering the proposition unconstitutional in principle and unnecessary at the time. When the bill came to the Senate, he proposed an amendment striking out the legal-tender clause, making a speech against it, but his amendment was defeated. Possessing a delicate physical organization, the close of the long sessions would find him much exhausted in strength ; but in July, 1864, at the most gloomy period of the war, the close of the session did not bring him his usual period of repose. At a moment when a call for loans by Secretary Chase had met with no response, when gold was at its highest point since the beginning of the Rebellion, when the power of the Treasury to borrow and the capacity of the people to lend had apparently been exhausted, when Grant was pausing before Richmond and Atlanta had not yet fallen, the Treasury Department suddenly became vacant by the resignation of Mr. Chase. It was the darkest hour of the Rebellion. Gold rose to 280. Congress was upon the point of adjourning, and Mr. Fessenden was worn out by an unusually long and laborious session. Feeling the vital importance of a Secretary of the Treasury who would give confidence to the country, he called to advise the President, when the latter informed him of his own nomination to the position. Mr. Fessenden at once refused it, saying that his health de- manded repose. He returned to his rooms, wrote a letter declining the place, and handed it to Mr. Lincoln. This letter the President refused to accept. In the mean time the nomination as Secretary of the Treasury had been sent in to the Senate before Mr. Fessen- den had come into the body. It immediately went into executive session, and the ap- pointment was instantly and unanimously confirmed. The appointment met with the en- thusiastic approbation of the nation. To the appeals of the President and of members of Congress Mr. Fessenden still opposed a negative, but the appeals from all portions of the
.
27
OF MAINE.
country to step into the breach and save the sinking credit of the nation overcame his unwillingness to take the post. He accepted in obedience to a universal public pres- sure. On the day that his acceptance became known, gold, which was at 280, fell to 225, with no bidders. The press declared that no other man in America could succeed Mr. Chase in his arduous and trying labors with so little misgiving as Mr. Fessenden. The situation of the Treasury seemed well-nigh desperate. Just previous to his resignation Mr. Chase had without success tried to raise a loan of fifty millions from the banks. The demands upon the Treasury were largely in excess of the estimates of the year. The suspended requisitions upon the Treasury were ninety-one millions. The demands for the next three months exceeded three hundred millions. The daily expenditure was two and a half millions. The daily income was but little over half a million. General Grant was conducting his operations upon an enormous scale, and pos- sessing the confidence of the Government, every effort was being made to give a final blow to the Rebellion. Feeling that the condition of the Treasury and the unsettled immediate future of the country forbade any public declaration as to any inflexible course of action, Mr. Fessenden only declared that he would issue no more currency ; that the temporary obligations must be paid as soon as possible ; that there should be no addition to the variety of forms of indebtedness ; and that the policy of his predecessor as to the reserved power of reducing the interest on the public debt should be adhered to. He first visited New York in the hope of obtaining fifty millions from the associated banks in exchange for fifty millions of bonds; but the banks, which had responded with generous patriotism to the previous calls by the Government, were too much exhausted to comply with this new demand. He then offered thirty-two millions of six-per-cent gold bonds remaining unsold, and proposed to receive in payment compound-interest notes at par with accrued interest. This propo- sition was universally opposed by bankers ; but Mr. Fessenden was firm in his resolution, and was afterward assured by these same bankers that his decision nearly doubled the amount of subscriptions, and at higher rates than would otherwise have been offered. On July 25 he offered a national loan at seven and three tenths interest, but the sub- scriptions were not enough to prevent the suspended requisitions from attaining in Septem- ber the sum of one hundred and thirty millions. Renewed appeals were again addressed to the banks and private bankers on behalf of the seven and three tenths loan ; but in spite of every effort, the Government securities continued to depreciate ; receipts were far behind expenditures, and few suspected the desperate condition of the Treasury. The Secretary delivered to the paymasters of the army a liberal proportion of the 7.30 bonds of the smaller denominations, which were to be tendered to the soldiers in part payment of their dues, if they chose to accept them. The soldiers responded loyally, and to that extent relieved the Treasury, and furnished the patriotic exhibition of the soldiers fighting for the coun- try, and loaning their pay to maintain the war. To add to the embarrassments of the
28
BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA
Department while the daily receipts were not one third sufficient to meet the daily expenses ; an animated discussion was kept up in the public journals and in the correspondence of the Secretary as to how he should appropriate the daily receipts, and in highly dictatorial lan- guage the newspapers and bankers wished to dictate the course of the Treasury. At this point the certificates of indebtedncss had reached two hundred and forty-seven millions, and could be purchased at ninety-two cents on the dollar. Subscriptions to the 7.30 loan had ccased ; the clamor for money was incessant, accompanied by imperious demands for a further issue of currency on an unrestricted sale of bonds at any prices which might bc offered. To prevent the rapid depreciation of Government securities, Mr. Fessenden sus- pended the further issue of certificates of indebtedness, withdrew the six-pcr-cent gold bonds from the market, and made another appeal to the banks and the people for the 7.30 loan. The banks, however, were exhausted ; and, convinced that other measures must be resorted to to popularize the loan, Mr. Fessenden decided to call to his assistance the agency of Jay Cooke, the patriotic banker, who had in the previous year so successfully negoti- ated the five hundred millions of six-per-cent bonds. The effect of these measures was to save the Treasury from threatened bankruptcy. The long-dormant 10.40 loan revived, and subscriptions were made to the extent of one hundred and seventy-two millions, when it . was withdrawn from the market. The 7.30 loan became popular, while the successes of Sherman and the situation at Petersburg gave promise of a break in the dark clouds of Rebellion. It must be remembered that the amended tax laws, in the passage of which Mr. Fessenden had borne so large a part, were only just beginning to operate, and the astonish- ing revenues from this source were then only beginning to come into the Treasury. Hav- ing prepared for present demands by the successful issue of the 7.30 loan, Mr. Fcssenden was obliged to mature measures for a corresponding scale of expenditure for another year, as at this time the Rebellion was not subdued ; and lastly he prepared and matured the bill passed March 3, 1865, which supplied deficiencies by a renewed authority for loans, as well as the power requisite for rearranging and consolidating the public debt as it should stand at the end of the war. Under this bill every species of non-conditioned indebtedness carrying currency interest, as well as all kinds of non-interest-bearing obligations of whatever character, and subsequently as they fell within the control of the Secretary all bonds carry- ing. a higher rate of interest than five per cent, might be funded first into 10.40 bonds at five, per cent interest, and after ten years from the date of first issue into four-and-a-half and four per cents. In the mean time the victories of Grant and Sherman were making the financial affairs of the nation more promising, and Mr. Fessenden, according to his understanding with President Lincoln when he entered the Cabinet, resigned the Treasury on the 3d of March, to re-enter the Senate, to which he had been re-elected for a full term of six years. The Senate again placed him at the head of the Finance Committee.
The Congress which met in December, 1865, was confronted with grave and difficult
29
OF MAINE.
duties. The rebel States, with all the powers of their State and Confederate governments. and with the support of all their people, had levied a war of the greatest magnitude, by land and sea, against the United States for upwards of four years. During this period the rebel armies had besieged the national capital, had invaded the loyal States, had destroyed more than two hundred and fifty thousand loyal soldiers, and had imposed a national burden of more than three and a half billions of dollars. Nor did they cease to prosecute the war until their armies had been destroyed or captured, their State and Confederate governments obliterated, their territory overrun, and their people reduced to the condition of enemies conquered in war. This was their position according to the law of nations, and had been established by judicial decisions, as well as recognized by the President and the various branches of the Government in numerous public documents, proclamations, and speeches. Before Congress had met, however, President Johnson had inaugurated a policy for restoring the rebel States to their federal relations, which would have permitted them to re-enter the Union without securing to the country the fruits of the overthrow of the Rebellion, or providing adequate safeguards for the future. Con- quered enemies feeling a bitter hostility to the government would have been seen at once participating in making laws for their conquerors. The conquered rebels could have changed their theatre of operations from the battle-field where they had been overthrown, to the halls of Congress, and thus have seized upon the government they had fought to de- stroy. The national treasury, the army of the nation, its navy, its forts and arsenals, the whole civil administration, its pensioners, the widows and orphans of those who had perished in the war, its public honor, peace, and safety, would all have been turned over to its recent enemies, and without such conditions as in the opinion of Congress the security of the country and its institutions might demand. This policy appeared to be fatal to those great objects for which the country had toiled so long and won at so vast a sacrifice. Imme- diately upon the assembling of Congress, the Joint Committee of Reconstruction, consist- ing of fifteen members from both Houses, was appointed to inquire into the condition of the rebel States, to consider the powers of Congress in the premises, and to report the meas- ures to provide for the future peace and safety of the country. Mr. Fessenden was made the chairman of this committee, presided over its deliberations, and prepared the report on Reconstruction, which has been pronounced one of the ablest state papers ever sub- mitted to Congress. This report indicated the powers of Congress over the rebel States, defined their true position under public law, and pointed out the measures demanded by the situation. These measures consisted in changes in the Constitution to determine the civil rights and privileges of all citizens in all parts of the Republic, in fixing representation upon an equitable basis, in protecting the loyal people against future claims for the expenses incurred in support of Rebellion and for manumitted slaves, together with several bills designed to carry these provisions into effect. As chairman of the committee, Mr.
30
BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPÆDIA
Fessenden reported these measures to the Senate, and defended them in debate, making several speeches upon the subject of Reconstruction. The amendments reported were the result of a mutual concession of conflicting opinions, and did not go as far as Mr. Fessen- den desired. These amendments reduced the representation of States in proportion as they denied the elective franchise to their citizens, for any reason except participation in rebellion or crime. Hc felt that constitutional changes should be based not only upon principles, but that such principles should be direct and positive in their terms, instead of procuring ends by indircct means. Accordingly, his own opinion was in favor of a plain amendment abolishing all civil or political distinctions on account of color in all the States. He offered a proposition to this effect; but other members of the committee, commonly regarded as more radical than he, opposed it upon the ground that they doubted if it would be accepted. Having made the Constitution conform to those principles of freedom established by the war, he considered it best for the truc welfare of the Southern States to hold them under military governments until they applied themselves for admission, with constitutions which conformed to the demands of Congress, and with their people in a condition to govern themselves. Hc was apprehensive that if those States were admitted at once, with the most intelligent part of their people disfranchised for participation in the. Rebellion, that misgovernment and disorder would follow. In one of the last letters he wrote, Mr. Fessenden declared that he regarded with apprehension the admission of the Southern States, and feared that the country would find that it had caught a Tartar. The event justified his prediction. His views proved to be correct. No one can now deny that it would have been far better for the country, for the Republican Party, to have fur- nished good governments to the Southern States under military rule, and saved them from political adventurers and the corruption of ignorant legislatures.
During this Congress, in addition to his labors as Chairman of the Reconstruction Committee, Mr. Fessenden also performed the arduous duties of Chairman of the Com- mittee on Finance, and also made numerous speeches upon the Tax Bill, the Appropria- tion Bills, the Civil Rights Bill, the Internal Revenue Bill, and on many other topics, with eloquent eulogies on his old friends, Senators Collamer and Foot, with whom he had been intimately associated through the Kansas struggle and the fiercest fires of the civil war.
Mr. Fessenden now occupied the most commanding position in the Senate. As a debater he was confessedly without an equal, and this supremacy was recognized alike by friend and foe. His great experience, his knowledge of legislation, his authority upon all financial questions, and the power he had displayed in his report upon Reconstruction, united to the highest type of public character, had given him a position of extraordinary influence in his party and in Congress, when he was called upon in the discharge of his duty to imperil his party standing, to lose his popularity, and to expose himself to a storm of abuse and obloquy such as has been rarcly encountered by a public man in this country.
31
OF MAINE.
President Johnson had from the beginning of his administration incurred the suspicion of hostility to the cherished designs of those who elected him. The Republicans became greatly irritated at finding an enemy in one they had chosen, and an adversary to those measures they justly regarded as necessary to peacefully restoring the Southern States upon a broad and durable basis. The idea of impeachment was eagerly seized upon by many Republicans as a means of removing an obstacle to reconstruction of the Southern States. In 1867 the House of Representatives, by an able committee, had investigated most of the alleged offences for which the President was tried in the following year, and which formed the basis of the tenth and eleventh articles, upon which alone a conviction was expected at the trial ; and had by a majority of two to one voted against impeachment for those offences. In the excitement of the trial the public forgot that a Republican House had voted against these articles in the preceding year, and now violently demanded a conviction for offences which had within twelve months been voted insufficient. The immediate cause of the attempt to get rid of the President by impeachment was the removal of Secretary Stanton. The first eight of the eleven articles of impeachment alleged against the President were based upon the idea that such removal was a violation of the Tenure-of-Office Act, whereas in fact Mr. Stanton had been expressly exempted by the terms of the Act from its opera- tion. This was not only expressed by the language of the Act, but was so stated in debate when the Act was under discussion. Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, the leading manager, had stated in the House of Representatives that he regarded the first ten articles as worthless, and therefore urged the adoption of the eleventh article, although that article was made up of those offences which in the preceding year had been investigated and abandoned by the House of Representatives. Mr. Fessenden showed that the President had the right under the Constitution and the laws to remove Mr. Stanton from office, and that, a vacancy thus exist- ing, he had the lawful right to appoint General Thomas to perform the duties ad interim. The first eight articles accordingly had no foundation. The ninth article was disproved by the evidence ; and the remaining two were based upon the President's speeches against the Republican majority in Congress, in which he asserted that this Congress was a Congress of only a part of the States. This statement was literally true, though he nowhere denied the constitutionality of that branch of the Government, but on the contrary recognized it in all his public acts. His denunciation of the party which controlled Congress was not as severe as the denunciation its members were constantly levelling at him ; and while his speeches were offences against good taste, they were not unlawful, and could not justify the removal from office of the constitutionally elected Chief Magistrate. So great, however, had become the excitement, that every Republican Senator was threatened with political destruc- tion if he did not vote with his party. Every sort of pressure by threats, by appeals, the imputation of base and criminal motives, and every form of intimidation were used to com- pel Senators to vote for conviction. Mr. Fessenden, Mr. Grimes, Mr. Henderson, Mr.
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.