USA > Maine > Maine; a history, Volume II > Part 8
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
"Finally, Mr. Morrill rose, and, almost staggering as he walked, so great was his nervous excitement, crossed over to the side of Mr. Fessenden, shook hands with him in the presence of the great crowd which thronged the house, and congratulated him upon his success. The spell thus broken was followed by loud and long-continued applause."11
William Pitt Fessenden was the son of General Samuel Fessenden and was born on October 16, 1806, at Boscawen, New Hampshire, where his father had taught school and had studied law with Daniel Webster. Mr. Webster stood godfather to the son of his friend, driving twenty miles on a cold wintry day in order to be present. The boy was given the name of the great Tory minister, William Pitt, who had died that year much admired by the thorough-going Federalists, of whom Samuel Fessenden was one of the most extreme. His son, called by his family and friends not William but Pitt, had much in common with the statesman whose name he bore. Both were men of the strictest personal integrity, austere in manner and admired by most of their followers more than they were loved. Each was skilled in finance; neither was in the full sense of the word a great orator.
"Dow, "Reminiscences," 487-494.
369
COMPROMISE OF 1850-PROHIBITION
In loftiness of character it is probable that the American was the su- perior. Pitt loved office, not for its emoluments but for the power it gave to accomplish great things. Fessenden found the intense labor of official life almost more than he could bear, while the association with men of lower aims that it involved was most offensive to him. But a defeat for re-election, implying a condemnation by the people he had long and faithfully served, would have been extremely bitter. He was unwilling, also, to leave the field before the battle was won. Yet he often wearied of the contest and felt an earnest desire to return to his home and his garden. He might have said of his Senatorship what Tennyson's Launcelot did of his name of "greatest knight," "Pleasure to have it, none; to lose it, pain."
Like Pitt, Fessenden had a somewhat weak constitution. He "inher- ited a slender and graceful form from his mother and her sensitive and nervous temperament with a delicate physiognomy." For the first seven years of his life he lived with his grandmother at Fryeburg. Just before attaining the age of twelve he applied for admission to Bowdoin College. The late Chief Justice Appleton stated that he remembered him perfectly and what is not at all surprising, that he had a very youthful appearance. The president of the college advised him to wait a year and he did so. At thirteen he entered Bowdoin but during his first year lived at Gorham though attending exercises with the other students. After completing his college course he studied law, made numerous addresses, was admitted to the bar, practiced in Bridgton, Portland and Bangor, and finally settled down in Portland, forming a partnership with William Willis, the Maine historian and antiquarian, Mr. Willis attending chiefly to the office work and Mr. Fessenden trying the cases. Some of his addresses were probably given rather for the sake of practice in public speaking than for love of his subject. One of his lectures has been described as "A sober treatise on the effect of music on the human mind," but he wrote on the manuscript, "A Speechification Delivered before the Squallacious Society in New Gloucester."
"Of singin', squallin', rantin', roarin', You never heard so damned a pourin'."
In 1837 he acted as manager of the Whig gubernatorial campaign. During the same year he accompanied Daniel Webster on a trip to Ken- tucky. In a letter written during the journey he said "that Mr. Webster would never gain popularity by personal intercourse-to strangers he ap- peared repellant. So far as gaining friends was concerned, Mr. Webster might (as) well if not better have stayed at home and left his fame and public service to speak for him." A similar comment might perhaps be made on Mr. Fessenden's own nature, at least in the latter part of his career.
In 1840 he was elected a Representative in Congress, served one term ME .- 24
370
HISTORY OF MAINE
with credit and declined a renomination, being much disgusted by the desire for notoriety, and the lack of public spirit at Washington.
Mr. Fessenden represented Portland in the State Legislature in 1832, 1839, 1845, 1846, 1853 and 1854. In 1843, 1845 and 1853 he was the Whig candidate for United States Senator. During his first term at Augusta he earnestly opposed a resolution instructing Senators Holmes and Sprague to vote for a recharter of the United States Bank. His language showed that he possessed at twenty-five the sensitive conscience and sturdy inde- pendence of character which nearly forty years later made him break from his party and vote for the acquittal of President Johnson. He said that on national as distinct from merely local questions, "Did I know that the opinions of every one of my constituents differed from my own, if I acted at all I would act according to my own honest convictions of right were it directly in their teeth. Those whom I represent, sir, would despise me if I acted otherwise. No, sir, I might in such a case resign my office, but I would never violate the dictates of my own conscience. I am willing to be the servant of the people, but I will never be their slave."
In 1854 Mr. Fessenden was elected United States Senator and began a career of the highest honor. The veteran journalist, Horace White, says that he had "the most clairvoyant mind, joined to the most sterling char- acter, that the State of Maine ever contributed to the national councils," and that "a more consummate debater or more knightly character and pres- ence has not graced the Senate chamber in my time, if ever."" Shortly after he took his seat he made a brief speech against the Kansas-Nebraska bill, meeting Southern threats of disunion with a steady firmness that de- lighted his Republican colleagues and thrilled the North. A Southerner, who listened to this speech in the Senate, exclaimed in the midst of it, "Why, what a man is this! All his guns are double-shotted." When the control of the Senate passed to the Republicans Mr. Fessenden was elected chairman of the committee on finance which at that time had charge not only of all bills for raising revenue but of the appropriation bills as well. The Civil War made such a position extremely onerous, but Mr. Fessenden discharged its duties most ably and successfully. In 1865 he was made chairman of the joint committee on reconstruction, thus placing on him another heavy responsibility and exposing him to attacks from all sides.
Mr. Fessenden was frequently called a conservative Senator. The term was not incorrect. The son of a radical abolitionist and having the greatest respect and affection for his father, he joined neither the Liberty nor the Free Soil party and was not shaken in his fealty to the Whigs and to Daniel Webster even by the Fugitive Slave Law. It was in perfect con- sonance with the character of the man that it needed an extreme aggression by the South, the repeal of the time-honored Missouri Compromise, to rouse him to special effort. Terrible in attack when provoked, and he was easily
12White, "Trumbull," 324, 83.
371
COMPROMISE OF 1850-PROHIBITION
stirred, it was noted in the Senate that opposition was needed to bring out his full powers. A colleague after highly praising his intellectual eminence added, "Candor compels me to say that upon any novel and exciting ques- tion where the road to success seemed to be through the chances of reck- lessness and temerity, he did not possess the requisite qualifications for a great party leader. He believed that caution was the parent of safety." He opposed making the greenbacks legal tender and wished to give the Secretary of the Treasury great power of reducing their volume. In small matters, too, he was cautious. He firmly believed in the rule, resist the beginnings, and he looked to the principle involved and the effect of the precedent that would be set rather than to the direct cost and immediate result of a bill.
But Mr. Fessenden showed a firmness and vigor in the maintenance of the Union and of the anti-slavery cause by no means characteristic of what is usually termed conservatism. In the winter of 1860-1861 when many of the Republicans yielded to the cry for compromise and when there were strong reasons for walking softly and hiding the big stick, at least until the Republican President had been safely inaugurated, Mr. Fessenden stood firm against all concession. After the war broke out he considered the government deplorably lacking in energy. In his home letters occur such phrases as these :
"The truth is that no man can be found who is equal to this crisis in any branch of the government. If the President had his wife's will and would use it rightly, our affairs would look much better." "It is no longer doubtful that General McClellan is utterly unfit for his position-every movement has been a failure. And yet the President will keep him in com- mand, and leave our destiny in his hands. I am at times almost in despair. Well, it cannot be helped. We went in for a rail-splitter and we have got one." "The General is utterly unfit for his position and more than sus- pected of being a coward-morally and physically. Seward's vanity and folly, and Lincoln's weakness and obstinancy, have not yet quite ruined us, but I fear they will." "I saw a letter this morning written in good English by the King of Siam to Admiral Foote, which had more good sense in it, and a better comprehension of our troubles, I do verily believe, than Abe has had from the beginning. But it's of no use to scold.""
Although a legalist by nature, Mr. Fessenden defended the numerous arbitrary arrests made by the government and brought forward the some- what startling argument that the President unlike all other officers had not sworn to obey the Constitution but only to preserve, protect and defend it, which he might do by illegal acts. Here Mr. Fessenden was surely radical enough to please even Stevens and Sumner.
Mr. Fessenden was pre-eminently a business Senator. When he first entered the House he spoke with contempt of the set speeches and the
"Further acquaintance with the President caused Mr. Fessenden to modify his views.
372
HISTORY OF MAINE
striving for popular applause in which so many Congressmen indulged. His position in the Senate after 1861, as Chairman of the Committee on Finance, made him responsible for the passage of a vast amount of legis- lation and increased his distaste for mere talk. Mr. Sumner thought of the Senate as a great sounding-board by whose aid he might proclaim his views and theories to the country; Mr. Fessenden regarded it as a law-making body whose duty it was to pass proper bills, that the enormous business of the nation might be done. For facilitating this work he was peculiarly well equipped. He had knowledge, industry, great power of analysis and of clear, logical exposition. Stephen A. Douglas, in discussing the eminent Americans he had known, is reported to have said, "Henry Clay was the most fascinating and Daniel Webster the most powerful orator; John C. Calhoun was the logician of the Senate, but William Pitt Fessenden is imcomparably the readiest and ablest debater I have ever known."
Mr. Fessenden was abnormally keen in detecting anything like soph- istry. He hated it with the hate of an absolutely honest man and he exposed it ruthlessly. In the eulogies pronounced in Congress after his death three Senators compared his nerves, his intellect, or his sarcasm, to a sword of finest temper. Such a man must often give offense and in Mr. Fessenden's case his manner reinforced his words. His language might be confined within the strict limits of parliamentary decorum when his face and bearing showed a contempt for what seemed to him the unworthy conduct of his opponent which could not fail to wound deeply. Sometimes he was unjust, mistaking for charlatanry or deceit what was a mere personal peculiarity or a sincere belief.
Outside the Senate too he was accused of ill temper. On this charge the verdict must be guilty with extenuating circumstances. Mr. Fessenden suffered from a painful disease; he was not strong, he was overburdened with work and he had "no patience for humbug and no tolerance for bores," and "deemed his time too valuable to be wasted on dunces and office beggars."
Another accusation frequently brought against him was that he was haughty and cold. He certainly had both dignity and pride. He was extremely careful of his dress and has been described as the trimmest figure in the Senate. John R. French, the sergeant-at-arms of the Senate, said, "He bore himself with graceful ease but as he warmed with his subject and took fire at the interruptions and responses of his opponents, then that head which was usually inclined slightly forward was proudly thrown back, and he carried himself with an imperial bearing which attested the royalty of his nature." George W. Julian said in his "Political Recollections," "There was a sort of majesty in the appearance and brow of Fessenden when he addressed the Senate." A colleague once expressed surprise that in discussing legal questions Mr. Fessenden so seldom referred to author- ities. "His reply was that he had been a close student for twenty years
373
COMPROMISE OF 1850-PROHIBITION
while in the practice of law, and if his matured opinions could not stand upon their own merits they were not worth supporting."
But his coldness was the reserve of the man who scorns to wear his heart upon his sleeve, and his pride the independence of one who shows to the world the face which the world shows him. In a letter written after he had heard of the safety of a son concerning whom he had been very anxious, he said, "Then I was rebelling against Providence-now I am pro- foundly thankful to a merciful God. Tears of penitence and joy fill my eyes as I write. Such is my nature. Suffering hardens me. Kindness softens, and makes me grateful, and therefore, better."
He was devoted to his wife and children and to them was demonstra- tively affectionate. He would oppose a bill for the benefit of a worthy per- son or institution if its passage would establish a bad precedent, but he was generous with his private means and moved by the suffering of the army. In January, 1863, he wrote, "Many of our poor soldiers have not had a dime for months. Hard, isn't it? I would be content to borrow and mort- gage my house, if that would help them. Nobody can blame them for deserting. I am heartsick when I think of the miserable mismanagement in our army."
Though many thought him cold and haughty there were others who could discriminate between the inner and the outer man. A rhymed descrip- tion of members of the Fortieth Congress says of him:
"Cold in his temper and of icy glow, He shines like his Katahdin crowned with snow, No smiles or blushes leave their genial trace Upon his Norman, frigid, thoughtful face.
* * "Though seeming strange, the truth must be confessed That fervid elements control his breast, Like fires which in volcanic mountains glow, Whose stenmits glisten with eternal snow."
The New York Tribune said of the Congressional memorial service : "The eulogists vied with each other in their gracious tributes-in their honorable testimony. And yet the bounds of simple truth were not over- passed, were scarcely reached. Their most glowing epithets, their most sounding periods failed to give one that sense of Mr. Fessenden's rare nobility of nature and intellectual supremacy which was caught by a single glance at his living face, so pure and so intense, so strong, yet so exquisitely refined. It was a face set inflexibly against all shams and sophisms, social, moral and political; but it was not an unbelieving face. It was keen and penetrant in expression, without a touch of cunning. It was marked by a peculiar pride, watchful but not jealous; lofty but not lordly. Much has been said of this characteristic pride of the great Sen- ator, but little perhaps understood. It was not an assumption, it was not even a habit; it was a native vital element of the man. It hung about him like an atmosphere, a still, cold mountain air, utterly without the sting
374
HISTORY OF MAINE
of hauteur and the bluster of arrogance. You felt it without resenting it. It would never have prevented the unfortunate from approaching him, or kept a little child from his knee. It made his smile the more beautiful, made every indication of the inner sweetness and tenderness of his nature the more irresistible."
His strict integrity was recognized by all who really knew him Mr. Rhodes says: "All the eulogists of Fessenden testify to his high char- acter; they seemed to feel that they could not say enough of his honesty and straightforwardness. Gauge him by the exactest standard of the most lofty ideal of these virtues, either in public or private life, in America or England, he will not be found wanting."
Mr. Fessenden died after a brief illness at his home in Portland on September 8, 1869. He passed quietly away in the midst of a terrific storm which devastated New England. "Streams were flooded, bridges carried away, trees uprooted. The great brick house in which he lay was shaken by the blasts, and a favorite tree which he had planted in front of it was broken down by the tempest.""
** Fessenden, "Fessenden."
Chapter XIV THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
CHAPTER XIV
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
The Whigs had won their last victory in Maine, the time was at hand when the development of the slavery question was to disrupt the Democratic party and annihilate the Whig. In January, Senator Stephen A. Douglas reported a bill for organizing the territory of Nebraska, which was to be free or slave, as the inhabitants should decide, subject only to the Consti- tution of the United States. The new territory had been made free soil by the Missouri Compromise and the proposal to repeal this venerated statute caused an outburst of anger in the North which proved the begin- ning of the end of the long contest between slavery and freedom. The Legislature of Maine instructed her Senators and requested her Repre- sentatives to oppose the bill in every practicable way so long as it contained any provision repealing the Missouri Compromise. All obeyed but one. Representative McDonald declined to do so, giving as his reason that the Legislature had disregarded the will of the people in refusing to elect Mr. Pillsbury Governor or even to send his name to the Senate, although he had received the largest number of votes at the September election.
The Maine resolutions had passed the Legislature nearly unanimously. It is probable, however, that a number of the members voted yea as much from fear of losing votes as from dislike of the bill. The Lincoln Democrat declared that the bill contained the great Democratic principle of self- government. The Argus took a similar position. On the other hand, the Age said: "There are certain loads we can carry, and certain loads we cannot carry if we would, and this Nebraska load is one of them. The sentiment of the people is fixed and immutable on this question, beyond the power of the press-which is omnipotent when right, but impotent when wrong-to change or repress it." When the utmost influence of the Administration and the adroit management of Senator Douglas at last secured the passage of the bill, the Age said: "The cheated, BETRAYED, INSULTED constituencies of the North, are now asking, WHAT NEXT?"
The Jeffersonian enclosed its announcement of the passage of the bill in black lines. On the fourth of July it hoisted a flag over the office with the inscription :
"Restoration of the Missouri Compromise Trial by Jury for alleged Fugitive Slaves I go where Democratic Principles lead."
The paper exhorted its readers to vote only for men who would pledge themselves to this platform and whose character was a guarantee that they would keep their word.
The Democratic President was exerting his whole strength in favor of the Nebraska bill; the great majority of the people of Maine were
378
HISTORY OF MAINE
opposed to it. What should the Maine Democrats do? When their State convention met, W. B. S. Moore urged them to pay no attention to the national party. "Let us," he said, "take care of the Democracy of Maine. It will be a hard year to do it, but let us do it, and let the parties in the other sections of the Union take care of themselves. By pursuing this course in the election next fall, we shall have Maine right side up." The convention adopted the plan. They sought for harmony by golden silence, nominated a Governor under the gag and presented no platform. Custom demanded an uncontested renomination of Mr. Pillsbury but a letter from him was read announcing that he would withdraw in favor of Albion K. Parris, if the convention would nominate him unanimously. Elbridge Gerry of Waterford objected and expressed a desire for a ballot but Mr. Moore announced that if there was any discussion Pillsbury would with- draw his withdrawal; under this threat Mr. Gerry ceased to object, an- other member moved that a ballot be taken but the motion was voted down and Parris was nominated by acclamation.
The next step would ordinarily have been the adoption of a platform, but this was passed over. Some delegates asked, "Have we no principles, shall we not endorse the national administration?" but the leaders had decided that principles, at least acknowledged ones, might be very embar- rassing in the campaign and the chairman sidetracked the question of a platform by calling for nominations for the county committees. A dispute arose in the Waldo delegation which might have led to a quarrel, and a representative of the committee on resolutions moved that the convention adjourn to meet at the polls in September. The members, the majority of whom appear to have been excellently drilled, at once adjourned.1
It is said that the choice of Parris was partly due to his availability but largely to its effect on future nominations. Parris was well liked per- sonally. He had recently been elected Mayor of Portland, defeating Neal Dow. He himself was a total abstainer, and so far acceptable to the tem- perance men. More important was the aid which his election would give to realizing the hopes of some politicians. Judge Wells of Portland wanted to be Governor but Pillsbury had a particular dislike for him. Bion Bradbury of Eastport also had gubernatorial aspirations. It was known that Parris would serve but a single term. The cry would then go up that the East was entitled to furnish the Governor. Wells would be side- tracked and Bradbury have a good chance of success.
Cary had had himself nominated by a mass convention in the hope that this would influence, perhaps force the regular convention to nominate him. Had the convention chosen a man friendly to Cary, the latter might have withdrawn, but Parris was to prepare the way for Bradbury, and Bradbury's friends and Cary were at swords' points. The candidate from Aroostook therefore remained in the field and as he was not accustomed
"I"hig, June 27, 1854.
379
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
to do anything by halves, he assailed Parris in the vitriolic language of which he was a master, calling him a fossil and a straddler. Some of the anti-Democratic papers took a similar tone. The Whig declared that "His ex-Excellency has been a fence-man all his life, and is in the neighborhood of seventy years of age." The Advertiser called him "a superannuated old man." The Ellsworth Freeman said that it had heard that he was a gentleman of honor and propriety but had never heard it claimed that he possessed distinguishing traits of character. On the other side, the Maine Free Press said of Parris: "We have often heard the late Judge Thayer, who had a full practice in his court, and served in the Executive Council when he was Governor of Maine, speak of him as a most excellent Gov- ernor, and one of the best judges ever on the bench of the State." The Argus, resorting to ancient history, praised his opposition to the course of Massachusetts during the War of 1812, and the "mammoth bank" and declared that his was "A name that was never presented to the Democracy of Maine but with the prestige of victory. He never has been beaten at the polls in his native State-we believe that the Democracy of Maine will see to it that he never is."
The anti-slavery Democrats, however, were not to be won; their leaders assembled at Portland on June 7 and again nominated Anson P. Morrill for Governor "on an anti-slavery and temperance platform."
The Whigs were much bewildered; they were in doubt not only what ground to take but whether it was best for them to exist at all. The Port- land Advertiser thought that the Maine Whigs should follow the lead of the national party; the Bangor Whig though preferring to retain the old name saw no fatal objection if the Whigs of the North wished as a matter of policy to combine with former members of other parties under the name of Republican. A fortnight before, it had said, "The repeal of the fugitive slave law, the restoration of the Missouri Compromise, and the application of the prohibition (of slavery) principle to all new territory, are, it is evident, to become the rallying cry of a powerful organization in this country." The South must expect to encounter "a true national Republican party" giving slavery its rights under the Constitution but "which will base its action upon the principle that Liberty and not Slavery is the corner-stone of this Republic."
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.