USA > New Mexico > Men of our day; or, biographical sketches of patriots, orators, statemen, generals, reformers, financiers and merchants, now on the stage of action > Part 17
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SALMON PORTLAND CHASE.
likely perhaps than any of them to base an opinion on previous decisions either there or in the English courts.
In the trial of Andrew Johnson under the impeachment of the House of Representatives, Chief Justice Chase was, by the Constitution, the presiding officer of the High Court of -Impeach- ment. His course there was marked by dignity and ability The position was a difficult and trying one, and his powers (it being the first instance of such presidency since the adoption of the Constitution) were not clearly defined ; but he acquitted himself admirably in it.
In person Mr. Chase presents the most imposing appearance of any man in public life in this country. He is over six feet in height, portly and well proportioned, with handsome features, and a grand, massive head. Few men possess so much real dignity and grace of manner. But with it all, he is utterly incapable of the arts of the demagogue, or of any effort to win popularity, by "bending the supple hinges of the knee, that thrift may follow fawning." He entered upon his office of Secretary of the Treasury with a property of about one hundred thousand dollars; he left it three years later, after managing the immense finances of the nation in war time, materially poorer than when he assumed office. No man who knew him could doubt, for an instant, his unflinching integrity and honesty.
Chief Justice Chase has often been mentioned as a candidate for the presidency, and it has been said by political writers that he was anxious for the position. If this were the case, it would not be to his discredit, so long as the means he used to accomplish his desire were honorable and just, and it is not in his nature to use any other-but there is not any- where the slightest authentic evidence that he has even sought or desired this great office. If he has, no man could have
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better kept his secret, for not to his most intimate friends has he ever breathed this aspiration, nor has he swerved a hair's breadth from the line of duty, to influence any man to support him. Like Henry Clay, he "would rather be right, than be President." In a recent conversation with his friend, Mr. W. N. Hudson of the Cleveland Leader, when allusion was made to an absurd report just then prevalent, that the Democrats thought of nominating him to the Presidency, Mr. Chase said with great earnestness, "I wish that all men of all parties would leave my name alone in connection with a presidential nomination. I do not seek the presidency." He then went on to say, that as a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, he had necessarily to abandon party politics. When he took his seat on that bench, he assumed an obligation, recog- nized in his oath, but anterior and superior to it, to do impar- tial justice under the Constitution and laws of the United States. He could not be a party judge, or allow himself to be swayed by partisan feeling, without violating that oath. And he regretted that newspapers of both parties had, without cause or warrant, connected some of his recent actions with party or perverse feeling.
A man thus scrupulous of the obligations of his oath, and influenced by so nice and delicate a sentiment of honor, might safely be trusted with the nation's highest place of honor, but is too great to be likely. to fill it.
×
GAN
SH
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WP FESSENDEN
M STANTON
W.D.KELLEY
BOUTWEL
POMEROY
EDWIN M. STANTON,
SECRETARY OF WAR.
HE time has not come, and will not, for years, when an impartial and satisfactory life of Mr. Stanton can be written. The hostilities aroused by his rough, impul- sive, and positive action-the utter carelessness of the man in regard to his own reputation-the partial and im- perfect knowledge of the motives which led to many of his apparently arbitrary measures, and his own constant and per- sistent refusal to make any explanations, or give any informa- tion which might influence the world's judgment of him-all have conspired to make any thing like an adequate biography of him impossible, until time shall have mitigated the bitter- ness which many feel toward him, and the great secrets, which he now keeps so safely, shall be brought to the light. Yet we can give some account of his earlier history, and a brief sum- mary of the herculean labors which, for three years, made him the hardest-worked official who ever occupied a seat in the cabinet.
Mr. Stanton comes of a Quaker stock. His ancestors were among the early settlers of Rhode Island, and his great grand- father migrated, not far from 1750, to North Carolina. The grandparents of the future secretary, Benjamin and Abigail
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(Macy) Stanton, resided for many years near Beaufort, North Carolina, and were members of the society of Friends. Benja- min died in the last decade of the eighteenth century ; and in his will requested that all the poor black people that ever be- longed to him, should be entirely free whenever the laws of the land would allow it-and until that time, charged his ex- ecutors to act as their guardians, to protect them, and see that they should not be deprived of their right, or any way mis- used."
About the year 1800, the widow of Benjamin, Abigail Stan- ton, removed with her large family to Ohio. One of her sons, David Stanton, then a stout lad, acquired an education, studied medicine, married Miss Lucy Norman, the daughter of a wealthy planter of Culpeper county, Virginia, and settled in the then new and thriving village of Steubenville, Ohio, as a physician. Here, in December, 1815, his eldest child, Edwin M. Stanton, was born.
The boy possessed great energy, vitality, and resolution, and was beyond his years in intelligence. At the age of thirteen, he became a clerk in the bookstore of James Turnbull, in Steubenville. Three years later, in 1831, he became a student in Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, where he remained for two years or more. He then obtained employment, for a time, as a clerk, in a bookstore of his former master at Columbus. His father having deceased, he commenced the study of law in the office of his guardian, Daniel L. Collier, in Steubenville, early in 1834, and under his tuition, and that of Hon. Benjamin Tap- pan, an eminent jurist, and subsequently U. S. Senator from Ohio, he acquired a very competent knowledge of the law ; and in 1836, at the age of twenty-one, was admitted to the bar. He commenced the practice of the law at Cadiz, Harrison county, Ohio, and was very soon elected prosecuting attorney
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of the county. He very speedily acquired a high reputation, and a large practice in his profession, especially in the circuit courts. About 1839, he removed to Steubenville, where he was for a time the partner of his old preceptor, Hon. Benjamin Tappan. In 1842, he was elected, by the General Assembly of Ohio, reporter of the decisions of the Supreme Court, and in that capacity prepared volumes 11, 12, and 13, of the Ohio State Reports. He had by this time a very high position at the Ohio bar, being regarded as one of the ablest lawyers of the State in all questions of land titles and commercial law. He had also some reputation as a political leader in his county and State. His affiliations were with the Democratic party. In 1847, he formed a partnership with Hon. Charles Shaler and Theodore Umbstratter, of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and, though retaining an office in Steubenville, began to devote his atten- tion chiefly to cases before the courts of Pennsylvania and the United States District, Circuit, and Supreme courts. He was retained in most of the important cases, and regarded as the ablest counsel of that region. There was an immense power of work in the man, as well as remarkable quickness of per- ception-an almost feminine intuition, which enabled him to leap to results, while others were carefully and slowly studying out the first steps. While resident at Pittsburg, he was en- gaged, among other important suits, as counsel for the railroad company in the great Erie war cases, and for the State of Penn- sylvania in the Wheeling Bridge case. In the latter part of 1856, his practice in the Supreme Court of the United States had become so large and lucrative, that he found himself com- elled to remove to Washington to do full justice to it.
In 1858, he went to California, as special counsel for the Government in certain land cases, involving interests of great magnitude, where he was called to defend the title of the
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American against the Mexican grantees. His management of these cases was successful, and he received enormous fees for his services. Soon after his return, in 1859, he was employed as one of the counsel in the great Manney and McCormick reaper case, which was to be tried at Cincinnati ; and here, for the first time, met Mr. Lincoln, who was engaged on the same side of the case. In December, 1860, while still engaged in a later stage of the reaper trial, at Cincinnati, he was nominated by Mr. Buchanan to the office of Attorney-General, which Mr. Black had just vacated to assume that of Secretary of State, after the resignation of General Cass. He accepted the position, though probably conscious, in part, of its difficulties. Cobb and Floyd had resigned, Black and Thomas were of doubtful loyalty, and, beside Judge Holt, General Dix, and himself, there was nobody in the cabinet who cared whether the nation were shipwrecked or not. Of the three loyal mem- bers of the cabinet, Mr. Stanton was by far the most outspoken and decided. He protested against every doubtful measure, urged on Buchanan the necessity of reinforcing and supplying the garrison of Fort Sumter, and by his untiring zeal, his ad- ministrative ability, and his sturdy loyalty, prevented the closing months of Mr. Buchanan's administration from going out in utter darkness.
At the expiration of Mr. Buchanan's term of administration, Mr. Stanton resumed the practice of his profession, but con- tinued his zeal and interest in the national cause.
On the 11th of January, 1862, Secretary Cameron having resigned his office of Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton was nomi- nated by the President, and on the 13th of the same month was confirmed by the Senate, for that office. Of this appoint- ment Judge Holt, Postmaster General at the close of Mr. Buchanan's administration, and subsequently Judge Advcoate
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General, wrote to Lieutenant Governor Stanton of Ohio, “it is an immense stride in the direction of the suppression of the rebellion. ... The rejoicing of the people over his appointment would have been far greater did they know the courage, loyalty, and genius of the new secretary, as displayed in the intensely tragic struggles that marked the closing days of the Buchanan administration. He is a great man, morally and in- tellectually-a patriot. ... All that man can do, will, in his · osent position, be done to deliver our poor bleeding country m the bayonets of traitors." The history of Mr. Stanton's administration of the War Department has more than verified Judge Holt's high encomiums.
He entered upon his duties with a vigor and energy which has never flagged. The loose expenditures of the Department and the taint of corruption which had pervaded its financial management, rather from the easy temper of Mr. Stanton's pre- decessor than from any personally dishonest tendencies, were reformed. Strictly honest in money matters himself, Secretary Stanton pursued most unrelentingly every man whom he had reason to suspect of fraud. The military organization and the bureaus of the Department, so far as they came under his control, were systematized, simplified, and placed on a footing of greater efficiency ; the communication with the President was constant ; and impetuous as the Secretary was, and apt at times to act when he was sure he was right, on his own authority alone, his arm was ever ready to support the President, and his unflinch- ing loyalty was proof against every test. Untiring in his energy and more fond of work than most men are of pleasure, he exacted of his subordinates labors as far as possible commen- surate with his own; he never asked them to do more-but in these severe labors he broke down one assistant secretary after another, till there was a saying common in Washington, when
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a new assistant secretary was appointed, that such a man " had received his death warrant." No man was more ready or happy to acknowledge victories, or thank the successful leader than he; and if at times he became impatient at the slow motion of dilatory generals, and was in a few instances unjust in his condemnation of their delays, it was due to his eager loyalty and his impetuous nature, which brooked no obstacles and tolerated no unnecessary hindrances in the accomplishment of the object he had so much at heart. Over one thousand general orders, many of them requiring immense labor and painstaking in their preparation, were issued from his Depart- ment during the war, and the vast and constantly increasing expenditure of the Department, which in the last year of the war, was keeping a force of more than a million of men in the field, was of itself sufficient to test the energies of the ablest financier.
He had the reputation of being very brusque in his manners ; and at times his treatment of army officers of high rank was indefensible; but to the poor, to the defenceless, and the weak, he was gentle and tender as a woman ; towards offenders, either military or civil, he was relentless as death, and often appa- rently vindictive in his punishments, but this vindictiveness was rarely manifested, except to those whom he believed to have been guilty of defrauding the nation in its hour of greatest need. This to him was an unpardonable sin.
It was with reference to some strong-willed action of Mr. Stanton in contravention of his wishes, that Mr. Lincoln, in reply to a personal application for assistance, made the playful remark, so often quoted, that he (Lincoln) had very little influence with this Administration.
Yet admitting all his faults and foibles, the fact remains that Mr. Stanton was one of the ablest if not the ablest war minister of modern times. Napoleon's expression in regard to
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Carnot, that he "organized victory," has been often applied to Mr. Stanton, and not unjustly ; but he was an abler war minis- ter than Carnot, far abler than the younger Pitt, to whom he has often also been compared. We should incline rather to find his parallel in Cavour, the great Italian, whose genius, under circumstances very similar, created armies and sent a thrill of patriotic life through the hearts of a people so long oppressed and down-trodden, as the masses of the Italian peninsula. There were, too, many points of resemblance in the power of organization, the imperious will, and the forcible moulding of the nation to his purposes, to the great Prussian statesman, Von Bismarck.
After the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Stanton naturally took the lead among the members of the cabinet in bringing the assassins to justice, and the war to a complete conclusion. Mr. Johnson could not well dismiss him from the cabinet, but as the new President began to diverge more and more from the principles of the party which elected him to the vice-presidency it soon became evident that between him and the war minister there was no friendship, but only an armed neutrality. Both had formerly been members of the Democratic party, but while Johnson was evidently hungering for the flesh pots of Egypt, and desirous of returning to his old allegiance, Stanton had seen too clearly the opposition of his old party to the war, and the principles for which he had so manfully contended, to desire to hold farther communion with them. He supported with all the force of his character the following measures, all of which the President opposed and vetoed: the Freedmen's Bureau bill ; ) the Civil Rights bill; the bill granting suffrage without distinc- tion of color in the District of Columbia; the bill admitting Colorado as a State; and, generally, the reconstruction acts of Congress. It was evident that it was only a question of time,
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as to when M ... Johnson could most conveniently rid himself of this secretary, whom he feared as much as he hated, and hated as much as he feared. He tried slights, but they were lost upon the secretary ; when he "swung round the circle" he purposely avoided inviting Mr. Stanton to accompany him; but this was a relief to the secretary ; he held as little and as formal communication with him as possible, and to this. Mr. Stanton made no objection. Meantime, Congress, aware of the import- ance of retaining him in office, to foil and thwart Mr. Johnson's schemes for defeating their reconstruction measures, passed the Tenure of Office bill, in which especial provision was made for his retention in the War Department.
At length, on the 5th of August, 1867, Mr. Johnson mustered sufficient courage to send a note to Mr. Stanton requesting him to resign upon the alleged ground of public considerations of a high character, to which the secretary replied that " public con- siderations of a high character, which alone had induced him to remain at the head of this Department, constrained him not to resign before the next meeting of Congress." On the 13th of August, Mr. Johnson notified Mr. Stanton that he had sus- pended him from office, and appointed General Grant Secretary ad interim. Mr. Stanton surrendered the office to General Grant under protest, though, as was fully understood, with no personal feeling toward the general in the matter. On the assembling of Congress in November, 1867, they promptly demanded, of the President, an account of the measures he had taken in sus- pending Secretary Stanton from office. The reply came tardily, and offered but little real justification of his proceeding. The Senate, after fair deliberation, decided that the suspension was not justifiable, and that the secretary must be reinstated. General Grant promptly surrendered the office to him on the 13th of January, 1868, greatly to Mr. Johnson's vexation and chagrin
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and an angry correspondence between him and the general was the result. Secretary Stanton took charge of the Department, but the President would hold no communication with him, and endeavored to prevent General Grant from issuing his orders through him, but in vain. At length, on the 21st of February, President Johnson notified Mr. Stanton that he had removed him from office, and appointed General Lorenzo Thomas (adjutant-general of the army) Secretary ad interim, with orders to take possession of the office. Mr. Stanton refused to surren- der it, and General Thomas was arrested on the charge of violating the Tenure of Office act, but was discharged on his own recognizance. The violation of this act by Mr. Johnson filled up the cup of his offences against Congress, and he was promptly impeached by the House of Representatives, tried by the Senate, and while the impeachment articles were pending, he nominated Thomas Ewing, Sr., a venerable politician of Ohio, in his eightieth year, as Secretary of War, in place of Stanton, removed, but the Senate took no notice of the nomination. Secretary Stanton remained in office during the impeachment trial, but it was understood that he would decline continuing in that position after Mr. Johnson's conviction.
WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD.
ILLIAM HENRY SEWARD, the son of Dr. Samuel S. Seward, for seventeen years a county judge, and a man of more than ordinary business ability and practical philanthropy, was born at Florida, Orange county, New York, on the 16th of May, 1801. Manifesting from childhood an earnest love of knowledge and taste for study, he was sent, when nine years old, to Farmers' Hall Academy, at Goshen, in his native county. Rapidly advancing in his studies there, and at an academy afterwards established in his native town, he was fully prepared, at the age of fifteen, to enter college. Matricu- lating, as a sophomore, at Union College, in 1816, he manifested a peculiar aptitude for rhetoric, moral philosophy and the classics. In 1819, in his senior year, he spent some six months in teaching at the South, and, returning to college, graduated with high honors; being one of the three commencement ora- tors chosen by the college society, to which he belonged. The subject he selected was, "The Integrity of the American Union." Entering, soon after his graduation, the office of John Anthon, of New York city, he commenced the study of law, continuing and completing his preparation with John Duer and Ogde Hoffman, of Goshen, New York, with the latter of whom hr became associated in practice. In January, 1822, he was admi ted to the bar, and removing to Auburn, New York, formed
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partnership with Judge John Miller, of that place, whose young- est daughter became his wife in 1824. As a lawyer, his origi- nality of thought and action, as well as his great industry, soon brought him an extensive and lucrative practice. Politics also claimed much of his attention, and, as was natural, he followed in the political footsteps of his father, who was a prominent Jeffersonian Republican. In October, 1824, despite his youth, he was chosen to draw up the Address to the People of the Re- publican Convention of Cayuga county, which document was an exposure of the origin and designs of the Albany Regency. In 1827, he contributed largely, by his eloquent speeches, to the success of the popular movement in behalf of the Greeks, then struggling for their freedom. In 1828, he presided with distin- guished ability over a very large convention of young men favorable to the election of John Quincy Adams to the presi- dency, held at Utica, New York, and the same year declined a proffered nomination to Congress. When the National Repub- lican party was dissolved by Jackson's election as President, Mr. Seward fraternized with the Anti-Masonic organization, the only opposition then existing to the Albany Regency, and from that party accepted, in 1830, a nomination to the State Senate. He was elected by a majority of two thousand, in a district (the seventh) which had given a large majority the other way in the previous year. Scarcely thirty years old, he entered the Senate as the youngest member who had ever attained that honor, and found himself, politically, in a small minority, at a time when party lines were sharply defined. Yet he fearlessly entered the lists, throwing down the gauntlet to the Jackson power and the Albany Regency, taking part in all debates advocating the claims of abolition of imprisonment for debt, the amelioration of prison discipline, opposition to corporate monopolies, the exten- sion of the popular franchise, the common-school system, the
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Erie railroad and internal improvements, etc. His maiden speech was on a militia bill, in which he proposed, substantially, the same system of volunteer uniform companies as that at present in use in New York State; and during the second session of his term he delivered a speech in advocacy of a national bank, which, with others of similar import, gave rise (by con- centrating an opposition in the Senate) to what subsequently developed as the Whig party. In the summer of 1833, during the recess of the Senate, Mr. Seward made a hurried visit to Europe, adding largely to his reputation by the letters which he wrote home, and which were published in the Albany "Evening Journal." In September, 1834, he was nominated for governor by the Whig State Convention, against William L. Marcy, but was defeated, although running ahead of his ticket in every county. Resuming his practice, Mr. Seward, in 1836, settled in Chautauqua county, as the agent for the Holland Land Com- pany ; and, in 1838, was again nominated by the Whigs, and elected governor by ten thousand majority. In 1840, he was re-elected. During his administration occurred the celebrated anti-rent difficulties ; the Erie canal was enlarged; the State lunatic asylum was founded ; imprisonment for debt, and every vestige of slavery were eradicated from the statute-books; im- portant reforms were effected in elections, in prison discipline, in bank laws, and in legal courts. One of the most important events of his administration was the controversy with the Gov- ernors of Virginia and Georgia, in which the latter claimed from him the rendition of certain colored sailors, charged with having abducted slaves from said States. Governor Seward refused compliance, and argued the case with a firmness and ability which attracted the attention of the whole country; and when his course was denounced by the Democrats, after their accession to power, and he was requested to transmit their resolutions to
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