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 37
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Though one of the youngest members of the House, the lead- ing men in it were not slow in discovering his superior abilities, and, at the beginning of the XXXVIIIth Congress, he was made Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, in many respects the most important committee of the House, though such men as George S. Boutwell, of Massachusetts, and Thomas Williams, of Pennsylvania, were members of the committee. The event has justified Speaker Colfax's selection.
Mr. Wilson has manifested rare ability in this position, and rarely reports a bill which does not pass the House. In his political views, he is radical, yet cautious, but stern and uncom- promising in regard to matters which he believes to be right. He has a rare faculty of seizing on the strong points of a case, and presenting them with such clearness and force as to insure conviction. He has usually done this in all the great measures he has brought forward from his committee in the House.
In his argument for granting impartial suffrage in the District of Columbia, he urged the early practice of the colonies, and most of the original States, in permitting colored suffrage, the causes which led to their apostacy from this; the low grade of
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Union feeling among the white inhabitants and voters of the District, and the true principle of legislation on suffrage, and closed with the following appeal to the House :
" And now, Mr. Speaker, who are the persons upon whom this bill will operate if we shall place it upon the statute-book of the nation ? They are citizens of the United States and resi- dents of the District of Columbia. It is true that many of them have black faces; but that is God's work, and he is wiser than we. Some of them have faces marked by colors uncertain; that is not God's fault. Those who hate black men most in- tensely can tell more than all others about this mixture of colors. But, mixed or black, they are citizens of this republic, and they have been, and are to-day, true and loyal to their Govern- ment, and this is vastly more than many of their contemners can claim for themselves.
"In this district a white skin was not the badge of loyalty, while a black skin was. No traitor breathed the air of this capital wearing a black skin. Through all the gradations of traitors, from Wirz to Jeff. Davis, criminal eyes beamed from white faces. Through all phases of treason, from the bold stroke of Lee upon the battle-field to the unnatural sympathy of those who lived within this district, but hated the sight of their country's flag, runs the blood which courses only under a white surface. While white men were fleeing from this city to join their fortunes with the rebel cause, the returning wave brought black faces in their stead. White enemies went out, black friends came in. As true as truth itself were these poor men to the cause of this imperilled nation. Wherever we have trusted them they have been true. Why will we not deal justly by them ? Why shall we not, in this district, where the first effective legislative blow fell upon slavery, declare that these suffering, patient, devoted friends of the republic, shall have
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the power to protect their own rights by their own ballots ? Is it because they are ignorant ? Sir, we are estopped from that plea. It comes too late. We did not make this inquiry in regard to the white voter. It is only when we see a man with a dark skin that we think of ignorance. Let us not stand on this view in relation to this district. The fact itself is rapidly passing away, for there is no other part of the popula- tion of the district so diligent in the acquisition of knowledge as the colored portion. In spite of the difficulties placed in their pathway to knowledge by the white residents, the colored people, adults and children, are steadily pressing on." He finished by urging the passage of the bill, which he secured a few days later by a vote of more than two thirds.
On the trial of Andrew Johnson upon the articles of im- peachment preferred against him by the House of Representa- tives, Mr. Wilson was chosen one of the managers of the trial, and in a closing argument of great force and pertinence, demon- strated the guilt of the President.
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HON. ROSCOE CONKLING.
UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM NEW YORK.
HEN, some years since, the Representative of the twenty- first Congressional District of New York was declared, by a majority of his peers, to have been guilty of corruption, and to be unworthy of a seat with them, the Republican voters of that district, one of the most intelligent and refined in the state, looked about them for a man of integrity and purity of character who should fully represent their sentiments in the national legislature. Such a man they found speedily ; a young man but little more than thirty years of age, but of highly cultivated intellect, staunch integrity, an eminent advo- cate, and at that time mayor of Utica, the chief city of the district. They elected him; and, young as he was, he speedily made his mark, in three Congresses of remarkable ability, taking a position with the foremost, in the fervor of his patriot- ism, the clearness of his perceptions, the soundness of bis judg- ment, and his eloquence as a debater, and at the close of his six years' service in the House of Representatives, though re-elected from his district, he was transferred by the Legislature of his native State, to a seat in the United States Senate, previously occupied by one of the most eminent jurists of New York.
ROSCOE CONKLING (for it is he of whom we speak), was born at Albany, New York, October 30, 1829 ; he was a younger son of Hon. Alfred Conkling, a member of the XVIIth Congress,
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and subsequently judge of the United States District Court, for the Northern District of New York, for twenty-seven years, and in 1852-5, United States minister to Mexico ; he received a very thorough academic education in the Albany academy, and in 1846, removed to Utica, where he studied and practiced law, and when but twenty-one years of age, was appointed district attorney for Oneida county. In 1858, he was elected mayor of Utica, by a heavy majority. During the autumn of the same year, he was nominated for Congress from the twenty-first district, to succeed O. B. Matteson. He was carried in by a large majority, and though the youngest member of the House, attained speedily to a very prominent position in that body, as a fearless, eloquent, and accomplished debater. He was re- elected in 1860, and still added to his reputation. He was chairman of the Committee on the District of Columbia, and on a Bankrupt Law. In 1862, New York was so far faithless to her principles as to elect a Democratic Administration, Horatio Seymour, Mr. Conkling's brother-in-law, being chosen governor ; and a professed war Democrat, but real Copperhead, elected to Congress from the twenty-first district to the XXXVIIIth Congress. But the people of that district were dissatisfied, and, in 1864, they re-elected Mr. Conkling by a heavier majority than ever before. During the two years that he was out of Congress, Mr. Conkling was requested by the attorney-general to aid in the prosecution of some gross frauds which had been committed in that district, in regard to the enlistments and bounties to soldiers. He entered upon the work with his usual ardor and zeal, and succeeded in unearthing a most astounding system of frauds. By this act, he rendered a great service to the nation, for which he received the thanks of the War Depart- ment, but he had incurred the hostility of the "Ring," which determined thenceforward to crush him. The opportunity did
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not occur until the summer of 1866, when, as he was nominated again for Congress, a man of large wealth, previously a Republi . can, determined to run in opposition to him, and to defeat him, if it could be accomplished by money. Mr. Conkling at once announced his intention to canvass the district in person, and did so, speaking in every village and town of the county, and was re-elected by an increased majority. The Republican Legislature which met in January, 1867, elected Mr. Conkling United States Senator for six years, from March 4, 1867, to succeed Hon. Ira Harris. In the Senate, Mr. Conkling has taken a high position, and is regarded as one of the most sub- stantial and able of the radical Senators.
A single passage from one of Mr. Conkling's speeches, will serve to show his earnestness, the intensity of his convictions, and the ability with which he presents them. The occasion was this; Tennessee had been restored to the Union, and her loyal Representatives and one Senator sworn in. The other Senator, Judge Patterson, a son-in-law of President Johnson, was, it was thought, from the fact of his having, though a Union man, held office under the rebel government, unable to take the test oath prescribed for all Senators and Representatives, and the Senate had passed a joint resolution to omit in his ease, from the test oath, these words: "That I have neither sought nor accepted, nor attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatever, under any authority, or pretended authority, in hostility to the United States." This resolution was immediately sent to the House of Representatives for their consideration. Messrs. May- nard and Taylor of Tennessee advocated it, and Mr. Stokes, also of Tennessee, and Mr. Conkling of New York, opposed it. The closing passage of Mr. Conkling's speech was as follows :
"We are asked to drive a plough-share over the very foundation of our position; to break down and destroy the
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bulwark by which we may secure the results of a great war and a great history, by which we may preserve from defilement this place, where alone in our organism the people never lose their supremacy, except by the recreancy of their Representatives ; a bulwark without which we may not save our Government from disintegration and disgrace. If we do this act, it will be a precedent which will carry fatality in its train. From Jefferson Davis, to the meanest tool of despotism and treason, every rebel may come here, and we shall have no reason to assign against his admission, except the arbitrary reason of numbers. I move, sir, that the joint resolution be laid on the table." It was laid on the table, by a vote of eighty-eight to thirty-one; and the same day, Judge Patterson, having discovered that he could ake the test oath, was sworn in by the Vice-President, and the joint resolution laid over forever.
MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN A. LOGAN.
OHN ALEXANDER LOGAN, justly styled " the Murat of the Union army," was born near the present town of Murphysboro, Jackson county, in Illinois, on the 9th of February, 1826. His father, Dr. John Logan, came from Ireland to Illinois, in 1823 ; his mother, Elizabeth Jenkins, was a Tennessean, and John was the eldest of their family of eleven children. Schools were scarce in Illinois, during his boy hood, so that he was indebted for most of his early education to his father, or to such itinerant teachers as chanced to visit the new settlement-and it was not until 1840, that he attended an academy, bearing the pretentious title of "Shiloh college." At the commencement of the Mexican war, young Logan, then in his twentieth year, volunteered, and was chosen lieutenant in a company of the first Illinois volunteers ; bearing a conspicuous part in the service of the regiment, of which, for a portion of the time, he was adjutant. Returning home in October, 1848, he commenced the study of law in the office of his uncle, Alexander M. Jenkins, formerly lieutenant-governor of Illinois, and while thus employed, was elected, in November, 1849, clerk of his native county, holding the office until 1850. During that year, he attended a course of law studies at Louisville, receiving his diploma in 1851, and commencing the practice of his pro- fession with his uncle. ITis practical mind, pleasing address,
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and rare abilities as a public speaker, speedily rendered him a general favorite, and, in 1852, he was elected prosecuting attor- ney of the then third judicial district, and established his resi- dence at Benton, Illinois. During the autumn of the same year, he was elected to represent Jackson and Franklin counties, in the State Legislature; married in 1856; was chosen presidential elector for the ninth Congressional district, in May, 1856, and in the following fall was re-elected to the Legislature. In 1858, the Democracy of the ninth Congressional district elected him to Congress by a large majority, and re-elected him, again, in 1860. At the first intimation of coming trouble, he boldly asserted that, although he thought and hoped that Mr. Lincoln would not be elected to the presidency ; yet, if he were, he would "shoulder his musket to have him inaugurated." During the winter of 1860, his county having been thrown out of his old district and added to another, he removed his resi- dence to Marion, Williamson county, in order that he might still be in his district.
In July, 1861, during the extra session of Congress, Mr. Logan, fired with the enthusiasm of the hour, left his seat, over- took the troops which were marching out of Washington to meet the enemy, joined himself to Colonel Richardson's regi- ment, secured a musket and a place in the ranks, and, at the disastrous battle of Bull Run, fought with distinguished bravery, and was among the last to leave the field. Returning to his home, at Marion, in the latter part of August, he addressed his fellow-citizens, on the 3d of September, announcing his intention to enter the service of the Government, " as a private, or in any capacity in which he could serve his country best, in defending the old blood-stained flag over every foot of soil in the United States." His eloquence and high personal reputation rallied friends and neighbors around him, and, on the 13th of Septem-
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ber, 1861, the thirty-first Illinois volunteers was organized, and he was chosen colonel. The regiment was attached to General McClernand's brigade; and, seven weeks later, at Belmont, made its first fight, during which Colonel Logan had a horse shot under him, and his pistol, at his side, shattered by rebel bullets. He led the thirty-first, also, at Fort Henry, and, again, at Fort Donelson, where he received a very severe wound, which, aggravated by exposure, disabled him for some time from active service. Reporting, again, for duty to General Grant, at Pittsburgh Landing, he was shortly after, March 5th, 1862, made brigadier-general of volunteers ; took a distinguished part in the movement against Corinth, in May, and, after the occupation of that place, guarded, with his brigade, the rail- road communications with Jackson, Tennessee, of which place he was subsequently given the command.
In the summer of 1862, he was warmly urged by his numer- ous friends and admirers to become a candidate, again, for Congress, but declined in a letter of glowing patriotism, in which he said,-"I have entered the field to die, if need be, for this Government, and never expect to return to peaceful pursuits, until the object of this war of preservation has become a fact established." During Grant's Northern Mississippi cam- paign, 1862 and '63, Logan led his division, exhibiting great skill in the handling of troops, and was honored with a promo- tion as major-general of volunteers, dating from November 29th, 1862. He was afterwards assigned to the command of the third division, seventeenth army corps, under General McPherson, and bore a part in the movement upon Vicksburg; contributing to the victory at Port Gibson, and saving the day, by his desperate personal bravery, May 12th, at the battle of Raymond, which General Grant designated as " one of the hardest small battles of the war;" participated in the defeat and routing of
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the rebels at Jackson, May 14th, and in the battle of Cham- pion's Hill, May 16th.
At the siege of Vicksburg, he commanded McPherson's centre, opposite Fort Hill, the key to the rebel works, and his men made the assault after the explosion of the mine, June 25th. His column was the first to enter the surrendered city, on the 4th of July, 1863, and he was made its military governor. His valor was fitly recognized in the presentation made to him, by the board of honor of the seventeenth army corps, of a gold medal, inseribed with the names of the nine battles in which he had participated. Having thoroughly inaugurated the adminis- tration of affairs at Vicksburg, he spent a part of the summer of 1863 in a visit to the North, frequently addressing large assemblages of his fellow-citizens, in speeches of fiery eloquence, and burning zeal and devotion to the cause of the Union.
In November, 1863, he succeeded General Sherman in the com- inand of the fifteenth army corps, spending the following winter at Huntsville, Alabama; joining, in May, 1864, the Grand Military Division of the Mississippi, which, under General Sherman, was preparing for its march into Georgia. He led the advance of the Army of the Tennessee in the movement at Resaca, taking part in the battle which followed, and, still moving on the right, met and repulsed Hardee's veterans at Dallas, on the 23d of May; drove the enemy from three lines of works, at Kenesaw Mountain, and again, on the 27th of June, made a desperate assault against the impregnable face of Little Kenesaw. On the 22d of July, at the terrible battle of Peach Tree ereek, Logan, fighting at one moment on one side of his works, and the next on the other, was informed of the death, in another part of the field, of the beloved General MePherson. Assuming the temporary command, Logan dashed impetuously from one end to the other of his hardly-pressed lines, shouting
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" McPherson and revenge !" His emotion communicated itself to the troops with the rapidity of electricity, and eight thousand rebel dead left upon the field, at nightfall, bore mute witness to their love for the fallen chief and the bravery of his successor Conspicuous, again, at the obstinate battle of Ezra Chapel, July 28th, he and his troops co-operated in the remaining bat- tles of the campaign, until the fall of Atlanta, September 2d, when they went into summer-quarters. After a few months spent in stumping the Western States, during the presidential campaign of 1864, General Logan rejoined his corps, at Savan- nah, Georgia, shared the fatigues and honors of Sherman's march through the Carolinas, and, after Johnston's surrender, marched to Alexandria, and participated with his brave veterans in the great review of the national armies at Washington, May 23d, being advanced, on the same day, to the command of the Army of the Tennessee, upon the appointment of General Howard to other duties.
In 1865, General Logan was appointed minister to Mexico, but declined the honor, and was elected to the XLth Congress, from the State at large, as a Republican, receiving two hundred and three thousand and forty-five votes, against one hundred and forty-seven thousand and fifty-eight, given for his Demo- cratic opponent. Lately, he has taken a prominent part, as one of the managers of the House, in the impeachment trial of President Johnson.
Mentally, morally, and physically, Logan is a splendid speci- men of a man. An active, liberal, well trained mind, a noble, frank, and generous disposition, a heart full of honest impulse and patriotic devotion to the right, are joined to a well-knit, muscular frame, a strongly marked countenance, and a " pre- sence," which commands respect, and challenges admiration and confidence.
HON. HENRY J. RAYMOND.
ENRY JARVIS RAYMOND was born in the village of Lima, Livingston county, New York, on the 24th of Jan- uary, 1820. His father was a small farmer, a hard-work- ing, frugal, conscientious man, enjoying among his neighbors a high reputation for integrity and sound judgment, and disposed to give his children the best education which his limited means would allow. The subject of this sketch seconded his father's wishes and efforts in this respect, partly by an entire inaptitude, physical and mental, for the severe labors of the farm-though he spent a good many days, in the earlier years of his life, in efforts to perform them-and partly by a very decided taste for reading and for study, which he took every opportunity to gratify. Like all men who accomplish any thing in life, he had a mother of more than common ability-of great clearness of judgment, directness of purpose, and firmness of character-and whatever of these qualities he has displayed, are doubtless inherited from her. Beginning at the district school in the immediate vicinity of his father's house, and continuing his English studies in the village academy, he began the study of Latin and algebra, in 1833, at the Genesee Wesleyan semi- nary, without any definite purpose as to his future course; but after spending six months in a village store, and three more in teaching a district school at Scottsville, in Monroe country, pro
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cured for him by his devoted school friend, Mr. Alexander Mann, afterwards editor of the "Rochester American" and the "Albany Register," he entered the University of Vermont, in the summer of 1836, and graduated, at the head of his elass in all branches, four years later. After spending some weeks in fruitless efforts to find a school, in the neighborhood of home, which needed his services, he determined to try his fortunes in New York city, where the only two persons he had ever seen before were Mr. Mann, then a law student in Wall street, and Mr. Horace Gree- ley, whom he had but once met in Albany, and to whose weekly newspaper-the "New Yorker," he had been a frequent contribu- tor, mainly of literary criticism, during his college course. He entered at once upon the study of the law in the office of Mr. E. W. Marsh, but was compelled to devote a good deal of his time to earning a living, which he did by teaching a Latin class in a classical school, by writing for the "New Yorker," at first without any remuneration, and by that unfailing resort of lit- erary beginners in New York-correspondence with the country press. The first editor who engaged his services in that capacity was Mr. E. D. Mansfield, then editor of the "Cincinnati Chron- icle," and since, perhaps, better known as the " Veteran Observer" of the " New York Times," who paid him five dollars a week for daily news letters to his journal. Meantime, he received an offer of a school in North Carolina at four hundred dollars a year ; but as Mr. Greeley offered him the same for his services on the "New Yorker," he declined the first offer, and remained in New York. In April, 1841, Mr. Greeley started the " Tribune," and retained Mr. Raymond's services, which at once became of a very miscellaneous character, as the staff of a newspaper at that day was by no means what it has since become.
He immediately won distinction in this position by his extra ordinary intellectual activity, his indefatigable powers of appli-
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cation, his readiness and dispatch, and his aptitude for every duty pertaining to the profession of a journalist. He was equally ready at penning an editorial, or reporting a speech or lecture. At that time, the system of American newspaper reporting was in a crude condition ; Mr. Raymond contributed largely towards correcting its imperfections and bringing it up to its present efficiency. Aside from his strictly editorial duties, he infused new life into this important department of journalism by the accuracy, the dispatch, and the literary excellence of his reports of public meetings, lectures, and political speeches and addresses.
At about that time, Dr. Lardner delivered a series of popular lectures on scientific subjects, which were soon after followed by another series, by Dr. Lyell, on geology, both of which were reported in full, with diagrams and illustrations, by Mr. Ray- mond, for the " Tribune," and as he was fresh from his collegiate studies, and thus more familiar with the technical terms em- ployed in these lectures, he was able to give his reports a degree of accuracy and completeness which won them great popularity and no little distinction for himself. His industry was untiring and his devotion to his work incessant. Mr. Greeley, in the " Recollections of a Busy Life," which he has recently published, through the columns of the " New York Ledger," pays him a very high and emphatic compliment on this point.
In 1843, Mr. Raymond quitted the " Tribune" to accept an editorial position on the New York " Courier and Enquirer," con- ducted by Mr. James Watson Webb. This position he held until 1851, when he resigned it, in consequence of a personal disagreement with the proprietor. Four years previously, he had proposed to Messrs. Harper & Brothers, whose "reader" and literary adviser he had been for some years, to start a monthly magazine, which he edited from the beginning. His
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