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 38
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connection with this lasted about ten years. While Mr. Ray- mond was connected with the "Courier and Enquirer," a sharp discussion sprang up in the public journals on the doctrine of Fourierism, which found a special champion in Mr. Greeley. Mr. Raymond espoused the adverse side, and a very spirited controversy on the subject ensued in the columns of their re- spective journals. The articles on both sides attracted much attention, and on the close of the discussion, they were collected and published in pamphlet form.
Mr. Raymond's career as a public man, outside of journalism, commenced in 1849, in which year he was elected by the Whigs of his district to the State Legislature. He at once took a very high position as a practical legislator and a prompt and effective debater. Re-elected the following year, he was chosen speaker of the Assembly, and discharged the duties of the office with marked ability and acceptance. He took an active part in the business of the session, and especially interested himself in the cause of common-school education and in the canal policy of the State.
In the spring of 1851, Mr. Raymond visited Europe, for the first time, for the benefit of his health, and travelled exten- sively in England and on the Continent. He returned to this country in August, and on the 18th of September, of the same year, published the first number of the "New York Times," a daily political newspaper, with which his name was to be thence- forth closely identified. The "Times" was then a folio sheet of less than half its present size. It was, from the start, conducted with signal ability, and at once took strong hold on public favor. At the end of the first year, it was enlarged to eight pages.
In 1852, Mr. Raymond attended the Whig National Con- vention at Baltimore, and on the nomination of the New York delegation, applied for a seat as a substitute for a regular
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delegate detained by sickness. Mr. Raymond being a supporter of General Scott, while the absentee, to whose place he had been appointed, was for Mr. Fillmore, a very sharp opposition to his admission arose, which grew into a very bitter personal controversy ; the southern delegates insisting on his exclusion, and a Georgia member having moved his expulsion for some- thing he was charged with having published in his paper. A personal collision sprung up between him and Mr. Cabell of Florida,-the latter resenting an expression Mr. Raymond had used, and declaring, with menacing tone and manner, that he "should not submit" to such language, to which Mr. Raymond replied, that he would submit to whatever, in contra- diction of such attacks as had been made upon him, he might choose to say. In connection with this personal collision, and in spite of strenuous and violent opposition to his being heard at all, Mr. Raymond made a strong and emphatic speech in expo sition and defence of the political sentiment of the North, in regard to the extension of slavery into the national territories, and the increasing magnitude of slave-power influences in the national government. The whole country was agitated at that time with the discussion of these grave questions, and Mr. Ray- mond's speech was regarded as indicative of the political policy which the North was thenceforth to adopt as its own.
The defeat of General Scott, the Whig candidate for the presidency, in the fall of 1852, hastened the disruption of the party with which Mr. Raymond had acted; and that some other political organization, based on the living questions of the day, must take its place before another presidential cam- paign, was evident to all discerning minds. The temperance ques- tion was widely agitated, especially in New York State, and at the same time, the Know-Nothing furor was making a clean sweep in the eastern and some of the other States. In 1854, while
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parties were still in their chaotic and formative state, Mr Raymond received the nomination for lieutenant-governor from the Whigs. The nomination was endorsed by the Anti- Nebraska, and the Temperance Conventions, and he was elected by a large majority over two opposing candidates. On the termination of his term of office, he declined the proffer of a nomination to the governorship of the State.
On the final disruption of the Whig party, Mr. Raymond took an active part in the movement that at length resulted in the consolidation of the free-soil elements in the Northern States into the political organization known as the Republican party. He drew up the first important political manifesto of the new party, an extended and elaborate vindication of the new move- ment, which was adopted on the 22d of February, 1856, by the Republican National Convention at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and published by that body as an " Address to the people." During the ensuing campaign, he addressed many public meet- ings throughout the Northern States in favor of Colonel Fremont, the Republican candidate for the presidency, whom he also ably supported in the columns of his journal.
In the summer of 1859, Mr. Raymond again visited Europe, and while in Italy witnessed the short and decisive campaign of the French against the Austrians. His account of the battle of Solferino, written on the spot during the progress of the action, was dispatched by a special courier to Havre, in season to catch ยท
the earliest mail for New York, where it arrived several days in advance of the English accounts.
In the hotly-contested and memorable presidential campaign of 1860, Mr. Raymond bore a conspicuous part : and both in his journal, and at public meetings in the Northern States, warmly advocated the election of Abraham Lincoln.
Mr. William L. Yancey, of Alabama, having made a series of able speeches through the North, intended to prepare the
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public mind for a secession movement, and to reconcile the people to its success, Mr. Raymond in four letters, addressed to him, con- tested his position, insisting that any attempt at secession would involve the nation in a war, which would inevitably result in the overthrow of the movement and the ruin of the South.
Through the same channels of public expression, he opposed the secession of the Southern States; and was through the whole of the rebellion a firm, steadfast, consistent, and hopeful supporter of the war, and of the Government measures for the restoration of the Union. The record of his public carcer during those long and trying years, is most honorable to him as an earnest patriot, and sagacious statesman. From the fall of Fort Sumter under the guns of Beauregard, to the surrender of General Lee, he never lost heart nor bated a jot of hope. During the darkest period of that long struggle, he never ceased to animate the courage of the people with predictions of a favorable result ; and his firmness, sagacity, and unwavering courage, at times when to less sanguine minds the country's cause seemed to have fallen beyond redemption, contributed largely toward creating the popular sentiment that sustained the Government through the war. The value of these services cannot be over-estimated, and can be appreciated by those only who recall the days and weeks of intense public depression and disappointment that followed the terrible disasters sustained by our armies during the first three years of the great struggle. His speech at Wilmington, Delaware, delivered November 6th, 1863, may be regarded as the key-note to his course during the war, and to his political action when the war was over. In that speech he maintained, with great force of argument, that the rebellion must be quelled, at any cost; that the Union must be restored; that the supremacy of the Constitution must be re-established over every foot of American soil; that all thought of compromise was utterly idle and hopeless; that the
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force by which alone the rebellion could be put down, must be wielded exclusively by the central Government, and that the administration must have the cordial and earnest support de- manded by the magnitude of the cause, in which the country was engaged. As he was addressing an audience in a slave State, he gave special attention to the charges brought against the Government, that the war, though professedly for the Union, was really waged for the abolition of slavery, and that upon the close of the war, the States would not be permitted to return to the Union, except under such conditions of inferiority, and such changed constitutions and laws as Congress might impose. He maintained, on the contrary, that with the war, the attempt at secession would end; that the failure of the war would be the failure of the attempt to go out of the Union, and that Congress had no power, under the Constitution, to destroy the right of every State to make its own laws, and control its own affairs. He held and proved that this was the ground steadily held by Mr. Lincoln's administration, and that it must continue to be the position of the Republican party. From these views Mr. Ray- mond has never deviated.
In 1861, Mr. Raymond was again elected to the Assembly. and on the 7th of January following, was chosen Speaker by a large majority, his opponent being Hon. Horatio Seymour.
In the fall of 1864, Mr. Raymond was elected to the XXXIXth Congress, from the sixth Congressional district of New York, and took his seat on the 4th of December, 1865. His course in Congress was that of a moderate Republican, equally opposed to the extreme Democrats and the extreme Radicals. Mr. Raymond has not escaped the charge so fre- quently and so heedlessly brought against prominent statesmen in Europe and America,-that of political inconsistency: in no instance more unjustly than in his. A careful survey of his political course, from the beginning of the war to the present
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time, will show that he has constantly adhered to his settled convictions of right; that he opposed secession and upheld the national Government ; that he fully sympathized with and sup- ported the lenient policy towards the conquered South, recom- mended by President Lincoln at the close of the war, and in his place in Congress, as well as through the columns of his journal, urged the adoption of that policy in opposition to the measures proposed by Mr. Stevens, Mr. Sumner, and other radical Repub- licans.
His first important speech in Congress was delivered on the 22d of December, 1865, against Mr. Stevens's theory of " dead States." Mr. Raymond maintained that, as the several ordi- nances of secession were nullities, in direct conflict with the supreme law of the land, the Southern States had never been out of the Union. They had tried, by force of arms, to sever their relations with the national Government, and had failed, and their attempt ended with the surrender of their armies. Holding these views, he would exact of them all needed guaran- tees for their future loyalty to the Constitution and laws of the United States, and for the proper care and protection of the freedmen. He would exercise a rigid scrutiny into the charac- ter and loyalty of the men whom they sent to Congress. But he would seek to allay rather than stimulate the animosities and hatreds to which the war had given rise, and refrain from inflicting upon them a policy of wholesale confiscation. These views Mr. Raymond reiterated and elaborated in his reply to Mr. Shellabarger, January 29th 1866, when he contended that Congress ought to regard the Southern States as having re- sumed, under the President's guidance and action, their functions of self-government in the Union, providing, however, for the admission of loyal Representatives and Senators to Congress, for the protection of the freedmen in all the rights of citizens,
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for the exclusion from Federal office of all the leading actors in the rebellion, and for such military measures as would ensure the peace of the Southern States during the period of settle- ment. In all the speeches made by Mr. Raymond on the subject of reconstruction, these and similar views were constant- ly expressed and enforced with the power of language and felicity of illustration, characteristic of his oratory. Consistent- ly with these opinions he opposed the bill reported by Mr. Stevens, from the Reconstruction Committee, to provide mili- tary governments for the Southern States. He held that the measure was the abnegation of all attempts to protect the people of the South by the ordinary exercise of civil authority. Since war, in every sense of the Constitution, in every sense of the law, had ceased in the Southern States, he would prefer the appointment of Civil Commissioners, by Congress, for each State, empowered to organize some sort of government, to be supported, if necessary, by the military forces. Such a plan, he thought, would be vastly preferable to the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus throughout the South, and the subjugation of the southern people to the military arm of the Government.
Aside from the question of reconstruction, Mr. Raymond took an active interest in the ordinary legislation of Congress. On the 10th of April, 1866, he brought the subject of the North American Fisheries before Congress, and called attention to the necessity of additional legislation to protect the rights and interests of American fishermen, imperilled by the abroga- tion of the reciprocity treaty with Canada. He was also strong- ly in favor of an appropriation of $6,000,000 by Congress, to aid in the construction of a ship canal around Niagara Falls. Mr. Washburne's bill to revive the grade of General, with the understanding that it should be bestowed on Grant, enlisted his warmest sympathy and support. His speech in favor of the
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bill, delivered on the 4th of May, 1866, was regarded as one of his finest efforts. He took a prominent part in the debate on Mr. Morrill's Internal Revenue bill; and in a long and able speech, delivered May 7th, 1866, set forth the principles which he thought should govern all legislation on this subject.
The project of a National Union Convention (held at Phila- delphia, August 14th, 1866,) was advocated and sustained by Mr. Raymond. Believing that Congress did not fully represent the wishes of the country, in regard to the question of recon- struction, he favored the idea of appealing directly to the people for a more authoritative expression of their views. Con- sultation with eminent members of the Republican party, strengthened this belief. On the 18th of June, he took occasion to speak again on the conditional admission of the Southern States to representation in Congress, reiterating, in the most emphatic manner, the views he had already expressed, and main- taining the duty and the necessity of nationalizing the Repub- lican party, so as to give it the command of the sympathies of Union- loving men in every part of the Republic, and a broader base of liberality, that would enable it to hold a position before the people from which nothing could drive it. These views formed the basis of the call for the Convention, which was issued at Washington, June 25th, 1866, by the Executive Committee of the Union National Club. It was signed by A. W. Randall, J. R. Doolittle, O. H. Browning, Edgar Cowan, Charles Knapp and Samuel Fowler, and endorsed by James Dixon, T. A. Hen- dricks, Daniel S. Norton and J. W. Nesmith. The Convention was held at the time appointed, and was attended by delegates from all the States and Territories of the United States. The proceedings were enthusiastic and harmonious. An Address and Declaration of Principles, drawn up by Mr. Raymond, were unanimously adopted by the Convention. But the Republican
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party was suspicious of the movement, fearing a compromise with the South, if not the surrender of some vital principle; and as few Republican journals of prominence gave it their sup- port, it failed to exert any lasting influence on the councils of the party. Mr. Raymond was vehemently assailed by the party journals for his share in the movement, and accused of treachery to his principles and the party that placed him in office; yet it is difficult for the impartial historian to discern sufficient grounds for this charge, or to discover any contradiction between the principles enunciated in the Philadelphia Address and those ex- pressed by Mr. Raymond in all his speeches on reconstruction, in Congress, and advocated in the columns of his journal.
Since his retirement from Congress, having declined the re- nomination which was pressed upon him by prominent men of both parties, Mr. Raymond has withdrawn from active partici- pation in politics, and has devoted himself exclusively to his editorial duties. President Johnson offered him the mission to Austria, in 1867 ; but his name was sent to the Senate without his consent, and although he had informed the President that he could not accept the appointment. Mr. Raymond is in no strict sense of the word a party man, and he claims the right to act on all public questions in accordance with his own convictions, irrespective of party ties or party platforms. His tastes, his habits, are literary, and his culture is scholarly and liberal. Few men, even among editors, possess his facility in composi- tion. He perceives the points of a subject at a glance, thinks rapidly and clearly, and writes with extraordinary ease. Nor is his the fatal facility of mere words; his editorials are always clear, incisive, logical, and wholly free from the circumlocution which is the besetting sin of so many writers for the American press. He never overloads his ideas with words, and never uses words to conceal his meaning. His style is a model for every
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one who aspires to be a journalist-sharp, concise, unambiguous, yet not wanting in lightness and the graces of fancy and of wit. Devoted to the interests of his journal, Mr. Raymond has found but little leisure for other literary labors. He has written a biography of Abraham Lincoln, first published, in 12mo., in 1864. A second edition, so greatly enlarged as to be almost a new work, appeared the following year. Besides this, his publi- cations have been political speeches and literary orations.
Mr. Raymond's talents as a public speaker are of the very highest order. His enunciation is rapid, but perfectly distinct ; his voice clear and resonant, and his gesticulation easy and graceful. He possesses a rare faculty for the logical arrange- ment of his thoughts, and the proper division of his subject, without the labor of long preparation; and hence he rarely hes- itates for a word or phrase, even when speaking without notes. He is one of the few public speakers of this country who always draw an audience, whether the occasion be literary or political
CORNELIUS VANDERBILT.
HE name of CORNELIUS VANDERBILT is inseparably asso- ciated with the commercial history of the country, with the rapid growth and development of our mer- cantile navy, and, more lately, with our great national railway interests. With a steadiness and rapidity almost romantic he has pushed his way to a position in which he wields an immense influence over the material interests of his native land, and his energy, enterprise, and genius, are recognized the world over. From his ancestors, who were of the good old Holland stock which, over two centuries ago, settled that portion of the New Netherlands now known as New York State, he seems to have inherited the sturdy Knicker- bocker habits of industry which have so remarkably charac- terized his career. His father, whose name was also Cornelius, was a well-to-do farmer on Staten Island, in New York harbor, the island being, at that time, divided into large estates which were generally farmed by their owners, with especial reference to the supply of the city markets. In those days, almost every Islander kept his own boat for the purpose of carrying his farm products to the city ; and as the inhabitants increased and more extended facilities for communication became necessary, Mr. Vanderbilt fell into the custom, at times, of conveying to New York those who had no boat of their own. Out of this, and the
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demand for some public and regular communication, grew up a ferry, which he established in the form of a " perriauger," which departed for the city every morning and returned every after- noon. To this farmer-ferryman was born, on the 27th day of May, 1794, a son, the subject of this sketch-and, even as a babe, full of voice, will, and muscle. As infancy merged into boyhood, these characteristics developed more distinctly into a restless activity of mind and body which seemed to take a strongly practical turn. Old paths of thought and action, and the teachings of books and schools, were (much to the chagrin of his parents) neglected, and he intuitively sought to draw his knowledge from Nature herself, whose wondrous book, so full of infinite knowledge and suggestions, claimed all his thoughts and time, frequently even to the exclusion of his meals. At the age of sixteen he made his first step into the world of activity and independent life in which he was ulti- mately to hold so regal a sway. Living upon the Island, and being of necessity much upon the water, he early developed a fondness for that kind of life, as affording the widest scope for his ambition. He, naturally enough, wished to have a sail-boat of his own, and soon made known the desire to his father. Thinking him yet too young and inexperienced to have the sole control of a boat, his father sought to discourage him- but, finally, yielding to his importunate pleadings, he gave a qualified promise to furnish him with the necessary purchase- money, provided he would accomplish a certain amount of work upon the farm. The "stent" given, was no slight affair, as the father probably intended by it to foil his son's project ; and the latter soon found that it would require more time than he could well afford to bestow upon it, with his enterprise delayed. The boy's wit, however, did not fail him in this emergency-in his father's absence he summoned to his aid all his
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young companions in the neighborhood, with whom he was a favorite, and by their heartily-rendered assistance the allotted task was soon completed. Reporting the successful accomplith- ment to his mother, he claimed the reward-but was met with dissuasives, for her aversion to the proposed business was equal to that of her husband. Remonstrances, however, were use- less-and fearful lest his determined will, if thwarted in this matter, might lead him to the still more to be dreaded alterna- tive of running away to sea-the sum of a hundred dollars was placed in his hands. Quickly hastening to the Port Richmond shore, he at once purchased a boat, which he had previously selected, joyfully took possession of his long coveted prize, and full of brilliant visions of future successes, set sail for home. But, alas, as the little boat, freighted with so many hopes, sped through the waves, it struck on a rock in the kills and the new fledged captain was barely able to run his vessel ashore before she sank. Nothing daunted, however, the boy sought the needed assistance, speedily had the damage repaired, and, in a few hours later, brought his little craft, all safe and sound, alongside the Stapleton dock. He had now, in a measure, cut loose from his father's care; and, as the owner and captain of a boat, had fairly launched upon life's broad sea, as a man of business. Older heads, and older and established reputations were to be competed with-and the boy-captain had the sense to see, and the courage to prove, that he who would make headway in the world's strife, must do so with stout heart and strong arm-working, not waiting, for coy Fortune's gifts. He was no idler-straightway he made vigorous attempts to secure business, and met with extraordinary success. He soon found plenty of remunerative employment in carrying, to and from New York, the workmen employed upon the fortifications then in process of construction, by the General Government, upon
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Staten and Long Islands. Amid all his success, however, his manly spirit of independence was not satisfied until, by scrupu- lous and daily saving, from his first earnings, he was ena- bled to repay to his mother the hundred dollars she had given him. The boy had, indeed, taken hold of life in earnest- grasping its stern realities with a spirit far beyond his years. Among the self-imposed rules with which he sought to regulate his life, and which serve to show a fixedness of purpose as invariable as the circuit of the sun, was a determination to spend less every week than he earned. This careful manage- ment soon produced its legitimate results, and ere long he was enabled to purchase another vessel of larger dimensions, and thus considerably to extend his business. And so he went on, until his eighteenth birthday found him part owner and captain of one of the largest perriaugers in the harbor of New York, and he shortly after became interested in one or two smaller boats engaged in the same business. His life, at this time, was a most active one, spent almost entirely upon the water, carry- ing freight and passengers, boarding ships, and doing every thing which came to his hand. In addition to all this vigorous day-work, he undertook and continued, through the whole war of 1812, to furnish supplies by night to one of the forts on the Hudson and another at the Narrows. It is said of him that " his energy, skill and daring became so well known, and his word, when he gave it, could be relied upon so implicitly, that Corneile, the boatman, as he was familiarly called, was sought after far and near, when any expedition particularly hazardous or important was to be undertaken. Neither wind, rain, ice, nor snow ever prevented his fulfilling one of his promises. At one time during the war (sometime in September, 1813), the British fleet had endeavored to penetrate the port during a severe southeasterly storm, just before day, but were repulsed
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