History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 84

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advocates ta troubled times, when wisdoms steeds book fearful of rezpsa- dibility, ned empty, bistsat folly rushes forward to offer counsel. Bach times we are files upes, ned car caly safety-the ark indeed of car safety-to the Constitution.'

" With what trembling amasemsent the costtil of the Senate must have heard this indignant condemnation of their conduct, this spontaneous outburst of patriotism, of trrepressible integrity, of almighty truth, coming, too, from Fannoylvaals, from a Republican, one of the chiefent among them, bet not Hke them, to publie funderer, no diave of the Executive, no deputy of despotiom, no enemy of his fellow-citisees, no perjared traitor, bet a man, strong, feriem, sad pare, ready to rebuke wrong, sad impelled by his very nature to vindicate right against all silents, exhibiting the occasional weakness of kassa frailty coly ta efforts to save those who are predestined to be politically demned, ned to preserve connection with a rotten party fet drifting to destruction. " Thus, sad many times, car Senator

On cars abased by falsehood truths of power In words Immortal,-not auch worde as flach From the force demagogue's unthinking rogo, To madden for a moment and expire, Nor such as the rapt orator tmnbecs With warmth of folle sympathy, and mewide To mirrors radiant with fir images, To grace the noble fervor of an hour, Bat words which bear the spirit of great deeds Wing'd for the future.'

"The people of Pennsylvania cherish high hopes of the future of Mr. Cowan. Many of them look to him with confidence as the champion of their rights. For ourselves, moved only by the desire to do impartial justice to all men, we are prepared to condemn or commend according to the course which the senator may hereafter pursue."

We quote from the noted English novel, entitled "The Dobbe Family in America," written by the cor- respondent for the Maxwell Publishing Company of London. The book was published in London in 1865, and has the following concerning the scholarly senator from Pennsylvania :

"The tall, fine-looking gentleman, with keen gray eyes and aquiline nose, is Edgar Cowan, of Pennsylvania. A short time ago I heard one of his brother senators sey that he was the most talented man who ever came to Onngress from Pennsylvania. This is the opinion, too, of one opposed to him in politics, and therefore more entitled to credence thea if it were the expression of a partisan. Senator Cowan has come up from the people. At a very early age he was thrown upon his own resources, and has by bis indomitable will and talents mounted to his present post- tion. He is the fullest man in this chamber. Although his specialty is the law, it would be difficult to name a science that he is not more or lem soquainted with. Nothing delights him more than to tackle with mee of science who are able to throw the ball with him, then the riches of bis well-stored mind are displayed in profusion. Let the subject be what it may, he always touches bottom. He has the appearance of an indo- lent man, but is really an industrious one.

"In the casual or running debate that frequently occurs here he does not speak with fluency. There is a degree of besitancy in selecting or finding his words which falls unpleasantly on the car, but as soon as ho is fully aroused all impediment is removed, and his words roll out in well-rounded sentences, the voice full and deep. Some of his tones are disagreeable and harsh, but his voice has greater volume, when he chooses to employ it, than that of any other senator here.

" His style in one point, classic illustrations, is not unlike that of the Boston senator, Mr. Sumner, but in other respects it is more vigorous and logical than Sumner's. Cowan is practical and argumentative, a wrangler by profession ; Sumner is impractical and visionary, a weaver of finely-spun notions. Sumner lacks determination ; Cowan is as brave as Julius Caesar. The one is rhetorical without being wordy, the other is rhetorical and verbose. The style of the Pennsylvania senator istym- metrical, while that of Sumner is inflated and pompous. But they are both fond of tradition and classic lore; here they meet un common ground.

" When Cowan gets well into his subject his face becomes pale and his attitude striking, and he is truly eloquent. He isa conscientious, high-

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minded man, who dares to do what is right regardless of consequences. He has never pandered to the views of cliques or factions, but always shown himself bold and independent, never flinching, but always fairly grappling with the question."

The following is part of an editorial from the New- ark (N. J.) Daily Journal :

EDGAR COWAN.

"In point of intellectual and moral status Edgar Cowan is to-day the giant of the United States Senate. Elected as a Republican by the Logis- lature of Pennsylvania, he has fearlessly, and with a degree of dignity seldom equaled and certainly never surpassed by any statesman of the land, done what he considered to be right, and that in the face, time and again, of party diction.

"In this Congress there are few men, indeed, who can bear more than . Liliputian significance when compared with the ripe statesmen of the Clay, Webster, and Douglas school; but Senator Cowan is a towering and noticeable exception to the rule. An independent and original thinker, . profound, logical, sound lawyer, an able and powerful debater, he is the marked man of the United States Senate.

" His views on all subjects command great respect, and elicit, even from the disunionista, an attention worthy of their force and power. He is a strict opnetiiational constructionist. While watching with argus-eye the interests of thesovereign State of Pennsylvania, he never is unmind- ful of the rights of all the States. His earnest appeal is over ready to redress a wrong, be it against the North or South, the East or West."

The following is from a Lancaster paper :

"Of course we do not class Mr. Cowan with the Radicals. He is in every sense of the word a national man, and one of the wisest and ablest statesmen of the present day. He was elected as a Republican in the winter of 1861, and took his seat on the 4th of March of that year. Mr. Cowan, though recognized as one of the ablest lawyers and best stump- speakers of this State, was not known outside of Pennsylvania at the time of his election, and even here he was little known as a politician, except in his own section of the State. He had never sought office, had never occupied any official position, and had never filled the role usual to seeking itinerant politicians. Those who knew him best know him as a scholar, as a lawyer, as a profound political thinker, as an honest, bold, outspoken man; and they expected and predicted that he would take high rank, even in so exalted a body as the Senate of the United States.

" Those expectations and predictions bave been abundantly fulfilled. Mr. Cowan took his seat in the Senate just at the outbreak of the war, at a time when this nation was entering upon a struggle in which both its material strength and the statesinanship of its public men were to be subjected to the severest ordeal. The military power of the rebels was not the only obstacle to be overcome. As is the case in all revolutionary periods, there was great danger to be apprehended from the excesses of excited feeling. In a crisis such as that through which we have just passed that public man is to be esteemed the wisest and most truly pa- triotic who breasts popular opinion when he finds it taking a wrong direction, and employs all the might that is in his whole nature to pro- tect the Constitution of his country and to preserve the majesty of its laws inviolate.

"Fully as much as any man in the Senate of the United States, Mr. Cowan has proved himself to be possessed of this the highest quality of . great statesman. He not only showed himself to be perfectly familiar with the Constitution of the United States, able to comprehend fully all ita provisions, and alive to the necessity of adhering closely to its teach- inga, but he exhibited an extended knowledge of other forms of gov- ernment, and an intimate acquaintance with their working, both in times of peace and in the midst of revolutionary struggles such as that through which we were passing. The very first attempt which was made to overstep the limits of the Constitution excited the fearsand aroused the opposition of Senator Cowan. It mattered not to him that it was a party measure. Yielding to no man in devotion to the Union, he knew no party when the Constitution of his country was assailed. He always believed and asserted that there was strength enough in this nation and power enough in the hands of the government to preserve the national life and honor without the violation of a single provision of that sacred instrument. Hence he was at all times found battling against every unconstitutional act, whether attempted under the plea of military neces- sity or the strained inference of powers not granted. How he has labored in that noble work the whole country is well aware. His clear, logical,

and eloquent speeches have been read until to-day there is not a village or hamlet in all this broad land where Edgar Cowan is not known and honored."

The following speech delivered as stated in the introduction, all of which is taken from the Boston Courier of Aug. 2, 1864 .

"The following is a speech by Hon. E. Cowan, of Pennsylvania, de- livered in the Senate of the United States on the 27th of June, a few days before the close of the late session of Congress. The Senate had under consideration at the time Mr. Trumbull's amendment proposing to repeal the joint resolution of July 17, 1862, which qualifies the Con- fiscation Act and limits forfeitnres under it to the lifetime of the offender :

" Mr. Cowan said, 'I think, Mr. President, that our course in regard to the Southern people has been of a character entirely the reverse of that which would have been successful in suppressing the Rebellion. We were filled with incorrect ideas of the work we were engaged in, or of the only methods by which we could perform the gigantic task we had undertaken. We started out with exaggerated notions of our own strength, and we disdained to think that our success depended upon the loyal men of the South ; we thought we did not need them, and treated them accordingly. Think of such a proposition as that contained in this law, that if they do not lay down their arms in sixty days they will be punished by loss of their estates! How, pray, are they to lay down their arme? Surely we know enough to know that this is mere mockery, and that the rebel President might as well expect a soldier in our armies to lay down his arms upon a promise of his protection.

"" Mr. President, I have sometimes doubted whether we could be seri- ous when we expect any good results to come from such measures as this, which not only exposes us to ridicule but does harm to our cause. What was wanting in this crisis of our history with new criminal legis- lation when the code was complete before? We had a statute punishing treason with death, a just and proper punishment, one well according with the magnitude of the orime as well as with the majesty of the law which inflicted it. For all those who conspired the dismemberment of the republic, who used the means and perverted the State governmenta to bring it, this is the fitting punishment, because it is the highest, and falls upon the guilty alone where it ought. I would have had no addi- tional laws; in war they are not needed.' I would have contemplated no reforms within the area of the Rebellion; they cannot be made at such a time. What we wanted was men and money ; these granted, the true function of Congress was over until peace was restored and all par- ties again represented. But, above all things, I would not. have played into the hands of the enemy; I would not have done that which the rebels most desired to have done, because I have no doubt that this and all kindred schemes have been the very ones which they most wanted us to adopt. I do not know that Jefferson Davis over prays; but, if he does, I have no doubt that he would pray-'

" Mr. Wade .- 'Pray for just such an advocate !

" Mr. Cowan .- ' Pray for such a statesman as the honorable senator from.Ohio, the most effective ally he ever had or could have.

""He would have prayed for measures on our part which were obnox- loue to all people of the South, loyal and disloyal, Union and disunion. He would have prayed that we should outrage all their common preju- dices, and cherished beliefs; that we should do these things by giving ourselves over to the guidance of men whom it was part of their religion to hate, to hate, personally and by name, with an intensity rarely wit- nessed in the world before. He would have prayed for confiscation general and indiscriminate, threatening as well the victims of usarpe- tion as the usurpers themselves, as well those we were bound to rescue as those we were bound to punish. Fervently he would have prayed for our emancipation laws and proclamations as means to fire the Southern heart more potent than all others; they would rally the angry popula- tion to his standard of revolt, as if each had personal quarrel. He would then have a united South, while, as the result of the same measures, . distracted and divided North.

"'That is the way I think he would have prayed, and would pray now. Is any man so stupid as not to know that the great desire on the part of every rebel is to embark in revolt with him the whole people of the disaffected districts? Is not and has not that been considered enough to insure success to him? And where does history show the failure of any united people, numbering five or six millions, when they engaged in revolution? Nowhere ; there is no such case.

"' What did we do to bring this unity about in the South? We forgot our first resolve in July, 1861, to restore the Union alone, and we went

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further,'and gave out that we would sieo abolish slavery. Now, that was just exactly the point upon which all Southern men were the most tender, and at which they were the most prose to be alarmed and offended. That was of all things the one best calculated to make them of one mind against us: there was no other measure, indeed, which could have lost to the Union cause so many of theen. It is not a question either as to whether they were right or wrong, that was metter for theis coneldere- tion, not ours; for if we were co desirows of a ualon with them, we ought not to have expected them to give up their most cherished Institu- tions in order to effect it. Unione are made by people taking one another as they are, and I think it has never yet occurred to any man who was anxious to form a partnership with another that he should Arst attempt to force the other either to change his religion or his politics. Is not the answer obvious, would not the other way to him, " If you do not like my principles why do you wish to be partner with me? Have I not as good a right to ask you to change yours as a condition precedent ?"

""So it was with the Southern people; they were all in favor of slavery, but one-half of them were still for anion with us na before, because they did not believe we were abolitionists. The other half were in open ro- bellion because they did believe it. Now, can any one copceive of greater folly on our part than that we should destroy the faith of our friends and verify that of our enemies? Could not anybody have foretold we would have lost one-half by that, and then we would have no one left to form . Union with? We drove that half over to the rebels, and thereby in- creased their strength a thousand-fold.

"* Is not all .this history now? The great fact is staring us full in the face to-day, we are contending with a united people desperately in earnest to resist ra. C . most powerful armies most skillfully led Lave heretofore failed to conquer them, and I think will fail as long as we pursue this fatal policy.

" Now, Mr. President, I appeal to senators whether it is not time to pause and inquire whether that policy which has certainly united the Southern people in their cause, and which quite as certainly has divided the Northern people in their enpport of ours, ought to be abandoned at once? Why persist in it longer? Can we do nothing to retrieve our for- tune by retracing our steps? Can we not divide the rebels and unite the loyal men of the loyal States by going back to the single ides of war for the Union ? or is it now too late? Have we lost irrecoverable our hold on the affections of our countrymen who were for the Union in 1861, even in 1862? Is there no way by which we could satisfy them that we yet mean Union, and not conquest and subjugation? And what a differ- ence in the meaning of these two phrases! The first offers the band of . brother, the second threatens the Joke of a master. Or are we obliged now to exchange the hopes we had of Southern Union men for that other and miserable hope in the negro? Is he all that is left of loyalty in the South, and the only ally we can rely upon to ald us in restoring the Union? Ye gods, what have we come to at last? Either to yield to an unholy rebellion, to dismember au empire, or to go into national com- panionship with the negro! Is this the alternative to which our mad- Dess has brought us?

"' Mr. President, these things are enough to drive a mano man niad. After all our pretension, all our boasting, how absurd will we appear in the eyes of all other nations if we fall in this struggle! Especially as almost all the measures about which we have occupied ourselves for the last three years have been based upon our success already nesumed as a fixed fact. We provided for confiscating the estates of rebels before we got possession, we emancipated slaves before we got them from their masters, and we provided for the disposition of conquests we have not made; we have disposed of the skin of the bear, and the bear itself is yet uncaught. All this we have put upon the record; the statute book will bear witness against us in all coming time, and we cannot cecape the consequences if we fall.

"" Mr. President, our government was intended to be one of law, pre- eminently of law. There was to be nothing in the administration of it left to the arbitrary will of an individual or individuals. This was its merit, or intended so, par excellence. I am for preserving its character in that respect strictly. Let no mau, from the President down to the most petty officer, dare to do anything, whether to friend or enemy, ex- cept as warranted by law. Let us make war according to law, and let us have peace according to law. If we fight a belligerent enemy, let us do it according to the law of nations. If we punish or restrain a refrac- tory citizen, let us do it by the law of the land, " by due process of law." Had we had faith in our Constitution and laws and our people, we had not been in our present condition. Had we made war and war alone, the loyal people North and South to a man would have been with us. The voice of faction, if not entirely hushed, would have been harmless. The capital of the demagogue would have been worthless, and the nation

would have been irresistible. Hed we treated the negro as the Constitu- tion treats him, co a person, ss ssother man, hed we made no distine- tion or difference between him nad other citizens, we had not aroused against him that tribal satipathy which will be for more likely to destroy him than a false philanthropy will be likely to elevate him in the scale of being. If he was friendly to we, the same nee cesid bave been made of him that we have made; we could have enlisted him in our armies sow ce we have been calisting him in our navy for long years. We could have received him as a volunteer, if be was able-bodied, without looking to bis complexion, and we could have drafted bim without inquiring foto the relatione which existed between him and his master, say more then we lequire into the relatione of the white man of twenty years of ege with his parent or bis guardian. State lawe adjusts all these quee- tions, bet to the United States it made to difference whether he owed service to individuals or not; he owed his first duty to the republic, as military service was required. All this was lawful, and no loyal maa ever did or would have complained of it kindly done in the proper Spirit.

""I have caly to may ta conclusion, cir, that I hope that the joint reco- lation will not be repealed, and that this and all kindred projecto will fail to the future, for the simple reason that they strengthen the rebels by uniting their people with them, and they weaken the Union cause by dividing its friends and distracting them with unnecessary losses. Let as unite upon the single idea of suppressing the armed opposition to the government. Let the energies of the nation be deveted solely to thet purpose, and success may yet come, if success is possible.""

The following is from the Pittsburgh Leader, inde- pendent, but generally favoring the Republican party:

"THE COMING CONTLIOT.

"THE NEXT U. 8. 8KHI ATOR.

"It is not from among those who are willing only that a great Com- monwealth like ours should make its selection for such an honorable place, Dow, in.leed, sadly dishonored by the character, or rather want of character, of some who now represent many of the States in that body, but it should search until it finds, es fit to be its representatives, men of high and commanding intellect, of caruestnees and force, and of sound practical judgment.

"Of all the men named for that position there are none the superior and but few the equal, in point of ability, of Hon. Edgar Cowan, of West- moreland County.

" Taking his seat in 1861 as a senator of the United States, elected by what was then known as the 'People's party,' this gentleman, while properly enough upholding in so far as was just and right the political interests of his particular party, did not feel bound to follow it in all its windings. Regarding the preservation of the Union as one of the first ce- sentials to the peace and prosperity of the people of both sections, and ut- terly opposed to every proposition looking to a dissolution of the Union, peaceful or otherwise, Mr. Cowan was ready and enrnest at all times in his support of the government in putting down the Rebellion. Bat beller- ing that legal power enough existed, under the Constitution, in the Fed- oral government to enable it to maintain itself, he opposed every infrac- tlou of that instrument. The Constitution, he believed, was intended to be maintained inviolate, just as he believed the Union must be preserved ; but he could not see, as did the party in power, the necessity of violating the one to preserve the other. A preserved Union with a violated Con- stitution would be such an Union as heaven and hell, held together only by the power of the strong, the unquestioned mastery, the weaker un- questioning serfs. The osths Mr. Cowan had taken to support and main- tain the Constitution were not esteemed by him as idle pledges, to be taken to-day and cast off to-morrow, but obligations binding here and bereafter. All this time, and in all the long years that ran through a fierce and bloody war, Mr. Cowan looked not behind him, and as bill after bill was presented, and law after law was enacted violating the plainest letter and the clearest spirit of the Constitution, he vainly implored his Radical col- leagues to stay their mad bands in the work of destroying all that was good and grand in our government, that they might supply its place with an Union broken and a Constitution destroyed forever.

" Against the unjust expulsion of Senator Bright, of Indiana; against the insane schemes of men crazed with the fury of fanaticism, who sought by unconstitutional and wicked confiscation laws to impoverish the whole South and to make private property lawful prise of war; against legal-tender acts, which debased onr currency and made the dol- lar of to-day the half-dollar of to-morrow, changing daily and hourly, with victory or defeat, the standards and measures of value ; against the

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national banking laws, which substituted for government greenbacks without interest a currency bearing interest against the people as a gov- ernment and the people as individuals, triplicating gain at the expense of many to the enrichment of a few ; against the Freedman's Bureau, which cost the people fifty millions of dollars directly and many bun- dredy of millions indirectly, with its swarms of carpet-bag Governors and marshals and other Federal office-holders; of and against all these out- rages and all others of a kindred scope and design, at all proper times and in all proper places. In his place in the Senate and before the poo- pie Mr. Cowan most earnestly, even prophetically, protested and spoke, but spoke in vain. His predictious then have become history now, and his Republican colleagues of those days can only look back, since the whirlwinds of November have scattered the cohorts of Radicalism like chaff, and with anguish recall to mind how they had been warned of their certain destruction unless they paused in their wild career.

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History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 84

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor Publication date: Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages: