USA > Wisconsin > Wisconsin, its story and biography, 1848-1913, Volume VII > Part 26
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In 1856 Mr. Carpenter established his home in Milwaukee and for a number of years thereafter he was prominently identified with the intricate and embarrassing litigation arising out of the construc- tion and consolidation of certain railroads in Wisconsin. In this con- nection he upheld with great ability and persistency the rights of his clients. His practice was now extensive and also as lucrative as his rather easy financial habits could make it, the while his fame was rapidly expanding. When a case arose that involved the determina- tion, by the supreme court of the United States, of the constitutionality of the reconstruction acts, Secretary Stanton retained him as one of the counsel for the government. His argument won for him general recog- nition as one of the foremost constitutional lawyers of his time, and it is scarcely extravagant to say that the civil governments existing today in eleven states of the Union rest upon the principles enunciated and supported by him on that occasion.
In 1876, for the first time in the history of the nation, a member of the president's cabinet, in the person of W. II. Belknap, secretary
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of war, was impeached before the senate of the United States for high crimes and misdemeanors in office. The respondent retained for his defense Jeremiah S. Black, former attorney general of the United States; Montgomery Blair, former postmaster-general; and Mr. Car- penter. There could have been no higher compliment to Mr. Carpenter than the fact that his associates, who had stood for years in the very front rank of the American bar, resigned to him the entire management of the case, which he conducted to a successful issue.
The trial of the title to the presidency of the United States before the electoral commission, erected for the purpose by a special act of congress, was another occasion that enlisted the best professional tal- ent in the Union. Mr. Carpenter was retained by Hon. Samuel J. Til- den, the Democratic candidate for the presidency in the recent elec- tion, to submit an argument in favor of counting the votes of the Demo- cratic candidates for electors in Louisiana, and he performed the duty with the ability and discrimination that he invariably brought to bear upon questions of such important and delicate character.
In the foregoing paragraphs have been briefly noted some of the most conspicuous appearances of Mr. Carpenter strictly in the character of a lawyer. They by no means fairly represent the character or extent. of his professional labors. From 1870 until the time of his death, though maintaining a residence in Milwaukee, he kept an office at Washington and practiced mainly before the supreme court of the United States, his services having been retained in very many of the most important cases that have been heard before that tribunal.
Mr. Carpenter had been a Democrat from the time that he attained to his legal majority, and in the election of 1860 he supported Douglas for the presidency. Upon the attempt of the south to destroy the Union, without formally dissociating himself from the Democratic party, he gave his support to the war policies of the administration, and in behalf of the cause delivered a series of addresses that were char- acterized by great eloquence and patriotic fervor. Subsequently he publicly affiliated with the Republican party, and in 1869 he was chosen to succeed John R. Doolittle in the United States senate.
The circumscribed limitations of this review render it impossible to dwell at length upon the political career of Mr. Carpenter. It should be mentioned, however, that he was the author of the acts reconstruct- ing in some respects the federal courts and enlarging their jurisdiction to the limits prescribed by the constitution. He was chosen president pro tempore of the senate and presided over that body during several sessions, in discharging which duty he exhibited thorough learning and finesse as a parliamentary lawyer. At the expiration of his term Mr. Carpenter was nominated by the caucus of Republican members of the Wisconsin legislature for re-election, but was defeated by a combination of certain Republicans with the Democrats. In 1879 he
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was chosen to succeed Timothy O. Howe in the United States senate, in which body he again took his seat, after an interim of four years. It may be worthy of remark in this connection that his celebrated "Janesville speech" was the great cause of his defeat in 1875; yet he considered that the best speech he had ever made, and he carefully preserved a printed copy of the same. His return to Washington after his re-election to the senate was signalized by a popular demonstration that illustrated emphatically the enthusiastic feeling, for which ad- miration is a cold term, in which he was held among those who had come to know him even by casual contact. His most conspicuous effort during his second senatorial term was, perhaps, his argument in the case of General Fitz John Porter. Senator Logan, in a long and laborious speech, had reviewed the facts. Mr. Carpenter confined him- self to the questions of law. With the impreguable logic and irresist- able aptness of illustration that ever characterized him in dealing with legal issues, he combated the pending bill. The result was noteworthy. The friends of the bill had a clear majority when the debate was opened. After Senator Carpenter's argument they put forward their two ablest champions to reply. Both failed, and they did not deem it expedient to press the measure to a vote. The instances are rare in the history of legislation where a measure having in its inception the un- divided support of the members of the majority party, reinforced by some members of the minority, has been thus balked by a single speech.
In June, 1880, Senator Carpenter attended the Republican national convention, at Chicago, though not as a delegate, and there he addressed an open-air mass meeting that was called to promote the nomination of General Grant. But his health was greatly impaired and he was not able to remain in Chicago to the close of the convention. In the cam- paign which followed, his condition made it impossible for him to participate. When congress assembled in December he was in his seat, but his attendance was irregular, and it was evident that the in- exorable disease from which he was suffering was advancing rapidly to its dread consummation. The final scene was sketched with great power and pathos by Hon. Arthur MacArthur, in an address before the Wisconsin Association at Washington.
The death of Mr. Carpenter occurred on the 24th of February, 1881. The grief which it inspired knew no boundaries in geography or par- tisanship, and the rush of events incident to the approaching incoming of a new national administration could not benumb the deep sense of bereavement that reached the remotest confines of the republic. At the next meeting of the judiciary committee of the senate of the United States the following resolution was adopted :
"During a period of nearly eight years' service on this committee Senator Carpenter's intellectual ability, profound legal learning and remarkable industry commanded the admiration of all who served with
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him, while his uniformly courteous, kind and agreeable manners won and retained their affection."
The bar of the supreme court of the United States assembled on the 8th of March. Allan G. Thurman was chosen to preside and, in taking the chair, delivered an address of high, if discriminating eulogy, in the course of which he used this language, which could be justified on few occasions of like character :
"I am well aware of the proneness to extravagance that has too often characterized eulogies of the dead, whether delivered from the pulpit, in the forum or in the senate house. But I feel a strong con- viction that however exalted may be the praise spoken here today it will not transcend the merits of its object or offend the taste of the most scrupulous and truth-loving critic. Mr. Carpenter's whole career was honorable and brilliant. He was the architect of his own fortune and fame. He possessed the advantages of inherited poverty, and was thus in his youth thrown upon his own resources. He learned early the useful lessons of self-reliance and the necessity of industrious self-ex- ertion, receiving only such aid as his genial manners and bright and active mind gained from those generous friends who perceived in his youth the germs which promised future distinction, and who were willing to extend a helping hand to struggling genius. He was a close student and loved books.
"Mr. Carpenter possessed a fine person, was social, pleasant and winning in his manners. As a speaker he was fluent, logical and elo- quent, and possessed in a high degree the charm of manner and mag- netic power over his hearers which are essential elements of popular oratory. He delighted and captivated popular audiences, but his ora- tory was not of the flowery and superficial kind. He was a man of learning and thought. He not only pleased by his style and manner but his reasoning convinced his hearers. His independence of thought and character sometimes led him to advocate that side of questions which was unpopular with the people or with his party, and he was fearless in supporting any cause which he undertook to advocate. He defended the Credit Mobelier and back pay. He acted as one of the leading counsel for General Belknap on the latter's impeachment and trial before the United States senate, and he appeared as one of the leading counsel for Mr. Tilden in the great contest for the presidential office before the electoral commission. His nature was genial, kindly and generous; he had no malice in his composition; and he did not excel in that lowest order of intellectual ability which impels its pos- sessor to the use of invective and vituperation. The taste for such display of his intellectual powers was wholly foreign to his nature, and perhaps fortunately beyond his ability. But in his whole public career, in the courts, in the senate, and in the popular discussion of political questions, he was animated in a larger degree with a spirit of chivalry,
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tempered by the elevating culture of modern civilization, which throws a halo of honor and fame around the physical warfare of those knights of the Middle Ages who became famous for their prowess in battle and for their generous forbearance in the hour of victory."
The remarks of Jeremiah S. Black are given in full, not only on account of the standing of the speaker at the bar, but also because of his peculiar intimacy with Mr. Carpenter and his sympathetic and accu- rate knowledge of the latter's ability and character :
"The American bar has not often suffered so great a misfortune as the death of Mr. Carpenter. He was cut off when he was rising as rapidly as at any previous period. In the noontide of his labors the night came, wherein no man can work. To what height his career might have reached if he had lived and kept his health another score of years, can now be only a speculative question. But when we think of his great wisdom and his wonderful skill in the forensic use of it, together with his other qualities of mind and heart, we can not doubt that in his left hand would have been uncounted riches and abundant honor if only length of days had been given to his right. As it was, he distanced his contemporaries and became the peer of the greatest among those who had started long before him.
"The intellectual character of no professional man is harder to analyze than his. He was gifted with an eloquence peculiar to himself. It consisted of free and fearless thought, given through expression powerful and perfect. It was not fine rhetoric, for he seldom resorted to poetic illustration ; nor did he make a parade of clenching his facts. He often warmed with feeling, but no bursts of passion deformed the symmetry of his argument. The flow of his speech was steady and strong as the current of a great river. Every sentence was perfect; every word was fitly spoken; each apple of gold was set in its picture of silver. This singular faculty of saying everything just as it ought to be said was not displayed only in the senate and in the courts,- everywhere, in public and private, on his legs. in his chair, and even lying on his bed, he always 'talked like a book.'
"I have sometimes wondered how he got this curious felicity of diction. He knew no language but his mother tongue. The Latin and Greek which he learned in boyhood faded entirely .out of his memory before he became a full-grown man. At West Point he was taught French, and spoke it fluently ; in a few years afterward he forgot every word of it. But perhaps it was not lost; a language for any line of literature, though forgotten, enriches the mind as a crop of clover plowed down fertilizes the soil.
"His youth and early manhood were full of the severest trials. Af- ter leaving the military academy he studied law in Vermont, and was admitted, but conscientiously refused to practice without further prep- aration. He went to Boston, where he was most generously taken into
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the office of Mr. Choate. He soon won not only the good opinion of that very great man, but also his admiration and unbounded confidence. With the beneficence of an elder brother, Choate paid his way through the years of his toilsome study and afterward supplied him with the means of starting in the west. The bright prospect which opened before him in Wisconsin was suddenly overshadowed by an appalling calam- ity. His eyes gave way, and, trusting to the treatment of a quack, his sight was wholly extinguished. For three years he was stone-blind, 'the world by one sense quite shut out.' Totally disabled, and com- passed round with impenetrable darkness, he lost everything except his courage, his hope and never-failing friendship of his illustrious precep- tor. Supported by these, he was taken to an infirmary at New York, where, after a long time, his vision was restored. Subsequent to these events, and still under the auspices of Mr. Choate, he returned to Wis- consin and fairly began his professional life.
"It would be interesting to know what effect upon his mental char- acter was produced by his blindness. I believe it elevated, refined and strengthened all his faculties. Before that time much reading had made him a very full man; when reading became impossible, reflection digested his knowledge into practical wisdom. He perfectly arranged his storehouse of facts and cases, and pondered intently upon the first principles of jurisprudence. Thinking with all his might, and always . thinking in English, he forgot his French and acquired that surpris- ing vigor and accuracy of English expression which compels us to admit that if he was not a classical scholar he was himself a classic of most original type.
"He was not merely a brilliant advocate, learned in the law and deeply skilled in its dialetics; in the less showy walk of the profession . he was uncommonly powerful. Whether drudging at the business of his office as a common-law attorney and equity pleader, or shining as a leader in a great nisi prius cause, he was equally admirable, ever ready and perfectly suited to the place he was filling. This capacity for work of all kinds was the remarkable part of his character. With his hands full of a most multifarious practice, he met political duties of great magnitude. As a senator and party leader he had burdens and respon- sibilities under which, without more, a strong man might have sunk. But this man's shoulders seemed to feel no weight that was even incon- venient. If Lord Brougham did half as much labor in quantity and va- riety, he deserved all the admiration he won for versatility and patience. "Mr. Carpenter's notions of professional ethics were pure and high- toned. He never acted upon motives of lucre and malice. He would take what might be called a bad case, because he thought that every man should have a fair trial; but he would use no falsehood to gain it; he was true to the court as well as to the client. He was the least
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mercenary of all lawyers; a large proportion of his business was done for nothing.
"Outside of his family he seldom spoke of his religious opinions. He was not accustomed to give in his experience,-never at all to me. He firmly believed in the morality of the New Testament, and in no other system. If you ask whether he practiced it perfectly, I ask in return: Who has? Certainly not you or I. He was a gentle censor of our faults; let us not be rigid with his. One thing is certain, his faith in his own future was strong enough to meet death as calmly as he would expect the visit of a friend. Upwards of a year since, his physicians told him that he would certainly die in a few months; and he knew they were right; but, with that inevitable doom coming visibly nearer every day, he went about his business with a spirit as cheerful as if he had a long lease of life before him.
"I think for certain reasons that my personal loss is greater than the rest of you have suffered. But that is a 'fee grief due to my par- ticular breast.' It is enough to say for myself that I did love the man in his lifetime and do honor to his memory now that he is dead."
The obsequies consequent upon the death of Senator Carpenter at Washington, and subsequently at Milwaukee, were solemn and impos- ing; in the latter city almost the entire population was in evidence on the occasion. Among the distinguished members of the committee of the senate who escorted the body to Wisconsin was Roscoe Conkling, upon whom it devolved to transmit formally the sacred trust to the authori- ties who assumed the charge. On this occasion that distinguished statesman made use of the following beautiful sentiment, addressing Governor William E. Smith: "Deputed by the senate of the United States, we bring back the ashes of Wisconsin's illustrious son, and ten- derly return them to the great commonwealth he served so faithfully and loved so well. To Wisconsin this pale and sacred clay belongs, but the memory, the services and the fame of Matthew Hale Carpenter are the nation's treasures, and long will the sister states mourn the bereave- ment which bows all hearts today." To this Governor Smith appropri- ately and feelingly responded. Mr. Carpenter's mortal relics were laid to rest in the beautiful Forest Home cemetery.
The writer who shall attempt to analyze the life, talents and charac- ter of Matthew H. Carpenter will perhaps find a key in the proposition that he was above all else a lawyer. This fact formed his mental habits, shaped his convictions, and in no slight degree moulded his moral con- stitution. It accounts for some of the most notable achievements and some of the errors that his most elaborate biographist will be called upon to record. His best speeches in the senate were delivered when he had to deal with legal questions and such as called for the essentially lawyer-like method of discussion. When the occasion rose for a broader grasp and for a manner of treatment that may be called more states-
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manlike, in contradistinction to lawyer-like, he was sometimes disap- pointing.
Mr. Carpenter's brilliant success at the bar and his conspicuous services in the arena of national legislation won for him a more than continental reputation and attracted to him in a high degree the atten- tion of his fellow countrymen, so that in his day he was one of the most conspicuous of Americans. It is the fate of all who occupy so prominent a place in the public eye to be the subject of some popular delusions, and Mr. Carpenter did not escape. One of these is deserving of correction for the benefit of the younger members of the profession which he signally honored and adorned. This impression assumes him to have been a gifted man of indolent habits, and his most elo- quent utterances and most profound arguments to have been the easy products of something which it is common to call genius. Nothing can be farther from the truth. In his case, as may be suspected in most cases, genius is the capacity and willingness to work sixteen hours out of twenty-four to win his proud position at the bar. Mr. Carpenter did not fail to comply with the conditions prescribed by the great Roman lawyer, and dedicated twenty years to nocturnal studies. He was an indefatigable worker and,, notwithstanding the thoroughness of his equipment and the readiness with which he commanded the best weapons in his arsenal, he devoted labored preparation to every cause in which he enlisted. It is to be wished that this may have some influ- ence in impressing upon the young lawyers at the present day and in future years that the profession reserved its highest rewards for those who "scorn delights and spend laborious days."
Among the many notable public efforts made by Mr. Carpenter he considered his celebrated Janesville speech the best he ever made; yet it is none the less true that the effect of this very speech, which was published at the time, was the means of defeating his re-election to the senate in 1875.
As an evidence of the prescience of Mr. Carpenter, it may consist- ently be stated that he was one of the earliest to prognosticate the rail- road monopoly that eventually came into existence in the United States and that he delivered an address upon that subject at the Wisconsin state fair, at Madison, in the early '60s.
In politics Mr. Carpenter affiliated himself with the Democratic party upon attaining to his legal majority, and he gained early distinc- tion as a forceful and cogent advocate of the principles and policies of the party, although during the early period of his residence in Wis- consin he neither sought nor held public office, save that of district attorney of Rock county, a position of which he was the incumbent for one term. He was an active political speaker in the national campaigns of 1856 and 1860, and in the latter of these he was a staunch supporter and ardent admirer of the Democratic presidential nominee, Stephen
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A. Douglas. But when the southern states assumed the attitude of re- bellion against the laws and authority of the United States he sprang with uncalculating patriotism to the defense of the lawful government of his country. With the foresight and ability of a statesman, he de- fended its right to maintain by force of arms the national integrity. Ile trampled under foot all narrow party prejudices and supported with undeserved zeal all the measures that were adopted by the Lin- coln administration in defeating the armed enemies of the Union. His patriotic appeals and stirring eloquence did much to keep alive the fires of patriotism in the hearts of his former political associates in Wis- consin, the while his unselfish devotion to his country and its lawful government kept him wholly clear of the rocks of halting support and the quicksands of a qualified and half-hearted upholding of the gov- ernment, on which the reputations of so many prominent politicians were stranded or in which they were sunk.
Much of the context of the all too brief memoir here presented is derived from a sketch previously prepared by the writer of the present article, and the latter feels that no apology is demanded for the repro- duction of the appreciative estimate which he had thus made of the character and services of the honored and distinguished man who left so indelible and benignant impress upon the history of Wisconsin and that of the nation. It remains only to touch briefly upon the domestic chapter in the career of Mr. Carpenter. In the year 1855 was solemn- ized his marriage to Miss Caroline Dillingham, whose father, Hon. Panl Dillingham represented Vermont in the United States congress and also served as governor of his home state. The latter's son Wil- liam P. represents the Green Mountain state in the United States sen- ate, and the genealogy is traced back to John Dillingham, who came to America with the Winthrop colony, in 1630. Mrs. Carpenter, a woman of most gentle and gracious personality, survived her husband and continues to maintain her home in Milwaukee. Mr. Carpenter himself was a descendant of William Carpenter, who came to America in the ship "Bevis" in 1638. Mr. Carpenter was survived by two children,-Lillian, who is married and resides with her mother; and Paul D., who is a representative member of the Milwaukee bar and former county judge of Milwaukee county, individual record concern- ing him being given on other pages of this volume.
PAUL D. CARPENTER. One of the most distinguished figures in the history of Wisconsin is that of the late Hon. Matthew H. Carpenter, who represented the state in the senate of the United States and who wrote his name large upon the nation's annals. On other pages of this publication is entered a memorial tribute to this great and honored citizen of Wisconsin and it is not required that in the sketch of the career of his son, Judge Paul D., be repeated the family and personal Vol. VII-15
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