Autobiography of Seventy Years Part 30

That closed the discussion so far as we were concerned for that campaign.

In 1876 Judge h.o.a.r, who had been, very much against his will, elected to Congress from the Middles.e.x District declined a renomination. General Butler, who had been defeated at the polls in the Ess.e.x District two years before was thereupon nominated, having pledged himself to the Republicans that he would abandon his fiat money doctrines in obedience to the declared will of the people; a pledge which as stated above he shamefully violated. There was no expectation of defeating him. But some few Republicans who were unwilling to support him desired a candidate on whom to unite, and they applied to Judge h.o.a.r. He said he had no desire to go to Congress. But he thought there ought to be a Republican candidate against Butler and that he had no right to ask another man to take a position from which he flinched himself, and accordingly he was nominated. But Butler was elected by a large majority.

That however was substantially the end of his relation with the Republican Party. After the Inauguration of President Hayes he tried to have the public officers in his District who had refused to support him removed. On President Hayes's refusal he left the Republican Party and became, a year or two after, the Democratic nominee for Governor for two or three years and, as has been seen, was elected in 1883. I of course supported the Republican candidate and made, I suppose, thirty or forty speeches in each of those years. He had said in explaining and defending his fiat money scheme that the word "fiat" means "let there be." G.o.d said "fiat lux," "let there be light," and there was light. He argued that fiat money was excellent from the very fact that it cost nothing and had no intrinsic value. So if a bill were lost or destroyed a new one could be supplied without cost. He also said that it would stay in the country and would not be sunk in the mora.s.ses of Asia, especially in China and India, where silver and gold were absorbed and never heard of in civilized nations afterward. I quoted these sentences with the following comment: "That, Fellow-citizens, is precisely the difference between Omnipotence and Humbug, between the Almighty and General Butler.

G.o.d said let there be light and there was light. General Butler says let there be money and there is--rags. This is the first time in our history that the American workingman has been gravely asked to take for his wages money it costs nothing to make, that it is no loss to lose, that it is no gain to get, and that even a Chinaman won't touch." Butler was very angry and answered, rather irrelevantly, as it seemed to me, by saying that I did not go to the War, to which I replied as follows:

"I see that the Greenback candidate for Governor has seen fit to taunt some persons, including myself, who have ventured to exercise the privilege of free speech in this campaign, that they did not go to the war; while he boasts that he not only went to the war but hung a rebel. Those persons who did not go to the war may, perhaps, possess at least this advantage, that they can form an impartial opinion of the merits of those who did. It is the pride and the honor of this n.o.ble Commonwealth of ours, that of the hundred thousand brave soldiers and sailors she sent to the war, there was but one notorious braggart; there was but one capable of parading up and down the Commonwealth, vaunting that he had hung a man; exhibiting himself as the Jack Ketch of the rebellion.

I bow reverently to the brave, modest, patriotic soldier, who, without thought of personal gain, gave youth, health, limb, life to save the country which he loved. I am willing to abide by his opinion, and to yield to him every place of honor and of office. But to you, General Butler, whose military career is made up of the blunder and slaughter of Big Bethel; of the powder explosion at Fort Fisher; of the engineering at Dutch Gap; of the "bottling-up" at Bermuda Hundred; of the trading with the rebels through the lines in North Carolina; of the scandals of New Orleans; to you, who were ordered by General Grant to go home in disgrace; to you whose best service had been, if you, too, had stayed at home, I have no such tribute to offer. When Benedict Arnold taunts Jefferson that he did not go into battle in the Revolution, when Aaron Burr taunts John Adams with want of patriotism, then it will be time for you to boast yourself over the men who performed the duties of civil life during the Rebellion."

We have had turbulent and exciting times in our State and National politics before and since that day. But I think there has been nothing in Ma.s.sachusetts, and so far as I am aware there has seldom been anything in the country anywhere like the years from 1869 until 1877, when General Butler's power was at its height. You could hardly take up a morning paper without dreading that you should read of the removal from some position of honor of some brave honest soldier who had deserved well of his country, and the subst.i.tution of some disreputable person in his place. All the dishonesty of the time seemed to be combined and rallied to his support.

Three of his trusted lieutenants in different parts of the Commonwealth were convicted of crime and sent to the State Prison. Another was detected in crime punishable by imprisonment in the State Prison, but escaped prosecution by a compromise.

Still another was compelled to flee the country for a series of forgeries, finding refuge in a South American State with which we had no treaty of extradition. Still another was indicted for frauds which wrecked a National bank, and escaped conviction by a technicality. Still another was compelled to flee from the Commonwealth by the detection of some notorious frauds. And now more recently, in 1898, another has been arrested, a fugitive from justice, and brought back to Ma.s.sachusetts, having wrecked two banks and embezzled their funds.

In the autumn of 1883 General Butler was a candidate for reelection. He was so confident that he had prepared his grounds for a magnificent illumination. But he was signally defeated. I took a leading part in the campaign. I give the following extract from my speech at Worcester:

"But we are thinking to-night of the matter of electing a Governor. Character is more important than opinion; good name to the State, as to the citizen, is better than riches.

I suppose it is true of each one of you as of myself that among his chief comforts and pleasures in life is his pride in being a Ma.s.sachusetts citizen. The honor and good fame of our beloved State is far above any question of party. I think I do you no more than justice when I declare that you lament as much as I do the personal character of the contest which is upon us. It has never been the habit of Republicans to deal in personalities. The Republican press and the Republican platform in Ma.s.sachusetts has been singularly free from these things. What Democratic candidate can be named other than the present Governor to whom the Republicans have not delighted to pay the respect due to honorable and respected opponents.

Have Gaston or Thompson or either Adams or Hanc.o.c.k or any of their candidates for Congress, anything to complain of in this respect? If we deal differently with General Butler, it is because the difference is in him. We have selected our own candidate on a very simple principle. In determining on whom we would confer the t.i.tle, His Excellency, we have sought a man who represented in his own person our standard of excellence. We sought a man whom the fathers and mothers of the Commonwealth would be willing to hold up to their children for imitation. We sought a man, tried and proved in important public trusts, faithful, sincere, upright, downright, who would continue and maintain the honored line of Ma.s.sachusetts Governors. We have found such a man in George D. Robinson.

I will sum up what I have to say of Mr. Robinson by saying that he is in every respect the reverse of his antagonist.

We are told that we must not discuss the record of the candidate of our antagonists before his election last year. That was all condoned. I do not concede for myself that truth is necessarily determined by majorities. I have a high respect for the people, but they do not change men's characters by their votes. But, be it so, let bygones be bygones. Let us concede that the career of our present governor as citizen and soldier and statesman furnishes a lofty example of every virtue under heaven. Let us admit that it was love of liberty that advocated the Fugitive Slave Law in the old Democratic days; that it was fidelity that was sent to Charleston, to vote for Douglas, and voted fifty-seven times for Jefferson Davis; that it was patriotism of which Governor Andrew said in 1861: 'I am compelled to declare with great reluctance and regret that the whole course of proceedings under Major General Butler in this Commonwealth seems to have been designed and adopted to afford means to persons of bad character to make money unscrupulously;' that it was good generals.h.i.+p that caused the blunder and slaughter of Big Bethel; that it was skilful engineering that made the ca.n.a.l at Dutch Gap a laughing-stock to the civilized world; that it was a great strategist that was bottled up at Bermuda Hundred; that it was courage that retreated from the uncaptured Fort Fisher; that it was purity that caused the scandals of New Orleans, and integrity that traded through the lines in North Carolina; that it was a great soldier that was ordered by General Grant to report at Lowell; that it was zeal for the public service that defended the Sanborn Contracts; that it was modesty that has gone so often up and down the State blowing his own trumpet; that it was honesty that mingled the funds of the Soldiers' Home with its own; that it was good faith that sought to juggle the public creditor out of his debt; that it was care for the poor and the working men that sought to give our laborers rags for wages and our soldiers waste paper for pensions; that it was a faithful representative that promised the men of the Middles.e.x District that if he might go once more to fight the Rebel brigadiers he would faithfully represent their opinions on finance and then proposed that marvellous scheme of fiat money, which he represented it would be no loss to lose and no gain to get, and that even a Chinaman would not touch, so that the same const.i.tuency demanded his resignation and 'resolved, that we warn the people of the Commonwealth, whose votes General Butler is now soliciting by promises to serve them faithfully, that his professions when seeking office have been found in our experience to be easily made and as easily repudiated when the time for redeeming them came; that they are neither gold nor good paper, but a kind of fiat currency, having no intrinsic value, cheap, delusive, irredeemable and worthless;' that it was an honest Democrat, of whom Mr. Avery, President of this year's Democratic Convention, declared that his promises and pledges could not be trusted; that it was consistency which has belonged to every party in turn. We will put the issue of this election upon the record of the year's administration. He has shown an utter want of understanding of the true theory of the Const.i.tution.

This is ill.u.s.trated in his removal of Warden Earle. He told his friends at the prison that he made the removal because Earle would not obey his orders. He had no more right to give an order to Earle than to you or me. The Governor and the Council have the right to prescribe rules for the government of the prison--not the Governor. The Board of Prison Commissioners have the right to give directions to the Warden, but not the Governor. His telling Earle to obey his orders on pain of dismissal was as flagrant a violation of law and of the fundamental principles of the Const.i.tution, as it was an injustice to as brave an officer, as honest a man as ever tied a sash around his waist. He traduced the Commonwealth in his vile Tewksbury speech. I believe every charge he made broke down on his own evidence or was thoroughly refuted. But if the thing were decent to do, it might be done decently. Those of you who have delighted to listen to the cla.s.sic eloquence of Everett, to the lofty speech of Sumner, to the n.o.ble appeals of Andrew, aye, to the sincere and manly utterances of Robinson, take that speech and read it. He insulted womanhood in the person of a defenceless girl. He insulted purity by a speech so gross that the princ.i.p.al Democratic paper in Boston declares it unfit for circulation, and demands that it be suppressed.

He insulted every colored man in the State, when, in an unguarded moment, speaking from his very soul, he called out: 'Give me the skin that came off the n.i.g.g.e.r.' He insulted the citizen soldiers of Ma.s.sachusetts when he declared that they needed but a word from him to clean out the State House. He insulted the common school system of Ma.s.sachusetts when he said that if his witness were a person of immoral character, the school system was responsible. He insulted the whole Commonwealth in trying to cast upon the foul imputation that she was inhuman and indifferent to her poor and unfortunate, and intimated that the tanning of human skins was a recognized Ma.s.sachusetts industry. Another insult is the menace of fraud that comes from Boston. The law requires the appointment of election officers, to be chosen equally from the two great parties, and every mayor of Boston, Republican and Democrat alike, Pierce, Gaston and Green, have fairly and honorably discharged their duty. It is one of the most important trusts that can be imposed upon a public official, to guard the purity of the vote of their fellow citizens. The Republican Committee this year submitted its lists and the names upon them were changed, and other men subst.i.tuted, Butler men, Democrats and criminals, all charged to the Republican account. Our neighbor, Judge Nelson, a few years ago, tried at the bar of his court a man whom Governor Butler defended. He was convicted, sentenced and went to jail. He is now out of prison, and has been subst.i.tuted for a Republican, probably by the influence of his former counsel, to count the ballots of the citizens of Boston. You have heard of such proceedings in other States, but never in Ma.s.sachusetts. Unless the people of this Commonwealth rise in their might and crush out this attempted fraud, they will have at the mouth of the Charles River another New York, with its frauds, Tweed rings and scandals."

He answered that by an attack on the memory of my father who had died more than twenty-five years before. Thereupon the controversy, so far as it had anything personal in it, ended.

It happened that the year when General Butler was Governor I was elected President of the Harvard Alumni a.s.sociation.

It was the custom of the College to invite the Governor to the dinner of the Alumni on Commencement day as the guest of the University and to confer upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws. It would have been my duty to preside at the dinner and to walk with him at the head of the procession, to have him seated by my side at the table, and to extend to him the courtesies of the University. I hardly knew what I ought to do. I must either walk with him and sit by his side in silence or with a formal and constrained courtesy which would in itself be almost an affront, or on the other hand, I must take his hand, salute him with cordiality as becomes a host on a great occasion in dealing with a distinguished guest, and converse with him as I should have conversed with other persons occupying his high place. It did not seem to me that I ought to do either, especially in the case of a man whose offence had not been merely against me, but who had made a gross and unfounded attack upon the memory of my father, and of whose personal and public character I entertained the opinion I had so often publicly expressed. Accordingly I declined to accept the office of President. My place was filled by Joseph H. Choate, who discharged the duty, of course, very much better than I could have done it.

Mr. James F. Rhodes in his able and most impartial history of the United States, speaking of the events of the summer of 1864 and the disintegrating and discouraging condition of the Army of the Potomac, says:

"Circ.u.mstances seemed to indicate the bitterness of disappointment at the failure of the high hopes and expectations which filled the soul of Grant when he crossed the Rapidan. It was commonly believed in the Army that his misfortune had driven him again to drink, and on this account and others Butler with crafty method acquired a hold on him which prevented him from acting for the best interests of the service. It is not a grateful task to relate the story of Butler using Grant as a tool to accomplish his own ends. The picture of such a relation between the two is repulsive, but it may be fraught with instruction as men of the type of Butler are never absent from our political life."*

[Footnote]

* Rhodes, "History," Vol. 4, p. 493.

[End of Footnote]

"Butler had some hold on the Commander of the Armies of the United States and in the interview of July 9th showed his hand."*

[Footnote]

* Rhodes, Ibid., Vol. 4, p.495.

[End of Footnote]

I do not suppose the secret of the hold which General Butler had upon General Grant will ever be disclosed. Butler boasted in the lobby of the House of Representatives that Grant would not dare to refuse any request of his because he had in his possession affidavits by which he could prove that Grant had been drunk on seven different occasions. This statement was repeated to Grant by a member of the House who told me of the conversation. Grant replied without manifesting any indignation, or belief or disbelief in the story: "I have refused his requests several times." In the case of almost any other person than President Grant such an answer would have been a confession of the charge. But it ought not to be so taken in his case.

Unless he desired to take into his full confidence the person who was speaking to him he was in the habit of receiving most important communications with entire silence or with some simple sentence which indicated his purpose to drop the subject.

My own belief is that at some time during the War, or before the War in times of discouragement Grant may have been in the habit of drinking freely and may at some time have done so to excess. During the whole time of his Presidency I had a good opportunity to observe him in personal intercourse.

I was familiar with many men who were constantly in his company at all hours of the day and often far into the night. They a.s.sured me that there was no foundation for any imputation that he was in the habit of drinking to excess then. If at any time he had formed such a habit he had put it under his feet. For that I think he is ent.i.tled to greater honor than if he had never yielded to temptation. My explanation of Butler's influence over Grant is to some extent conjecture.

But I believe Grant thought him a powerful political leader and that he was ent.i.tled to respect as representing the opinions of large numbers of men. Beside that Butler had a great influence over some ambitious men who were his confederates and over some timid men who were afraid of him. Their influence with Grant was on Butler's side. Then Grant was apt, as I have said in another place, to sympathize with men who were bitterly attacked, especially men who were charged with dishonesty or corruption, because such charges were made against him.

So without undertaking to explain Butler's influence with Grant, I content myself with stating it and lamenting it.

He led Grant to make some very bad appointments in Ma.s.sachusetts which were totally repugnant to the feeling of her people.

But for those appointments, in my opinion, the strong objection felt by her people to giving any President of the United States a third term would not have prevented her supporting him for renomination in 1880, a support which would have insured his success.

After President Hayes came into power General Butler tested the President's willingness to permit him to control the patronage of Ma.s.sachusetts. He demanded the appointment of a man recommended by him to the office of Postmaster at Methuen. The term had expired. President Hayes carefully examined the matter in person, got a list of the princ.i.p.al patrons of the office, and compared it with the pet.i.tions. He determined to reappoint the inc.u.mbent, who was an excellent officer, and a Republican who had refused to vote for General Butler. The man whom General Butler recommended had lost a leg in the War. He had an artificial limb so well made that many people, even those who worked in the same shop with him, did not know that he had lost his leg. Butler went before the Senate Committee on Post Offices to get them to reject President Hayes's nominee, taking his own candidate with him. He had the man leave off his artificial leg and come on crutches to get greater sympathy. He made an earnest and angry speech before the Committee attacking President Hayes. But he made no impression, and the old Postmaster was confirmed and reappointed.

Thereupon Butler left the Republican party, first declaring himself an Independent and attempting in that capacity to get elected as Governor of the State. Failing in that he avowed himself a Democrat, and was, as has been already said, elected by the Democrats in the fall of 1882. This transaction terminated his relation to the Republican Party, and his defeat for Governor terminated his political life with the exception that he was the Greenback candidate for the Presidency in 1884. But he received little support.

CHAPTER XXV BELKNAP IMPEACHMENT

March 3, 1876, a message was sent to the Senate from the House of Representatives, impeaching General Belknap, the Secretary of War. He was charged with having received corruptly a large sum of money, payable in quarterly instalments, for the appointment of a Post Trader, an officer appointed by the Secretary of War. This was a very lucrative position, the profits of which depended very largely upon the Secretary.

I was chosen one of the Managers of the Impeachment by the House. There was no serious question of the guilt of the Secretary. But he resigned, and his resignation was accepted, after the discovery of his misconduct, before the proceedings of impeachment were inaugurated. The whole struggle was over the question of the Const.i.tutional right of the Senate to convict a public officer on impeachment proceedings inst.i.tuted after he had left office. Upon that question I made a careful and elaborate argument. A majority of the Senate (37 to 25) were for sustaining the proceedings. But the Senators who thought the Senate had no jurisdiction to enter a judgment of guilty when the proceedings were commenced after the person left office, deemed themselves constrained to vote Not Guilty as the only mode of giving that opinion effect.

So General Belknap was acquitted for the want of the two- thirds vote for his conviction. Every Democrat voted for conviction except Mr. Eaton of Connecticut. The following Republicans voted for conviction: Booth, Cameron of Pennsylvania, Dawes, Edmunds, Hitchc.o.c.k, Mitch.e.l.l, Morrill, Oglesby, Robertson, Sargent, Sherman, and Wadleigh.

It is difficult to believe that the Senators who voted for acquittal were not, perhaps unconsciously, influenced by the desire to s.h.i.+eld a political a.s.sociate from punishment. The power to impeach public officers after leaving office had been exercised in England from time immemorial. It is well settled that when in the Const.i.tution or legislation of the United States a term of English law is used, that the meaning customarily given to the term in English jurisprudence is to ascribed to it here.

The history of this clause as found in the proceedings of the Convention that framed the Const.i.tution, makes very clear the understanding of that body. They first inserted the words: "The Senate of the United States shall have power to try all impeachments, but no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of the members present, which in case of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of trust and profit under the United States." The framers of the Const.i.tution regarded the power of impeachment as absolutely essential to the working of the Government.

That clearly gave the two Houses of Congress the common law powers of impeachment, as exercised by Parliament. At a later time there was added: "The Vice-President and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment and conviction." That was added as a limitation on the tenure of office. It seems incredible that they should have intended, without debate or division, to wholly change and so greatly limit and narrow the clause previously adopted.

It is obvious that impeachment and removal from office will be in many cases an insignificant and unimportant part of the remedy as compared with perpetual disqualification from holding office. It seems incredible that it could ever have been intended that this judgment of perpetual disqualification to hold office could only be rendered when the defendant is willing, and can be avoided by his voluntary resignation.

The framers of the Const.i.tution were very skilful Const.i.tutional mechanics. I am satisfied that the opinion of the majority of the Senate will prevail hereafter, unless the case where the question shall come up be, like that of Belknap, strongly affected by party feeling.

President Monroe said: "The right of impeachment and of trial by the Legislature is the mainspring of the great machine of government. It is the pivot on which it turns. If preserved in full vigor, and exercised with perfect integrity, every branch will perform its duty."

I received a good many letters expressing approval of my argument. Perhaps, without inordinate vanity, I may be permitted to preserve those which follow. The approval of my honored and beloved instructor, Judge Thomas, gave me special satisfaction.

I am led to publish these letters partly because I think the opinion of the writers on the question is worth preserving for future reference, but chiefly, I believe, from what I hope will be deemed a pardonable vanity. Mr. Sumner, in editing the thirteen volumes of his speeches, has given in regard to all of them, letters from friends and correspondents, expressing his approval. I do not suppose it would ever have occurred to Daniel Webster to publish similar certificates as to any speech or act of his.

FROM GEORGE S. BOUTWELL, GOVERNOR; SECRETARY OF THE U. S. TREASURY; U. S. SENATOR, ETC., TO JUDGE E. R. h.o.a.r.

UNITED STATES SENATE, WAs.h.i.+NGTON, May 8th, 1876.

_My dear Judge,_

It was the opinion of all who heard your brother's argument in the Belknap case that it was the best of the arguments yet given and that it will rank with the best at any time delivered in the Senate.

I do not write this because I was in any degree surprised, but it cannot be otherwise than agreeable to you to know that there is a concurrence in the view I have expressed.

Very truly, GEO. S. BOUTWELL.

To The Honble E. R. h.o.a.r, Concord, Ma.s.s.

FROM JUDGE BENJAMIN F. THOMAS OF THE SUPREME COURT OF Ma.s.sACHUSETTS.

NO. 9 PEMBERTON SQ BOSTON May 25th '76.

_My Dear Sir_

I am greatly obliged to you for sending me a copy of your admirable argument on the question of jurisdiction in the impeachment case.