Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Vol. 1
by Andrew Dickson White
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman
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WITH PORTRAITS

VOLUME I

NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1905

1904, 1905
THE CENTURY CO.
----
Published March, 1905

THE DE VINNE PRESS

TO
MY OLD STUDENTS
THIS RECORD OF MY LIFE
IS INSCRIBED
WITH MOST KINDLY RECOLLECTIONS
AND BEST WISHES

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I--ENVIRONMENT AND EDUCATION
CHAPTER I. BOYHOOD IN CENTRAL NEW YORK--1832-1850

The ``Military Tract'' of New York. A settlement on the
headwaters of the Susquehanna. Arrival of my grandfathers and
grandmothers. Growth of the new settlement. First recollections
of it. General character of my environment. My father and
mother. Cortland Academy. Its twofold effect upon me. First
schooling. Methods in primary studies. Physical education.
Removal to Syracuse. The Syracuse Academy. Joseph Allen
and Professor Root; their influence; moral side of the education
thus obtained. General education outside the school. Removal to
a ``classical school''; a catastrophe. James W. Hoyt and his
influence. My early love for classical studies. Discovery of
Scott's novels. ``The Gallery of British Artists.''  Effect of
sundry conventions, public meetings, and lectures. Am sent to
Geneva College; treatment of faculty by students. A ``Second
Adventist'' meeting; Howell and Clark; my first meeting with
Judge Folger. Philosophy of student dissipation at that place and
time.

CHAPTER II. YALE AND EUROPE--1850-1857

My coup d'tat. Removal to Yale. New energy in study and
reading. Influence of Emerson, Carlyle, and Ruskin. Yale in
1850. My disappointment at the instruction; character of
president and professors; perfunctory methods in lower-class
rooms; ``gerund-grinding'' vs. literature; James Hadley--his
abilities and influence, other professors; influence of President
Woolsey, Professors Porter, Silliman, and Dana; absence of
literary instruction; character of that period from a literary
point of view; influences from fellow-students. Importance of
political questions at that time. Sundry successes in essay
writing. Physical education at Yale; boating. Life abroad after
graduation; visit to Oxford; studies at the Sorbonne and
Collge de France; afternoons at the Invalides; tramps through
western and central France. Studies at St. Petersburg. Studies
at Berlin. Journey in Italy; meeting with James Russell Lowell
at Venice. Frieze, Fishburne, and studies in Rome. Excursions
through the south of France. Return to America. Influence of
Buckle, Lecky, and Draper. The atmosphere of Darwin and Spencer.
Educational environment at the University of Michigan.

PART II--POLITICAL LIFE
CHAPTER III. FROM JACKSON TO FILLMORE--1832-1851

Political division in my family; differences between my father
and grandfather; election of Andrew Jackson. First recollections
of American politics, Martin Van Buren. Campaign of 1840;
campaign songs and follies. Efforts by the Democrats; General
Crary of Michigan; Corwin's speech. The Ogle gold-spoon speech.
The Sub-Treasury Question. Election of General Harrison; his
death. Disappointment in President Tyler. Carelessness of
nominating conventions as to the second place upon the ticket.
Campaign of 1844. Clay, Birney, and Polk. Growth of
anti-slavery feeling. Senator Hale's lecture. Henry Clay's
proposal, The campaign of 1848; General Taylor vs. General Cass.
My recollections of them both. State Conventions at this period.
Governor Bouck; his civility to Bishop Hughes. Fernando
Wood; his method of breaking up a State Convention. Charles
O'Conor and John Van Buren; boyish adhesion to Martin Van Buren
against General Taylor; Taylor's election; his death. My
recollections of Millard Fillmore. The Fugitive Slave Law.

CHAPTER IV. EARLY MANHOOD--1851-1857

``Jerry'', his sudden fame. Speeches of Daniel Webster and Henry
Clay at Syracuse on the Fugitive Slave Law ; their prophecies.
The ``Jerry Rescue.''  Trials of the rescuers. My attendance at
one of them. Bishop Loguen's prayer and Gerrit Smith's speech.
Characteristics of Gerrit Smith. Effects of the rescue trials.
Main difficulty of the anti-slavery party. ``Fool reformers.''
Nominations of Scott and Pierce; their qualities.
Senator Douglas. Abolition of the Missouri Compromise. Growth
of ill feeling between North and South. Pro-slavery tendencies
at Yale. Stand against these taken by President Woolsey and
Leonard Bacon. My candidacy or editorship of the ``Yale Literary
Magazine.''  Opposition on account of my anti-Slavery ideas. My
election. Temptations to palter with my conscience; victory over
them. Professor Hadley's view of duty to the Fugitive Slave
Law. Lack of opportunity to present my ideas. My chance on
Commencement Day. ``Modern Oracles.''  Effect of my speech on
Governor Seymour. Invitation to his legation at St. Petersburg
after my graduation. Effect upon me of Governor Seymour's ideas
regarding Jefferson. Difficulties in discussing the slavery
question. My first discovery as to the value of political
criticism in newspapers. Return to America. Presidential
campaign of 1856. Nomination of Frmont. My acquaintance
with the Democratic nominee Mr Buchanan. My first vote.
Argument made for the ``American Party.''  Election of Buchanan.
My first visit to Washington. President Pierce at the White
House. Inauguration of the new President. Effect upon me of his
speech and of a first sight of the United States Senate.
Impression made by the Supreme Court. General impression made by
Washington. My first public lecture--``Civilization in Russia'';
its political bearing; attacks upon it and vindications of it.
Its later history.

CHAPTER V. THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD--1857-1864.

My arrival at the University of Michigan. Political side of
professorial life. General purpose of my lectures in the
university and throughout the State. My articles in the
``Atlantic Monthly.''  President Buchanan, John Brown Stephen A.
Douglas, and others. The Chicago Convention. Nomination of
Lincoln. Disappointment of my New York friends. Speeches by
Carl Schurz. Election of Lincoln. Beginnings of Civil War. My
advice to students. Reverses; Bull Run. George Sumner's view.
Preparation for the conflict. Depth of feeling. Pouring out of
my students into the army. Kirby Smith. Conduct of the British
Government. Break in my health. Thurlow Weed's advice to me.
My work in London. Discouragements there. My published answer
to Dr. Russell. Experiences in Ireland and France. My horror of
the French Emperor. Effort to influence opinion in Germany.
William Walton Murphy; his interview with Baron Rothschild.
Fourth of July celebration at Heidelberg in 1863. Turning of the
contest in favor of the United States. My election to the Senate
of the State of New York.

CHAPTER VI. SENATORSHIP AT ALBANY--1864-1865

My arrival at Albany as State Senator. My unfitness. Efforts to
become acquainted with State questions. New acquaintances.
Governor Horatio Seymour, Charles James Folger, Ezra Cornell, and
others on the Republican side; Henry C. Murphy and Thomas C.
Fields on the Democratic side. Daniel Manning. Position
assigned me on committees. My maiden speech. Relations with
Governor Seymour. My chairmanship of the Committee on Education.
The Morrill Act of 1862. Mr. Cornell and myself at loggerheads
Codification of the Educational Laws. State Normal School Bill.
Special Committee on the New York Health Department. Revelations
made to the Committee. The Ward's Island matter. Last great
effort of the State in behalf of the Union. The Bounty Bill.
Opposition of Horace Greeley to it. Embarrassment caused by him
at that period. Senator Allaben's speech against the Bounty
Bill. His reference to French Assignats; my answer; results;
later development of this speech into a political pamphlet on
``Paper Money Inflation in France.''  Baltimore Convention of
1864; its curious characteristics; impression made upon me by it.
Breckinridge, Curtis, and Raymond. Renomination of Lincoln; my
meeting him at the White House. Sundry peculiarities then
revealed by him. His election.

CHAPTER VII. SENATORSHIP AT ALBANY--1865-1867

My second year in the State Senate. Struggle for the Charter of
Cornell University. News of Lee's surrender. Assassination of
Lincoln. Service over his remains at the Capitol in Albany. My
address. Question of my renomination. Elements against me; the
Tammany influence; sundry priests in New York, and clergymen
throughout the State. Senatorial convention; David J. Mitchell;
my renomination and election. My third year of service, 1866.
Speech on the Health Department in New York; monstrous iniquities
in that Department; success in replacing it with a better system.
My Phi Beta Kappa address at Yale; its purpose. My election to a
Professorship at Yale; reasons for declining it. State Senate
sits as Court to try a judge; his offense; pathetic
complications; his removal from office. Arrival of President
Johnson, Secretary Seward, General Grant, and Admiral Farragut in
Albany; their reception by the Governor and Senate; impressions
made on me thereby; part taken by Governor Fenton and Secretary
Seward; Judge Folger's remark to me. Ingratitude of the State
thus far to its two greatest Governors, DeWitt Clinton and
Seward.

CHAPTER VIII. ROSCOE CONKLING AND JUDGE FOLGER--1867-1868

Fourth year in the State Senate, 1867. Election of a United
States Senator; feeling throughout the State regarding Senators
Morgan and Harris; Mr. Cornell's expression of it. The
candidates; characteristics of Senator Harris, of Judge Davis, of
Roscoe Conkling. Services and characteristics of the latter
which led me to support him; hostility of Tammany henchmen
to us both. The legislative caucus. Presentation of candidates;
my presentation of Mr. Conkling; reception by the audience of my
main argument; Mr. Conkling elected. Difficulties between Judge
Folger and myself; question as to testimony in criminal cases;
Judge Folger's view of it; his vexation at my obtaining a
majority against him. Calling of the Constitutional Convention,
Judge Folger's candidacy for its Presidency; curious reason for
Horace Greeley's opposition to him. Another cause of separation
between Judge Folger and myself. Defeat of the Sodus Canal Bill.
Constitutional Convention eminent men in it; Greeley's position
in it; his agency in bringing the Convention into disrepute; his
later regret at his success; the new Constitution voted down.
Visit to Agassiz at Nahant. A day with Longfellow. His
remark regarding Mr. Greeley. Meeting with Judge Rockwood Hoar
at Harvard. Boylston prize competition; the successful
contestant; Judge Hoar's remark regarding one of the speakers.
My part in sundry political meetings. Visit to Senator Conkling.
Rebuff at one of my meetings; its effect upon me.

CHAPTER IX. GENERAL GRANT AND SANTO DOMINGO--1868-1871

Distraction from politics by Cornell University work during two
or three years following my senatorial term. Visits to
scientific and technical schools in Europe. The second political
campaign of General Grant. My visit to Auburn; Mr. Seward's
speech; its unfortunate characteristics; Mr. Cornell's remark on
my proposal to call Mr. Seward as a commencement orator. Great
services of Seward. State Judiciary Convention of 1870; my part
in it; nomination of Judge Andrews and Judge Folger; my part in
the latter; its effect on my relations with Folger. Closer
acquaintance with General Grant. Visit to Dr. Henry Field at
Stockbridge; Burton Harrison's account of the collapse of the
Confederacy and the flight of Jefferson Davis. Story told me by
William Preston Johnston throwing light on the Confederacy in its
last hours. Delegacy to the State Republican Convention of 1870.
Am named as Commissioner to Santo Domingo. First meeting with
Senator Charles Sumner. My acquaintance with Senator McDougal.
His strange characteristics. His famous plea for drunkenness.
My absence in the West Indies.

CHAPTER X. THE GREELEY CAMPAIGN--1872

First meeting with John Hay. Speech of Horace Greeley on his
return from the South; his discussion of national affairs; his
manner and surroundings; last hours and death of Samuel J. May.
The Prudence Crandall portrait. Addresses at the Yale alumni
dinner. Dinner with Longfellow at Craigie House. The State
Convention of 1871; my chairmanship and presidency of it. My
speech; appointment of committees; anti-administration
demonstration; a stormy session; retirement of the
anti-administration forces; attacks in consequence; rally of old
friends to my support. Examples of the futility of such
attacks; Senator Carpenter, Governor Seward, Senator Conklin.
My efforts to interest Conkling in a reform of the civil service.
Republican National Convention at Philadelphia in 1872; ability
of sundry colored delegates; nomination of Grant and Wilson. Mr.
Greeley's death. Characteristics of General Grant as President.
Reflections on the campaign. Questions asked me by a leading
London journalist regarding the election. My first meeting with
Samuel J. Tilden; low ebb of his fortunes at that period. The
culmination of Tweed. Thomas Nast. Meeting of the Electoral
College at Albany; the ``Winged Victory'' and General Grant's
credentials. My first experience of ``Reconstruction'' in the
South; visit to the State Capitol of South Carolina; rulings of
the colored Speaker of the House, fulfilment of Thomas
Jefferson's inspired prophecy.

CHAPTER XI. GRANT, HAYES, AND GARFIELD--1871-1881

Sundry visits to Washington during General Grant's presidency.
Impression made by President Grant; visit to him in company with
Agassiz; characteristics shown by him at Long Branch; his dealing
with one newspaper correspondent and story regarding another.
His visit to me at Cornell; his remark regarding the annexation
of Santo Domingo, far-sighted reason assigned for it; his feeling
regarding a third presidential term. My journey with him upon
the Rhine. Walks and talks with him in Paris. Persons met at
Senator Conkling's. Story told by Senator Carpenter. The
``Greenback Craze''; its spirit; its strength. Wretched
character of the old banking system. Ability and force
of Mr. Conkling's speech at Ithaca. Its effect. My previous
relations with Garfield. Character and effect of his
speech at Ithaca; his final address to the students of the
University. Our midnight conversation. President Hayes;
impressions regarding him; attacks upon him; favorable judgment
upon him by observant foreigners, excellent impression made by
him upon me at this time and at a later period. The
assassination of General Garfield. Difficulties which thickened
about him toward the end of his career. Characteristics of
President Arthur. Ground taken in my public address at Ithaca at
the service in commemoration of Garfield.

CHAPTER XII. ARTHUR, CLEVELAND, AND BLAINE--1881-1884

President Arthur; course before his Presidency; qualities
revealed afterward; curious circumstances of his nomination.
Reform of the Civil Service. My article in the ``North American
Review.''  Renewal of my acquaintance with Mr. Evarts; his witty
stories. My efforts to interest Senator Platt in civil-service
reform; his slow progress in this respect. Wayne MacVeagh; Judge
Biddle's remark at his table on American feeling regarding
capital punishment. Great defeat of the Republican party in
1882. Judge Folger's unfortunate campaign. Election of Mr.
Cleveland. My address on ``The New Germany'' at New York.
Meeting with General McDowell, the injustice of popular judgment
upon him. Revelation of Tammany frauds. Grover Cleveland, his
early life; his visit to the University; impression made upon me
by him. Senator Morrill's visit; tribute paid him by the
University authorities. My address at Yale on ``The Message of
the Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth.''  Addresses by Carl
Schurz and myself at the funeral of Edward Lasker. Election as a
delegate at large to the National Republican Convention at
Chicago, 1884. Difficulties regarding Mr. Blaine; vain efforts
to nominate another candidate; George William Curtis and his
characteristics; tyranny over the Convention by the gallery mob;
nomination of Blaine and Logan. Nomination of Mr. Cleveland by
the Democrats. Tyranny by the Chicago mob at that convention
also. Open letter to Theodore Roosevelt in favor of Mr. Blaine.
Private letter to Mr. Blaine in favor of a reform of the Civil
Service. His acceptance of its suggestions. Wretched character
of the campaign. Presidency of the Republican mass meeting at
Syracuse; experience with a Kentucky orator. Election of Mr.
Cleveland.

CHAPTER XIII. HENDRICKS, JOHN SHERMAN, BANCROFT,
AND OTHERS--1884-1891

Renewal of my acquaintance with Mr. Cleveland at Washington.
Meeting with Mr. Blaine; his fascinating qualities; his
self-control. William Walter Phelps; his arguments regarding the
treatment of Congressional speakers by the press. Senator
Randall Gibson; meeting at his house with Vice-President
Hendricks; evident disappointment of the Vice-President; his view
of civil-service reform; defense of it by Senator Butler of South
Carolina; reminiscences of odd senators by Senator Jones of
Florida; Gibson's opinion of John Sherman. President Cleveland's
mode of treating office-beggars and the like; Senator Sawyer's
story; Secretary Fairchild's remark; Senators Sherman and Vance.
Secretary Bayard's criticism of applicants for office. Senator
Butler's remark on secession. Renewal of my acquaintance with
George Bancroft. Goldwin Smith in Washington; his favorable
opinion of American crowds. Chief Justice Waite. General
Sheridan; his account of the battle of Gravelotte; discussion
between Sheridan and Goldwin Smith regarding sundry points in
military history. General Schenck; his reminiscences of Corwin
Everett, and others. Resignation of my presidency at Cornell,
1885. President Cleveland's tender of an Interstate Railway
commissionership, my declination. Departure for Europe. Am
tendered nomination for Congress; my discussion of the matter in
London with President Porter of Yale and others; declination.
Visit to Washington under the administration of General Harrison,
January, 1891; presentation of proposals to him regarding
civil-service reform; his speech in reply.

CHAPTER XIV. MCKINLEY AND ROOSEVELT--1891-1904

Candidacy for the governorship of New York; Mr. Platt's relation
to it; my reluctance and opposition; decision of the Rochester
Convention in favor of Mr. Fassett; natural reasons for this.
Lectures at Stanford University. Visit to Mexico and California
with Mr. Andrew Carnegie and his party. President Harrison
tenders me the position of minister to Russia; my retention in
office by Mr. Cleveland. My stay in Italy 1894-1895. President
Cleveland appoints me upon the Venezuelan Boundary Commission,
December, 1895. Presidential campaign of 1896. My unexpected
part in it; nomination of Mr. Bryan by Democrats; publication of
my open letter to sundry Democrats, republication of my ``Paper
Money Inflation in France,'' and its circulation as a campaign
document; election of Mr. McKinley. My address before the State
Universities of Wisconsin and Minnesota; strongly favorable
impression made upon me by them; meeting with Mr. Ignatius
Donnelly, his public address to me in the State House of
Minnesota. My addresses at Harvard, Yale, and elsewhere. Am
appointed by President McKinley ambassador to Germany; question
of my asking sanction of Mr. Platt; how settled. Renomination of
McKinley with Mr. Roosevelt as Vice-President. I revisit
America; day with Mr. Roosevelt, visits to Washington; my
impressions of President McKinley; his conversation; his
coolness; tributes from his Cabinet; Secretary Hay's testimony,
Mr. McKinley's refusal to make speeches during his second
campaign; his reasons; his relection; how received in Europe.
His assassination; receipt of the news in Germany and Great
Britain. My second visit to America; sadness, mournful
reflections at White House; conversations with President
Roosevelt; message given me by him for the Emperor; its playful
ending. The two rulers compared.

PART III--AS UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR
CHAPTER XV. LIFE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN--1857-1864

Early ideals. Gradual changes in these. Attractions of
journalism then and now. New views of life opened to me at Paris
and Berlin. Dreams of aiding the beginnings of a better system
of university education in the United States. Shortcomings of
American instruction, especially regarding history, political
science, and literature, at that period. My article on
``German Instruction in General History'' in ``The New
Englander.''  Influence of Stanley's ``Life of Arnold.''  Turning
point in my life at the Yale Commencement of 1856; Dr. Wayland's
speech. Election to the professorship of history and English
literature at the University of Michigan; my first work in it;
sundry efforts toward reforms, text-books, social relations with
students; use of the Abb Bautain's book. My courses of
lectures; President Tappan's advice on extemporaneous speaking;
publication of my syllabus; ensuing relations with Charles
Sumner. Growth and use of my private historical library.
Character of my students. Necessity for hard work.
Student discussions.

CHAPTER XVI. UNIVERSITY LIFE IN THE WEST--
1857-1864

Some difficulties; youthfulness; struggle against various
combinations, my victory; an enemy made a friend. Lectures
throughout Michigan; main purpose in these; a storm aroused;
vigorous attack upon my politico-economical views; happy results;
revenge upon my assailant; discussion in a County Court House.
Breadth and strength then given to my ideas regarding university
education. President Tappan. Henry Simmons Frieze. Brunnow.
Chief Justice Cooley. Judge Campbell. Distinguishing feature of
the University of Michigan in those days. Dr. Tappan's good
sense in administration; one typical example. Unworthy treatment
of him by the Legislature; some causes of this. Opposition to
the State University by the small sectarian colleges. Dr.
Tappan's prophecy to sundry demagogues; its fulfilment. Sundry
defects of his qualities; the ``Winchell War,'' ``Armed
Neutrality.''  Retirement of President Tappan; its painful
circumstances; amends made later by the citizens of Michigan.
The little city of Ann Arbor; origin of its name. Recreations,
tree planting on the campus; results of this. Exodus of students
into the Civil War. Lectures continued after my resignation. My
affectionate relations with the institution.

PART IV--AS UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT
CHAPTER XVII. EVOLUTION OF ``THE CORNELL IDEA''--
1850-1865

Development of my ideas on university organization at Hobart
College, at Yale, and abroad. Their further evolution at the
University of Michigan. President Tappan's influence. My plan
of a university at Syracuse. Discussions with George William
Curtis. Proposal to Gerrit Smith; its failure. A new
opportunity opens.

CHAPTER XVIII. EZRA CORNELL--1864-1874

Ezra Cornell. My first impressions regarding him. His public
library. Temporary estrangement between us; regarding the Land
Grant Fund. Our conversation regarding his intended gift. The
State Agricultural College and the ``People's College''; his
final proposal. Drafting of the Cornell University Charter. His
foresight. His views of university education. Struggle for the
charter in the Legislature; our efforts to overcome the coalition
against us; bitter attacks on him; final struggle in the
Assembly, Senate, and before the Board of Regents. Mr. Cornell's
location of the endowment lands. He nominates me to the
University Presidency. His constant liberality and labors. His
previous life; growth of his fortune; his noble use of it; sundry
original ways of his; his enjoyment of the university in its
early days; his mixture of idealism and common sense. First
celebration of Founder's Day. His resistance to unreason.
Bitter attacks upon him in sundry newspapers and in the
Legislature; the investigation; his triumph. His minor
characteristics; the motto ``True and Firm'' on his house. His
last days and hours. His political ideas. His quaint sayings;
intellectual and moral characteristics; equanimity; religious
convictions.

CHAPTER XIX. ORGANIZATION OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY--
1865-1868

Virtual Presidency of Cornell during two years before my actual
election. Division of labor between Mr. Cornell and myself. My
success in thwarting efforts to scatter the Land Grant Fund, and
in impressing three points on the Legislature. Support given by
Horace Greeley to the third of these. Judge Folger's opposition.
Sudden death of Dr. Willard and its effects. Our compromise with
Judge Folger. The founding of Willard Asylum. Continued
opposition to us. Election to the Presidency of the University.
Pressure of my own business. Presentation of my ``Plan of
Organization.'' Selection of Professors; difficulty of such
selection in those days as compared with these; system suggested;
system adopted. Resident and non- resident professorships.
Erection of university buildings; difficulty arising from a
requirement of our charter; general building plan adopted.
My visit to European technical institutions; choice of foreign
professors; purchases of books, apparatus, etc.

CHAPTER XX. THE FIRST YEARS OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY--
1868-1870

Formal opening of the University October 7, 1868. Difficulties,
mishaps, calamities, obstacles. Effect of these on Mr. Cornell
and myself. Opening ceremonies of the morning; Mr. Cornell's
speech and my own; effect of Mr. Cornell's broken health upon me.
The first ringing of the chime; effect of George W. Curtis's
oration; my realization of our difficulties; Mr. Cornell's
physical condition; inadequacy of our resources; impossibility of
selling lands; our necessary unreadiness; haste compelled by our
charter. Mr. Cornell's letter to the ``New York Tribune''
regarding student labor. Dreamers and schemers. Efforts by
``hack'' politicians. Attacks by the press, denominational and
secular. Friction in the University machinery. Difficulty of
the students in choosing courses; improvement in these days
consequent upon improvement of schools. My reprint of John
Foster's ``Essay on Decision of Character''; its good effects.
Compensations; character of the students; few infractions of
discipline; causes of this; effects of liberty of choice between
courses of study. My success in preventing the use of the
faculty as policemen; the Campus Bridge case. Sundry trials of
students by the faculty; the Dundee Lecture case; the ``Mock
Programme'' case; a suspension of class officers; revelation in
all this of a spirit of justice among students. Athletics and
their effects. Boating; General Grant's remark to me on the
Springfield regatta; Cornell's double success at Saratoga; letter
from a Princeton graduate. General improvement in American
university students during the second half of the nineteenth
century.

CHAPTER XXI. DIFFICULTIES AND DANGERS AT CORNELL--
1868-1872

Questions regarding courses of instruction. Evils of the old
system of assigning them entirely to resident professors.
Literary instruction at Yale; George William Curtis and John
Lord. Our general scheme. The Arts Course; clinching it into
our system; purchase of the Anthon Library; charges against us on
this score; our vindication. The courses in literature, science
and philosophy; influence of one of Herbert Spencer's ideas upon
the formation of all these; influence of my own experience.
Professor Wilder; his services against fustian and ``tall talk.''
The course in literature; use made of it in promoting the general
culture of students. Technical departments; Civil Engineering;
incidental question of creed in electing a professor to it.
Department of Agriculture; its difficulties; three professors who
tided it through. Department of Mechanic Arts; its peculiar
difficulties and dangers; Mr. Cornell's view regarding college
shop work for bread winning; necessity for practical work in
connection with theoretical; mode of bringing about this
connection. Mr. Sibley's gift. Delay in recognition of our
success. Department of Architecture; origin of my ideas on this
subject; the Trustees accept my architectural library and
establish the Department.

CHAPTER XXII. FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF UNIVERSITY
COURSES-1870-1872

Establishment of Laboratories. Governor Cleveland's visit.
Department of Electrical Engineering; its origin. Department of
Political Science and History. Influence of my legislative
experience upon it; my report on the Paris Exposition, and
address at Johns Hopkins; a beginning made; excellent work done
by Frank Sanborn. Provision for Political Economy; presentation
of both sides of controverted questions. Instruction in History;
my own part in it; its growth; George Lincoln Burr called into
it; lectures by Goldwin Smith, Freeman, Froude, and others.
Instruction in American History; calling of George W. Greene and
Theodore Dwight as Non-Resident, and finally of Moses Coit Tyler
as Resident Professor. Difficulties in some of these
Departments. Reaction, ``The Oscillatory Law of Human
Progress.''  ``Joe'' Sheldon's ``Professorship of Horse Sense''
needed. First gift of a building--McGraw Hall. Curious passage
in a speech at the laying of its corner-stone. Military
Instruction; peculiar clause regarding it in our Charter; our
broad construction of it; my reasons for this. The Conferring of
Degrees; abuse at sundry American institutions in conferring
honorary degrees why Cornell University confers none. Regular
Degrees; theory originally proposed; theory adopted; recent
change in practice.

CHAPTER XXIII. ``CO-EDUCATION'' AND AN UNSECTARIAN
PULPIT--1871-1904

Admission of women. The Cortland Free Scholarship; the Sage
gift; difficulties and success. Establishment of Sage Chapel;
condition named by me for its acceptance; character of the
building. Establishment of a preachership; my suggestions
regarding it accepted; Phillips Brooks preaches the first sermon,
1875; results of this system. Establishment of Barnes Hall;
its origin and development; services it has rendered.
Development of sundry minor ideas in building up the University;
efforts to develop a recognition of historical and commemorative
features; portraits, tablets, memorial windows, etc. The
beautiful work of Robert Richardson. The Memorial Chapel.
Efforts to preserve the beauty of the grounds and original plan
of buildings; constant necessity for such efforts; dangers
threatening the original plan.

CHAPTER XXIV. ROCKS, STORMS, AND PERIL--1868-1874

Difficulties and discouragements. Very serious character of some
of these. Financial difficulties; our approach, at times, to
ruin. Splendid gifts; their continuance, the ``Ostrander Elms'';
encouragement thus given. Difficulties arising from our Charter;
short time allowed us for opening the University, general plans
laid down for us. Advice, comments, etc., from friends and
enemies; remark of the Johns Hopkins trustees as to their freedom
from oppressive supervision and control; my envy of them. Large
expenditure demanded. Mr. Cornell's burdens. Installation of a
``Business Manager.''  My suspicion as to our finances. Mr.
Cornell's optimism. Discovery of a large debt; Mr. Cornell's
noble proposal; the debt cleared in fifteen minutes by four men.
Ultimate result of this subscription; worst calamities to Cornell
its greatest blessings; example of this in the founding of
fellowships and scholarships. Successful financial management
ever since. Financial difficulties arising from the burden of
the University lands on Mr. Cornell, and from his promotion of
local railways; his good reasons for undertaking these.
Entanglement of the University affairs with those of the State
and of Mr. Cornell. Narrow escape of the institution from a
fatal result. Judge Finch as an adviser; his extrication of the
University and of Mr. Cornell's family; interwoven interests
disentangled. Death of Mr. Cornell, December, 1875. My
depression at this period; refuge in historical work. Another
calamity. Munificence of John McGraw; interest shown in the
institution by his daughter; her relations to the University; her
death; her bequest; my misgivings as to our Charter; personal
complications between the McGraw heirs and some of our trustees;
efforts to bring about a settlement thwarted; ill success of the
University in the ensuing litigation. Disappointment at this
prodigious loss. Compensations for it. Splendid gifts from Mr.
Henry W. Sage, Messrs. Dean and Wm. H. Sage, and others.
Continuance of sectarian attacks; virulent outbursts; we stand on
the defensive. I finally take the offensive in a lecture on
``The Battle-fields of Science''; its purpose, its reception when
repeated and when published; kindness of President Woolsey in the
matter. Gradual expansion of the lecture into a history of ``The
Warfare of Science with Theology''; filtration of the ideas it
represents into public opinion; effect of this in smoothing the
way for the University.

CHAPTER XXV. CONCLUDING YEARS--1881-1885

Evolution of the University administration. The Trustees; new
method of selecting them; Alumni trustees. The Executive
Committee. The Faculty method of its selection; its harmony.
The Students; system of taking them into our confidence. Alumni
associations. Engrossing nature of the administration.
Collateral duties. Addresses to the Legislature, to
associations, to other institutions of learning. Duties as
Professor. Delegation of sundry administrative details.
Inaccessibility of the University in those days; difficulties in
winter. Am appointed Commissioner to Santo Domingo in 1870;
to a commissionership at the Paris Exposition in 1877, and as
Minister to Germany in 1879-1881. Test of the University
organization during these absences; opportunity thus given the
University Faculty to take responsibility in University
government. Ill results, in sundry other institutions, of
holding the President alone responsible. General good results of
our system. Difficulties finally arising. My return. The four
years of my presidency afterward. Resignation in 1885. Kindness
of trustees and students. Am requested to name my successor, and
I nominate Charles Kendall Adams. Transfer of my historical
library to the University. Two visits to Europe; reasons for
them. Lectures at various universities after my return.
Resumption of diplomatic duties. Continued relations to the
University. My feelings toward it on nearing the end of life.

PART V--IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE
CHAPTER XXVI. AS ATTACH AT ST. PETERSBURG--1854-1855

My first studies in History and International Law. Am appointed
attach at St. Petersburg. Stay in London. Mr. Buchanan's
reminiscences. Arrival in St. Petersburg. Duty of an
attach. Effects of the Crimean War on the position of the
American Minister and his suite. Good feeling established
between Russia and the United States. The Emperor Nicholas; his
death; his funeral. Reception of the Diplomatic Corps at the
Winter Palace by Alexander II; his speech; feeling shown by him
toward Austria. Count Nesselrode; his kindness to me. Visits of
sundry Americans to St. Petersburg. Curious discovery at the
Winter Palace among the machines left by Peter the Great.
American sympathizers with Russia in the Crimean War.
Difficulties thus caused for the Minister. Examples of very
original Americans; the Kentucky Colonel; the New York Election
Manager; performance of the latter at a dinner party and display
at the Post House. Feeling of the Government toward the United
States; example of this at the Kazan Cathedral. Household
troubles of the Minister. Baird the Ironmaster; his yacht race
with the Grand Duke Alexander; interesting scenes at his table.
The traveler Atkinson and Siberia.

CHAPTER XXVII. AS ATTACH AND BEARER OF DESPATCHES
IN WAR-TIME--1855

Blockade of the Neva by the allied fleet. A great opportunity
lost. Russian caricatures during the Crimean War. Visit to
Moscow. Curious features in the Kremlin, the statue of Napoleon;
the Crown, Sceptre, and Constitution of Poland. Evidences of
official stupidity. Journey from St. Petersburg to Warsaw.
Contest with the officials at the frontier; my victory.
Journey across the continent; scene in a railway carriage between
Strasburg and Paris. Delivery of my despatches in Paris. Baron
Seebach. The French Exposition of 1855. Arrival of Horace
Greeley; comical features in his Parisian life; his arrest and
imprisonment; his efforts to learn French in prison and after his
release, especially at the Crmerie of Madame Busque.
Scenes at the Exposition. Journey through Switzerland.
Experience at the Hospice of the Great St. Bernard, Fanny Kemble
Butler; kind treatment by the monks. My arrival in Berlin as
student.

CHAPTER XXVIII. AS COMMISSIONER TO SANTO DOMINGO--1871

Propositions for the annexation of Santo Domingo to the United
States. I am appointed one of three Commissioners to visit the
island. Position taken by Senator Sumner; my relations with him;
my efforts to reconcile him with the Grant Administration; effort
of Gerrit Smith. Speeches of Senator Schurz. Conversations with
Admiral Porter, Benjamin F. Butler, and others. Discussions with
President Grant; his charge to me. Enlistment of scientific
experts. Direction of them. Our residence at Santo Domingo
city. President Baez; his conversations. Condition of the
Republic; its denudation. Anxiety of the clergy for connection
with the United States. My negotiation with the Papal Nuncio and
Vicar Apostolic; his earnest desire for annexation. Reasons for
this. My expedition across the island. Mishaps. Interview with
guerrilla general in the mountains. His gift. Vain efforts at
diplomacy. Our official inquiries regarding earthquakes; pious
view taken by the Vicar of Cotuy. Visit to Vega. Aid given me
by the French Vicar. Arrival at Puerto Plata. My stay at the
Vice-President's house; a tropical catastrophe; public dinner and
speech under difficulties. Journey in the Nantasket to
Port-au-Prince. Scenes in the Haitian capital; evidences of
revolution; unlimited paper money; effect of these experiences on
Frederick Douglass. Visit to Jamaica; interview with President
Geffrard. Experience of the Commission with a newspaper reporter.
Landing at Charleston. Journey to Washington. Refusal of dinner
to Douglass on the Potomac steamer. Discovery regarding an
assertion in Mr. Sumner's speech on Santo Domingo; his injustice.
Difference of opinion in drawing up our report; we present no
recommendation but simply a statement of facts. Reasons why the
annexation was not accomplished.

CHAPTER XXIX. AS COMMISSIONER TO THE PARIS EXPOSITION--1878

Previous experience on the Educational Jury at the Philadelphia
Exposition. Emperor Dom Pedro of Brazil; curious revelation of
his character at Booth's Theater; my after acquaintance with him.
Don Juan Marin, his fine characteristics; his lesson to an
American crowd. Levasseur of the French Institute. Millet.
Gardner Hubbard. My honorary commissionership to the Paris
Exposition. Previous troubles of our Commissioner-General at the
Vienna Exposition. Necessity of avoiding these at Paris.
Membership of the upper jury. Meissonier. Tresca. Jules Simon.
Wischniegradsky. Difficulty regarding the Edison exhibit. My
social life in Paris. The sculptor Story and Judge Daly. A
Swiss-American juryman's efforts to secure the Legion of Honor.
A Fourth of July jubilation; light thrown by it on the
``Temperance Question.''  Henri Martin. Jules Simon pilots me in
Paris. Sainte-Clair Deville. Pasteur. Desjardins. Drouyn de
Lhuys. The reform school at Mettray. My visit to Thiers; his
relations to France as historian and statesman. Duruy; his
remark on rapid changes in French Ministries. Convention on
publishing law. Victor Hugo. Louis Blanc, his opinion of Thiers.
Troubles of the American Minister; a socially ambitious American
lady; vexatious plague thus revealed.

CHAPTER XXX. AS MINISTER TO GERMANY--1879-1881

Am appointed by President Hayes. Receiving instructions in
Washington. Mr. Secretary Evarts. Interesting stay in London.
The Lord Mayor at Guildhall. Speeches by Beaconsfield and
others. An animated automaton. An evening drive with Browning.
Arrival in Berlin. Golden wedding festivities of the Emperor
William I. Audiences with various members of the imperial
family. Wedding ceremonies of Prince William, now Emperor
William II. Usual topic of the American representative on
presenting his Letter of Credence from the President to the
Prussian monarch. Prince Bismarck; his greeting; questions
regarding German-Americans. Other difficulties. Baron von
Blow; his conciliatory character. Vexatious cases. Two
complicated marriages. Imperial relations. Superintendence
of consuls. Transmission of important facts to the State
Department. Care for personal interests of Americans. Fugitives
from justice. The selling of sham American diplomas; effective
means taken to stop this. Presentations at court; troublesome
applications; pleasure of aiding legitimate American efforts and
ambitions; discriminations. Curious letters demanding aid or
information. Claims to inheritances. Sundry odd applications.
The ``autograph bed-quilt.''  Associations with the diplomatic
corps. Count Delaunay. Lord Odo Russell. The Methuen episode.
Count de St. Vallier, embarrassing mishap at Nice due to him.
The Turkish and Russian ambassadors. Distressing
Russian-American marriage case. Baron Nothomb, his reminiscences
of Talleyrand. The Saxon representative and the troubles of
American lady students at Leipsic. Quaint discussions of general
politics by sundry diplomatists. The Japanese and Chinese
representatives. Curious experience with a member of the Chinese
Legation at a court reception. Sundry German public men.

CHAPTER XXXI. MEN OF NOTE IN BERLIN AND ELSEWHERE--
1879-1881

My relations with professors at the Berlin University. Lepsius,
Curtius, Gneist, Von Sybel, Droysen. Hermann Grimm and his wife.
Treitschke. Statements of Du Bois-Reymond regarding the
expulsion of the Huguenots from France. Helmholtz and Hoffmann;
a Scotch experience of the latter. Acquaintance with professors
at other universities. Literary men of Berlin. Auerbach. His
story of unveiling the Spinoza statue. Rodenberg. Berlin
artists. Knaus; curious beginning of my acquaintance with him.
Carl Becker. Anton von Werner; his statement regarding his
painting the ``Proclamation of the Empire at Versailles.''  Adolf
Menzel; visit to his studio; his quaint discussions of his own
pictures. Pilgrimage to Oberammergau, impressions, my
acquaintance with the ``Christus'' and the ``Judas''; popular
prejudice against the latter. Excursion to France. Talks with
President Grvy and with the Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Barthlemy-Saint-Hilaire. The better side of France.
Talk with M. de Lesseps. The salon of Madame Edmond Adam.
mile de Girardin. My recollections of Alexander Dumas.
Sainte-Beuve. Visit to Nice. Young Leland Stanford. Visit to
Florence. Ubaldino Peruzzi. Professor Villari. A reproof from
a Harvard professor. Minghetti. Emperor Frederick III; his
visit to the American Fisheries Exposition; the Americans win the
prize. Interest of the Prince in everything American. Kindness
and heartiness of the Emperor William I; his interest in
Bancroft; my final interview with him. Farewell dinner to me by
my Berlin friends.

CHAPTER XXXII. MY RECOLLECTIONS OF BISMARCK--1879-1881

My first sight of him. First interview with him. His feeling
toward German-Americans. His conversation on American questions.
A family dinner at his house. His discussion of various
subjects; his opinions of Thiers and others, conversation on
travel; his opinions of England and Englishmen; curious
reminiscences of his own life; kindly recollections of Bancroft,
Bayard Taylor, and Motley. Visit to him with William D. Kelly;
our walk and talk in the garden. Bismarck's view of financial
questions. Mr. Kelly's letter to the American papers; its effect
in Germany. Bismarck's diplomatic dinners; part taken in them by
the Reichshunde. The Rudhardt episode. Scene in the Prussian
House of Lords. Bismarck's treatment of Lasker; his rejection of
our Congressional Resolutions. Usual absence of Bismarck from
Court. Reasons for it. Festivities at the marriage of the
present Emperor William. A Fackeltanz. Bismarck's fits of
despondency; remark by Gneist. Gneist's story illustrating
Bismarck's drinking habits. Difficulties in German-American
``military cases'' after Baron von Blow's death. A serious
crisis. Bismarck's mingled severity and kindness. His
unyielding attitude toward Russia. Question between us regarding
German interference in South America. My citations from
Washington's Farewell Address and John Quincy Adams's despatches.
Bismarck's appearance in Parliament. His mode of speaking.
Contrast of his speeches with those of Moltke and Windthorst.
Beauty of his family life. My last view of him.

LIST OF PORTRAITS
OF THE AUTHOR

VOLUME I

ITHACA, 1905                 Photograph by Robinson, Ithaca

SARATOGA, 1842               From a daguerreotype

CORNELL UNIVERSITY, 1878     Photograph by Sarony, New York

VOLUME II

THE HAGUE, 1899             Photograph by Zimmermans, The Hague

OXFORD, 1902                Photograph by Robinson, Ithaca

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
ANDREW DICKSON WHITE

PART I
ENVIRONMENT AND EDUCATION

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
ANDREW DICKSON WHITE

CHAPTER I

BOYHOOD IN CENTRAL NEW YORK--1832-1850

At the close of the Revolution which separated the
colonies from the mother country, the legislature of
New York set apart nearly two million acres of land, in the
heart of the State, as bounty to be divided among her soldiers
who had taken part in the war; and this ``Military
Tract,'' having been duly divided into townships, an ill-
inspired official, in lack of names for so many divisions,
sprinkled over the whole region the contents of his classical
dictionary. Thus it was that there fell to a beautiful
valley upon the headwaters of the Susquehanna the
name of ``Homer.''  Fortunately the surveyor-general
left to the mountains, lakes, and rivers the names the
Indians had given them, and so there was still some poetical
element remaining in the midst of that unfortunate
nomenclature. The counties, too, as a rule, took Indian
names, so that the town of Homer, with its neighbors,
Tully, Pompey, Fabius, Lysander, and the rest, were embedded
in the county of Onondaga, in the neighborhood
of lakes Otisco and Skaneateles, and of the rivers Tioughnioga
and Susquehanna.

Hither came, toward the close of the eighteenth century,
a body of sturdy New Englanders, and, among them, my
grandfathers and grandmothers. Those on my father's
side: Asa White and Clara Keep, from Munson, Massa-
chusetts; those on my mother's side, Andrew Dickson,
from Middlefield, Massachusetts, and Ruth Hall from
Guilford, Connecticut. They were all of ``good stock.''
When I was ten years old I saw my great-grandfather at
Middlefield, eighty-two years of age, sturdy and vigorous;
he had mowed a broad field the day before, and he walked
four miles to church the day after. He had done his duty
manfully during the war, had been a member of the
``Great and General Court'' of Massachusetts, and had
held various other offices, which showed that he enjoyed
the confidence of his fellow-citizens. As to the other side
of the house, there was a tradition that we came from
Peregrine White of the Mayflower; but I have never had
time to find whether my doubts on the subject were well
founded or not. Enough for me to know that my yeomen
ancestors did their duty in war and peace, were honest,
straightforward, God-fearing men and women, who
owned their own lands, and never knew what it was to
cringe before any human being.

These New Englanders literally made the New York
wilderness to blossom as the rose; and Homer, at my
birth in 1832, about forty years after the first settlers
came, was, in its way, one of the prettiest villages
imaginable. In the heart of it was the ``Green,'' and along
the middle of this a line of church edifices, and the academy.
In front of the green, parallel to the river, ran,
north and south, the broad main street, beautifully shaded
with maples, and on either side of this, in the middle of
the village, were stores, shops, and the main taverns; while
north and south of these were large and pleasant dwellings,
each in its own garden or grove or orchard, and
separated from the street by light palings,--all, without
exception, neat, trim, and tidy.

My first recollections are of a big, comfortable house
of brick, in what is now called ``colonial style,'' with a
``stoop,'' long and broad, on its southern side, which in
summer was shaded with honeysuckles. Spreading out
southward from this was a spacious garden filled with
old-fashioned flowers, and in this I learned to walk. To
this hour the perfume of a pink brings the whole scene
before me, and proves the justice of Oliver Wendell
Holmes's saying that we remember past scenes more vividly
by the sense of smell than by the sense of sight.

I can claim no merit for clambering out of poverty.
My childhood was happy; my surroundings wholesome;
I was brought up neither in poverty nor riches; my parents
were what were called ``well-to-do-people''; everything
about me was good and substantial; but our mode
of life was frugal; waste or extravagance or pretense was
not permitted for a moment. My paternal grandfather
had been, in the early years of the century, the richest
man in the township; but some time before my birth he
had become one of the poorest; for a fire had consumed
his mills, there was no insurance, and his health gave way.
On my father, Horace White, had fallen, therefore, the
main care of his father's family. It was to the young
man, apparently, a great calamity:--that which grieved
him most being that it took him--a boy not far in his
teens--out of school. But he met the emergency
manfully, was soon known far and wide for his energy,
ability, and integrity, and long before he had reached
middle age was considered one of the leading men of business
in the county.

My mother had a more serene career. In another part
of these Reminiscences, saying something of my religious
and political development, I shall speak again of her and
of her parents. Suffice it here that her father prospered
as a man of business, was known as ``Colonel,'' and also
as ``Squire'' Dickson, and represented his county in the
State legislature. He died when I was about three years
old, and I vaguely remember being brought to him as he
lay upon his death-bed. On one account, above all others,
I have long looked back to him with pride. For the first
public care of the early settlers had been a church, and
the second a school. This school had been speedily
developed into Cortland Academy, which soon became fa-
mous throughout all that region, and, as a boy of five or
six years of age, I was very proud to read on the corner-
stone of the Academy building my grandfather's name
among those of the original founders.

Not unlikely there thus came into my blood the strain
which has led me ever since to feel that the building up of
goodly institutions is more honorable than any other
work,--an idea which was at the bottom of my efforts in
developing the University of Michigan, and in founding
Cornell University.

To Cortland Academy students came from far and
near; and it soon began sending young men into the foremost
places of State and Church. At an early day, too,
it began receiving young women and sending them forth
to become the best of matrons. As my family left the
place when I was seven years old I was never within
its walls as a student, but it acted powerfully on my
education in two ways,--it gave my mother the best of
her education, and it gave to me a respect for scholarship.
The library and collections, though small, suggested
pursuits better than the scramble for place or pelf; the
public exercises, two or three times a year, led my
thoughts, no matter how vaguely, into higher regions, and
I shall never forget the awe which came over me when
as a child, I saw Principal Woolworth, with his best
students around him on the green, making astronomical
observations through a small telescope.

Thus began my education into that great truth, so
imperfectly understood, as yet, in our country, that stores,
shops, hotels, facilities for travel and traffic are not the
highest things in civilization.

This idea was strengthened in the family. Devoted as
my father was to business, he always showed the greatest
respect for men of thought. I have known him, even
when most absorbed in his pursuits, to watch occasions
for walking homeward with a clergyman or teacher,
whose conversation he especially prized. There was scant
respect in the family for the petty politicians of the
region; but there was great respect for the instructors
of the academy, and for any college professor who happened
to be traveling through the town. I am now in my
sixty-eighth year, and I write these lines from the American
Embassy in Berlin. It is my duty here, as it has
been at other European capitals, to meet various high
officials; but that old feeling, engendered in my childhood,
continues, and I bow to the representatives of
the universities,--to the leaders in science, literature, and
art, with a feeling of awe and respect far greater than
to their so-called superiors,--princelings and high military
or civil officials.

Influences of a more direct sort came from a primary
school. To this I was taken, when about three years old,
for a reason which may strike the present generation
as curious. The colored servant who had charge of me
wished to learn to read--so she slipped into the school and
took me with her. As a result, though my memory runs
back distinctly to events near the beginning of my fourth
year, it holds not the faintest recollection of a time when
I could not read easily. The only studies which I recall
with distinctness, as carried on before my seventh year,
are arithmetic and geography. As to the former, the
multiplication-table was chanted in chorus by the whole
body of children, a rhythmical and varied movement of
the arms being carried on at the same time. These exercises
gave us pleasure and fastened the tables in our
minds. As to geography, that gave pleasure in another
way. The books contained pictures which stimulated my
imagination and prompted me to read the adjacent text.
There was no over-pressure. Mental recreation and
information were obtained in a loose way from ``Rollo
Books,'' ``Peter Parley Books,'' ``Sanford and Merton,''
the ``Children's Magazine,'' and the like. I now
think it a pity that I was not allowed to read, instead of
these, the novels of Scott and Cooper, which I discovered
later. I devoutly thank Heaven that no such thing as
a sensation newspaper was ever brought into the house,--
even if there were one at that time,--which I doubt. As
to physical recreation, there was plenty during the summer
in the fields and woods, and during the winter in
coasting, building huts in the deep snow, and in storming
or defending the snow forts on the village green. One
of these childish sports had a historical connection with
a period which now seems very far away. If any old
settler happened to pass during our snow-balling or
our shooting with bows and arrows, he was sure to look
on with interest, and, at some good shot, to cry out,--
``SHOOT BURGOYNE!''--thus recalling his remembrances
of the sharpshooters who brought about the great
surrender at Saratoga.

In my seventh year my father was called to take charge
of the new bank established at Syracuse, thirty miles
distant, and there the family soon joined him. I remember
that coming through the Indian Reservation, on the road
between the two villages, I was greatly impressed by the
bowers and other decorations which had been used
shortly before at the installation of a new Indian chief.
It was the headquarters of the Onondagas,--formerly the
great central tribe of the Iroquois,--the warlike confederacy
of the Six Nations; and as, in a general way, the
story was told me on that beautiful day in September a
new world of romance was opened to me, so that Indian
stories, and especially Cooper's novels, when I was
allowed to read them, took on a new reality.

Syracuse, which is now a city of one hundred and
twenty thousand inhabitants, was then a straggling
village of about five thousand. After much time lost in
sundry poor ``select schools'' I was sent to one of the
public schools which was very good, and thence, when
about twelve years old, to the preparatory department
of the Syracuse Academy.

There, by good luck, was Joseph A. Allen, the best
teacher of English branches I have ever known. He had
no rules and no system; or, rather, his rule was to have
no rules, and his system was to have no system. To
genius. He seemed to divine the character and enter into
the purpose of every boy. Work under him was a pleasure.
His methods were very simple. Great attention
was given to reading aloud from a book made up of
selections from the best authors, and to recitals from these.
Thus I stored up not only some of the best things in
the older English writers, but inspiring poems of Bryant,
Whittier, Longfellow, and other moderns. My only regret
is that more of this was not given us. I recall, among
treasures thus gained, which have been precious to me
ever since, in many a weary or sleepless hour on land
and sea, extracts from Shakspere, parts of Milton's
``Samson Agonistes,'' and of his sonnets; Gray's
``Elegy,'' Byron's ``Ode to the Ocean,'' Campbell's
``What's Hallowed Ground?'' Goldsmith's ``Deserted
Village,'' Longfellow's ``Psalm of Life,'' Irving's ``Voyage
to Europe,'' and parts of Webster's ``Reply to Hayne.''

At this school the wretched bugbear of English spelling
was dealt with by a method which, so long as our present
monstrous orthography continues, seems to me the
best possible. During the last half-hour of every day,
each scholar was required to have before him a copy-
book, of which each page was divided into two columns.
At the head of the first column was the word ``Spelling'';
at the head of the second column was the word ``Corrected.''
The teacher then gave out to the school about
twenty of the more important words in the reading-
lesson of the day, and, as he thus dictated each word, each
scholar wrote it in the column headed ``Spelling.''  When
all the words were thus written, the first scholar was asked
to spell from his book the first word; if misspelled, it
was passed to the next, and so on until it was spelled
correctly; whereupon all who had made a mistake in writing
it made the proper correction on the opposite column.
The result of this was that the greater part of us learned
orthography PRACTICALLY. For the practical use of spelling
comes in writing.

The only mistake in Mr. Allen's teaching was too much
attention to English grammar. The order ought to be,
literature first, and grammar afterward. Perhaps there
is no more tiresome trifling in the world for boys and
girls than rote recitations and parsing from one of the
usual grammatical text-books.

As to mathematics, arithmetic was, perhaps, pushed
too far into puzzles; but geometry was made fascinating
by showing its real applications and the beauty of its
reasoning. It is the only mathematical study I ever loved.
In natural science, though most of the apparatus of
schools nowadays was wanting, Mr. Allen's instruction
was far beyond his time. Never shall I forget my excited
interest when, occasionally, the village surgeon came
in, and the whole school was assembled to see him dissect
the eye or ear or heart of an ox. Physics, as then
understood, was studied in a text-book, but there was
illustration by simple apparatus, which fastened firmly
in my mind the main facts and principles.

The best impulse by this means came from the principal
of the academy, Mr. Oren Root,--one of the pioneers
of American science, whose modesty alone stood in
the way of his fame. I was too young to take direct
instruction from him, but the experiments which I saw him
perform led me, with one or two of my mates, to construct
an excellent electrical machine and subsidiary apparatus;
and with these, a small galvanic battery and an extemporized
orrery, I diluted Professor Root's lectures with the
teachings of my little books on natural philosophy and
astronomy to meet the capacities of the younger boys in
our neighborhood.

Salient among my recollections of this period are the
cries and wailing of a newly-born babe in the rooms at
the academy occupied by the principal, and adjacent to
our big school-room. Several decades of years later I had
the honor of speaking on the platform of Cooper Institute
in company with this babe, who, as I write, is, I believe,
the very energetic Secretary of War in the Cabinet
of President McKinley.

Unfortunately for me, Mr. Root was soon afterward
called away to a professorship at Hamilton College, and
so, though living in the best of all regions for geological
study, I was never properly grounded in that science, and
as to botany, I am to this hour utterly ignorant of its
simplest facts and principles. I count this as one of the
mistakes in my education,--resulting in the loss of much
valuable knowledge and high pleasure.

As to physical development, every reasonable encouragement
was given to play. Mr. Allen himself came frequently
to the play-grounds. He was an excellent musician
and a most helpful influence was exerted by singing,
which was a daily exercise of the school. I then began
taking lessons regularly in music and became proficient
enough to play the organ occasionally in church; the best
result of this training being that it gave my life one of its
deepest, purest, and most lasting pleasures.

On the moral side, Mr. Allen influenced many of
us by liberalizing and broadening our horizon. He was
a disciple of Channing and an abolitionist, and, though he
never made the slightest attempt to proselyte any of his
scholars, the very atmosphere of the school made sectarian
bigotry impossible.

As to my general education outside the school I browsed
about as best I could. My passion in those days was for
machinery, and, above all, for steam machinery. The
stationary and locomotive engines upon the newly-
established railways toward Albany on the east and Buffalo
on the west especially aroused my attention, and I came to
know every locomotive, its history, character, and capabilities,
as well as every stationary engine in the whole region.
My holiday excursions, when not employed in boating
or skating on the Onondaga Creek, or upon the lake,
were usually devoted to visiting workshops, where the
engine drivers and stokers seemed glad to talk with a
youngster who took an interest in their business. Especially
interested was I in a rotary engine on ``Barker's
centrifugal principle,'' with which the inventor had prom-
ised to propel locomotives at the rate of a hundred miles
an hour, but which had been degraded to grinding bark in
a tannery. I felt its disgrace keenly, as a piece of gross
injustice; but having obtained a small brass model, fitted
to it a tin boiler and placed it on a little stern-wheel boat,
I speedily discovered the secret of the indignity which
had overtaken the machine, for no boat could carry a
boiler large enough to supply steam for it.

So, too, I knew every water-wheel in that part of the
county, whether overshot, undershot, breast, or turbine.
Everything in the nature of a motor had an especial
fascination for me, and for the men in control of such power
I entertained a respect which approached awe.

Among all these, my especial reverence was given to the
locomotive engineers; in my youthful mind they took on
a heroic character. Often during the night watches I
thought of them as braving storm and peril, responsible
for priceless freights of human lives. Their firm, keen
faces come back to me vividly through the mists of sixty
years, and to this day I look up to their successors at the
throttle with respectful admiration.

After Professor Root's departure the Syracuse Academy
greatly declined, Mr. Allen being the only strong
man left among its teachers, and, as I was to go
to college, I was removed to a ``classical school.''  This
school was not at first very successful. Its teacher was
a good scholar but careless. Under him I repeated the
grammatical forms and rules in Latin and Greek, glibly,
term after term, without really understanding their
value. His great mistake, which seems to me a not
infrequent one, was taking it for granted that repeating
rules and forms means understanding them and their
application. But a catastrophe came. I had been promoted
beyond my deserts from a lower into an upper Latin class,
and at a public examination the Rev. Samuel Joseph
May, who was present, asked me a question, to which I
made an answer revealing utter ignorance of one of the
simplest principles of Latin grammar. He was discon-
certed at the result, I still more so, and our preceptor most
of all. That evening my father very solemnly asked me
about it. I was mortified beyond expression, did not
sleep at all that night, and of my own accord, began
reviewing my Andrews and Stoddard thoroughly and
vigorously. But this did not save the preceptor. A
successor was called, a man who afterward became an
eminent Presbyterian divine and professor in a Southern
university, James W. Hoyt, one of the best and truest
of men, and his manly, moral influence over his scholars
was remarkable. Many of them have reached positions of
usefulness, and I think they will agree that his influence
upon their lives was most happy. The only drawback
was that he was still very young, not yet through his
senior year in Union College, and his methods in classical
teaching were imperfect. He loved his classics and taught
his better students to love them, but he was neither
thorough in grammar, nor sure in translation, and this I
afterward found to my sorrow. My friend and schoolmate
of that time, W. O. S., published a few years since,
in the ``St. Nicholas Magazine,'' an account of this school.
It was somewhat idealized, but we doubtless agree in
thinking that the lack of grammatical drill was more than
made up by the love of manliness, and the dislike of
meanness, which was in those days our very atmosphere.
Probably the best thing for my mental training was that
Mr. Hoyt interested me in my Virgil, Horace, and Xenophon,
and required me to write out my translations in the
best English at my command.

But to all his pupils he did not prove so helpful. One
of them, though he has since become an energetic man
of business on the Pacific Coast, was certainly not helped
into his present position by his Latin; for of all the
translations I have ever heard or read of, one of his was the
worst. Being called to construe the first line of the
Aeneid, he proceeded as follows:

``Arma,--arms; virumque,--and a man; cano,--and a
dog.''  There was a roar, and Mr. Hoyt, though evidently
saddened, kept his temper. He did not, like the great
and good Arnold of Rugby, under similar provocation,
knock the offender down with the text-book.

Still another agency in my development was the debating
club, so inevitable in an American village. Its
discussions were sometimes pretentious and always crude,
but something was gained thereby. I remember that one
of the subjects was stated as follows: ``Which has done
most harm, intemperance or fanaticism.''  The debate
was without any striking feature until my schoolmate,
W. O. S., brought up heavy artillery on the side of the
anti-fanatics: namely, a statement of the ruin wrought
by Mohammedanism in the East, and, above all, the
destruction of the great Alexandrian library by Caliph
Omar; and with such eloquence that all the argumentation
which any of us had learned in the temperance meetings
was paralyzed.

On another occasion we debated the question: ``Was
the British Government justified in its treatment of
Napoleon Bonaparte?''  Much historical lore had been
brought to bear on the question, when an impassioned
young orator wound up a bitter diatribe against the great
emperor as follows: ``The British Government WAS justified,
and if for no other reason, by the Emperor Napoleon's
murder of the `Duck de Engine' '' (Duc d'Enghien).

As to education outside of the school very important
to me had been the discovery, when I was about ten years
old, of `` `The Monastery,' by the author of `Waverley.' ''
Who the ``author of `Waverley' '' was I neither knew nor
cared, but read the book three times, end over end, in a
sort of fascination. Unfortunately, novels and romances
were kept under lock and key, as unfit reading for children,
and it was some years before I reveled in Scott's
other novels. That they would have been thoroughly
good and wholesome reading for me I know, and about
my sixteenth year they opened a new world to me and
gave healthful play to my imagination. I also read and
re-read Bunyan's ``Pilgrim's Progress,'' and, with plea-
sure even more intense, the earlier works of Dickens,
which were then appearing.

My only regret, as regards that time, is that, between the
rather trashy ``boys' books'' on one side and the rather
severe books in the family library on the other, I read
far less of really good literature than I ought to have
done. My reading was absolutely without a guide, hence
fitful and scrappy; parts of Rollin's ``Ancient History''
and Lander's ``Travels in Africa'' being mixed up with
``Robinson Crusoe'' and ``The Scottish Chiefs.''  Reflection
on my experience has convinced me that some
kindly guidance in the reading of a fairly scholarly boy
is of the utmost importance, and never more so than now,
when books are so many and attractive. I should lay
much stress, also, on the hearing of good literature well
read, and the interspersing of such reading with some
remarks by the reader, pointing out the main beauties
of the pieces thus presented.

About my tenth year occurred an event, apparently
trivial, but really very important in my mental
development during many years afterward. My father
brought home one day, as a gift to my mother, a
handsome quarto called ``The Gallery of British Artists.''
It contained engravings from pictures by Turner, Stanfield,
Cattermole, and others, mainly representing scenes
from Shakspere, Scott, Burns, picturesque architecture,
and beautiful views in various parts of Europe. Of this
book I never tired. It aroused in me an intense desire
to know more of the subjects represented, and this desire
has led me since to visit and to study every cathedral,
church, and town hall of any historical or architectural
significance in Europe, outside the Spanish peninsula.
But, far more important, it gave an especial zest to nearly
all Scott's novels, and especially to the one which I have
always thought the most fascinating, ``Quentin Durward.''
This novel led me later, not merely to visit Liege,
and Orlans, and Clry, and Tours, but to devour the
chronicles and histories of that period, to become deeply
interested in historical studies, and to learn how great
principles lie hidden beneath the surface of events. The
first of these principles I ever clearly discerned was
during my reading of ``Quentin Durward'' and ``Anne of
Geierstein,'' when there was revealed to me the secret
of the centralization of power in Europe, and of the
triumph of monarchy over feudalism.

In my sixteenth and seventeenth years another element
entered into my education. Syracuse, as the central city
of the State, was the scene of many conventions and public
meetings. That was a time of very deep earnestness in
political matters. The last great efforts were making,
by the more radical, peaceably to prevent the extension
of slavery, and, by the more conservative, peaceably to
preserve the Union. The former of these efforts interested
me most. There were at Syracuse frequent public debates
between the various groups of the anti-slavery
party represented by such men as Gerrit Smith, Wendell
Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, John Parker Hale,
Samuel Joseph May, and Frederick Douglass. They took
strong hold upon me and gave me a higher idea of a man's
best work in life. That was the bloom period of the old
popular lecture. It was the time when lectures were
expected to build character and increase knowledge; the
sensation and buffoon business which destroyed the system
had not yet come in. I feel to this hour the good
influence of lectures then heard, in the old City Hall at
Syracuse, from such men as President Mark Hopkins,
Bishop Alonzo Potter, Senator Hale of New Hampshire,
Emerson, Ware, Whipple, and many others.

As to recreative reading at this period, the author who
exercised the strongest influence over me was Charles
Kingsley. His novels ``Alton Locke'' and ``Yeast''
interested me greatly in efforts for doing away with old
abuses in Europe, and his ``Two Years After'' increased
my hatred for negro slavery in America. His ``Westward
Ho!'' extended my knowledge of the Elizabethan
period and increased my manliness. Of this period, too,
was my reading of Lowell's Poems, many of which I
greatly enjoyed. His ``Biglow Papers'' were a perpetual
delight; the dialect was familiar to me since, in the
little New England town transplanted into the heart of
central New York, in which I was born, the less educated
people used it, and the dry and droll Yankee expressions
of our ``help'' and ``hired man'' were a source of
constant amusement in the family.

In my seventeenth year came a trial. My father had
taken a leading part in establishing a parish school for
St. Paul's church in Syracuse, in accordance with the
High Church views of our rector, Dr. Gregory, and there
was finally called to the mastership a young candidate
for orders, a brilliant scholar and charming man, who has
since become an eminent bishop of the Protestant Episcopal
Church. To him was intrusted my final preparation
for college. I had always intended to enter one
of the larger New England universities, but my teacher
was naturally in favor of his Alma Mater, and the influence
of our bishop, Dr. de Lancey, being also thrown
powerfully into the scale, my father insisted on placing
me at a small Protestant Episcopal college in western
New York. I went most reluctantly. There were in the
faculty several excellent men, one of whom afterward
became a colleague of my own in Cornell University, and
proved of the greatest value to it. Unfortunately, we of
the lower college classes could have very little instruction
from him; still there was good instruction from
others; the tutor in Greek, James Morrison Clarke, was
one of the best scholars I have ever known.

It was in the autumn of 1849 that I went into residence
at the little college and was assigned a very unprepossessing
room in a very ugly barrack. Entering my new
quarters I soon discovered about me various cabalistic
signs, some of them evidently made by heating large iron
keys, and pressing them against the woodwork. On
inquiring I found that the room had been occupied some
years before by no less a personage than Philip Spencer,
a member of the famous Spencer family of Albany, who,
having passed some years at this little college, and never
having been able to get out of the freshman class, had
gone to another institution of about the same grade, had
there founded a Greek letter fraternity which is now
widely spread among American universities, and then,
through the influence of his father, who was Secretary
of War, had been placed as a midshipman under
Commodore McKenzie on the brig-of-war Somers. On the
coast of Africa a mutiny was discovered, and as, on
examination, young Spencer was found at the head of it,
and papers discovered in his cabin revealed the plan of
seizing the ship and using it in a career of piracy, the
young man, in spite of his connection with a member of
the Cabinet, was hanged at the yard-arm with two of his
associates.

The most curious relic of him at the college was
preserved in the library of the Hermean Society. It was a
copy of ``The Pirates' Own Book'': a glorification of the
exploits of ``Blackbeard'' and other great freebooters,
profusely adorned with illustrations of their joys and
triumphs. This volume bore on the fly-leaf the words,
``Presented to the Hermean Society by Philip Spencer,'' and
was in those days shown as a great curiosity.

The college was at its lowest ebb; of discipline there
was none; there were about forty students, the majority
of them, sons of wealthy churchmen, showing no inclination
to work and much tendency to dissipation. The
authorities of the college could not afford to expel or even
offend a student. for its endowment was so small that it
must have all the instruction fees possible, and must keep
on good terms with the wealthy fathers of its scapegrace
students. The scapegraces soon found this out, and the
result was a little pandemonium. Only about a dozen
of our number studied at all; the rest, by translations,
promptings, and evasions escaped without labor. I have
had to do since, as student, professor, or lecturer, with
some half-dozen large universities at home and abroad,
and in all of these together have not seen so much
carousing and wild dissipation as I then saw in this little
``Church college'' of which the especial boast was that,
owing to the small number of its students, it was ``able
to exercise a direct Christian influence upon every young
man committed to its care.''

The evidences of this Christian influence were not clear.
The president of the college, Dr. Benjamin Hale, was a
clergyman of the highest character; a good scholar, an
excellent preacher, and a wise administrator; but his
stature was very small, his girth very large, and his hair
very yellow. When, then, on the thirteenth day of the
month, there was read at chapel from the Psalter the
words, ``And there was little Benjamin, their ruler,''
very irreverent demonstrations were often made by the
students, presumably engaged in worship; demonstrations
so mortifying, indeed, that at last the president frequently
substituted for the regular Psalms of the day one of the
beautiful ``Selections'' of Psalms which the American
Episcopal Church has so wisely incorporated into its
prayer-book.

But this was by no means the worst indignity which
these youth ``under direct Christian influence''
perpetrated upon their reverend instructors. It was my
privilege to behold a professor, an excellent clergyman,
seeking to quell hideous riot in a student's room, buried under
a heap of carpets, mattresses, counterpanes, and blankets;
to see another clerical professor forced to retire through
the panel of a door under a shower of lexicons, boots, and
brushes, and to see even the president himself, on one
occasion, obliged to leave his lecture-room by a ladder from
a window, and, on another, kept at bay by a shower of
beer-bottles.

One favorite occupation was rolling cannon-balls along
the corridors at midnight, with frightful din and much
damage: a tutor, having one night been successful
in catching and confiscating two of these, pounced from
his door the next night upon a third; but this having
been heated nearly to redness and launched from a shovel,
the result was that he wore bandages upon his hands for
many days.

Most ingenious were the methods for ``training freshmen,''--
one of the mildest being the administration of
soot and water by a hose-pipe thrust through the broken
panel of a door. Among general freaks I remember seeing
a horse turned into the chapel, and a stuffed wolf,
dressed in a surplice, placed upon the roof of that sacred
edifice.

But the most elaborate thing of the kind I ever saw
was the breaking up of a ``Second Adventist'' meeting
by a score of student roysterers. An itinerant fanatic had
taken an old wooden meeting-house in the lower part
of the town, had set up on either side of the pulpit large
canvas representations of the man of brass with feet of
clay, and other portentous characters of the prophecies,
and then challenged the clergy to meet him in public
debate. At the appointed time a body of college youth
appeared, most sober in habit and demure in manner,
having at their head ``Bill'' Howell of Black Rock and
``Tom'' Clark of Manlius, the two wildest miscreants in
the sophomore class, each over six feet tall, the latter
dressed as a respectable farmer, and the former as a
country clergyman, wearing a dress-coat, a white cravat,
a tall black hat wrapped in crape, leaning on a heavy,
ivory-knobbed cane, and carrying ostentatiously a Greek
Testament. These disguised malefactors, having taken
their seats in the gallery directly facing the pulpit, the
lecturer expressed his ``satisfaction at seeing clergymen
present,'' and began his demonstrations. For about five
minutes all went well; then ``Bill'' Howell solemnly arose
and, in a snuffling voice, asked permission to submit a few
texts from scripture. Permission being granted, he put
on a huge pair of goggles, solemnly opened his Greek
Testament, read emphatically the first passage which attracted
his attention and impressively asked the lecturer what
he had to say to it. At this, the lecturer, greatly puzzled,
asked what the reverend gentleman was reading. Upon
this Howell read in New Testament Greek another utterly
irrelevant passage. In reply the lecturer said, rather
roughly, ``If you will speak English I will answer you.''
At this Howell said with the most humble suavity, ``Do
I understand that the distinguished gentleman does not
recognize what I have been reading?''  The preacher
answered, ``I don't understand any such gibberish;
speak English.''  Thereupon Howell threw back his long
black hair and launched forth into eloquent denunciation
as follows: ``Sir, is it possible that you come here to
interpret to us the Holy Bible and do not recognize the
language in which that blessed book was written? Sir,
do you dare to call the very words of the Almighty
`gibberish?' ''  At this all was let loose; some students put
asafetida on the stove; others threw pigeon-shot against
the ceiling and windows, making a most appalling din,
and one wretch put in deadly work with a syringe thrust
through the canvas representation of the man of brass
with feet of clay. But, alas, Constable John Dey had
recognized Howell and Clark, even amid their disguises.
He had dealt with them too often before. The next
tableau showed them, with their tall hats crushed over their
heads, belaboring John Dey and his myrmidons, and presently,
with half a dozen other ingenuous youth, they were
haled to the office of justice. The young judge who
officiated on this occasion was none other than a personage
who will be mentioned with great respect more than
once in these reminiscences,--Charles James Folger,--
afterward my colleague in the State Senate, Chief Justice
of the State and Secretary of the Treasury of the United
States. He had met Howell often, for they were members
of the same Greek letter fraternity,--the thrice illustrious
Sigma Phi,--and, only a few days before, Howell had
presented me to him; but there was no fraternal bond
visible now; justice was sternly implacable, and good
round fines were imposed upon all the culprits caught.

The philosophy of all this waywardness and dissipation
was very simple. There was no other outlet for the animal
spirits of these youth. Athletics were unknown; there
was no gymnasium, no ball-playing, and, though the college
was situated on the shore of one of the most beautiful
lakes in the world, no boating. As regards my own personal
relation to this condition of things I have pictured, it
was more that of a good-natured spectator than of an active
accomplice. My nearest friends were in the thick of
it, but my tastes kept me out of most of it. I was fond of
books, and, in the little student's library in my college
building I reveled. Moreover, I then began to accumulate
for myself the library which has since grown to such large
proportions. Still the whole life of the place became more
and more unsatisfactory to me, and I determined, at any
cost, to escape from it and find some seat of learning where
there was less frolic and more study.

CHAPTER II

YALE AND EUROPE--1850-1857

At the close of my year at the little Western New York
College I felt that it was enough time wasted, and,
anxious to try for something better, urged upon my father
my desire to go to one of the larger New England universities.
But to this he would not listen. He was assured by
the authorities of the little college that I had been doing
well, and his churchmanship, as well as his respect for the
bishop, led him to do what was very unusual with him--to
refuse my request. Up to this period he had allowed me to
take my own course; but now he was determined that I
should take his. He was one of the kindest of men, but he
had stern ideas as to proper subordination, and these he
felt it his duty to maintain. I was obliged to make a coup
d'tat, and for a time it cost me dear. Braving the
censure of family and friends, in the early autumn of 1850 I
deliberately left the college, and took refuge with my old
instructor P----, who had prepared me for college at
Syracuse, and who was now principal of the academy at
Moravia, near the head of Owasco Lake, some fifty miles
distant. To thus defy the wishes of those dearest to me
was a serious matter. My father at first took it deeply to
heart. His letters were very severe. He thought my
career wrecked, avowed that he had lost all interest in it,
and declared that he would rather have received news of
my death than of such a disgrace. But I knew that my dear
mother was on my side. Her letters remained as affectionate
as ever; and I determined to atone for my disobe-
dience by severe and systematic work. I began to study
more earnestly than ever before, reviewed my mathematics
and classics vigorously, and began a course of reading
which has had great influence on all my life since.
Among my books was D'Aubigne's ``History of the Reformation.''
Its deficiencies were not of a sort to harm me,
its vigor and enthusiasm gave me a great impulse. I not
only read but studied it, and followed it with every other
book on the subject that I could find. No reading ever did
a man more good. It not only strengthened and deepened
my better purposes, but it continued powerfully the impulse
given me by the historical novels of Scott, and led
directly to my devoting myself to the study and teaching
of modern history. Of other books which influenced me
about this period, Emerson's ``Representative Men'' was
one; another was Carlyle's ``Past and Present,'' in which
the old Abbot of Bury became one of my ideals; still
another was Buskin's ``Seven Lamps of Architecture'';
and to such a degree that this art has given to my life some
of its greatest pleasures. Ruskin was then at his best.
He had not yet been swept from his bearings by popular
applause, or intoxicated by his own verbosity. In later
years he lost all influence over me, for, in spite of his
wonderful style, he became trivial, whimsical, peevish,
goody-goody;--talking to grown men and women as a
dyspeptic Sunday-school teacher might lay down the
law to classes of little girls. As regards this later
period, Max Nordau is undoubtedly right in speaking of
Ruskin's mind as ``turbid and fallacious''; but the time
of which I speak was his best, and his influence upon
me was good. I remember especially that his ``Lamp
of Power'' made a very deep impression upon me. Carlyle,
too, was at his best. He was the simple, strong
preacher;--with nothing of the spoiled cynic he afterward
became.

The stay of three months with my friend--the future
bishop--in the little country town, was also good for me
physically. In our hours of recreation we roamed through
the neighboring woods, shooting squirrels and pigeons
with excellent effect on my health. Meantime I kept up
my correspondence with all the members of the family
save my father;--from him there was no sign. But at last
came a piece of good news. He was very fond of music,
and on the arrival of Jenny Lind in the United States he
went to New York to attend her concerts. During one of
these my mother turned suddenly toward him and said:
``What a pity that the boy cannot hear this; how he would
enjoy it!''  My father answered, ``Tell him to come
home and see us.''  My mother, of course, was not slow in
writing me, and a few days later my father cordially
greeted my home-coming, and all difficulties seemed over.
Shortly after Christmas he started with me for Yale; but
there soon appeared a lion in the path. Our route lay
through Hartford, the seat of Trinity College, and to my
consternation I found at the last moment that he had
letters from our rector and others to the president and
professors of that institution. Still more alarming, we
had hardly entered the train when my father discovered
a Trinity student on board. Of course, the youth spoke
in the highest terms of his college and of his faculty, and
more and more my father was pleased with the idea of
staying a day or two at Hartford, taking a look at Trinity,
and presenting our letters of introduction. During a
considerably extended career in the diplomatic service I have
had various occasions to exercise tact, care, and discretion,
but I do not think that my efforts on all these together
equaled those which I then put forth to avoid stopping
at Hartford. At last my father asked me, rather severely,
why I cared so much about going to New Haven, and I
framed an answer offhand to meet the case, saying that
Yale had an infinitely finer library than Trinity. Thereupon
he said, ``My boy, if you will go to Trinity College
I will give you the best private library in the United
States.''  I said, ``No, I am going to New Haven; I started
for New Haven, and I will go there.''  I had never braved
him before. He said not a word. We passed quietly
through Hartford, and a day or two later I was entered
at Yale.

It was a happy change. I respected the institution, for
its discipline, though at times harsh, was, on the whole,
just, and thereby came a great gain to my own self-respect.
But as to the education given, never was a man more
disappointed at first. The president and professors were
men of high character and attainments; but to the lower
classes the instruction was given almost entirely by tutors,
who took up teaching for bread-winning while going
through the divinity school. Naturally most of the
work done under these was perfunctory. There was too
much reciting by rote and too little real intercourse
between teacher and taught. The instructor sat in a box,
heard students' translations without indicating anything
better, and their answers to questions with very few
suggestions or remarks. The first text-book in Greek was
Xenophon's ``Memorabilia,'' and one of the first men
called up was my classmate Delano Goddard. He made an
excellent translation,--clean, clear, in thoroughly good
English; but he elicited no attention from the instructor,
and was then put through sundry grammatical puzzles,
among which he floundered until stopped by the word,
``Sufficient.''  Soon afterward another was called up who
rattled off glibly a translation without one particle of
literary merit, and was then plied with the usual grammatical
questions. Being asked to ``synopsize'' the Greek verb,
he went through the various moods and tenses, in all sorts
of ways and in all possible combinations, his tongue
rattling like the clapper of a mill. When he sat down my
next neighbor said to me, ``that man will be our
valedictorian.''  This disgusted me. If that was the style of
classical scholarship at Yale, I knew that there was nothing
in it for me. It turned out as my friend said. That
glib reciter did become the valedictorian of the class, but
stepped from the commencement stage into nothingness,
and was never heard of more. Goddard became the
editor of one of the most important metropolitan news-
papers of the United States, and, before his early death,
distinguished himself as a writer on political and historical
topics.

Nor was it any better in Latin. We were reading, during
that term the ``De Senectute'' of Cicero,--a beautiful
book; but to our tutor it was neither more nor less than
a series of pegs on which to hang Zumpt's rules for the
subjunctive mood. The translation was hurried through,
as of little account. Then came questions regarding the
subjunctives;--questions to which very few members of
the class gave any real attention. The best Latin scholar
in the class, G. W. S----, since so distinguished as the
London correspondent of the ``New York Tribune,'' and,
at present, as the New York correspondent of the London
``Times,'' having one day announced to some of us,--with
a very round expletive,--that he would answer no more
such foolish questions, the tutor soon discovered his
recalcitrancy, and thenceforward plied him with such
questions and nothing else. S---- always answered that he
was not prepared on them; with the result that at the
Junior Exhibition he received no place on the programme.

In the junior year matters improved somewhat; but,
though the professors were most of them really distinguished
men, and one at least, James Hadley, a scholar
who, at Berlin or Leipsic, would have drawn throngs of
students from all Christendom, they were fettered by a
system which made everything of gerund-grinding and
nothing of literature.

The worst feature of the junior year was the fact that
through two terms, during five hours each week, ``recitations''
were heard by a tutor in ``Olmsted's Natural Philosophy.''
The text-book was simply repeated by rote. Not
one student in fifty took the least interest in it; and
the man who could give the words of the text most glibly
secured the best marks. One exceedingly unfortunate
result of this kind of instruction was that it so disgusted
the class with the whole subject, that the really excellent
lectures of Professor Olmsted, illustrated by probably
the best apparatus then possessed by any American
university, were voted a bore. Almost as bad was the
historical instruction given by Professor James Hadley. It
consisted simply in hearing the student repeat from memory
the dates from ``Ptz's Ancient History.''  How a man
so gifted as Hadley could have allowed any part of his
work to be so worthless, it is hard to understand. And,
worse remained behind. He had charge of the class in
Thucydides; but with every gift for making it a means
of great good to us, he taught it in the perfunctory way of
that period;--calling on each student to construe a few
lines, asking a few grammatical questions, and then, with
hardly ever a note or comment, allowing him to sit down.
Two or three times during a term something would occur
to draw Hadley out, and then it delighted us all to hear
him. I recall, to this hour, with the utmost pleasure, some
of his remarks which threw bright light into the general
subject; but alas! they were few and far between.

The same thing must be said of Professor Thatcher's
instruction in Tacitus. It was always the same mechanical
sort of thing, with, occasionally, a few remarks which
really aroused interest.

In the senior year the influence of President Woolsey
and Professor Porter was strong for good. Though the
``Yale system'' fettered them somewhat, their personality
often broke through it. Yet it amazes me to remember
that during a considerable portion of our senior year no
less a man than Woolsey gave instruction in history by
hearing men recite the words of a text-book;--and that
text-book the Rev. John Lord's little, popular treatise
on the ``Modern History of Europe!''  Far better was
Woolsey's instruction in Guizot. That was stimulating.
It not only gave some knowledge of history, but suggested
thought upon it. In this he was at his best. He had not
at that time begun his new career as a professor of
International Law, and that subject was treated by a kindly
old governor of the State, in a brief course of instruction,
which was, on the whole, rather inadequate. Professor
Porter's instruction in philosophy opened our eyes and
led us to do some thinking for ourselves. In political
economy, during the senior year, President Woolsey heard the
senior class ``recite'' from Wayland's small treatise,
which was simply an abridged presentation of the Manchester
view, the most valuable part of this instruction
being the remarks by Woolsey himself, who discussed
controverted questions briefly but well. He also delivered,
during one term, a course of lectures upon the historical
relations between the German States, which had some
interest, but, not being connected with our previous
instruction, took little hold upon us. As to natural science,
we had in chemistry and geology, doubtless, the best
courses then offered in the United States. The first was
given by Benjamin Silliman, the elder, an American pioneer
in science, and a really great character; the second,
by James Dwight Dana, and in his lecture-room one felt
himself in the hands of a master. I cannot forgive myself
for having yielded to the general indifference of the
class toward all this instruction. It was listlessly heard,
and grievously neglected. The fault was mainly our own;
--but it was partly due to ``The System,'' which led
students to neglect all studies which did not tell upon
``marks'' and ``standing.''

Strange to say, there was not, during my whole course
at Yale, a lecture upon any period, subject, or person in
literature, ancient or modern:--our only resource, in this
field, being the popular lecture courses in the town each
winter, which generally contained one or two presentations
of literary subjects. Of these, that which made the
greatest impression upon me was by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Sundry lectures in my junior year, by Whipple, and
at a later period by George William Curtis, also influenced
me. It was one of the golden periods of English literature,
the climax of the Victorian epoch;--the period of
Wordsworth, Tennyson, and the Brownings, of Thackeray
and Dickens, of Macaulay and Carlyle on one side
of the Atlantic, and of Emerson, Irving, Hawthorne, Ban-
croft, Prescott, Motley, Lowell, Longfellow, Horace
Bushnell, and their compeers on the other. Hence came strong
influences; but in dealing with them we were left to ourselves.

Very important in shaping my intellectual development
at this time were my fellow-students. The class of 1853
was a very large one for that day, and embraced far more
than the usual proportion of active-minded men. Walks
and talks with these were of great value to me; thence
came some of my best impulses and suggestions to reading
and thought.

Especially fortunate was I in my ``chum,'' the friend
that stood closest to me. He was the most conservative
young man I ever knew, and at the very opposite pole
from me on every conceivable subject. But his deeply
religious character, his thorough scholarship, and his real
devotion to my welfare, were very precious to me. Our
very differences were useful, since they obliged me to
revise with especial care all my main convictions and
trains of thought. He is now, at this present writing, the
Bishop of Michigan, and a most noble and affectionate
pastor of his flock.

The main subjects of interest to us all had a political
bearing. Literature was considered as mainly subsidiary
to political discussion. The great themes, in the minds
of those who tried to do any thinking, were connected with
the tremendous political struggle then drawing toward
its climax in civil war. Valuable to me was my membership
of sundry student fraternities. They were vealy,
but there was some nourishment in them; by far the best
of all being a senior club which, though it had adopted
a hideous emblem, was devoted to offhand discussions of
social and political questions;--on the whole, the best club
I have ever known.

The studies which interested me most were political and
historical; from classical studies the gerund-grinding and
reciting by rote had completely weaned me. One of our
Latin tutors, having said to me: ``If you would try you
could become a first-rate classical scholar,'' I answered:
``Mr. B----, I have no ambition to become a classical
scholar, as scholarship is understood here.''

I devoted myself all the more assiduously to study on
my own lines, especially in connection with the subjects
taught by President Woolsey in the senior year, and the
one thing which encouraged me was that, at the public
reading of essays, mine seemed to interest the class. Yet
my first trial of strength with my classmates in this
respect did not apparently turn out very well. It was at
a prize debate, in one of the large open societies, but
while I had prepared my speech with care, I had given
no thought to its presentation, and, as a result, the judges
passed me by. Next day a tutor told me that Professor
Porter wished to see me. He had been one of the judges,
but it never occurred to me that he could have summoned
me for anything save some transgression of college rules.
But, on my arrival at his room, he began discussing my
speech, said some very kind things of its matter, alluded
to some defects in its manner, and all with a kindness
which won my heart. Thus began a warm personal friendship
which lasted through his professorship and presidency
to the end of his life. His kindly criticism was
worth everything to me; it did far more for me than any
prize could have done. Few professors realize how much
a little friendly recognition may do for a student. To
this hour I bless Dr. Porter's memory.

Nor did my second effort, a competition in essay-writing,
turn out much better. My essay was too labored, too
long, too crabbedly written, and it brought me only half
a third prize.

This was in the sophomore year. But in the junior year
came a far more important competition; that for the Yale
Literary Gold Medal, and without any notice of my
intention to any person, I determined to try for it. Being
open to the entire university, the universal expectation
was that it would be awarded to a senior, as had hitherto
been the case, and speculations were rife as to what mem-
ber of the graduating class would take it. When the committee
made their award to the essay on ``The Greater
Distinctions in Statesmanship,'' opened the sealed
envelopes and assigned the prize to me, a junior, there was
great surprise. The encouragement came to me just at
the right time, and did me great good. Later, there were
awarded to me the first Clarke Prize for the discussion
of a political subject, and the De Forest Gold Medal, then
the most important premium awarded in the university,
my subject being, ``The Diplomatic History of Modern
Times.''  Some details regarding this latter success may
serve to show certain ways in which influence can be
exerted powerfully upon a young man. The subject had
been suggested to me by hearing Edwin Forrest in Bulwer's
drama of ``Richelieu.''  The character of the great
cardinal, the greatest statesman that France has produced,
made a deep impression upon me, and suggested the
subjects in both the Yale Literary and the De Forest
competitions, giving me not only the initial impulse, but
maintaining that interest to which my success was largely due.
Another spur to success was even more effective. Having
one day received a telegram from my father, asking me
to meet him in New York, I did so, and passed an hour
with him, all the time at a loss to know why he had sent
for me. But, finally, just as I was leaving the hotel to
return to New Haven, he said, ``By the way, there is still
another prize to be competed for, the largest of all.''
``Yes,'' I answered, ``the De Forest; but I have little
chance for that; for though I shall probably be one of the
six Townsend prize men admitted to the competition, there
are other speakers so much better, that I have little hope
of taking it.''  He gave me rather a contemptuous look,
and said, somewhat scornfully: ``If I were one of the first
SIX competitors, in a class of over a hundred men, I would
try hard to be the first ONE.''  That was all. He said
nothing more, except good-bye. On my way to New Haven
I thought much of this, and on arriving, went to a student,
who had some reputation as an elocutionist, and engaged
him for a course in vocal gymnastics. When he wished
me to recite my oration before him, I declined, saying that
it must be spoken in my own way, not in his; that his
way might be better, but that mine was my own, and I
would have no other. He confined himself, therefore, to
a course of vocal gymnastics, and the result was a
surprise to myself and all my friends. My voice, from
being weak and hollow, became round, strong, and flexible.
I then went to a student in the class above my own, a
natural and forcible speaker, and made an arrangement
with him to hear me pronounce my oration, from time to
time, and to criticize it in a common-sense way. This he
did. At passages where he thought my manner wrong,
he raised his finger, gave me an imitation of my manner,
then gave the passage in the way he thought best, and
allowed me to choose between his and mine. The result was
that, at the public competition, I was successful. This
experience taught me what I conceive to be the true theory
of elocutionary training in our universities--vocal
gymnastics, on one side; common-sense criticism, on the other.

As to my physical education: with a constitution far
from robust, there was need of special care. Fortunately,
I took to boating. In an eight-oared boat, spinning down
the harbor or up the river, with G. W. S---- at the stroke
--as earnest and determined in the Undine then as in the
New York office of the London ``Times'' now, every condition
was satisfied for bodily exercise and mental recreation.
I cannot refrain from mentioning that our club sent
the first challenge to row that ever passed between Yale
and Harvard, even though I am obliged to confess that we
were soundly beaten; but neither that defeat at Lake
Quinsigamond, nor the many absurdities which have grown out
of such competitions since, have prevented my remaining
an apostle of college boating from that day to this. If
guarded by common-sense rules enforced with firmness
by college faculties, it gives the maximum of healthful
exercise, with a minimum of danger. The most detestable
product of college life is the sickly cynic; and a thor-
ough course in boating, under a good stroke oar, does as
much as anything to make him impossible.

At the close of my undergraduate life at Yale I went
abroad for nearly three years, and fortunately had, for
a time, one of the best of companions, my college mate,
Gilman, later president of Johns Hopkins University, and
now of the Carnegie Institution, who was then, as he has
been ever since, a source of good inspirations to me,--
especially in the formation of my ideas regarding
education. During the few weeks I then passed in England I
saw much which broadened my views in various ways.
History was made alive to me by rapid studies of persons
and places while traveling, and especially was this the
case during a short visit to Oxford, where I received some
strong impressions, which will be referred to in another
chapter. Dining at Christ Church with Osborne Gordon,
an eminent tutor of that period, I was especially interested
in his accounts of John Ruskin, who had been his pupil.
Then, and afterward, while enjoying the hospitalities of
various colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, I saw the
excellencies of their tutorial system, but also had my eyes
opened to some of their deficiencies.

Going thence to Paris I settled down in the family of
a very intelligent French professor, where I remained
nearly a year. Not a word of English was spoken in the
family; and, with the daily lesson in a French method,
and lectures at the Sorbonne and Collge de France, the
new language soon became familiar. The lectures then
heard strengthened my conception of what a university
should be. Among my professors were such men as St.
Marc Girardin, Arnould, and, at a later period, Laboulaye.
In connection with the lecture-room work, my studies in
modern history were continued, especially by reading Guizot,
Thierry, Mignet, Thiers, Chteaubriand, and others,
besides hearing various masterpieces in French dramatic
literature, as given at the Thtre Franais, where
Rachel was then in her glory, and at the Odon, where Mlle.
Georges, who had begun her career under the first Napoleon,
was ending it under Napoleon III.

My favorite subject of study was the French Revolution,
and, in the intervals of reading and lectures, I sought
out not only the spots noted in its history, but the men
who had taken part in it. At the Htel des Invalides I
talked with old soldiers, veterans of the Republic and of
the Napoleonic period, discussing with them the events
through which they had passed; and, at various other
places and times, with civilians who had heard orations
at the Jacobin and Cordelier clubs, and had seen the
guillotine at work. The most interesting of my old soldiers
at the Invalides wore upon his breast the cross of the
Legion of Honor, which he had received from Napoleon
at Austerlitz. Still another had made the frightful
marches through the Spanish Peninsula under Soult, and
evidently felt very humble in the presence of those who
had taken part in the more famous campaigns under Napoleon
himself. The history of another of my old soldiers
was pathetic. He was led daily into the cabaret, where my
guests were wont to fight their battles o'er again, his eyes
absolutely sightless, and his hair as white as snow. Getting
into conversation with him I learned that he had gone
to Egypt with Bonaparte, had fought at the Battle of the
Pyramids, had been blinded by the glaring sun on the
sand of the desert, and had been an inmate at the Invalides
ever since;--more than half a century. At a later period
I heard from another of my acquaintances how, as a
schoolboy, he saw Napoleon beside his camp-fire at
Cannes, just after his landing from Elba.

There still remained at Paris, in those days, one main
connecting link between the second empire and the first,
and this was the most contemptible of all the Bonapartes,--
the younger brother of the great Napoleon,--
Jrome, ex-king of Westphalia. I saw him, from time to
time, and was much struck by his resemblance to the first
emperor. Though taller, he still had something of that
Roman imperial look, so remarkable in the founder of the
family; but in Jrome, it always recalled to me such
Caesars as Tiberius and Vitellius.

It was well known that the ex-king, as well as his son,
Prince Jrome Napoleon, were thorns in the side of
Napoleon III, and many stories illustrating this were
current during my stay in Paris, the best, perhaps, being an
answer made by Napoleon III to another representative
of his family. The question having been asked, ``What
is the difference between an accident and a misfortune
(un accident et un malheur)?'' the emperor answered.
``If my cousin, Prince Napoleon, should fall into the
Seine, it would be an ACCIDENT; if anybody were to pull him
out, it would be a MISFORTUNE.''  Although this cousin had
some oratorical ability, both he and his father were most
thoroughly despised. The son bore the nickname of
``Plon-Plon,'' probably with some reference to his reputation
for cowardice; the father had won the appellation
of ``Le Roi Loustic,'' and, indeed, had the credit of
introducing into the French language the word ``loustic,''
derived from the fact that, during his short reign at Cassel,
King Jrome was wont, after the nightly orgies at his
palace, to dismiss his courtiers with the words: ``Morgen
wieder loustic, Messieurs.''

During the summer of 1854 I employed my vacation in
long walks and drives with a college classmate through
northern, western, and central France, including Picardy,
Normandy, Brittany, and Touraine, visiting the spots
of most historical and architectural interest. There were,
at that time, few railways in those regions, so we put on
blouses and took to the road, sending our light baggage
ahead of us, and carrying only knapsacks. In every way
it proved a most valuable experience. Pleasantly come
back to me my walks and talks with the peasantry, and
vividly dwell in my memory the cathedrals of Beauvais,
Amiens, Rouen, Bayeux, Coutances, Le Mans, Tours,
Chartres, and Orlans, the fortress of Mont St. Michel,
the Chteaux of Chenonceaux, Chambord, Nantes, Am-
boise, and Angers, the tombs of the Angevine kings at
Fontevrault, and the stone cottage of Louis XI at Clry.
Visiting the grave of Chteaubriand at St. Malo, we met
a little old gentleman, bent with age, but very brisk and
chatty. He was standing with a party of friends on one
side of the tomb, while we stood on the other. Presently,
one of the gentlemen in his company came over and asked
our names, saying that his aged companion was a great
admirer of Chteaubriand, and was anxious to know something
of his fellow pilgrims. To this I made answer, when
my interlocutor informed me that the old gentleman was
the Prince de Rohan-Soubise. Shortly afterward the old
gentleman came round to us and began conversation, and
on my making answer in a way which showed that I knew
his title, he turned rather sharply on me and said, ``How
do you know that?''  To this I made answer that even
in America we had heard the verse:

        ``Roi, je ne puis,
          Prince ne daigne,
          Rohan je suis.''

At this he seemed greatly pleased, grasped my hand, and
launched at once into extended conversation. His great
anxiety was to know who was to be the future king of
our Republic, and he asked especially whether Washington
had left any direct descendants. On my answering in the
negative, he insisted that we would have to find some
descendant in the collateral line, ``for,'' said he, ``you can't
escape it; no nation can get along for any considerable
time without a monarch.''

Returning to Paris I resumed my studies, and, at the
request of Mr. Randall, the biographer of Jefferson,
made some search in the French archives for correspondence
between Jefferson and Robespierre,--search made
rather to put an end to calumny than for any other
purpose.

At the close of this stay in France, by the kindness of
the American minister to Russia, Governor Seymour, of
Connecticut, I was invited to St. Petersburg, as an attach
of the American Legation, and resided for over six months
in his household. It was a most interesting period. The
Crimean War was going on, and the death of the Emperor
Nicholas, during my stay, enabled me to see how a great
change in autocratic administration is accomplished. An
important part of my duty was to accompany the minister
as an interpreter, not only at court, but in his interviews
with Nesselrode, Gortschakoff, and others then in power.
This gave me some chance also to make my historical
studies more real by close observation of a certain sort
of men who have had the making of far too much history;
but books interested me none the less. An epoch in my
development, intellectual and moral, was made at this time
by my reading large parts of Gibbon, and especially by
a very careful study of Guizot's ``History of Civilization
in France,'' which greatly deepened and strengthened the
impression made by his ``History of Civilization in
Europe,'' as read under President Woolsey at Yale. During
those seven months in St. Petersburg and Moscow, I read
much in modern European history, paying considerable
attention to the political development and condition of
Russia, and, for the first time, learned the pleasures of
investigating the history of our own country. Governor
Seymour was especially devoted to the ideas of Thomas
Jefferson, and late at night, as we sat before the fire, after
returning from festivities or official interviews, we
frequently discussed the democratic system, as advocated by
Jefferson, and the autocratic system, as we saw it in the
capital of the Czar. The result was that my beginning
of real study in American history was made by a very
close examination of the life and writings of Thomas
Jefferson, including his letters, messages, and other papers,
and of the diplomatic history revealed in the volumes of
correspondence preserved in the Legation. The general
result was to strengthen and deepen my democratic creed,
and a special result was the preparation of an article on
``Jefferson and Slavery,'' which, having been at a later
period refused by the ``New Englander,'' at New Haven,
on account of its too pronounced sympathy with democracy
against federalism, was published by the ``Atlantic
Monthly,'' and led to some acquaintances of value to me
afterward.

Returning from St. Petersburg, I was matriculated at
the University of Berlin, and entered the family of a
very scholarly gymnasial professor, where nothing but
German was spoken. During this stay at the Prussian
capital, in the years 1855 and 1856, I heard the lectures of
Lepsius, on Egyptology; August Boeckh, on the History
of Greece; Friedrich von Raumer, on the History of Italy;
Hirsch, on Modern History in general; and Carl Ritter,
on Physical Geography. The lectures of Ranke, the most
eminent of German historians, I could not follow. He had
a habit of becoming so absorbed in his subject, as to slide
down in his chair, hold his finger up toward the ceiling,
and then, with his eye fastened on the tip of it, to go
mumbling through a kind of rhapsody, which most of my
German fellow-students confessed they could not understand.
It was a comical sight: half a dozen students
crowding around his desk, listening as priests might listen
to the sibyl on her tripod, the other students being
scattered through the room, in various stages of
discouragement. My studies at this period were mainly in the
direction of history, though with considerable reading on
art and literature. Valuable and interesting to me at this
time were the representations of the best dramas of Goethe,
Schiller, Lessing, and Gutzkow, at the Berlin theaters.
Then, too, really began my education in Shakspere, and
the representations of his plays (in Schlegel and Tieck's
version) were, on the whole, the most satisfactory I have
ever known. I thus heard plays of Shakspere which, in
English-speaking countries, are never presented, and,
even into those better known, wonderful light was at times
thrown from this new point of view.

As to music, the Berlin Opera was then at the height
of its reputation, the leading singer being the famous
Joanna Wagner. But my greatest satisfaction was derived
from the ``Liebig Classical Concerts.''  These were,
undoubtedly, the best instrumental music then given in
Europe, and a small party of us were very assiduous in
our attendance. Three afternoons a week we were, as a
rule, gathered about our table in the garden where the
concerts were given, and, in the midst of us, Alexander
Thayer, the biographer of Beethoven, who discussed the
music with us during its intervals. Beethoven was, for
him, the one personage in human history, and Beethoven's
music the only worthy object of human concern. He knew
every composition, every note, every variant, and had
wrestled for years with their profound meanings. Many
of his explanations were fantastic, but some were
suggestive and all were interesting. Even more inspiring
was another new-found friend, Henry Simmons Frieze; a
thorough musician, and a most lovely character. He
broached no theories, uttered no comments, but sat rapt
by the melody and harmony--transfigured--``his face as
it had been the face of an angel.''  In these Liebig
concerts we then heard, for the first time, the music of a
new composer,--one Wagner,--and agreed that while it
was all very strange, there was really something in the
overture to ``Tannhuser.''

At the close of this stay in Berlin, I went with a party
of fellow-students through Austria to Italy. The whole
journey was a delight, and the passage by steamer from
Trieste to Venice was made noteworthy by a new
acquaintance,--James Russell Lowell. As he had already
written the ``Vision of Sir Launfal,'' the ``Fable for
Critics,'' and the ``Biglow Papers,'' I stood in great awe of
him; but this feeling rapidly disappeared in his genial
presence. He was a student like the rest of us,--for
he had been passing the winter at Dresden, working
in German literature, as a preparation for succeeding
Longfellow in the professorship at Harvard. He
came to our rooms, and there linger delightfully in
my memory his humorous accounts of Italian life as he
had known it.

During the whole of the journey, it was my exceeding
good fortune to be thrown into very close relations with
two of our party, both of whom became eminent Latin
professors, and one of whom,--already referred to,--
Frieze, from his lecture-room in the University of
Michigan, afterward did more than any other man within my
knowledge to make classical scholarship a means of culture
throughout our Western States. My excursions in
Rome, under that guidance, I have always looked upon
as among the fortunate things of life. The day was given
to exploration, the evening to discussion, not merely of
archaeological theories, but of the weightier matters
pertaining to the history of Roman civilization and its
influence. Dear Frieze and Fishburne! How vividly come
back the days in the tower of the Croce di Malta, at Genoa,
in our sky-parlor of the Piazza di Spagna at Rome, and
in the old ``Capuchin Hotel'' at Amalfi, when we held high
debate on the analogies between the Roman Empire and
the British, and upon various kindred subjects.

An episode, of much importance to me at this time,
was my meeting our American minister at Naples, Robert
Dale Owen. His talks on the political state of Italy, and
his pictures of the monstrous despotism of ``King
Bomba'' took strong hold upon me. Not even the pages
of Colletta or of Settembrini have done so much to arouse
in me a sense of the moral value of political history.

Then, too, I made the first of my many excursions
through the historic towns of Italy. My reading of
Sismondi's ``Italian Republics'' had deeply interested me in
their history, and had peopled them again with their old
turbulent population. I seemed to see going on before my
eyes the old struggle between Guelphs and Ghibellines,
and between the demagogues and the city tyrants. In the
midst of such scenes my passion for historical reading
was strengthened, and the whole subject took on new and
deeper meanings.

On my way northward, excursions among the cities
of southern France, especially Nismes, Arles, and Orange,
gave me a far better conception of Roman imperial power
than could be obtained in Italy alone, and Avignon,
Bourges, and Toulouse deepened my conceptions of
mediaeval history.

Having returned to America in the summer of 1856
and met my class, assembled to take the master's degree
in course at Yale, I was urged by my old Yale friends,
especially by Porter and Gilman, to remain in New Haven.
They virtually pledged me a position in the school of art
about to be established; but my belief was in the value
of historical studies, and I accepted an election to a
professorship of history at the University of Michigan. The
work there was a joy to me from first to last, and my
relations with my students of that period, before I had
become distracted from them by the cares of an executive
position, were among the most delightful of my life.
Then, perhaps, began the most real part of my education.
The historical works of Buckle, Lecky, and Draper, which
were then appearing, gave me a new and fruitful impulse;
but most stimulating of all was the atmosphere coming
from the great thought of Darwin and Herbert Spencer,--
an atmosphere in which history became less and less a
matter of annals, and more and more a record of the
unfolding of humanity. Then, too, was borne in upon
me the meaning of the proverb docendo disces. I found
energetic Western men in my classes ready to discuss
historical questions, and discovered that in order to keep
up my part of the discussions, as well as to fit myself for
my class-room duties, I must work as I had never worked
before. The education I then received from my classes at
the University of Michigan was perhaps the most effective
of all.

PART II

POLITICAL LIFE

CHAPTER III

FROM JACKSON TO FILLMORE--1832-1851

My arrival in this world took place at one of the
stormy periods of American political history. It
was on the third of the three election days which carried
Andrew Jackson a second time into the Presidency.
Since that period, the election, with its paralysis of
business, ghastly campaign lying, and monstrous vilification
of candidates, has been concentrated into one day; but at
that time all the evil passions of a presidential election
were allowed to ferment and gather vitriolic strength
during three days.

I was born into a politically divided family. My
grandfather, on my mother's side, whose name I was destined
to bear, was an ardent Democrat; had, as such, represented
his district in the State legislature, and other public
bodies; took his political creed from Thomas Jefferson, and
adored Andrew Jackson. My father, on the other hand,
was in all his antecedents and his personal convictions, a
devoted Whig, taking his creed from Alexander Hamilton,
and worshiping Henry Clay.

This opposition between my father and grandfather did
not degenerate into personal bitterness; but it was very
earnest, and, in later years, my mother told me that when
Hayne, of South Carolina, made his famous speech,
charging the North with ill-treatment of the South, my
grandfather sent a copy of it to my father, as unanswerable;
but that, shortly afterward, my father sent to my
grandfather the speech of Daniel Webster, in reply, and
that, when this was read, the family allowed that the
latter had the better of the argument. I cannot help thinking
that my grandfather must have agreed with them, tacitly,
if not openly. He loved the Hampshire Hills of
Massachusetts, from which he came. Year after year he took
long journeys to visit them, and Webster's magnificent
reference to the ``Old Bay State'' must have aroused his
sympathy and pride.

Fortunately, at that election, as at so many others since,
the good sense of the nation promptly accepted the result,
and after its short carnival of political passion, dismissed
the whole subject; the minority simply leaving the responsibility
of public affairs to the majority, and all betaking
themselves again to their accustomed vocations.

I do not remember, during the first seven years of my
life, ever hearing any mention of political questions. The
only thing I heard during that period which brings back a
chapter in American politics, was when, at the age of five
years, I attended an infant school and took part in a sort
of catechism, all the children rising and replying to the
teacher's questions. Among these were the following:

Q. Who is President of the United States?

A. Martin Van Buren.

Q. Who is governor of the State of New York?

A. William L. Marcy.

This is to me somewhat puzzling, for I was four years
old when Martin Van Buren was elected, and my father
was his very earnest opponent, yet, though I recall easily
various things which occurred at that age and even earlier,
I have no remembrance of any general election before
1840, and my only recollection of the first New York
statesman elected to the Presidency is this mention of his
name, in a child's catechism.

My recollections of American polities begin, then, with
the famous campaign of 1840, and of that they are vivid.
Our family had, in 1839, removed to Syracuse, which,
although now a city of about one hundred and twenty
thousand inhabitants, was then a village of fewer than six
thousand; but, as the central town of the State, it was
already a noted gathering-place for political conventions
and meetings. The great Whig mass-meeting held there,
in 1840, was long famous as the culmination of the
campaign between General Harrison and Martin Van Buren.

As a President, Mr. Van Buren had fallen on evil times.
It was a period of political finance; of demagogical
methods in public business; and the result was ``hard
times,'' with an intense desire throughout the nation for a
change. This desire was represented especially by the
Whig party. General Harrison had been taken up as its
candidate, not merely because he had proved his worth
as governor of the Northwestern Territory, and as a
senator in Congress, but especially as the hero of sundry
fights with the Indians, and, above all, of the plucky little
battle at Tippecanoe. The most popular campaign song,
which I soon learned to sing lustily, was ``Tippecanoe and
Tyler, Too,'' and sundry lines of it expressed, not only
my own deepest political convictions and aspirations, but
also those cherished by myriads of children of far larger
growth. They ran as follows:

     ``Oh, have you heard the great commotion-motion-motion
       Rolling the country through?
       It is the ball a-rolling on
       For Tippecanoe and Tyler, too,
       For Tippecanoe and Tyler, too;
       And with them we 'll beat little Van;
       Van, Van is a used up man;
       And with them we 'll beat little Van.''

The campaign was an apotheosis of tom-foolery.
General Harrison had lived the life, mainly, of a Western
farmer, and for a time, doubtless, exercised amid his rude
surroundings the primitive hospitality natural to sturdy
Western pioneers. On these facts the changes were rung.
In every town and village a log cabin was erected where
the Whigs held their meetings; and the bringing of logs,
with singing and shouting, to build it, was a great event;
its front door must have a wooden latch on the inside;
but the latch-string must run through the door; for the
claim which the friends of General Harrison especially
insisted upon was that he not only lived in a log cabin, but
that his latch-string was always out, in token that all his
fellow-citizens were welcome at his fireside.

Another element in the campaign was hard cider.
Every log cabin must have its barrel of this acrid fluid,
as the antithesis of the alleged beverage of President Van
Buren at the White House. He, it was asserted, drank
champagne, and on this point I remember that a verse
was sung at log-cabin meetings which, after describing,
in a prophetic way the arrival of the ``Farmer of North
Bend'' at the White House, ran as follows:

   ``They were all very merry, and drinking champagne
     When the Farmer, impatient, knocked louder again;
     Oh, Oh, said Prince John, I very much fear
     We must quit this place the very next year.''

``Prince John'' was President Van Buren's brilliant
son; famous for his wit and eloquence, who, in after years,
rose to be attorney-general of the State of New York, and
who might have risen to far higher positions had his
principles equaled his talents.

Another feature at the log cabin, and in all political
processions, was at least one raccoon; and if not a live
raccoon in a cage, at least a raccoon skin nailed upon the
outside of the cabin. This gave local color, but hence
came sundry jibes from the Democrats, for they were
wont to refer to the Whigs as ``coons,'' and to their log
cabins as ``coon pens.''  Against all these elements of
success, added to promises of better times, the Democratic
party could make little headway. Martin Van Buren,
though an admirable public servant in many ways, was
discredited. M. de Bacourt, the French Minister at
Washington, during his administration, was, it is true, very
fond of him, and this cynical scion of French nobility
wrote in a private letter, which has been published in these
latter days, ``M. Van Buren is the most perfect imitation
of a gentleman I ever saw.''  But this commendation had
not then come to light, and the main reliance of the Democrats
in capturing the popular good-will was their candidate
for the Vice-Presidency, Colonel Richard M. Johnson,
of Kentucky. He, too, had fought in the Indian wars,
and bravely. Therefore it was that one of the Whig songs
which especially rejoiced me, ran:

     ``They shout and sing, Oh humpsy dumpsy,
       Colonel Johnson killed Tecumseh.''

Among the features of that period which excited my
imagination were the enormous mass meetings, with
processions, coming in from all points of the compass, miles
in length, and bearing every patriotic device and political
emblem. Here the Whigs had infinitely the advantage.
Their campaign was positive and aggressive. On platform-
wagons were men working at every trade which expected
to be benefited by Whig success; log cabins of all
sorts and sizes, hard-cider barrels, coon pens, great
canvas balls, which were kept ``a-rolling on,'' canoes, such
as General Harrison had used in crossing Western rivers,
eagles that screamed in defiance, and cocks that crowed
for victory. The turning ball had reference to sundry
lines in the foremost campaign song. For the October
election in Maine having gone Whig by a large majority,
clearly indicating what the general result was to be in
November, the opening lines ran as follows:

   ``Oh, have you heard the news from Maine--Maine--Maine?
     Rolling the country through?
     It is the ball a-rolling on
     For Tippecanoe and Tyler, too.''
                  &c., &c., &c.

Against all this the Democrats, with their negative and
defensive platform, found themselves more and more at
a disadvantage; they fought with desperation, but in vain,
and one of their most unlucky ventures to recover their
position was an effort to undermine General Harrison's
military reputation. For this purpose they looked about,
and finally found one of their younger congressional
representatives, considered to be a rising man, who, having
gained some little experience in the Western militia, had
received the honorary title of ``General,'' Isaac M. Crary,
of Michigan; him they selected to make a speech in Congress
exhibiting and exploding General Harrison's military
record. He was very reluctant to undertake it, but
at last yielded, and, after elaborate preparation, made an
argument loud and long, to show that General Harrison
was a military ignoramus. The result was both comic
and pathetic. There was then in Congress the most famous
stump-speaker of his time, and perhaps of all times,
a man of great physical, intellectual, and moral vigor;
powerful in argument, sympathetic in manner, of infinite
wit and humor, and, unfortunately for General Crary,
a Whig,--Thomas Corwin, of Ohio. Mr. Crary's heavy,
tedious, perfunctory arraignment of General Harrison
being ended, Corwin rose and began an offhand speech
on ``The Military Services of General Isaac M. Crary.''
In a few minutes he had as his audience, not only the House
of Representatives, but as many members of the Senate,
of the Supreme Court, and visitors to the city, as could
be crowded into the congressional chamber, and, of all
humorous speeches ever delivered in Congress, this of
Corwin has come down to us as the most successful. Long
afterward, parts of it lingered in our ``speakers' manuals''
and were declaimed in the public schools as examples
of witty oratory. Many years later, when the
House of Representatives left the old chamber and went
into that which it now occupies, Thurlow Weed wrote
an interesting article on scenes he had witnessed in the old
hall, and most vivid of all was his picture of this speech
by Corwin. His delineations of Crary's brilliant exploits,
his portrayal of the valiant charges made by Crary's
troops on muster days upon the watermelon patches of
Michigan, not only convulsed his audience, but were
echoed throughout the nation, Whigs and Democrats
laughing alike; and when John Quincy Adams, in a speech
shortly afterward, referred to the man who brought on
this tempest of fun as ``the late General Crary,'' there
was a feeling that the adjective indicated a fact. It really
was so; Crary, although a man of merit, never returned
to Congress, but was thenceforth dropped from political
life. More than twenty years afterward, as I was passing
through Western Michigan, a friend pointed out to me
his tombstone, in a little village cemetery, with comments,
half comic, half pathetic; and I also recall a mournful
feeling when one day, in going over the roll of my
students at the University of Michigan, I came upon one who
bore the baptismal name of Isaac Crary. Evidently, the
blighted young statesman had a daughter who, in all this
storm of ridicule and contempt, stood by him, loved him,
and proudly named her son after him.

Another feature in the campaign also impressed me.
A blackguard orator, on the Whig side, one of those
whom great audiences applaud for the moment and ever
afterward despise,--a man named Ogle,--made a speech
which depicted the luxury prevailing at the White House,
and among other evidences of it, dwelt upon the ``gold
spoons'' used at the President's table, denouncing their
use with such unction that, for the time, unthinking
people regarded Martin Van Buren as a sort of American
Vitellius. As a matter of fact, the scanty silver-gilt table
utensils at the White House have been shown, in these
latter days, in some very pleasing articles written by
General Harrison's grandson, after this grandson had
himself retired from the Presidency, to have been, for the
most part, bought long before;--and by order of General
Washington.

The only matter of political importance which, as a boy
eight years old, I seized upon, and which dwells in my
memory, was the creation of the ``Sub-Treasury.''  That
this was a wise measure seems now proven by the fact that
through all the vicissitudes of politics, from that day to
this, it has remained and rendered admirable service. But
at that time it was used as a weapon against the
Democratic party, and came to be considered by feather-
brained partizans, young and old, as the culmination of
human wickedness. As to what the ``Sub-Treasury''
really was I had not the remotest idea; but this I knew;--
that it was the most wicked outrage ever committed by a
remorseless tyrant upon a long-suffering people.

In November of 1840 General Harrison was elected. In
the following spring he was inaugurated, and the Whigs
being now for the first time in power, the rush for office
was fearful. It was undoubtedly this crushing pressure
upon the kindly old man that caused his death. What
British soldiers, and Indian warriors, and fire, flood, and
swamp fevers could not accomplish in over sixty years,
was achieved by the office-seeking hordes in just one
month. He was inaugurated on the fourth of March and
died early in April.

I remember, as if it were yesterday, my dear mother
coming to my bedside, early in the morning, and saying
to me, ``President Harrison is dead.''  I wondered what
was to become of us. He was the first President who had
died during his term of service, and a great feeling of
relief came over me when I learned that his high office
had devolved upon the Vice-President.

But now came a new trouble, and my youthful mind was
soon sadly agitated. The Whig papers, especially the
``New York Express'' and ``Albany Evening Journal,''
began to bring depressing accounts of the new President,
--tidings of extensive changes in the offices throughout the
country, and especially in the post-offices. At first the
Whig papers published these under the heading
``Appointments by the President.''  But soon the heading
changed; it became ``Appointments by Judas Iscariot,''
or ``Appointments by Benedict Arnold,'' and war was
declared against President Tyler by the party that elected
him. Certain it is that no party ever found itself in a
worse position than did the Whigs, when their Vice-President
came into the Chief Magistracy; and equally certain
is it that this position was the richly earned punishment
of their own folly.

I have several times since had occasion to note the
carelessness of National and State conventions in nominating
a candidate for the second place upon the ticket--whether
Vice-President or Lieutenant-Governor. It would seem
that the question of questions--the nomination to the
first office--having been settled, there comes a sort of
collapse in these great popular assemblies, and that then,
for the second office, it is very often anybody's race and
mainly a matter of chance. In this way alone can be
explained several nominations which have been made to
second offices, and above all, that of John Tyler. As a
matter of fact, he was not commended to the Whig party
on any solid grounds. His whole political life had shown
him an opponent of their main ideas; he was, in fact, a
Southern doctrinaire, and frequently suffered from acute
attacks of that very troublesome political disease,
Virginia metaphysics. As President he attempted to enforce
his doctrines, and when Whig leaders, and above all
Henry Clay attempted, not only to resist, but to crush him,
he asserted his dignity at the cost of his party, and finally
tried that which other accidental Presidents have since
tried with no better success, namely, to build up a party
of his own by a new distribution of offices. Never was a
greater failure. Mr. Tyler was dropped by both parties
and disappeared from American political life forever.
I can now see that he was a man obedient to his convictions
of duty, such as they were, and in revolt against
attempts of Whig leaders to humiliate him; but then, to
my youthful mind, he appeared the very incarnation of
evil.

My next recollections are of the campaign of 1844.
Again the Whig party took courage, and having, as a boy
of twelve years, acquired more earnest ideas regarding
the questions at issue, I helped, with other Whig boys,
to raise ash-poles, and to hurrah lustily for Clay at public
meetings. On the other hand, the Democratic boys hurrahed
as lustily around their hickory poles and, as was
finally proved, to much better purpose. They sang doggerel
which, to me, was blasphemous, and especially a song
with the following refrain:

   ``Alas poor Cooney Clay,
     Alas poor Cooney Clay,
     You never can be President,
     For so the people say.''

The ash-poles had reference to Ashland, Clay's Kentucky
estate; and the hickory poles recalled General Jackson's
sobriquet, ``Old Hickory.''  For the Democratic candidate
in 1844, James Knox Polk, was considered heir to
Jackson's political ideas. The campaign of 1844 was not
made so interesting by spectacular outbursts of tom-foolery
as the campaign of 1840 had been. The sober second
thought of the country had rather sickened people of that
sort of thing; still, there was quite enough of it, especially
as shown in caricatures and songs. The poorest of the
latter was perhaps one on the Democratic side, for as the
Democratic candidates were Polk of Tennessee and Dallas
of Pennsylvania, one line of the song embraced probably
the worst pun ever made, namely--

     ``PORK in the barrel, and DOLLARS in the pocket.''

It was at this period that the feeling against the extension
of slavery, especially as indicated in the proposed
annexation of Texas, began to appear largely in politics,
and though Clay at heart detested slavery and always
refused to do the bidding of its supporters beyond what he
thought absolutely necessary in preserving the Union, an
unfortunate letter of his led great numbers of anti-
slavery men to support a separate anti-slavery ticket, the
candidate being James G. Birney. The result was that
the election of Clay became impossible. Mr. Polk was
elected, and under him came the admission of Texas,
which caused the Mexican War, and gave slavery a new
lease of life. The main result, in my own environment,
was that my father and his friends, thenceforward for a
considerable time, though detesting slavery, held all
abolitionists and anti-slavery men in contempt,--as unpatriotic
because they had defeated Henry Clay, and as idiotic
because they had brought on the annexation of Texas and
thereby the supremacy of the slave States.

But the flame of liberty could not be smothered by
friends or blown out by enemies; it was kept alive by
vigorous counterblasts in the press, and especially fed by
the lecture system, which was then at the height of its
efficiency. Among the most powerful of lecturers was
John Parker Hale, senator of the United States from
New Hampshire, his subject being, ``The Last Gladiatorial
Combat at Rome.''  Taking from Gibbon the story of
the monk Telemachus, who ended the combats in the arena
by throwing himself into them and sacrificing his life, Hale
suggested to his large audiences an argument that if men
wished to get rid of slavery in our country they must be
ready to sacrifice themselves if need be. His words sank
deep into my mind, and I have sometimes thought that
they may have had something to do in leading John
Brown to make his desperate attempt on slavery at
Harper's Ferry.

How blind we all were! Henry Clay, a Kentucky slave-
holder, would have saved us. Infinitely better than the
violent solutions proposed to us was his large statesman-
like plan of purchasing the slave children as they were
born and setting them free. Without bloodshed, and at
cost of the merest nothing as compared to the cost of the
Civil War, he would thus have solved the problem; but
it was not so to be. The guilt of the nation was not to be
so cheaply atoned for. Fanatics, North and South,
opposed him and, as a youth, I yielded to their arguments.

Four years later, in 1848, came a very different sort of
election. General Zachary Taylor, who had shown ster-
ling qualities in the Mexican War, was now the candidate
of the Whigs, and against him was nominated Mr.
Cass, a general of the War of 1812, afterward governor
of the Northwestern Territory, and senator from
Michigan. As a youth of sixteen, who by that time had become
earnestly interested in politics, I was especially struck
by one event in this campaign. The Democrats of course
realized that General Taylor, with the prestige gained in
the Mexican War, was a very formidable opponent. Still,
if they could keep their party together, they had hopes of
beating him. But a very large element in their party
had opposed the annexation of Texas and strongly disliked
the extension of slavery;--this wing of the party
in New York being known as the ``Barn Burners,'' because
it was asserted that they ``believed in burning the
barn to drive the rats out.''  The question was what these
radical gentlemen would do. That question was answered
when a convention, controlled largely by the anti-slavery
Democrats of New York and other States, met at Buffalo
and nominated Martin Van Buren to the Presidency.
For a time it was doubtful whether he would accept the
nomination. On one side it was argued that he could not
afford to do so, since he had no chance of an election,
and would thereby forever lose his hold upon the Democratic
party; but, on the other hand, it was said that he
was already an old man; that he realized perfectly the
impossibility of his relection, and that he had a bitter
grudge against the Democratic candidate, General Cass,
who had voted against confirming him when he was sent
as minister to Great Britain, thus obliging him to return
home ingloriously. He accepted the nomination.

On the very day which brought the news of this
acceptance, General Cass arrived in Syracuse, on his way
to his home at Detroit. I saw him welcomed by a great
procession of Democrats, and marched under a broiling
sun, through dusty streets, to the City Hall, where he was
forced to listen and reply to fulsome speeches prophesying
his election, which he and all present knew to be impos-
sible. For Mr. Van Buren's acceptance of the ``free soil''
nomination was sure to divide the Democratic vote of the
State of New York, thus giving the State to the Whigs;
and in those days the proverb held good, ``As New York
goes, so goes the Union.''

For years afterward there dwelt vividly in my mind
the picture of this old, sad man marching through the
streets, listening gloomily to the speeches, forced to
appear confident of victory, yet evidently disheartened and
disgusted.

Very vivid are my recollections of State conventions
at this period. Syracuse, as the ``Central City,'' was a
favorite place for them, and, as they came during the
summer vacations, boys of my age and tastes were able
to admire the great men of the hour,--now, alas, utterly
forgotten. We saw and heard the leaders of all parties.
Many impressed me; but one dwells in my memory, on
account of a story which was told of him. This was a
very solemn, elderly gentleman who always looked very
wise but said nothing,--William Bouck of Schoharie
County. He had white hair and whiskers, and having
been appointed canal commissioner of the State, had
discharged his duties by driving his old white family nag
and buggy along the towing-path the whole length of the
canals, keeping careful watch of the contractors, and so,
in his simple, honest way, had saved the State much money.
The result was the nickname of the ``Old White Hoss of
Schoharie,'' and a reputation for simplicity and honesty
which made him for a short time governor of the State.

A story then told of him reveals something of his
character. Being informed that Bishop Hughes of New York
was coming to Albany, and that it would be well to treat
him with especial courtesy, the governor prepared himself
to be more than gracious, and, on the arrival of the
bishop, greeted him most cordially with the words, ``How
do you do, Bishop; I hope you are well. How did you
leave Mrs. Hughes and your family?''  To this the bishop
answered, ``Governor, I am very well, but there is no
Mrs. Hughes; bishops in our church don't marry.''
``Good gracious,'' answered the governor, ``you don't
say so; how long has that been?''  The bishop must have
thoroughly enjoyed this. His Irish wit made him quick
both at comprehension and repartee. During a debate
on the school question a leading Presbyterian merchant
of New York, Mr. Hiram Ketchum, made a very earnest
speech against separate schools for Roman Catholics, and
presently, turning to Bishop Hughes, said, ``Sir, we
respect you, sir, but, sir, we can't go your purgatory, sir.''
To this the bishop quietly replied, ``You might go further
and fare worse.''

Another leading figure, but on the Whig side, was a
State senator, commonly known as ``Bray'' Dickinson,
to distinguish him from D. S. Dickinson who had been a
senator of the United States, and a candidate for the
Presidency. ``Bray'' Dickinson was a most earnest
supporter of Mr. Seward; staunch, prompt, vigorous, and
really devoted to the public good. One story regarding
him shows his rough-and-readiness.

During a political debate in the old Whig days, one
of his Democratic brother senators made a long harangue
in favor of Martin Van Buren as a candidate for the
Presidency, and in the course of his speech referred to
Mr. Van Buren as ``the Curtius of the Republic.''  Upon
this Dickinson jumped up, went to some member better
educated in the classics than himself, and said, ``Who in
thunder is this Curtis that this man is talking about?''  ``It
isn't Curtis, it 's Curtius, ``was the reply. ``Well, now, ``
said Dickinson, ``what did Curtius do?''  ``Oh,'' said his
informant, ``he threw himself into an abyss to save
the Roman Republic.''  Upon this Dickinson returned to
his seat, and as soon as the Democratic speaker had
finished, arose and said: ``Mr. President, I deny the justice
of the gentleman's reference to Curtius and Martin Van
Buren. What did Curtius do? He threw himself, sir,
into an abyss to save his country. What, sir, did Martin
Van Buren do? He threw his country into an abyss to
save himself.''

Rarely, if ever, has any scholar used a bit of classical
knowledge to better purpose.

Another leading figure, at a later period, was a Democrat,
Fernando Wood, mayor of New York, a brilliant
desperado; and on one occasion I saw the henchmen whom
he had brought with him take possession of a State
convention and deliberately knock its president, one of the
most respected men in the State, off the platform. It was
an unfortunate performance for Mayor Wood, since the
disgust and reaction thereby aroused led all factions of
the Democratic party to unite against him.

Other leading men were such as Charles O'Conor and
John Van Buren; the former learned and generous, but
impracticable; the latter brilliant beyond belief, but not
considered as representing any permanent ideas or principles.

During the campaign of 1848, as a youth of sixteen,
I took the liberty of breaking from the paternal party;
my father voting for General Taylor, I hurrahing for
Martin Van Buren. I remember well how one day my
father earnestly remonstrated against this. He said, ``My
dear boy, you cheer Martin Van Buren's name because
you believe that if he is elected he will do something
against slavery: in the first place, he cannot be elected;
and in the second place, if you knew him as we older
people do, you would not believe in his attachment to any
good cause whatever.''

The result of the campaign was that General Taylor
was elected, and I recall the feeling of awe and hope with
which I gazed upon his war-worn face, for the first and
last time, as he stopped to receive the congratulations of
the citizens of Syracuse;--hope, alas, soon brought to
naught, for he, too, soon succumbed to the pressure of
official care, and Millard Fillmore of New York, the Vice-
President, reigned in his stead.

I remember Mr. Fillmore well. He was a tall, large,
fine-looking man, with a face intelligent and kindly, and
he was noted both as an excellent public servant and an
effective public speaker. He had been comptroller of
the State of New York,--then the most important of State
offices, had been defeated as Whig candidate for governor,
and had been a representative in Congress. He was the
second of the accidental Presidents, and soon felt it his
duty to array himself on the side of those who, by
compromise with the South on the slavery question, sought
to maintain and strengthen the Federal Union. Under
him came the compromise measures on which our great
statesmen of the middle period of the nineteenth century,
Clay, Webster, Calhoun, and Benton, made their last
speeches. Mr. Fillmore was undoubtedly led mainly by
patriotic motives, in promoting the series of measures
which were expected to end all trouble between the North
and South, but which, unfortunately, embraced the Fugitive
Slave Law; yet this, as I then thought, rendered him
accursed. I remember feeling an abhorrence for his very
name, and this feeling was increased when there took
place, in the city of Syracuse, the famous ``Jerry Rescue.''

CHAPTER IV
EARLY MANHOOD--1851-1857

On the first day of October, 1851, there was shuffling
about the streets of Syracuse, in the quiet pursuit
of his simple avocations, a colored person, as nearly ``of
no account'' as any ever seen. So far as was known
he had no surname, and, indeed, no Christian name, save
the fragment and travesty,--``Jerry.''

Yet before that day was done he was famous; his name,
such as it was, resounded through the land; and he had
become, in all seriousness, a weighty personage in American
history.

Under the law recently passed, he was arrested, openly
and in broad daylight, as a fugitive slave, and was carried
before the United States commissioner, Mr. Joseph
Sabine, a most kindly public officer, who in this matter
was sadly embarrassed by the antagonism between his
sworn duty and his personal convictions.

Thereby, as was supposed, were fulfilled the Law and the
Prophets--the Law being the fugitive slave law recently
enacted, and the Prophets being no less than Henry Clay
and Daniel Webster.

For, as if to prepare the little city to sacrifice its
cherished beliefs, Mr. Clay had some time before made a
speech from the piazza of the Syracuse House, urging
upon his fellow-citizens the compromises of the
Constitution; and some months later Mr. Webster appeared,
spoke from a balcony near the City Hall, and to the same
purpose; but more so. The latter statesman was prophetic,
not only in the hortatory, but in the predictive
sense; for he declared not only that the Fugitive Slave
Law must be enforced, but that it WOULD be enforced, and
he added, in substance: ``it will be enforced throughout
the North in spite of all opposition--even in this city--
even in the midst of your abolition conventions.''  This
piece of prophecy was accompanied by a gesture which
seemed to mean much; for the great man's hand was
waved toward the City Hall just across the square--the
classic seat and center of abolition conventions.

How true is the warning, ``Don't prophesy unless you
know!''  The arrest of Jerry took place within six months
after Mr. Webster's speech, and indeed while an abolition
convention was in session at that same City Hall;
but when the news came the convention immediately
dissolved, the fire-bells began to ring, a crowd moved upon
the commissioner's office, surged into it, and swept Jerry
out of the hands of the officers. The authorities having
rallied, re-arrested the fugitive, and put him in confinement
and in irons. But in the evening the assailants returned
to the assault, carried the jail by storm, rescued
Jerry for good, and spirited him off safe and sound to
Canada, thus bringing to nought the fugitive slave law,
as well as the exhortations of Mr. Clay and the predictions
of Mr. Webster.

This rescue produced great excitement throughout the
nation. Various persons were arrested for taking part
in it, and their trials were adjourned from place to place,
to the great hardship of all concerned. During a college
vacation I was present at one of these trials at Canandaigua,
the United States Judge, before whom it was held,
being the Hon. N. K. Hall, who had been Mr. Fillmore's
law partner in Buffalo. The evening before the trial an
anti-slavery meeting was held, which I attended. It was
opened with prayer by a bishop of the African Methodist
Episcopal Church, Loguen, and of all prayers I have
ever heard, this dwells in my mind as perhaps the most
impressive. The colored minister's petitions for his race,
bond and free, for Jerry and for those who had sought
to rescue him, for the souls of the kidnappers, and for
the country which was to his people a land of bondage,
were most pathetic. Then arose Gerrit Smith. Of all
Tribunes of the People I have ever known he dwells in
my memory as possessing the greatest variety of gifts.
He had the prestige given by great wealth, by lavish
generosity, by transparent honesty, by earnestness of
purpose, by advocacy of every good cause, by a superb
presence, and by natural eloquence of a very high order. He
was very tall and large, with a noble head, an earnest, yet
kindly face, and of all human voices I have ever heard
his was the most remarkable for its richness, depth, and
strength. I remember seeing and hearing him once at
a Republican State Convention in the City Hall at Syracuse,
when, having come in for a few moments as a spectator,
he was recognized by the crowd and greeted
with overwhelming calls for a speech. He was standing
at the entrance door, towering above all about him, and
there was a general cry for him to come forward to
the platform. He declined to come forward; but finally
observed to those near him, in his quiet, natural way,
with the utmost simplicity, ``Oh, I shall be heard.''  At
this a shout went up from the entire audience; for every
human being in that great hall had heard these words
perfectly, though uttered in his usual conversational
voice.

I also remember once entering the old Delavan House
at Albany, with a college friend of mine, afterward
Bishop of Maine, and seeing, at the other end of a long
hall, Gerrit Smith in quiet conversation. In a moment
we heard his voice, and my friend was greatly impressed
by it, declaring he had never imagined such
an utterance possible. It was indeed amazing; it was
like the deep, clear, rich tone from the pedal bass
of a cathedral organ. During his career in Congress,
it was noted that he was the only speaker within
remembrance who without effort made himself heard in every
part of the old chamber of the House of Representatives,
which was acoustically one of the worst halls ever
devised. And it was not a case of voice and nothing else;
his strength of argument, his gift of fit expression, and
his wealth of illustration were no less extraordinary.

On this occasion at Canandaigua he rose to speak, and
every word went to the hearts of his audience. ``Why,''
he began, ``do they conduct these harassing proceedings
against these men? If any one is guilty, I am guilty.
With Samuel J. May I proposed the Jerry Rescue. We
are responsible for it; why do they not prosecute us?''
And these words were followed by a train of cogent
reasoning and stirring appeal.

The Jerry Rescue trials only made matters worse.
Their injustice disgusted the North, and their futility
angered the South. They revealed one fact which especially
vexed the Southern wing of the Democratic party, and
this was, that their Northern allies could not be depended
upon to execute the new compromise. In this Syracuse
rescue one of the most determined leaders was a rough
burly butcher, who had been all his life one of the loudest
of pro-slavery Democrats, and who, until he saw Jerry
dragged in manacles through the streets, had been most
violent in his support of the fugitive slave law. The
trials also stimulated the anti-slavery leaders and orators
to new vigor. Garrison, Phillips, Gerrit Smith, Sumner,
and Seward aroused the anti-slavery forces as never
before, and the ``Biglow Papers'' of James Russell Lowell,
which made Northern pro-slavery men ridiculous, were
read with more zest than ever.

But the abolition forces had the defects of their
qualities, and their main difficulty really arose from the
stimulus given to a thin fanaticism. There followed, in
the train of the nobler thinkers and orators, the ``Fool
Reformers,''--sundry long-haired men and short-haired
women, who thought it their duty to stir good Christian
people with blasphemy, to deluge the founders of the
Republic with blackguardism, and to invent ever more
and more ingenious ways for driving every sober-minded
man and woman out of the anti-slavery fold. More than
once in those days I hung my head in disgust as I listened
to these people, and wondered, for the moment, whether,
after all, even the supremacy of slaveholders might not
be more tolerable than the new heavens and the new earth,
in which should dwell such bedraggled, screaming,
denunciatory creatures.

At the next national election the Whigs nominated
General Scott, a man of extraordinary merit and of
grandiose appearance; but of both these qualities he was
himself unfortunately too well aware; as a result the
Democrats gave him the name of ``Old Fuss and Feathers,'' and
a few unfortunate speeches, in one of which he expressed
his joy at hearing that ``sweet Irish brogue,'' brought
the laugh of the campaign upon him.

On the other hand the Democrats nominated Franklin
Pierce; a man greatly inferior to General Scott in military
matters, but who had served well in the State politics
of New Hampshire and in Congress, was widely beloved,
of especially attractive manners, and of high personal
character.

He also had been in the Mexican War, but though he
had risen to be brigadier-general, his military record
amounted to very little. There was in him, no doubt,
some alloy of personal with public motives, but it would
be unjust to say that selfishness was the only source of
his political ideas. He was greatly impressed by the
necessity of yielding to the South in order to save the
Union, and had shown this by his utterances and votes in
Congress: the South, therefore, accepted him against
General Scott, who was supposed to have moderate anti-
slavery views.

General Pierce was elected; the policy of his
administration became more and more deeply pro-slavery; and
now appeared upon the scene Stephen Arnold Douglas--
senator from Illinois, a man of remarkable ability,--a
brilliant thinker and most effective speaker, with an
extraordinary power of swaying men. I heard him at vari-
ous times; and even after he had committed what seemed
to me the unpardonable sin, it was hard to resist his
eloquence. He it was who, doubtless from a mixture of
motives, personal and public, had proposed the abolition of
the Missouri Compromise, which since the year 1820 had
been the bulwark of the new territories against the
encroachments of slavery. The whole anti-slavery sentiment
of the North was thereby intensified, and as the
establishment of north polarity at one end of the magnet
excites south polarity at the other, so Southern feeling
in favor of slavery was thereby increased. Up to a recent
period Southern leaders had, as a rule, deprecated
slavery, and hoped for its abolition; now they as generally
advocated it as good in itself;--the main foundation of
civil liberty; the normal condition of the working classes
of every nation; and some of them urged the revival of
the African slave-trade. The struggle became more and
more bitter. I was during that time at Yale, and the general
sentiment of that university in those days favored
almost any concession to save the Union. The venerable
Silliman, and a great majority of the older professors
spoke at public meetings in favor of the pro-slavery
compromise measures which they fondly hoped would settle
the difficulty between North and South and restablish
the Union on firm foundations. The new compromise was
indeed a bitter dose for them, since it contained the
fugitive slave law in its most drastic form; and every one
of them, with the exception of a few theological doctrinaires
who found slavery in the Bible, abhorred the whole
slave system. The Yale faculty, as a rule, took ground
against anti-slavery effort, and, among other ways of
propagating what they considered right opinions, there
was freely distributed among the students a sermon by
the Rev. Dr. Boardman of Philadelphia, which went to
extremes in advocating compromise with slavery and the
slave power.

The great body of the students, also, from North and
South, took the same side. It is a suggestive fact that
whereas European students are generally inclined to
radicalism, American students have been, since the war of
the Revolution, eminently conservative.

To this pro-slavery tendency at Yale, in hope of saving
the Union, there were two remarkable exceptions, one
being the beloved and respected president of the university,
Dr. Theodore Dwight Woolsey, and the other his
classmate and friend, the Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon, pastor
of the great Center Church of New Haven, and frequently
spoken of as the ``Congregational Pope of New
England.''  They were indeed a remarkable pair; Woolsey,
quiet and scholarly, at times irascible, but always kind
and just; Bacon a rugged, leonine sort of man who, when
he shook his mane in the pulpit and addressed the New
England conscience, was heard throughout the nation.
These two, especially, braved public sentiment, as well
as the opinion of their colleagues, and were supposed,
at the time, to endanger the interests of Yale by standing
against the fugitive slave law and other concessions to
slavery and its extension. As a result Yale fell into
disrepute in the South, which had, up to that time, sent large
bodies of students to it, and I remember that a classmate
of mine, a tall, harum-scarum, big-hearted, sandy-haired
Georgian known as ``Jim'' Hamilton, left Yale in disgust,
returned to his native heath, and was there welcomed with
great jubilation. A poem was sent me, written by some
ardent admirer of his, beginning with the words:

     ``God bless thee, noble Hamilton,'' &c.

On the other hand I was one of the small minority of
students who remained uncompromisingly anti-slavery,
and whenever I returned from Syracuse, my classmates
and friends used to greet me in a jolly way by asking me
``How are you, Gerrit; how did you leave the Rev.
Antoinette Brown and brother Fred Douglas?''  In consequence
I came very near being, in a small way, a martyr
to my principles. Having had some success in winning
essay prizes during my sophomore and junior years, my
name was naturally mentioned in connection with the election
of editors for the ``Yale Literary Magazine.''  At this
a very considerable body of Southern students and their
Northern adherents declared against me. I neither said
nor did anything in the premises, but two of my most
conservative friends wrought valiantly in my behalf.
One was my dear old chum, Davies, the present Bishop
of Michigan, at the very antipodes from myself on every
possible question; and the other my life-long friend,
Randall Lee Gibson of Kentucky, himself a large slaveholder,
afterward a general in the Confederate service, and
finally, at his lamented death a few years since, United
States senator from Louisiana. Both these friends
championed my cause, with the result that they saved me by a
small majority.

As editor of the ``Yale Literary Magazine,'' through
my senior year, I could publish nothing in behalf of my
cherished anti-slavery ideas, since a decided majority
of my fellow-editors would have certainly refused
admission to any obnoxious article, and I therefore confined
myself, in my editorial capacity, to literary and abstract
matters; but with my college exercises it was different.
Professor Larned, who was charged with the criticism
of our essays and speeches, though a very quiet man, was
at heart deeply anti-slavery, and therefore it was that in
sundry class-room essays, as well as in speeches at the
junior exhibition and at commencement, I was able to
pour forth my ideas against what was stigmatized as the
``sum of human villainies.''

I was not free from temptation to an opposite course.
My experience at the college election had more than once
suggested to my mind the idea that possibly I might be
wrong, after all; that perhaps the voice of the people was
really the voice of God; that if one wishes to accomplish
anything he must work in harmony with the popular will;
and that perhaps the best way would be to conform to
the general opinion. To do so seemed, certainly, the only
road to preferment of any kind. Such were the
temptations which, in those days, beset every young man who
dreamed of accomplishing something in life, and they
beset me in my turn; but there came a day when I dealt
with them decisively. I had come up across New Haven
Green thinking them over, and perhaps paltering rather
contemptibly with my conscience; but arriving at the door
of North College, I stopped a moment, ran through the
whole subject in an instant, and then and there, on the
stairway leading to my room, silently vowed that, come
what might, I would never be an apologist for slavery
or for its extension, and that what little I could do against
both should be done.

I may add that my conscience was somewhat aided by
a piece of casuistry from the most brilliant scholar in
the Yale faculty of that time, Professor James Hadley.
I had been brought up with a strong conviction of the
necessity of obedience to law as the first requirement in
any State, and especially in a Republic; but here was the
fugitive slave law. What was our duty regarding it?
This question having come up in one of our division-
room debates, Professor Hadley, presiding, gave a decision
to the following effect: ``On the statute books of all
countries are many laws, obsolete and obsolescent; to
disobey an obsolete law is frequently a necessity and never
a crime. As to disobedience to an obsolescent law, the
question in every man's mind must be as to the degree
of its obsolescence. Laws are made obsolescent by change
of circumstances, by the growth of convictions which render
their execution impossible, and the like. Every man,
therefore, must solemnly decide for himself at what
period a law is virtually obsolete.''

I must confess that the doctrine seems to me now
rather dangerous, but at that time I welcomed it as a very
serviceable piece of casuistry, and felt that there was
indeed, as Mr. Seward had declared, a ``higher law'' than
the iniquitous enactment which allowed the taking of a
peaceful citizen back into slavery, without any of the
safeguards which had been developed under Anglo-Saxon
liberty.

Though my political feelings throughout the senior
year grew more and more intense, there was no chance
for their expression either in competition for the Clarke
Essay Prize or for the De Forest Oration Gold Medal,
the subjects of both being assigned by the faculty; and
though I afterward had the satisfaction of taking both
these, my exultation was greatly alloyed by the thought
that the ideas I most cherished could find little, if any,
expression in them.

But on Commencement Day my chance came. Then I
chose my own theme, and on the subject of ``Modern
Oracles'' poured forth my views to a church full of people;
many evidently disgusted, but a few as evidently
pleased. I dwelt especially upon sundry utterances of
John Quincy Adams, who had died not long before, and
who had been, during all his later years, a most earnest
opponent of slavery, and I argued that these, with the
declarations of other statesmen of like tendencies, were the
oracles to which the nation should listen.

Curiously enough this commencement speech secured
for me the friendship of a man who was opposed to my
ideas, but seemed to like my presenting them then and
there--the governor of the State, Colonel Thomas
Seymour. He had served with distinction in the Mexican
War, had been elected and relected, again and again,
governor of Connecticut, was devotedly pro-slavery, in
the interest, as he thought, of preserving the Union; but
he remembered my speech, and afterward, when he was
made minister to Russia, invited me to go with him,
attached me to his Legation, and became one of the dearest
friends I have ever had.

Of the diplomatic phase of my life into which he
initiated me, I shall speak in another chapter; but, as
regards my political life, he influenced me decidedly, for
his conversation and the reading he suggested led me to
study closely the writings of Jefferson. The impulse
thus given my mind was not spent until the Civil War,
which, betraying the ultimate results of sundry Jeffersonian
ideas, led me to revise my opinions somewhat and
to moderate my admiration for the founder of American
``Democracy,'' though I have ever since retained a strong
interest in his teaching.

But deeply as both the governor and myself felt on the
slavery question, we both avoided it in our conversation.
Each knew how earnestly the other felt regarding it, and
each, as if by instinct, kept clear of a discussion which
could not change our opinions, and might wreck our
friendship. The result was, that, so far as I remember,
we never even alluded to it during the whole year we were
together. Every other subject we discussed freely but
this we never touched. The nearest approach to a
discussion was when one day in the Legation Chancery at
St. Petersburg, Mr. Erving, also a devoted Union pro-
slavery Democrat, pointing to a map of the United States
hanging on the wall, went into a rhapsody over the
extension of the power and wealth of our country. I answered,
``If our country could get rid of slavery in all
that beautiful region of the South, such a riddance would
be cheap at the cost of fifty thousand lives and a hundred
millions of dollars.''  At this Erving burst forth
into a torrent of brotherly anger. ``There was no
conceivable cause,'' he said, ``worth the sacrifice of fifty
thousand lives, and the loss of a hundred millions of
dollars would mean the blotting out of the whole prosperity
of the nation.''  His deep earnestness showed me
the impossibility of converting a man of his opinions,
and the danger of wrecking our friendship by attempting
it. Little did either of us dream that within ten years
from that day slavery was to be abolished in the United
States, at the sacrifice not of fifty thousand, but of nearly
a million lives, and at the cost not merely of a hundred
millions, but, when all is told, of at least ten thousand
millions of dollars!

I may mention here that it was in this companionship,
at St. Petersburg, that I began to learn why newspaper
criticism has, in our country, so little permanent effect on
the reputation of eminent men. During four years before
coming abroad I had read, in leading Republican journals
of New York and New Haven, denunciations of Governor
Thomas Hart Seymour as an ignoramus, a pretender,
a blatant demagogue, a sot and companion of sots, an
associate, and fit associate, for the most worthless of the
populace. I had now found him a man of real convictions,
thoroughly a gentleman, quiet, conscientious, kindly,
studious, thoughtful, modest, abstemious, hardly ever
touching a glass of wine, a man esteemed and beloved by all
who really knew him. Thus was first revealed to me
what, in my opinion, is the worst evil in American public
life,--that facility for unlimited slander, of which the first
result is to degrade our public men, and the second result
is to rob the press of that confidence among thinking
people, and that power for good and against evil which it
really ought to exercise. Since that time I have seen
many other examples strengthening the same conviction.

Leaving St. Petersburg, I followed historical and, to
some extent, political studies at the University of Berlin,
having previously given attention to them in France; and
finally, traveling in Italy, became acquainted with a man
who made a strong impression upon me. This was
Mr. Robert Dale Owen, then the American minister at
Naples, whose pictures of Neapolitan despotism, as it
then existed, made me even a stronger Republican than I
had been before.

Returning to America I found myself on the eve of the
new presidential election. The Republicans had nominated
John C. Frmont, of whom all I knew was gathered
from his books of travel. The Democrats had nominated
James Buchanan, whom I, as an attach of the legation
at St. Petersburg, had met while he was minister of the
United States at London. He was a most kindly and
impressive old gentleman, had welcomed me cordially at
his legation, and at a large dinner given by Mr. George
Peabody, at that time the American Amphitryon in the
British metropolis, discussed current questions in a way
that fascinated me. Of that I may speak in another chapter;
suffice it here that he was one of the most attractive
men in conversation I have ever met, and that is saying
much.

I took but slight part in the campaign; in fact, a natural
diffidence kept me aloof from active politics. Having
given up all hope or desire for political preferment, and
chosen a university career, I merely published a few newspaper
and magazine articles, in the general interest of anti-
slavery ideas, but made no speeches, feeling myself, in fact,
unfit to make them.

But I shared more and more the feelings of those who
supported Frmont.

Mr. Buchanan, though personal acquaintance had
taught me to like him as a man, and the reading of his
despatches in the archives of our legation at St. Petersburg
had forced me to respect him as a statesman, represented
to me the encroachments and domination of American
slavery, while Frmont represented resistance to such
encroachments, and the perpetuity of freedom upon the
American Continent.

On election day, 1856, I went to the polls at the City
Hall of Syracuse to cast my first vote. There I chanced
to meet an old schoolmate who had become a brilliant
young lawyer, Victor Gardner, with whom, in the old
days, I had often discussed political questions, he being
a Democrat and I a Republican. But he had now come
upon new ground, and, wishing me to do the same, he
tendered me what was known as ``The American Ticket,''
bearing at its head the name of Millard Fillmore. He
claimed that it represented resistance to the encroachments
and dangers which he saw in the enormous foreign
immigration of the period, and above all in the
increasing despotism of the Roman Catholic hierarchy
controlling the Irish vote. Most eloquently did my old
friend discourse on the dangers from this source. He
insisted that Roman Catholic bishops and priests had
wrecked every country in which they had ever gained
control; that they had aided in turning the mediaeval
republics into despotisms; that they had ruined Spain and
the South American republics; that they had rendered
Poland and Ireland unable to resist oppression; that they
had hopelessly enfeebled Austria and Italy; that by St.
Bartholomew massacres and clearing out of Huguenots
they had made, first, terrorism, and, finally, despotism
necessary in France; that they had rendered every people
they had controlled careless of truth and inclined to
despotism,--either of monarchs or ``bosses'';--that our
prisons were filled with the youth whom they had trained in
religion and morals; that they were ready to ravage the
world with fire and sword to gain the slightest point for
the Papacy; that they were the sworn foes of our public-
school system, without which no such thing as republican
government could exist among us; that, in fact, their
bishops and priests were the enemies of everything we
Americans should hold dear, and that their church was
not so much a religious organization as a political
conspiracy against the best that mankind had achieved.

``Look at the Italians, Spanish, French to-day, ``he
said. ``The Church has had them under its complete control
fifteen hundred years, and you see the result. Look
at the Irish all about us;--always screaming for liberty,
yet the most abject slaves of their passions and of their
priesthood.''

He spoke with the deepest earnestness and even
eloquence; others gathered round, and some took his tickets.
I refused them, saying, ``No. The question of all questions
to me is whether slavery or freedom is to rule this
Republic,'' and, having taken a Republican ticket, I went
up-stairs to the polls. On my arrival at the ballot-box
came a most exasperating thing. A drunken Irish Democrat
standing there challenged my vote. He had, perhaps,
not been in the country six months; I had lived
in that very ward since my childhood, knew and was
known by every other person present; and such was my
disgust that it is not at all unlikely that if one of
Gardner's tickets had been in my pocket, it would have gone
into the ballot-box. But persons standing by,--Democrats
as well as Republicans,--having quieted this perfervid
patriot, and saved me from the ignominy of swearing
in my vote, I carried out my original intention, and
cast my first vote for the Republican candidate.

Certainly Providence was kind to the United States
in that contest. For Frmont was not elected. Looking
back over the history of the United States I see, thus far,
no instant when everything we hold dear was so much in
peril as on that election day.

We of the Republican party were fearfully mistaken,
and among many evidences in history that there is ``a
Power in the universe, not ourselves, which makes for
righteousness,'' I think that the non-election of Frmont
is one of the most convincing. His election would have
precipitated the contest brought on four years later by
the election of Lincoln. But the Northern States had in
1856 no such preponderance as they had four years later.
No series of events had then occurred to arouse and
consolidate anti-slavery feeling like those between 1856 and
1860. Moreover, of all candidates for the Presidency ever
formally nominated by either of the great parties up to
that time, Frmont was probably the most unfit. He had
gained credit for his expedition across the plains to
California, and deservedly; his popular name of ``Pathfinder''
might have been of some little use in a political campaign,
and some romantic interest attached to him on account of
his marriage with Jessie Benton, daughter of the burly,
doughty, honest-purposed, headstrong senator from Missouri.
But his earlier career, when closely examined, and,
even more than that, his later career, during the Civil
War, showed doubtful fitness for any duties demanding
clear purpose, consecutive thought, adhesion to a broad
policy, wisdom in counsel, or steadiness in action. Had
he been elected in 1856 one of two things would
undoubtedly have followed: either the Union would have
been permanently dissolved, or it would have been
reestablished by anchoring slavery forever in the
Constitution. Never was there a greater escape.

On March 1, 1857, I visited Washington for the first
time. It was indeed the first time I had ever trodden
the soil of a slave State, and, going through Baltimore,
a sense of this gave me a feeling of horror. The whole
atmosphere of that city seemed gloomy, and the city of
Washington no better. Our little company established
itself at the National Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, then
a famous hostelry. Henry Clay had died there not long
before, and various eminent statesmen had made it, and
were then making it, their headquarters.

On the evening of my arrival a curious occurrence
showed me the difference between Northern and Southern
civilization. As I sat in the reading-room, there rattled
upon my ear utterances betokening a vigorous dispute in
the adjoining bar-room, and, as they were loud and long,
I rose and walked toward the disputants, as men are wont
to do on such occasions in the North; when, to my surprise
I found that, though the voices were growing steadily
louder, people were very generally leaving the room;
presently, the reason dawned upon me: it was a case in
which revolvers might be drawn at any moment, and the
bystanders evidently thought life and limb more valuable
than any information they were likely to obtain by remaining.

On the evening of the third of March I went with the
crowd to the White House. We were marshalled through
the halls, President Pierce standing in the small chamber
adjoining the East Room to receive the guests, around
him being members of the Cabinet, with others distinguished
in the civil, military, and naval service, and,
among them, especially prominent, Senator Douglas, then
at the height of his career. Persons in the procession
were formally presented, receiving a kindly handshake,
and then allowed to pass on. My abhorrence of the Presi-
dent and of Douglas was so bitter that I did a thing for
which the only excuse was my youth:--I held my right
hand by my side, walked by and refused to be presented.

Next morning I was in the crowd at the east front of the
Capitol, and, at the time appointed, Mr. Buchanan came
forth and took the oath administered to him by the Chief
Justice, Roger Brooke Taney of Maryland. Though
Taney was very decrepit and feeble, I looked at him much
as a Spanish Protestant in the sixteenth century would
have looked at Torquemada; for, as Chief Justice, he
was understood to be in the forefront of those who would
fasten African slavery on the whole country; and this
view of him seemed justified when, two days after the
inauguration, he gave forth the Dred Scott decision,
which interpreted the Constitution in accordance with
the ultra pro-slavery theory of Calhoun.

Having taken the oath, Mr. Buchanan delivered the
inaugural address, and it made a deep impression upon me.
I began to suspect then, and I fully believe now, that
he was sincere, as, indeed, were most of those whom
men of my way of thinking in those days attacked as
pro-slavery tools and ridiculed as ``doughfaces.''  We
who had lived remote from the scene of action, and apart
from pressing responsibility, had not realized the danger
of civil war and disunion. Mr. Buchanan, and men
like him, in Congress, constantly associating with Southern
men, realized both these dangers. They honestly and
patriotically shrank from this horrible prospect; and so,
had we realized what was to come, would most of us have
done. I did not see this then, but looking back across
the abyss of years I distinctly see it now. The leaders
on both sides were honest and patriotic, and, as I firmly
believe, instruments of that ``Power in the universe, not
ourselves, which makes for righteousness.''

There was in Mr. Buchanan's inaugural address a tone
of deep earnestness. He declared that all his efforts
should be given to restore the Union, and to restablish
it upon permanent foundations; besought his fellow-citizens
throughout the Union to second him in this effort,
and promised that under no circumstances would he be
a candidate for relection. My anti-slavery feelings
remained as deep as ever, but, hearing this speech, there
came into my mind an inkling of the truth: ``Hinter dem
Berge sind auch Leute.''

During my stay in Washington I several times visited
the Senate and the House, in the old quarters which they
shortly afterward vacated in order to enter the more
commodious rooms of the Capitol, then nearly finished.
The Senate was in the room at present occupied by the
Supreme Court, and from the gallery I looked down
upon it with mingled feelings of awe, distrust, and
aversion. There, as its president, sat Mason of Virginia,
author of the fugitive slave law; there, at the desk in
front of him, sat Cass of Michigan, who, for years, had
been especially subservient to the slave power; Douglas
of Illinois, who had brought about the destruction of the
Missouri Compromise; Butler of South Carolina, who
represented in perfection the slave-owning aristocracy;
Slidell and Benjamin of Louisiana, destined soon to play
leading parts in the disruption of the Union.

But there were others. There was Seward, of my own
State, whom I had been brought up to revere, and who
seemed to me, in the struggle then going on, the
incarnation of righteousness; there was Charles Sumner of
Massachusetts, just recovering from the murderous
blows given him by Preston Brooks of South Carolina,
--a martyr, as I held, to his devotion to freedom; there
was John Parker Hale of New Hampshire, who had
been virtually threatened with murder, as a penalty for
his opposition to slavery; and there was bluff Ben Wade
of Ohio, whose courage strengthened the whole North.

The House of Representatives interested me less. In
it there sat various men now mainly passed out of
human memory; and, unfortunately, the hall, though
one of the finest, architecturally, in the world, was one
of the least suited to its purpose. To hear anything
either in the galleries or on the floor was almost an
impossibility.

The Supreme Court, though sitting in a wretched
room in the basement, made a far deeper impression
upon me. The judges, seated in a row, and wearing
their simple, silken gowns, seemed to me, in their quiet
dignity, what the highest court of a great republic ought
to be; though I looked at Chief Justice Taney and his
pro-slavery associates much as a Hindoo regards his
destructive gods.

The general impression made upon me at Washington
was discouraging. It drove out from my mind the last
lingering desire to take any part in politics. The whole
life there was repulsive to me, and when I reflected that
a stay of a few years in that forlorn, decaying, reeking
city was the goal of political ambition, the whole thing
seemed to me utterly worthless. The whole life there
bore the impress of the slipshod habits engendered by
slavery, and it seemed a civilization rotting before
ripeness. The city was certainly, at that time, the most
wretched capital in Christendom. Pennsylvania Avenue
was a sort of Slough of Despond,--with ruts and mud-
holes from the unfinished Capitol, at one end, to the
unfinished Treasury building, at the other, and bounded
on both sides with cheap brick tenements. The extensive
new residence quarter and better hotels of these
days had not been dreamed of. The ``National,'' where
we were living, was esteemed the best hotel, and it was
abominable. Just before we arrived, what was known
as the ``National Hotel Disease'' had broken out in it;--
by some imputed to an attempt to poison the incoming
President, in order to bring the Vice-President into his
place. But that was the mere wild surmise of a political
pessimist. The fact clearly was that the wretched
sewage of Washington, in those days, which was betrayed
in all parts of the hotel by every kind of noisome odor,
had at last begun to do its work. Curiously enough there
was an interregnum in the reign of sickness and death,
probably owing to some temporary sanitary efforts, and
that interregnum, fortunately for us, was coincident with
our stay there. But the disease set in again shortly
afterward, and a college friend of mine, who arrived on the
day of our departure, was detained in the hotel for many
weeks with the fever then contracted. The number of
deaths was considerable, but, in the interest of the hotel,
the matter was hushed up, as far as possible.

The following autumn I returned to New Haven as a
resident graduate, and, the popular lecture system being
then at its height, was invited to become one of the
lecturers in the course of that winter. I prepared my
discourse with great care, basing it upon studies and
observations during my recent stay in the land of the
Czar, and gave it the title of ``Civilization in Russia.''

I remember feeling greatly honored by the fact that
my predecessor in the course was Theodore Parker, and
my successor Ralph Waldo Emerson. Both talked with
me much about my subject, and Parker surprised me.
He was the nearest approach to omniscience I had ever
seen. He was able to read, not only Russian, but the
Old Slavonic. He discussed the most intimate details of
things in Russia, until, at last, I said to him, ``Mr.
Parker, I would much rather sit at your feet and listen
to your information regarding Russia, than endeavor
to give you any of my own.'' He was especially
interested in the ethnology of the empire, and had an
immense knowledge of the different peoples inhabiting
it, and of their characteristics. Finally, he asked me
what chance I thought there was for the growth of
anything like free institutions in Russia. To this I
answered that the best thing they had was their system
of local peasant meetings for the repartition of their
lands, and for the discussion of subjects connected with
them, and that this seemed to me something like a germ
of what might, in future generations, become a sort of
town-meeting system, like that of New England. This
let me out of the discussion very satisfactorily, for
Parker told me that he had arrived at the same
conclusion, after talking with Count Gurowski, who was, in
those days, an especial authority.

In due time came the evening for my lecture. As it
was the first occasion since leaving college that I had
appeared on any stage, a considerable number of my old
college associates and friends, including Professor
(afterward President) Porter, Dr. Bacon, and Mr. (afterward
Bishop) Littlejohn, were there among the foremost, and
after I had finished they said some kindly things, which
encouraged me.

In this lecture I made no mention of American slavery,
but into an account of the events of my stay at St.
Petersburg and Moscow during the Crimean War, and
of the death and funeral of the Emperor Nicholas, with
the accession and first public address of Alexander II,
I sketched, in broad strokes, the effects of the serf
system,--effects not merely upon the serfs, but upon the
serf owners, and upon the whole condition of the empire.
I made it black indeed, as it deserved, and though
not a word was said regarding things in America, every
thoughtful man present must have felt that it was the
strongest indictment against our own system of slavery
which my powers enabled me to make.

Next day came a curious episode. A classmate of mine,
never distinguished for logical acuteness, came out in a
leading daily paper with a violent attack upon me and
my lecture. He lamented the fact that one who, as he said,
had, while in college, shown much devotion to the anti-
slavery cause, had now faced about, had no longer the
courage of his opinions, and had not dared say a word
against slavery in the United States. The article was
laughable. It would have been easy to attack slavery and
thus at once shut the minds and hearts of a large majority
of the audience. But I felt then, as I have generally felt
since, that the first and best thing to do is to SET PEOPLE AT
THINKING, and to let them discover, or think that they
discover, the truth for themselves. I made no reply, but an
eminent clergyman of New Haven took up the cudgels in
my favor, covered my opponent with ridicule, and did me
the honor to declare that my lecture was one of the most
effective anti-slavery arguments ever made in that city.
With this, I retired from the field well satisfied.

The lecture was asked for in various parts of the country,
was delivered at various colleges and universities, and
in many cities of western New York, Michigan, and Ohio;
and finally, after the emancipation of the serfs, was re-
cast and republished in the ``Atlantic Monthly'' under the
title of ``The Rise and Decline of the Serf System in
Russia.''

And now occurred a great change in my career which,
as I fully believed, was to cut me off from all political life
thoroughly and permanently. This was my election to
the professorship of history and English literature in the
University of Michigan.

CHAPTER V

THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD--1857-1864

Arriving at the University of Michigan in October,
1857, I threw myself into my new work most heartily.
Though I felt deeply the importance of the questions
then before the country, it seemed to me that the only
way in which I could contribute anything to their solution
was in aiding to train up a new race of young men who
should understand our own time and its problems in the
light of history.

It was not difficult to point out many things in the past
that had an important bearing upon the present, and my
main work in this line was done in my lecture-room. I
made no attempts to proselyte any of my hearers to either
political party, my main aim being then, as it has been
through my life, when dealing with students and the public
at large, to set my audience or my readers at thinking,
and to give them fruitful historical subjects to think
upon. Among these subjects especially brought out in
dealing with the middle ages, was the origin, growth, and
decline of feudalism, and especially of the serf system,
and of municipal liberties as connected with it. This, of
course, had a general bearing upon the important problem
we had to solve in the United States during the second half
of that century.

In my lectures on modern history, and especially on the
Reformation period, and the events which led to the
French Revolution, there were various things throwing
light upon our own problems, which served my purpose
of arousing thought. My audiences were large and attentive,
and I have never, in the whole course of my life,
enjoyed any work so much as this, which brought me into
hearty and close relations with a large body of active-
minded students from all parts of our country, and
especially from the Northwest. More and more I realized
the justice of President Wayland's remark, which had so
impressed me at the Yale Alumni meeting just after my
return from Europe: that the nation was approaching
a ``switching-off place''; that whether we were to turn
toward evil or good in our politics would be decided by the
great Northwest, and that it would be well for young
Americans to cast in their lot with that part of the country.

In the intervals of my university work many invitations
came to me from associations in various parts of Michigan
and neighboring States to lecture before them, and these
I was glad to accept. Such lectures were of a much more
general character than those given in the university, but
by them I sought to bring the people at large into trains
of thought which would fit them to grapple with the great
question which was rising more and more portentously
before us.

Having accepted, in one of my vacations, an invitation
to deliver the Phi Beta Kappa Commencement Address
at Yale, I laid down as my thesis, and argued it from
history, that in all republics, ancient or modern, the worst
foe of freedom had been a man-owning aristocracy--an
aristocracy based upon slavery. The address was circulated
in printed form, was considerably discussed, and, I
trust, helped to set some few people thinking.

For the same purpose I also threw some of my lectures
into the form of magazine articles for the ``Atlantic
Monthly,'' and especially one entitled ``The Statesmanship
of Richelieu,'' my effort in this being to show that the
one great error of that greatest of all French statesmen
was in stopping short of rooting out the serf system in
France when he had completely subjugated the serf owners
and had them at his mercy.

As the year 1860 approached, the political struggle
became more and more bitter. President Buchanan in
redeeming his promise to maintain the Union had gone to
lengths which startled and disappointed many of his most
devoted supporters. Civil war had broken out in Kansas
and Nebraska, with murder and massacre: desperate
attempts were made to fasten the hold of the pro-slavery
party permanently upon the State, and as desperately were
these efforts repelled. A certain John Brown, who requited
assassination of free-state men by the assassination
of slave-state men,--a very ominous appearance,--began
to be heard of; men like Professor Silliman, who, during
my stay at Yale had spoken at Union meetings in favor of
the new compromise measures, even including the fugitive
slave law, now spoke publicly in favor of sending rifles to
the free-state men in Kansas; and, most striking symptom
of all, Stephen A. Douglas himself, who had led the
Democratic party in breaking the Missouri Compromise, now
recoiled from the ultra pro-slavery propaganda of President
Buchanan. Then, too, came a new incitement to
bitterness between North and South. John Brown, the
man of Scotch-Covenanter type, who had imbibed his
theories of political methods from the Old-Testament
annals of Jewish dealings with the heathen, and who had in
Kansas solemnly slaughtered in cold blood, as a sort of
sacrifice before the Lord, sundry Missouri marauders who
had assassinated free-state men, suddenly appeared in
Virginia, and there, at Harper's Ferry, with a handful of
fanatics subject to his powerful will, raised the standard
of revolution against the slave-power. Of course he was
easily beaten down, his forces scattered, those dearest to
him shot, and he himself hanged. But he was a character
of antique mold, and this desperate effort followed by his
death, while it exasperated the South, stirred the North to
its depths.

Like all such efforts, it was really mistaken and
unfortunate. It helped to obscure Henry Clay's proposal to
extinguish slavery peaceably, and made the solution of the
problem by bloodshed more and more certain. And in the
execution of John Brown was lost a man who, had he
lived until the Civil War, might have rendered enormous
services as a partizan leader. Of course, his action aroused
much thought among my students, and their ideas came
out in their public discussions. It was part of my duty,
once or twice a week, to preside over these discussions, and
to decide between the views presented. In these decisions
on the political questions now arising I became deeply
interested, and while I was careful not to give them a partizan
character, they were, of course, opposed to the dominance
of slavery.

In the spring of 1860, the Republican National Convention
was held at Chicago, and one fine morning I went to
the railway station to greet the New York delegation on
its way thither. Among the delegates whom I especially
recall were William M. Evarts, under whose Secretaryship
of State I afterward served as minister at Berlin,
and my old college friend, Stewart L. Woodford, with
whom I was later in close relations during his term as
lieutenant-governor of New York and minister to Spain.
The candidate of these New York delegates was of course
Mr. Seward, and my most devout hopes were with him,
but a few days later came news that the nomination had
been awarded to Mr. Lincoln. Him we had come to know
and admire during his debates with Douglas while the
senatorial contest was going on in the State of Illinois;
still the defeat of Mr. Seward was a great disappointment,
and hardly less so in Michigan than in New York. In the
political campaign which followed I took no direct part,
though especially aroused by the speeches of a new man
who had just appeared above the horizon,--Carl Schurz.
His arguments seemed to me by far the best of that whole
campaign--the broadest, the deepest, and the most convincing.

My dear and honored father, during the months of July,
August, and the first days of September, was slowly fading
away on his death-bed. Yet he was none the less interested
in the question at issue, and every day I sat by
his bedside and read to him the literature bearing upon
the contest; but of all the speeches he best liked those of
this new orator--he preferred them, indeed, to those of his
idol Seward.

I have related in another place how, years afterward,
Bismarck asked me, in Berlin, to what Carl Schurz's great
success in America was due, and my answer to this question.

Mr. Lincoln having been elected, I went on with my
duties as before, but the struggle was rapidly deepening.
Soon came premonitions of real conflict, and, early in the
following spring, civil war was upon us. My teaching
went on, as of old, but it became more direct. In order
to show what the maintenance of a republic was worth,
and what patriots had been willing to do for their country
in a struggle not unlike ours, I advised my students to read
Motley's ``History of the Dutch Republic,'' and I still
think it was good advice. Other works, of a similar
character, showing how free peoples have conducted long and
desperate wars for the maintenance of their national existence
and of liberty, I also recommended, and with good effect.

Reverses came. During part of my vacation, in the summer
of 1861, I was at Syracuse, and had, as my guest, Mr.
George Sumner, younger brother of the eminent senator
from Massachusetts, a man who had seen much of the
world, had written magazine articles and reviews which
had done him credit, and whose popular lectures were
widely esteemed. One Sunday afternoon in June my
uncle, Mr. Hamilton White, dropped in at my house to
make a friendly call. He had just returned from Washington,
where he had seen his old friend Seward, Mr. Lincoln's
Secretary of State, and felt able to give us a forecast
of the future. This uncle of mine was a thoughtful
man of affairs; successful in business, excellent in judgment,
not at all prone to sanguine or flighty views, and on
our asking him how matters looked in Washington he
said, ``Depend upon it, it is all right: Seward says that
they have decided to end the trouble at once, even if it is
necessary to raise an army of fifty thousand men;--that
they will send troops immediately to Richmond and finish
the whole thing at once, so that the country can go on
quietly about its business.''

There was, of course, something reassuring in so
favorable a statement made by a sensible man fresh from
the most accredited sources, and yet I could not resist
grave doubts. Such historical knowledge as I possessed
taught me that a struggle like that just beginning between
two great principles, both of which had been gathering
force for nearly a century, and each of which had drawn
to its support millions of devoted men, was not to be ended
so easily; but I held my peace.

Next day I took Mr. Sumner on an excursion up the
beautiful Onondaga Valley. As we drove through the
streets of Syracuse, noticing knots of men gathered here
and there in discussion, and especially at the doors of the
news offices, we secured an afternoon newspaper and drove
on, engaged in earnest conversation. It was a charming
day, and as we came to the shade of some large trees about
two miles from the city we rested and I took out the paper.
It struck me like death. There, displayed in all its horrors,
was the first account of the Battle of Bull Run,--
which had been fought the previous afternoon,--exactly
at the time when my uncle was assuring us that the United
States Army was to march at once to Richmond and end
the war. The catastrophe seemed fatal. The plans of
General McDowell had come utterly to nought; our army
had been scattered to the four winds; large numbers of
persons, including sundry members of Congress who had
airily gone out with the army to ``see the fun,'' among
them one from our own neighborhood, Mr. Alfred Ely,
of Rochester, had been captured and sent to Richmond,
and the rebels were said to be in full march on the National
Capital.

Sumner was jubilant. ``This,'' he said, ``will make the
American people understand what they have to do; this
will stop talk such as your uncle gave us yesterday
afternoon.''  But to me it was a fearful moment. Sumner's
remarks grated horribly upon my ears; true as his view
was, I could not yet accept it.

And now preparations for war, and, indeed, for repelling
invasion, began in earnest. My friends all about me
were volunteering, and I also volunteered, but was rejected
with scorn; the examining physician saying to me,
``You will be a burden upon the government in the first
hospital you reach; you have not the constitution to be
of use in carrying a musket; your work must be of a
different sort.''

My work, then, through the summer was with those who
sought to raise troops and to provide equipments for
them. There was great need of this, and, in my opinion,
the American people have never appeared to better
advantage than at that time, when they began to realize their
duty, and to set themselves at doing it. In every city,
village, and hamlet, men and women took hold of the work,
feeling that the war was their own personal business. No
other country since the world began has ever seen a more
noble outburst of patriotism or more efficient aid by
individuals to their government. The National and State
authorities of course did everything in their power; but
men and women did not wait for them. With the exception
of those whose bitter partizanship led them to oppose
the war in all its phases, men, women, and children
engaged heartily and efficiently in efforts to aid the Union
in its struggle.

Various things showed the depths of this feeling. I
remember meeting one day, at that period, a man who had
risen by hard work from simple beginnings to the head
of an immense business, and had made himself a multi-
millionaire. He was a hard, determined, shrewd man of
affairs, the last man in the world to show anything like
sentimentalism, and as he said something advising an
investment in the newly created National debt, I answered,
``You are not, then, one of those who believe that our
new debt will be repudiated?''  He answered: ``Repudia-
tion or no repudiation, I am putting everything I can rake
and scrape together into National bonds, to help this
government maintain itself; for, by G--d, if I am not
to have any country, I don't want any money.''  It is
to be hoped that this oath, bursting forth from a patriotic
heart, was, like Uncle Toby's, blotted out by the recording
angel. I have quoted it more than once to show how
the average American--though apparently a crude materialist--
is, at heart, a thorough idealist.

Returning to the University of Michigan at the close
of the vacation, I found that many of my students had
enlisted, and that many more were preparing to do so. With
some it was hard indeed. I remember two especially, who
had for years labored and saved to raise the money which
would enable them to take their university course; they
had hesitated, for a time, to enlist; but very early one
morning I was called out of bed by a message from them,
and, meeting them, found them ready to leave for the
army. They could resist their patriotic convictions no
longer, and they had come to say good-bye to me. They
went into the war; they fought bravely through the thickest
of it; and though one was badly wounded, both lived
to return, and are to-day honored citizens. With many
others it was different; many, very many of them, alas,
were among the ``unreturning brave!'' and loveliest and
noblest of all, my dear friend and student, Frederick Arne,
of Princeton, Illinois, killed in the battle of Shiloh, at the
very beginning of the war, when all was blackness and
discouragement. Another of my dearest students at that time
was Albert Nye. Scholarly, eloquent, noble-hearted, with
every gift to ensure success in civil life, he went forth
with the others, rose to be captain of a company, and I
think major of a regiment. He sent me most kindly messages,
and at one time a bowie-knife captured from a rebel
soldier. But, alas! he was not to return.

I may remark, in passing, that while these young men
from the universities, and a vast host of others from
different walks of life, were going forth to lay down their
lives for their country, the English press, almost without
exception, from the ``Times'' down, was insisting that we
were fighting our battles with ``mercenaries.''

One way in which those of us who remained at the
university helped the good cause was in promoting the
military drill of those who had determined to become soldiers.
It was very difficult to secure the proper military instruction,
but in Detroit I found a West Point graduate, engaged
him to come out a certain number of times every week to
drill the students, and he cheered us much by saying that
he had never in his life seen soldiers so much in earnest,
and so rapid in making themselves masters of the drill
and tactics.

One of my advisers at this period, and one of the
noblest men I have ever met, was Lieutenant Kirby Smith,
a graduate of West Point, and a lieutenant in the army.
His father, after whom he was named, had been killed at
the Battle of Molino del Rey, in the Mexican War. His
uncle, also known as Kirby Smith, was a general in the
Confederate service. His mother, one of the dearest
friends of my family, was a woman of extraordinary abilities,
and of the noblest qualities. Never have I known a
young officer of more promise. With him I discussed
from time to time the probabilities of the war. He was
full of devotion, quieted my fears, and strengthened
my hopes. He, too, fought splendidly for his country, and
like his father, laid down his life for it.

The bitterest disappointment of that period, and I regret
deeply to chronicle it, was the conduct of the government
and ruling classes in England. In view of the fact that
popular sentiment in Great Britain, especially as voiced
in its literature, in its press, and from its pulpit, had been
against slavery, I had never doubted that in this struggle,
so evidently between slavery and freedom, Great Britain
would be unanimously on our side. To my amazement
signs soon began to point in another direction. More and
more it became evident that British feeling was against
us. To my students, who inquired how this could possibly
be, I said, ``Wait till Lord John Russell speaks.''  Lord
John Russell spoke, and my heart sank within me. He was
the solemnly constituted impostor whose criminal carelessness
let out the Alabama to prey upon our commerce,
and who would have let out more cruisers had not Mr.
Charles Francis Adams, the American minister, brought
him to reason.

Lord John Russell was noted for his coolness, but in
this respect Mr. Adams was more than his match. In
after years I remember a joke based upon this characteristic.
During a very hot summer in Kansas, when the
State was suffering with drought, some newspaper proposed,
and the press very generally acquiesced in the suggestion,
that Mr. Charles Francis Adams should be asked
to take a tour through the State, in order, by his presence,
to reduce its temperature.

When, therefore, Lord John Russell showed no signs
of interfering with the sending forth of English ships,--
English built, English equipped, and largely English
manned,--against our commerce, Mr. Adams, having
summed up to his Lordship the conduct of the British
Government in the matter, closed in his most icy way with
the words: ``My lord, I need hardly remind you that this
is war.''

The result was, that tardily,--just in time to prevent war
between the two nations,--orders were given which prevented
the passing out of more cruisers.

Goldwin Smith, who in the days of his professorship at
Oxford, saw much of Lord John Russell, once told me that
his lordship always made upon him the impression of
``an eminent corn-doctor.''

During the following summer, that of 1863, being much
broken down by overwork, and threatened, as I supposed,
with heart disease, which turned out to be the beginning
of a troublesome dyspepsia, I was strongly recommended
by my physician to take a rapid run to Europe, and though
very reluctant to leave home, was at last persuaded to go
to New York to take my passage. Arrived there, bad news
still coming from the seat of war, I could not bring myself
at the steamer office to sign the necessary papers, finally
refused, and having returned home, took part for the first
time in a political campaign as a speaker, going through
central New York, and supporting the Republican candidate
against the Democratic. The election seemed of
vast importance. The Democrats had nominated for the
governorship, Mr. Horatio Seymour, a man of the highest
personal character, and, so far as the usual duties of
governor were concerned, admirable; but he had been
bitterly opposed to the war, and it seemed sure that his
election would encourage the South and make disunion
certain; therefore it was that I threw myself into the
campaign with all my might, speaking night and day; but
alas! the election went against us.

At the close of the campaign, my dyspepsia returning
with renewed violence, I was thinking what should be done,
when I happened to meet my father's old friend, Mr.
Thurlow Weed, a devoted adherent of Mr. Seward through
his whole career, and, at that moment, one of the main
supports of the Lincoln Administration. It was upon the
deck of a North River steamer, and on my mentioning my
dilemma he said: ``You can just now do more for us
abroad than at home. You can work in the same line with
Archbishop Hughes, Bishop McIlvaine, and myself; everything
that can be done, in the shape of contributions to
newspapers, or speeches, even to the most restricted
audiences abroad, will help us: the great thing is to gain
time, increase the number of those who oppose European
intervention in our affairs, and procure takers for our
new National bonds.''

The result was that I made a short visit to Europe,
stopping first in London. Political feeling there was
bitterly against us. A handful of true men, John Bright and
Goldwin Smith at the head of them, were doing heroic
work in our behalf, but the forces against them seemed
overwhelming. Drawing money one morning in one of
the large banks of London, I happened to exhibit a few
of the new National greenback notes which had been
recently issued by our Government. The moment the clerk
saw them he called out loudly, ``Don't offer us any of
those things; we don't take them; they will never be good
for anything.''  I was greatly vexed, of course, but there
was no help for it. At another time I went into a famous
book-shop near the Haymarket to purchase a rare book
which I had long coveted. It was just after the Battle of
Fredericksburg. The book-seller was chatting with a
customer, and finally, with evident satisfaction, said to him:
``I see the Yankees have been beaten again.''  ``Yes,'' said
the customer, ``and the papers say that ten thousand of
them have been killed.''  ``Good,'' said the shop-keeper,
``I wish it had been twice as many.''  Of course it was
impossible for me to make any purchase in that place.

In order to ascertain public sentiment I visited certain
``discussion forums,'' as they are called, frequented by
contributors to the press and young lawyers from the
Temple and Inns of Court. In those places there was, as
a rule, a debate every night, and generally, in one form
or another, upon the struggle then going on in the
United States. There was, perhaps, in all this a trifle
too much of the Three Tailors of Tooley Street; still,
excellent speeches were frequently made, and there was a
pleasure in doing my share in getting the company on the
right side. On one occasion, after one of our worst
reverses during the war, an orator, with an Irish brogue,
thickened by hot whisky, said, ``I hope that Republic of
blackguards is gone forever.''  But, afterward, on learning
that an American was present, apologized to me in a
way effusive, laudatory, and even affectionate.

But my main work was given to preparing a pamphlet,
in answer to the letters from America by Dr. Russell,
correspondent of the London ``Times.''  Though nominally
on our side, he clearly wrote his letters to suit the demands
of the great journal which he served, and which was most
bitterly opposed to us. Nothing could exceed its virulence
against everything American. Every occurrence was
placed in the worst light possible as regarded our
interests, and even the telegraphic despatches were manipulated
so as to do our cause all the injury possible. I therefore
prepared, with especial care, an answer to these letters
of Dr. Russell, and published it in London. Its fate
was what might have been expected. Some papers discussed
it fairly, but, on the whole, it was pooh-poohed, explained
away, and finally buried under new masses of slander.
I did, indeed, find a few friends of my country in
Great Britain. In Dublin I dined with Cairnes, the
political economist, who had earnestly written in behalf of the
Union against the Confederates; and in London, with Professor
Carpenter, the eminent physiologist, who, being
devoted to anti-slavery ideas, was mildly favorable to the
Union side. But I remember him less on account of anything
he said relating to the struggle in America, than for
a statement bearing upon the legitimacy of the sovereign
then ruling in France, who was at heart one of our most
dangerous enemies. Dr. Carpenter told me that some time
previously he had been allowed by Nassau Senior, whose
published conversations with various men of importance
throughout Europe had attracted much attention, to look
into some of the records which Mr. Senior had not thought
it best to publish, and that among them he had read the
following:

``---- showed me to-day an autograph letter written by
Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, not far from the time
of the birth of his putative son, now Napoleon III. One
passage read as follows: `J'ai le malheur d'avoir pour
femme une Messalene. Elle a des amants partout, et
partout elle laise des enfants.' ''

I could not but think of this a few weeks later when I
saw the emperor, who derived his title to the throne of
France from his nominal father, poor King Louis, but
whose personal appearance, like that of his brother, the
Duc de Morny, was evidently not derived from any Bonaparte.
All the Jrome Napoleons I have ever seen, including
old King Jrome of Westphalia, and Prince Na-
poleon Jrome, otherwise known as ``Plon-Plon,'' whom
I saw during my student life at Paris, and the eldest son
of the latter, the present Bonaparte pretender to the
Napoleonic crown of France, whom I saw during my stay
as minister at St. Petersburg, very strikingly resembled
the first Napoleon, though all were of much larger size.
But the Louis Napoleons, that is, the emperor and his
brother the Duc de Morny, had no single Napoleonic
point in their features or bearing.

I think that the most startling inspiration during my
life was one morning when, on walking through the Garden
of the Tuileries, I saw, within twenty feet of me, at
a window, in the old palace, which afterward disappeared
under the Commune, the emperor and his minister of
finance, Achille Fould, seated together, evidently in earnest
discussion. There was not at that time any human
being whom I so hated and abhorred as Napoleon III.
He had broken his oath and trodden the French republic
under his feet, he was aiding to keep down the aspirations
of Italy, and he was doing his best to bring on an
intervention of Europe, in behalf of the Confederate States, to
dissolve our Union. He was then the arbiter of Europe.
The world had not then discovered him to be what Bismarck
had already found him--``a great unrecognized incapacity,''
and, as I looked up and distinctly saw him so
near me, there flashed through my mind an understanding
of some of the great crimes of political history, such as I
have never had before or since.[1]

[1] Since writing this I find in the Autobiography of W. J.
Stillman that a similar feeling once beset him on seeing this
imperial malefactor,

In France there was very little to be done for our cause.
The great mass of Frenchmen were either indifferent or
opposed to us. The only exception of importance was
Laboulaye, professor at the Collge de France, and his
lecture-room was a center of good influences in favor of
the American cause; in the midst of that frivolous
Napoleonic France he seemed by far ``the noblest Roman of
them all.''

The main effort in our behalf was made by Mr. John
Bigelow, at that time consul-general, but afterward minister
of the United States,--to supply with arguments the
very small number of Frenchmen who were inclined to
favor the Union cause, and this he did thoroughly well.

Somewhat later there came a piece of good fortune.
Having been sent by a physician to the baths at Homburg,
I found as our consul-general, at the neighboring city of
Frankfort-on-the-Main, William Walton Murphy of Michigan,
a life-long supporter of Mr. Seward, a most devoted
and active American patriot;--a rough diamond; one of
the most uncouth mortals that ever lived; but big-hearted,
shrewd, a general favorite, and prized even by those who
smiled at his oddities. He had labored hard to induce the
Frankfort bankers to take our government bonds, and to
recommend them to their customers, and had at last been
successful. In order to gain and maintain this success he
had established in Frankfort a paper called ``L'Europe,''
for which he wrote and urged others to write. To this
journal I became a contributor, and among my associates I
especially remember the Rev. Dr. John McClintock, formerly
president of Dickinson College, and Dr. E. H.
Chapin, of New York, so eminent in those days as a
preacher. Under the influence of Mr. Murphy, Frankfort-
on-the-Main became, and has since remained, a center of
American ideas. Its leading journal was the only influential
daily paper in Germany which stood by us during
our Spanish War.

I recall a story told me by Mr. Murphy at that period.
He had taken an American lady on a business errand to
the bank of Baron Rothschild, and, after their business was
over, presented her to the great banker. It happened that
the Confederate loan had been floated in Europe by Baron
Erlanger, also a Frankfort financial magnate, and by birth
a Hebrew. In the conversation that ensued between this
lady and Baron Rothschild, the latter said: ``Madam, my
sympathies are entirely with your country; but is it not
disheartening to think that there are men in Europe who
are lending their money and trying to induce others to
lend it for the strengthening of human slavery? Madam,
NONE BUT A CONVERTED JEW WOULD DO THAT.''

On the Fourth of July of that summer, Consul-General
Murphy--always devising new means of upholding the
flag of his country--summoned Americans from every
part of Europe to celebrate the anniversary of our
National Independence at Heidelberg, and at the dinner given
at the Hotel Schreider seventy-four guests assembled,
including two or three professors from the university, as
against six guests from the Confederate States, who had
held a celebration in the morning at the castle. Mr. Murphy
presided and made a speech which warmed the hearts
of us all. It was a thorough-going, old-fashioned, Western
Fourth of July oration. I had jeered at Fourth of July
orations all my life, but there was something in this one
which showed me that these discourses, so often ridiculed,
are not without their uses. Certain it is that as the consul-
general repeated the phrases which had more than once
rung through the Western clearings, in honor of the
defenders of our country, the divine inspiration of the
Constitution, our invincibility in war and our superiority in
peace, all of us were encouraged and cheered most lustily.
Pleasing was it to note various British tourists standing
at the windows listening to the scream of the American
eagle and evidently wondering what it all meant.

Others of us spoke, and especially Dr. McClintock, one
of the foremost thinkers, scholars, and patriots that the
Methodist Episcopal church has ever produced. His
speech was in a very serious vein, and well it might be. In
the course of it he said: ``According to the last accounts
General Lee and his forces are near the town where I live,
and are marching directly toward it. It is absolutely certain
that, if they reach it, they will burn my house and all
that it contains, but I have no fear; I believe that the Almighty
is with us in this struggle, and though we may suffer
much before its close, the Union is to endure and slavery
is to go down before the forces of freedom.''  These
words, coming from the heart of a strong man, made a
deep impression upon us all.

About two weeks later I left Frankfort for America,
and at my parting from Consul-General Murphy at the
hotel, he said: ``Let me go in the carriage with you; this
is steamer-day and we shall probably meet the vice-consul
coming with the American mail.''  He got in, and we
drove along the Zeil together. It was at the busiest time
of the day, and we had just arrived at the point in that
main street of Frankfort where business was most active,
when the vice-consul met us and handed Mr. Murphy a
newspaper. The latter tore it open, read a few lines,
and then instantly jumped out into the middle of the street,
waved his hat and began to shout. The public in general
evidently thought him mad; a crowd assembled; but as
soon as he could get his breath he pointed out the headlines
of the newspaper. They indicated the victories of Gettysburg
and Vicksburg, and the ending of the war. It was,
indeed, a great moment for us all.

Arriving in America, I found that some friends had
republished from the English edition my letter to Dr.
Russell, that it had been widely circulated, and that, at any
rate, it had done some good at home.

Shortly afterward, being on a visit to my old friend,
James T. Fields of Boston, I received a telegram from
Syracuse as follows: ``You are nominated to the State
senate: come home and see who your friends are.''  I
have received, in the course of my life, many astonishing
messages, but this was the most unexpected of all. I had
not merely not been a candidate for any such nomination,
but had forgotten that any nomination was to be made; I
had paid no attention to the matter whatever; all my
thoughts had been given to other subjects; but on returning
to Syracuse I found that a bitter contest having arisen
between two of the regular candidates, each representing a
faction, the delegates had suddenly turned away from both
and nominated me. My election followed and so began
the most active phase of my political life.

CHAPTER VI

SENATORSHIP AT ALBANY--1864-1865

On the evening of New Year's Day, 1864, I arrived in
Albany to begin my duties in the State Senate, and
certainly, from a practical point of view, no member of the
legislature was more poorly equipped. I had, indeed,
received a university education, such as it was, in those
days, at home and abroad, and had perhaps read more than
most college-bred men of my age, but all my education,
study, and reading were remote from the duties now assigned
me. To history, literature, and theoretical politics,
I had given considerable attention, but as regarded the
actual necessities of the State of New York, the relations
of the legislature to the boards of supervisors of
counties, to the municipal councils of cities, to the boards
of education, charity, and the like, indeed, to the whole
system throughout the Commonwealth, and to the
modes of conducting public and private business, my
ignorance was deplorable. Many a time have I envied some
plain farmer his term in a board of supervisors, or some
country schoolmaster his relations to a board of education,
or some alderman his experience in a common council, or
some pettifogger his acquaintance with justices' courts.
My knowledge of law and the making of law was wretchedly
deficient, and my ignorance of the practical administration
of law was disgraceful. I had hardly ever been
inside a court-house, and my main experience of legal
procedure was when one day I happened to step into court
at Syracuse, and some old friends of mine thought it a
good joke to put a university professor as a talesman upon
a jury in a horse case. Although pressed with business
I did not flinch, but accepted the position, discharged its
duties, and learned more of legal procedure and of human
nature in six hours than I had ever before learned in six
months. Ever afterward I advised my students to get
themselves drawn upon a petit jury. I had read some
Blackstone and some Kent and had heard a few law
lectures, but my knowledge was purely theoretical:
in constitutional law it was derived from reading
scattered essays in the ``Federalist,'' with extracts here
and there from Story. Of the State charitable and
penal institutions I knew nothing. Regarding colleges
I was fairly well informed, but as to the practical
working of our system of public instruction I had
only the knowledge gained while a scholar in a public
school.

There was also another disadvantage. I knew nothing
of the public men of the State. Having lived outside of
the Commonwealth, first, as a student at Yale, then during
nearly three years abroad, and then nearly six years as a
professor in another State, I knew only one of my
colleagues, and of him I had only the knowledge that came
from an introduction and five minutes' conversation ten
years before. It was no better as regarded my acquaintance
with the State officers; so far as I now remember, I
had never seen one of them, except at a distance,--the
governor, Mr. Horatio Seymour.

On the evening after our arrival the Republican
majority of the Senate met in caucus, partly to become
acquainted, partly to discuss appointments to committees,
and partly to decide on a policy regarding State aid to
the prosecution of the war for the Union. I found myself
the youngest member of this body, and, indeed, of
the entire Senate, but soon made the acquaintance of my
colleagues and gained some friendships which have been
among the best things life has brought me.

Foremost in the State Senate, at that period, was
Charles James Folger, its president. He had served in
the Senate several years, had been a county judge, and
was destined to become assistant treasurer of the United
States at New York, chief justice of the highest State
court, and finally, to die as Secretary of the Treasury of
the United States, after the most crushing defeat which
any candidate for the governorship of New York had ever
known. He was an excellent lawyer, an impressive
speaker, earnestly devoted to the proper discharge of his
duties, and of extraordinarily fine personal appearance.
His watch upon legislation sometimes amused me, but always
won my respect. Whenever a bill was read a third
time he watched it as a cat watches a mouse. His hatred of
doubtful or bad phraseology was a passion. He was
greatly beloved and admired, yet, with all his fine and
attractive qualities, modest and even diffident to a fault.

Another man whom I then saw for the first time
interested me much as soon as his name was called, and he
would have interested me far more had I known how
closely my after life was to be linked with his. He was
then about sixty years of age, tall, spare, and austere,
with a kindly eye, saying little, and that little dryly. He
did not appear unamiable, but there seemed in him a sort
of aloofness: this was Ezra Cornell.

Still another senator was George H. Andrews, from
the Otsego district, the old Palatine country. He had
been editor of one of the leading papers in New York,
and had been ranked among the foremost men in his
profession, but he had retired into the country to lead the
life of a farmer. He was a man to be respected and even
beloved. His work for the public was exceedingly valuable,
and his speeches of a high order. Judge Folger,
as chairman of the judiciary committee, was most useful
to the State at large in protecting it from evil legislation.
Senator Andrews was not less valuable to the cities, and
above all to the city of New York, for his intelligent
protection of every good measure, and his unflinching
opposition to every one of the many doubtful projects
constantly brought in by schemers and dreamers.

Still another senator was James M. Cook of Saratoga.
He had been comptroller of the State and, at various
times, a member of the legislature. He was the faithful
``watch-dog of the treasury,''--bitter against every
scheme for taking public money for any unworthy purpose,
and, indeed, against any scheme whatever which
could not assign for its existence a reason, clear, cogent,
and honest.

Still another member, greatly respected, was Judge
Bailey of Oneida County. His experience upon the bench
made him especially valuable upon the judiciary and
other committees.

Yet another man of mark in the body was one of the
younger men, George G. Munger of Rochester. He had
preceded me by a few years at Yale, had won respect
as a county judge, and had a certain lucid way of
presenting public matters which made him a valuable public
servant.

Another senator of great value was Henry R. Low.
He, too, had been a county judge and brought not only
legal but financial knowledge to the aid of his colleagues.
He was what Thomas Carlyle called a ``swallower of
formulas.''  That a thing was old and revered mattered
little with him: his question was what is the best thing
NOW.

From the city of New York came but one Republican,
William Laimbeer, a man of high character and large
business experience; impulsive, but always for right
against wrong; kindly in his nature, but most bitter
against Tammany and all its works.

From Essex County came Senator Palmer Havens, also
of middle age, of large practical experience, with a clear,
clean style of thinking and speaking, anxious to make a
good record by serving well, and such a record he certainly made.

And, finally, among the Republican members of that
session I may name the senator from Oswego, Mr. Cheney
Ames. Perhaps no one in the body had so large a prac-
tical knowledge of the commercial interests of the State,
and especially of the traffic upon its lakes and inland
waterways; on all questions relating to these his advice
was of the greatest value; he was in every respect a
good public servant.

On the Democratic side the foremost man by far was
Henry C. Murphy of Brooklyn, evidently of Irish ancestry,
though his immediate forefathers had been long in
the United States. He was a graduate of Columbia College,
devoted to history and literature, had produced sundry
interesting books on the early annals of the State,
had served with distinction in the diplomatic service as
minister to The Hague, was eminent as a lawyer, and
had already considerable legislative experience.

From New York City came a long series of Democratic
members, of whom the foremost was Thomas C. Fields.
He had considerable experience as a lawyer in the city
courts, had served in the lower house of the legislature,
and was preternaturally acute in detecting the interests
of Tammany which he served. He was a man of much
humor, with occasional flashes of wit, his own worst
enemy, evidently, and his career was fitly ended when
upon the fall of Tweed he left his country for his country's
good and died in exile.

There were others on both sides whom I could mention
as good men and true, but those I have named took a
leading part as heads of committees and in carrying on
public business.

The lieutenant-governor of the State who presided over
the Senate was Mr. Floyd-Jones, a devoted Democrat of
the old school who exemplified its best qualities; a
gentleman, honest, courteous, not intruding his own views,
ready always to give the fullest weight to those of others
without regard to party.

Among the men who, from their constant attendance,
might almost be considered as officers of the Senate were
sundry representatives of leading newspapers. Several
of them were men of marked ability, and well known
throughout the State, but they have long since been
forgotten with one exception: this was a quiet reporter who
sat just in front of the clerk's chair, day after day, week
after week, throughout the entire session; a man of very
few words, and with whom I had but the smallest
acquaintance. Greatly surprised was I in after years when
he rose to be editor of the leading Democratic organ
in the State, and finally, under President Cleveland, a
valuable Secretary of the Treasury of the United States:
Daniel Manning.

In the distribution of committees there fell to me the
chairmanship of the committee on education, or, as it
was then called, the committee on literature. I was also
made a member of the committee on cities and villages,
afterward known as the committee on municipal affairs,
and of the committee on the library. For the first of
these positions I was somewhat fitted by my knowledge
of the colleges and universities of the State, but in other
respects was poorly fitted. For the second of these
positions, that of the committee on cities and villages, I am
free to confess that no one could be more wretchedly
equipped; for the third, the committee on the library, my
qualifications were those of a man who loved both to collect
books and to read them.

But from the beginning I labored hard to fit myself,
even at that late hour, for the duties pressing upon me,
and gradually my practical knowledge was increased.
Still there were sad gaps in it, and more than once I sat
in the committee-room, looking exceedingly wise, no
doubt, but with an entirely inadequate appreciation of
the argument made before me.

During this first session my maiden speech was upon
the governor's message, and I did my best to show what
I thought His Excellency's shortcomings. Governor Seymour
was a patriotic man, after his fashion, but the one
agency which he regarded as divinely inspired was the
Democratic party; his hatred of the Lincoln Administration
was evidently deep, and it was also clear that he
did not believe that the war for the Union could be brought
to a successful termination.

With others I did my best against him; but while
condemning his political course as severely as was possible
to me, I never attacked his personal character or his
motives. The consequence was that, while politically we
were enemies, personally a sort of friendship remained,
and I recall few things with more pleasure than my
journeyings from Albany up the Mohawk Valley, sitting at
his side, he giving accounts to me of the regions through
which we passed, and the history connected with them,
regarding which he was wonderfully well informed. If
he hated New England as the breeding bed of radicalism,
he loved New York passionately.

The first important duty imposed upon me as chairman
of the committee on education was when there came
up a bill for disposing of the proceeds of public lands
appropriated by the government of the United States
to institutions for scientific and technical education, under
what was then known as the Morrill Act of 1862. Of
these lands the share which had come to New York was
close upon a million acres--a fair-sized European
principality. Here, owing to circumstances which I shall
detail in another chapter, I found myself in a contest with
Mr. Cornell. I favored holding the fund together, letting
it remain with the so-called ``People's College,'' to
which it had been already voted, and insisted that the
matter was one to be referred to the committee on education.
Mr. Cornell, on the other hand, favored the division
of the fund, and proposed a bill giving one half of
it to the ``State Agricultural College'' recently
established at Ovid on Seneca Lake. The end was that the
matter was referred to a joint committee composed of
the committees on literature and agriculture, that is, to
Mr. Cornell's committee and my own, and as a result no
meeting to consider the bill was held during that session.

Gradually I accumulated a reasonable knowledge of
the educational interests intrusted to us, but ere long
there came in from the superintendent of public
instruction; Mr. Victor Rice, a plan for codifying the
educational laws of the State. This necessitated a world of
labor on my part. Section by section, paragraph by
paragraph, phrase by phrase, I had to go through it, and
night after night was devoted to studying every part
of it in the light of previous legislation, the laws of other
States, and such information as could be obtained from
general sources. At last, after much alteration and revision,
I brought forward the bill, secured its passage,
and I may say that it was not without a useful influence
upon the great educational interests of the State.

I now brought forward another educational bill. Various
persons interested in the subject appeared urging
the creation of additional State normal schools, in order
to strengthen and properly develop the whole State
school system. At that time there was but one; that one at
Albany; and thus our great Commonwealth was in this
respect far behind many of her sister States. The whole
system was evidently suffering from the want of teachers
thoroughly and practically equipped. Out of the multitude
of projects presented, I combined what I thought
the best parts of three or four in a single bill, and
although at first there were loud exclamations against so
lavish a use of public money, I induced the committee
to report my bill, argued it in the Senate, overcame much
opposition, and thus finally secured a law establishing
four State normal schools.

Still another duty imposed upon me necessitated much
work for which almost any other man in the Senate would
have been better equipped by experience and knowledge
of State affairs. The condition of things in the city of
New York had become unbearable; the sway of Tammany
Hall had gradually brought out elements of opposition
such as before that time had not existed. Tweed
was already making himself felt, though he had not yet
assumed the complete control which he exercised afterward.
The city system was bad throughout; but at the
very center of evil stood what was dignified by the name
of the ``Health Department.''  At the head of this was a
certain Boole, who, having gained the title of ``city
inspector,'' had the virtual appointment of a whole army
of so-called ``health inspectors,'' ``health officers,'' and
the like, charged with the duty of protecting the public
from the inroads of disease; and never was there a
greater outrage against a city than the existence of this
body of men, absolutely unfit both as regarded character
and education for the duties they pretended to discharge.

Against this state of things there had been developed
a ``citizens' committee,'' representing the better elements
of both parties,--its main representatives being Judge
Whiting and Mr. Dorman B. Eaton,--and the evidence
these gentlemen exhibited before the committee on municipal
affairs, at Albany, as to the wretched condition of
the city health boards was damning. Whole districts in
the most crowded wards were in the worst possible sanitary
condition. There was probably at that time nothing
to approach it in any city in Christendom save, possibly,
Naples. Great blocks of tenement houses were owned by
men who kept low drinking bars in them, each of whom,
having secured from Boole the position of ``health
officer,'' steadily resisted all sanitary improvement or
even inspection. Many of these tenement houses were
known as ``fever nests''; through many of them small-
pox frequently raged, and from them it was constantly
communicated to other parts of the city.

Therefore it was that one morning Mr. Laimbeer, the
only Republican member from the city, rose, made an
impassioned speech on this condition of things, moved a
committee to examine and report, and named as its members
Judge Munger, myself, and the Democratic senator
from the Buffalo district, Mr. Humphrey.

As a result, a considerable part of my second winter
as senator was devoted to the work of this special committee
in the city of New York. We held a sort of court,
had with us the sergeant-at-arms, were empowered to send
for persons and papers, summoned large numbers of
witnesses, and brought to view a state of things even worse
than anything any of us had suspected.

Against the citizens' committee, headed by Judge Whiting
and Mr. Eaton, Boole, aided by a most successful
Tammany lawyer of the old sort, John Graham, fought
with desperation. In order to disarm his assailants as
far as possible, he brought before the committee a number
of his ``health officers'' and ``sanitary inspectors,''
whom he evidently thought best qualified to pass muster;
but as one after another was examined and cross-examined,
neither the cunning of Boole nor the skill of Mr.
Graham could prevent the revelation of their utter unfitness.
In the testimony of one of them the whole monstrous
absurdity culminated. Judge Whiting examining
him before the commission with reference to a case of
small-pox which had occurred within his district, and to
which, as health officer it was his duty to give attention,
and asking him if he remembered the case, witness answered
that he did. The following dialogue then ensued:

Q. Did you visit this sick person?

A. No, sir.

Q. Why did you not?

A. For the same reason that you would not.

Q. What was that reason?

A. I did n't want to catch the disease myself.

Q. Did the family have any sort of medical aid?

A. Yes.

Q. From whom did they have it?

A. From themselves; they was ``highjinnicks'' (hygienics).

Q. What do you mean by ``highjinnicks''?

A. I mean persons who doctor themselves.

After other answers of a similar sort the witness
departed; but for some days afterward Judge Whiting
edified the court, in his examination of Boole's health
officers and inspectors, by finally asking each one whether
he had any ``highjinnicks'' in his health district. Some
answered that they had them somewhat; some thought
that they had them ``pretty bad,'' others thought that
there was ``not much of it,'' others claimed that they
were ``quite serious''; and, finally, in the examination of
a certain health officer who was very anxious to show that
he had done his best, there occurred the following dialogue
which brought down the house:

Q. (By Judge Whiting.)  Mr. Health Officer, have you
had any ``highjinnicks'' in your district?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Much?

A. Yes, sir, quite a good deal.

Q. Have you done anything in regard to them?

A. Yes, sir; I have done all that I could.

Q. Witness, now, on your oath, do you know what the
word ``highjinnicks'' means?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. What does it mean?

A. It means the bad smells that arise from standing
water.

At this the court was dissolved in laughter, but Mr.
Graham made the best that he could of it by the following
questions and answers:

Q. Witness, have you ever learned Greek?

A. No, sir.

Q. Can you speak Greek?

A. No, sir.

Q. Do you understand Greek?

A. No, sir.

``Then you may stand down.''

The examination was long and complicated, so that
with various departments to be examined there was no
time to make a report before the close of the session, and
the whole matter had to go over until the newly elected
senate came into office the following year.

Shortly after the legislature had adjourned I visited
the city of New York, and on arriving took up the evening
paper which, more than any other, has always been supposed to
represent the best sentiment of the city;--the
``New York Evening Post.''  The first article on which my
eye fell was entitled ``The New York Senate Trifling,''
and the article went on to say that the Senate of the
State had wasted its time, had practically done nothing
for the city, had neglected its interests, had paid no
attention to its demands, and the like. That struck me
as ungrateful, for during the whole session we had
worked early and late on questions relating to the city,
had thwarted scores of evil schemes, and in some cases,
I fear, had sacrificed the interests of the State at large
to those of the city. Thus there dawned on me a knowledge
of the reward which faithful legislators are likely
to obtain.

Another of these city questions also showed the sort
of work to be done in this thankless protection of the
metropolis. During one of the sessions there had
appeared in the lobby an excellent man, Dr. Levi Silliman
Ives, formerly Protestant Episcopal Bishop of North
Carolina, who, having been converted to Roman Catholicism,
had become a layman and head of a protectory
for Catholic children. With him came a number of
others of his way of thinking, and a most determined
effort was made to pass a bill sanctioning a gift of one
half of the great property known as Ward's Island,
adjacent to the city of New York, to this Roman Catholic
institution.

I had strong sympathy with the men who carried on
the protectory, and was quite willing to go as far as
possible in aiding them, but was opposed to voting such
a vast landed property belonging to the city into the
hands of any church, and I fought the bill at all stages.
In committee of the whole, and at first reading, priestly
influence led a majority to vote for it, but at last, despite
all the efforts of Tammany Hall, it was defeated.

It was during this first period of my service that the
last and most earnest effort of the State was made for
the war. Various circumstances had caused discourage-
ment. It had become difficult to raise troops, yet it was
most important to avoid a draft. In the city of New
York, at the prospect of an enforced levy of troops,
there had been serious uprisings which were only
suppressed after a considerable loss of life. It was
necessary to make one supreme effort, and the Republican
members of the legislature decided to raise a loan of
several millions for bounties to those who should
volunteer. This decision was not arrived at without much
opposition, and, strange to say, its most serious opponent
was Horace Greeley, who came to Albany in the
hope of defeating it. Invaluable as his services had been
during the struggle which preceded the war, it must be
confessed, even by his most devoted friends, that during
the war he was not unfrequently a stumbling block. His
cry ``on to Richmond'' during the first part of the
struggle, his fearful alarm when, like the heroes in the
``Biglow Papers,'' he really discovered ``why baggonets is
peaked,'' his terror as the conflict deepened, his proposals
for special peace negotiations later--all these things
were among the serious obstacles which President Lincoln
had to encounter; and now, fearing burdens which,
in his opinion, could not and would not be borne by the
State, and conjuring up specters of trouble, he came to
Albany and earnestly advised members of the legislature
against the passage of the bounty bill. Fortunately,
common sense triumphed, and the bill was passed.

Opposition came also from another and far different
source. There was then in the State Senate a Democrat
of the oldest and strongest type; a man who believed
most devoutly in Jefferson and Jackson, and abhorred
above all things, abolitionists and protectionists,--Dr.
Allaben of Schoharie. A more thoroughly honest man
never lived; he was steadily on the side of good legislation;
but in the midst of the discussion regarding this
great loan for bounties he arose and began a speech
which, as he spoke but rarely, received general attention.
He was deeply in earnest. He said (in substance), ``I
shall vote for this loan; for of various fearful evils it
seems the least. But I wish, here and now, and with the
deepest sorrow, to record a prediction: I ask you to note
it and to remember it, for it will be fulfilled, and speedily.
This State debt which you are now incurring will never
be paid. It cannot be paid. More than that, none of the
vast debts incurred for military purposes, whether by
the Nation or by the States, will be paid; the people will
surely repudiate them. Nor is this all. Not one dollar
of all the treasury notes issued by the United States will
ever be redeemed. Your paper currency has already
depreciated much and will depreciate more and more; all
bonds and notes, State and National, issued to continue
this fratricidal war will be whirled into the common
vortex of repudiation. I say this with the deepest pain, for
I love my country, but I cannot be blind to the teachings
of history.''  He then went on to cite the depreciation
of our revolutionary currency, and, at great length
pictured the repudiation of the assignats during the French
Revolution. He had evidently read Alison and Thiers
carefully, and he spoke like an inspired prophet.

As Senator Allaben thus spoke, Senator Fields of New
York quietly left his seat and came to me. He was a
most devoted servant of Tammany, but was what was
known in those days as a War Democrat. His native
pugnacity caused him to feel that the struggle must be
fought out, whereas Democrats of a more philosophic
sort, like Allaben, known in those days as ``Copperheads,''
sought peace at any price. Therefore it was that,
while Senator Allaben was pouring out with the deepest
earnestness these prophecies of repudiation, Mr. Fields
came round to my desk and said to me: ``You have been
a professor of history; you are supposed to know something
about the French Revolution; if your knowledge
is good for anything, why in h--l don't you use it now?''

This exhortation was hardly necessary, and at the close
of Senator Allaben's remarks I arose and presented
another view of the case. It happened by a curious coin-
cidence that, having made a few years before a very careful
study of the issues of paper money during the French
Revolution, I had a portion of my very large collection
of assignats, mandats, and other revolutionary currency
in Albany, having brought it there in order to show
it to one or two of my friends who had expressed an
interest in the subject.

Holding this illustrative material in reserve I showed
the whole amount of our American paper currency in
circulation to be about eight hundred million dollars, of
which only about one half was of the sort to which the
senator referred. I then pointed to the fact that, although
the purchasing power of the French franc at the time of
the Revolution was fully equal to the purchasing power
of the American dollar of our own time, the French
revolutionary government issued, in a few months, forty-
five thousand millions of francs in paper money, and had
twenty-five thousand millions of it in circulation at the
time when the great depression referred to by Dr. Allaben
had taken place.

I also pointed out the fact that our American notes were
now so thoroughly well engraved that counterfeiting was
virtually impossible, so that one of the leading European
governments had its notes engraved in New York, on this
account, whereas, the French assignats could be easily
counterfeited, and, as a matter of fact, were counterfeited
in vast numbers, the British government pouring them
into France through the agency of the French royalists,
especially in Brittany, almost by shiploads, and to such
purpose, that the French government officials themselves
were at last unable to discriminate between the genuine
money and the counterfeit. I also pointed out the
connection of our national banking system with our issues
of bonds and paper, one of the happiest and most statesmanlike
systems ever devised, whereas, in France there
was practically no redemption for the notes, save as they
could be used for purchasing from the government the
doubtful titles to the confiscated houses and lands of the
clergy and aristocracy.

The speech of Senator Allaben had exercised a real
effect, but these simple statements, which I supported by
evidence, and especially by exhibiting specimens of the
assignats bearing numbers showing that the issues had
risen into the thousands of millions, and in a style of
engraving most easily counterfeited, sufficed to convince the
Senate that no such inference as was drawn by the senator
was warranted by the historical facts in the case.

A vote was taken, the bill was passed, the troops were
finally raised, and the debt was extinguished not many
years afterward.

It is a pleasure for me to remember that at the close
of my remarks, which I took pains to make entirely
courteous to Dr. Allaben, he came to me, and strongly
opposed as we were in politics, he grasped me by the hand
most heartily, expressed his amazement at seeing these
assignats, mandats, and other forms of French revolutionary
issues, of which he had never before seen one,
and thanked me for refuting his arguments. It is one of
the very few cases I have ever known, in which a speech
converted an opponent.

Perhaps a word more upon this subject may not be
without interest. My attention had been drawn to the
issues of paper money during the French Revolution, by
my studies of that period for my lectures on modern
history at the University of Michigan, about five years
before. In taking up this special subject I had supposed
that a few days would be sufficient for all the study
needed; but I became more and more interested in it,
obtained a large mass of documents from France, and then
and afterward accumulated by far the largest collection of
French paper money, of all the different issues, sorts,
and amounts, as well as of collateral newspaper reports
and financial documents, ever brought into our country.
The study of the subject for my class, which I had hoped
to confine to a few days, thus came to absorb my leisure
for months, and I remember that, at last, when I had
given my lecture on the subject to my class at the university,
a feeling of deep regret, almost of remorse, came
over me, as I thought how much valuable time I had given
to a subject that, after all, had no bearing on any present
problem, which would certainly be forgotten by the
majority of my hearers, and probably by myself.

These studies were made mainly in 1859. Then the
lectures were laid aside, and though, from time to time,
when visiting France, I kept on collecting illustrative
materials, no further use was made of them until this debate
during the session of the State Senate of 1864.

Out of this offhand speech upon the assignats grew a
paper which, some time afterward, I presented in
Washington before a number of members of the Senate and
House, at the request of General Garfield, who was then
a representative, and of his colleague, Mr. Chittenden of
Brooklyn. In my audience were some of the foremost
men of both houses, and among them such as Senators
Bayard, Stevenson, Morrill, Conkling, Edmunds, Gibson,
and others. This speech, which was the result of
my earlier studies, improved by material acquired later,
and most carefully restudied and verified, I repeated
before a large meeting of the Union League Club at New
York, Senator Hamilton Fish presiding. The paper thus
continued to grow and, having been published in New
York by Messrs. Appleton, a cheap edition of it was
circulated some years afterward, largely under the auspices
of General Garfield, to act as an antidote to the ``Greenback
Craze'' then raging through Ohio and the Western
States.

Finally, having been again restudied, in the light of my
ever-increasing material, it was again reprinted and
circulated as a campaign document during the struggle
against Mr. Bryan and the devotees of the silver standard
in the campaign of 1896, copies of it being spread
very widely, especially through the West, and placed,
above all, in nearly every public library, university,
college, and normal school in the Union.

I allude to this as showing to any young student who
may happen to read these recollections, the value of a careful
study of any really worthy subject, even though, at
first sight, it may seem to have little relation to present
affairs.

In the spring of 1864, at the close of my first year in
the State Senate, came the national convention at Baltimore
for the nomination of President and Vice-President,
and to that convention I went as a substitute delegate.
Although I have attended several similar assemblages since,
no other has ever seemed to me so interesting. It met in
an old theater, on one of the noisiest corners in the city,
and, as it was June, and the weather already very warm,
it was necessary, in order to have as much air as possible,
to remove curtains and scenery from the stage and throw
the back of the theater open to the street. The result
was, indeed, a circulation of air, but, with this, a noise
from without which confused everything within.

In selecting a president for the convention a new
departure was made, for the man chosen was a clergyman;
one of the most eminent divines in the Union,--the Rev.
Dr. Robert Breckinridge of Kentucky, who, on the
religious side, had been distinguished as moderator of the
Presbyterian General Assembly, and on the political side
was revered for the reason that while very nearly all his
family, and especially his sons and nephews, including
the recent Vice-President, had plunged into the Confederate
service, he still remained a staunch and sturdy adherent
of the Union and took his stand with the Republican
party. He was a grand old man, but hardly suited
to the presidency of a political assemblage.

The proceedings were opened with a prayer by a
delegate, who had been a colonel in the Union army, and was
now a Methodist clergyman. The heads of all were
bowed, and the clergyman-soldier began with the words of
the Lord's Prayer; but when he had recited about one half
of it he seemed to think that he could better it, and he
therefore substituted for the latter half a petition which
began with these words: ``Grant, O Lord, that the ticket
here to be nominated may command a majority of the
suffrages of the American people.''  To those accustomed
to the more usual ways of conducting service this was
something of a shock; still there was this to be said in
favor of the reverend colonel's amendment,--he had faith
to ask for what he wanted.

This opening prayer being ended, there came a display
of parliamentary tactics by leaders from all parts of the
Union: one after another rose in this or that part of the
great assemblage to move this or that resolution, and the
confusion which soon prevailed was fearful, the noise of
the street being steadily mingled with the tumult of the
house. But good Dr. Breckinridge did his best, and
in each case put the motion he had happened to hear.
Thereupon each little group, supposing that the resolution
which had been carried was the one it had happened
to hear, moved additional resolutions based upon it.
These various resolutions were amended in all sorts of
ways, in all parts of the house, the good doctor putting
the resolutions and amendments which happened to reach
his ear, and declaring them ``carried'' or ``lost,'' as the
case might be. Thereupon ensued additional resolutions
and amendments based upon those which their movers
supposed to have been passed, with the result that, in
about twenty minutes no one in the convention, and least
of all its president, knew what we had done or what we
ought to do. Each part of the house firmly believed that
the resolutions which it had heard were those which had
been carried, and the clash and confusion between them all
seemed hopeless.

Various eminent parliamentarians from different parts
of the Union arose to extricate the convention from this
welter, but generally, when they resumed their seats, left
the matter more muddled than when they arose.

A very near approach to success was made by my dear
friend George William Curtis of New York, who, in
admirable temper, and clear voice, unraveled the tangle,
as he understood it, and seemed just about to start the
convention fairly on its way, when some marplot arose
to suggest that some minor point in Mr. Curtis's exposition
was not correct, thus calling out a tumult of conflicting
statements, the result of which was yet greater
confusion, so that we seemed fated to adjourn pell-mell
into the street and be summoned a second time into
the hall, in order to begin the whole proceedings over
again.

But just at this moment arose Henry J. Raymond, editor
of the ``New York Times.''  His parliamentary training
had been derived not only from his service as lieutenant-
governor of the State, but from attendance on a
long series of conventions, State and National. He had
waited for his opportunity, and when there came a lull
of despair, he arose and, in a clear, strong, pleasant voice,
made an alleged explanation of the situation. As a piece
of parliamentary tactics, it was masterly though from
another point of view it was comical. The fact was that
he developed a series of motions and amendments:--a
whole line of proceedings,--mainly out of his own interior
consciousness. He began somewhat on this wise: ``Mr.
President: The eminent senator from Vermont moved
a resolution to such an effect; this was amended as follows,
by my distinguished friend from Ohio, and was
passed as amended. Thereupon the distinguished senator
from Iowa arose and made the following motion, which,
with an amendment from the learned gentleman from
Massachusetts, was passed; thereupon a resolution was
moved by the honorable gentleman from Pennsylvania,
which was declared by the chair to be carried; and now,
sir, I submit the following motion,'' and he immediately
followed these words by moving a procedure to business
and the appointment of committees. Sundry marplots,
such as afflict all public bodies did, indeed, start to their
feet, but a universal cry of ``question'' drowned all their
efforts, and Mr. Raymond's motion was carried, to all
appearance unanimously.

Never was anything of the kind more effectual.
Though most, if not all, the proceedings thus stated by
Mr. Raymond were fictions of his own imagination,
they served the purpose; his own resolution started the
whole machinery and set the convention prosperously on
its way.

The general opinion of the delegates clearly favored
the renomination of Mr. Lincoln. It was an exhibition
not only of American common sense, but of sentiment.
The American people and the public bodies which represent
them are indeed practical and materialistic to the
last degree, but those gravely err who ignore a very
different side of their character. No people and no public
bodies are more capable of yielding to deep feeling. So
it was now proven. It was felt that not to renominate
Mr. Lincoln would be a sort of concession to the enemy.
He had gained the confidence and indeed the love of
the entire Republican party. There was a strong
conviction that, having suffered so much during the
terrible stress and strain of the war, he ought to be retained
as President after the glorious triumph of the Nation
which was felt to be approaching.

But in regard to the second place there was a different
feeling. The Vice-President who had served with Mr.
Lincoln during his first term, Mr. Hamlin of Maine, was
a steadfast, staunch, and most worthy man, but it was
felt that the loyal element in the border States ought
to be recognized, and, therefore it was that, for the Vice-
Presidency was named a man who had begun life in the
lowest station, who had hardly learned to read until he
had become of age, who had always shown in Congress
the most bitter hatred of the slave barons of the South,
whom he considered as a caste above his own, but who
had distinguished himself, as a man, by high civic courage,
and as a senator by his determined speeches in behalf of
the Union. This was Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, a
man honest, patriotic, but narrow and crabbed, who
turned out to be the most unfortunate choice ever made,
with the possible exception of John Tyler, twenty-four
years before.

The convention having adjourned, a large number of
delegates visited Washington, to pay their respects to the
President, and among them myself. The city seemed
to me hardly less repulsive than at my first visit eight
years before; it was still unkempt and dirty,--made indeed
all the more so by the soldiery encamped about it,
and marching through it.

Shortly after our arrival our party, perhaps thirty in
number, went to the White House and were shown into
the great East Room. We had been there for about ten
minutes when one of the doors nearest the street was
opened, and a young man entered who held the door
open for the admission of a tall, ungainly man dressed
in a rather dusty suit of black. My first impression was
that this was some rural tourist who had blundered into the
place; for, really, he seemed less at home there than any
other person present, and looked about for an instant, as
if in doubt where he should go; but presently he turned
toward our group, which was near the southwestern corner
of the room, and then I saw that it was the President.
As he came toward us in a sort of awkward, perfunctory
manner his face seemed to me one of the saddest I had
ever seen, and when he had reached us he held out his
hand to the first stranger, then to the second, and so on,
all with the air of a melancholy automaton. But,
suddenly, some one in the company said something which
amused him, and instantly there came in his face a most
marvelous transformation. I have never seen anything
like it in any other human being. His features were
lighted, his eyes radiant, he responded to sundry remarks
humorously, though dryly, and thenceforward was cordial
and hearty. Taking my hand in his he shook it in the
most friendly way, with a kindly word, and so passed
cheerily on to the others until the ceremony was finished.

Years afterward, noticing in the rooms of his son, Mr.
Robert Lincoln, our minister at London, a portrait of
his father, and seeing that it had the same melancholy
look noticeable in all President Lincoln's portraits, I
alluded to this change in his father's features, and asked
if any artist had ever caught the happier expression.
Mr. Robert Lincoln answered that, so far as he knew, no
portrait of his father in this better mood had ever been
taken; that when any attempt was made to photograph
him or paint his portrait, he relapsed into his melancholy
mood, and that this is what has been transmitted to us by
all who have ever attempted to give us his likeness.

In the campaign which followed this visit to Washington
I tried to do my duty in speaking through my own
and adjacent districts, but there was little need of
speeches; the American people had made up their minds,
and they relected Mr. Lincoln triumphantly.

CHAPTER VII

SENATORSHIP AT ALBANY--1865-1867

During my second year in the State Senate, 1865,
came the struggle for the charter of Cornell
University, the details of which will be given in another
chapter.

Two things during this session are forever stamped into
my memory. The first was the news of Lee's surrender
on April 9, 1865: though it had been daily expected, it
came as a vast relief.

It was succeeded by a great sorrow. On the morning
of April 15, 1865, coming down from my rooms in the
Delavan House at Albany, I met on the stairway a very
dear old friend, the late Charles Sedgwick, of Syracuse,
one of the earliest and most devoted of Republicans, who
had served with distinction in the House of Representatives,
and had more than once been widely spoken of
for the United States Senate. Coming toward me with
tears in his eyes and voice, hardly able to speak, he
grasped me by the hand and gasped the words, ``Lincoln
is murdered.''  I could hardly believe myself awake: the
thing seemed impossible;--too wicked, too monstrous, too
cruel to be true; but alas! confirmation of the news came
speedily and the Presidency was in the hands of Andrew
Johnson.

Shortly afterward the body of the murdered President,
borne homeward to Illinois, rested overnight in the State
Capitol, and preparations were made for its reception. I
was one of the bearers chosen by the Senate and was also
elected to pronounce one of the orations. Rarely have I
felt an occasion so deeply: it has been my lot during my
life to be present at the funerals of various great rulers
and magnates; but at none of these was so deep an
impression made upon me as by the body of Lincoln lying
in the assembly chamber at Albany, quiet and peaceful at
last.

Of the speeches made in the Senate on the occasion,
mine being the only one which was not read or given from
memory, attracted some attention, and I was asked
especially for the source of a quotation which occurred in
it, and which was afterward dwelt upon by some of my
hearers. It was the result of a sudden remembrance of the
lines in Milton's ``Samson Agonistes,'' beginning:

   ``Oh, how comely it is, and how reviving
     To the spirits of just men long oppressed,
     When God into the hands of their deliverer
     Puts invincible might
     To quell the mighty of the earth, the oppressor,
     The brute and boisterous force of violent men,'' etc.[2]

[2] Milton's ``Samson Agonistes,'' lines 1268-1280.

The funeral was conducted with dignity and solemnity.
When the coffin was opened and we were allowed to take
one last look at Lincoln's face, it impressed me as having
the same melancholy expression which I had seen upon it
when he entered the East Room at the White House. In
its quiet sadness there seemed to have been no change.
There was no pomp in the surroundings; all, though dignified,
was simple. Very different was it from the show
and ceremonial at the funeral of the Emperor Nicholas
which I had attended ten years before;--but it was even
more impressive. At the head of the coffin stood General
Dix, who had served so honorably in the War of 1812, in
the Senate of the United States, in the Civil War, and who
was afterward to serve with no less fidelity as governor
of the State. Nothing could be more fitting than such a
chieftaincy in the guard of honor.

In the following autumn the question of my renomination
came.

It had been my fortune to gain, first of all, the ill will
of Tammany Hall, and the arms of Tammany were long.
Its power was exercised strongly through its henchmen
not only in the Democratic party throughout the State,
but especially in the Republican party, and, above all,
among sundry contractors of the Erie Canal, many of
whose bills I had opposed, and it was understood that
they and their friends were determined to defeat me.

Moreover, it was thought by some that I had mortally
offended sundry Catholic priests by opposing their plan
for acquiring Ward's Island, and that I had offended
various Protestant bodies, especially the Methodists, by
defeating their efforts to divide up the Land Grant
Fund between some twenty petty sectarian colleges, and
by exerting myself to secure it for Cornell University,
which, because it was unsectarian, many called ``godless.''

Though I made speeches through the district as formerly,
I asked no pledges of any person, but when the nominating
convention assembled I was renominated in spite
of all opposition, and triumphantly:--a gifted and honorable
man, the late David J. Mitchell, throwing himself
heartily into the matter, and in an eloquent speech
absolutely silencing the whole Tammany and canal
combination. He was the most successful lawyer in the
district before juries, and never did his best qualities
show themselves more fully than on this occasion.
My majority on the first ballot was overwhelming, the
nomination was immediately made unanimous, and at the
election I had the full vote.

Arriving in Albany at the beginning of my third year
of service--1866--I found myself the only member of the
committee appointed to investigate matters in the city of
New York who had been relected. Under these circumstances
no report from the committee was possible; but
the committee on municipal affairs, having brought in a
bill to legislate out of office the city inspector and all his
associates, and to put in a new and thoroughly qualified
health board, I made a carefully prepared speech, which
took the character of a report. The facts which I
brought out were sufficient to condemn the whole existing
system twenty times over. By testimony taken under oath
the monstrosities of the existing system were fully revealed,
as well as the wretched character of the ``health
officers,'' ``inspectors,'' and the whole army of underlings,
and I exhibited statistics carefully ascertained and tabulated,
showing the absurd disproportion of various classes
of officials to each other, their appointment being made,
not to preserve the public health, but to carry the ward
caucuses and elections. During this exposure Boole, the
head of the whole system, stood not far from me on the
floor, his eyes fastened upon me, with an expression in
which there seemed to mingle fear, hatred, and something
else which I could hardly divine. His face seemed to me,
even then, the face of a madman. So it turned out. The
new bill drove him out of office, and, in a short time, into
a madhouse.

I have always thought upon the fate of this man with a
sort of sadness. Doubtless in his private relations he
had good qualities, but to no public service that I have
ever been able to render can I look back with a stronger
feeling that my work was good. It unquestionably resulted
in saving the lives of hundreds, nay thousands, of
men, women, and children; and yet it is a simple fact that
had I, at any time within a year or two afterward, visited
those parts of the city of New York which I had thus
benefited, and been recognized by the dwellers in the tenement
houses as the man who had opposed their dramshop-
keepers and brought in a new health board, those very
people whose lives and the lives of whose children I had
thus saved would have mobbed me, and, if possible, would
have murdered me.

Shortly after the close of the session I was invited to
give the Phi Beta Kappa address at the Yale commencement,
and as the question of the reconstruction of the
Union at the close of the war was then the most important
subject before the country, and as it seemed to me
best to strike while the iron was hot, my subject was
``The Greatest Foe of Republics.''  The fundamental
idea was that the greatest foe of modern states, and
especially of republics, is a political caste supported by
rights and privileges. The treatment was mainly historical,
one of the main illustrations being drawn from the
mistake made by Richelieu in France, who, when he had
completely broken down such a caste, failed to destroy its
privileges, and so left a body whose oppressions and
assumptions finally brought on the French Revolution.
Though I did not draw the inference, I presume that my
auditors drew it easily: it was simply that now, when the
slave power in the Union was broken down, it should not
be allowed to retain the power which had cost the country
so dear.

The address was well received, and two days later there
came to me what, under other circumstances, I would have
most gladly accepted, the election to a professorship at
Yale, which embraced the history of art and the direction
of the newly founded Street School of Art. The thought
of me for the place no doubt grew out of the fact that,
during my stay in college, I had shown an interest in art,
and especially in architecture, and that after my return
from Europe I had delivered in the Yale chapel an address
on ``Cathedral Builders and Mediaeval Sculptors''
which was widely quoted.

It was with a pang that I turned from this offer. To all
appearance, then and now, my life would have been far
happier in such a professorship, but to accept it was
clearly impossible. The manner in which it was tendered
me seemed to me almost a greater honor than the professorship
itself. I was called upon by a committee of the
governing body of the university, composed of the man
whom of all in New Haven I most revered, Dr. Bacon,
and the governor of the State, my old friend Joseph R.
Hawley, who read to me the resolution of the governing
body and requested my acceptance of the election.
Nothing has ever been tendered me which I have felt to be a
greater honor.

A month later, on the 28th of August, 1866, began at
Albany what has been very rare in the history of New
York, a special session of the State Senate:--in a sense,
a court of impeachment.

Its purpose was to try the county judge of Oneida for
complicity in certain illegal proceedings regarding bounties.
``Bounty jumping'' had become a very serious evil,
and it was claimed that this judicial personage had connived
at it.

I must confess that, as the evidence was developed, my
feelings as a man and my duties as a sworn officer of
the State were sadly at variance. It came out that this
judge was endeavoring to support, on the wretched salary
of $1800 a year allowed by the county, not only
his own family, but also the family of his brother, who, if
I remember rightly, had lost his life during the war, and
it seemed to me a great pity that, as a penalty upon the
people of the county, he could not be quartered upon them
as long as he lived. For they were the more culpable
criminals. Belonging to one of the richest divisions of
the State, with vast interests at stake, they had not been
ashamed to pay a judge this contemptible pittance, and
they deserved to have their law badly administered. This
feeling was undoubtedly wide-spread in the Senate; but,
on the other hand, there was the duty we were sworn to
perform, and the result was that the judge was removed
from office.

During this special session of the State Senate it was
entangled in a curious episode of national history. The
new President, Mr. Andrew Johnson, had been induced to
take an excursion into the north and especially into the
State of New York. He was accompanied by Mr. Seward,
the Secretary of State; General Grant, with his laurels
fresh from the Civil War; Admiral Farragut, who had
so greatly distinguished himself during the same epoch,
and others of great merit. It was clear that Secretary
Seward thought that he could establish the popularity of
the new administration in the State of New York by
means of his own personal influence; but this proved the
greatest mistake of his life.

On the arrival of the presidential party in New York
City, various elements there joined in a showy reception
to them, and all were happy. But the scene soon changed.
From the city Mr. Seward, with the President, his
associates, and a large body of citizens more or less
distinguished, came up the Hudson River in one of the finest
steamers, a great banquet being given on board. But on
approaching Albany, Mr. Seward began to discover his
mistake; for the testimonials of admiration and respect
toward the President grew less and less hearty as the party
moved northward. This was told me afterward by Mr.
Thurlow Weed, Mr. Seward's lifelong friend, and probably
the most competent judge of such matters in the
United States. At various places where the President
was called out to speak, he showed a bitterness toward
those who opposed his policy which more and more
displeased his audiences. One pet phrase of his soon excited
derision. The party were taking a sort of circular tour,
going northward by the eastern railway and steamer lines,
turning westward at Albany, and returning by western
lines; hence the President, in one of his earlier speeches,
alluded to his journey as ``swinging round the circle.''
The phrase seemed to please him, and he constantly
repeated it in his speeches, so that at last the whole matter
was referred to by the people at large, contemptuously, as
``swinging round the circle,'' reference being thereby
made, not merely to the President's circular journey, but
to the alleged veering of his opinions from those he professed
when elected.

As soon as the State Senate was informed of the probable
time when the party would arrive at Albany, a resolution
was introduced which welcomed in terms: ``The
President of the United States, Andrew Johnson; the
Secretary of State, William H. Seward; the General of
the Army, Ulysses S. Grant; and the Admiral of the Navy,
David G. Farragut.''  The feeling against President Johnson
and his principal adviser, Mr. Seward, on account of
the break which had taken place between them and the
majority of the Republican party, was immediately evident,
for it was at once voiced by amending the resolution
so that it left out all names, and merely tendered a
respectful welcome, in terms, to ``The President of the
United States, the Secretary of State, the General of the
Army, and the Admiral of the Navy.''  But suddenly came
up a second amendment which was little if anything short
of an insult to the President and Secretary. It extended
the respectful welcome, in terms, to ``The President of
the United States; to the Secretary of State; to Ulysses
S. Grant, General of the Army; and to David G. Farragut,
Admiral of the Navy''; thus making the first part, relating
to the President and the Secretary of State, merely
a mark of respect for the offices they held, and the latter
part a tribute to Grant and Farragut, not only official,
but personal. Most earnest efforts were made to defeat
the resolution in this form. It was pathetic to see old
Republicans who had been brought up to worship Mr.
Seward plead with their associates not to put so gross
an insult upon a man who had rendered such services
to the Republican party, to the State, and to the Nation.
All in vain! In spite of all our opposition, the resolution,
as amended in this latter form, was carried, indicating
the clear purpose of the State Senate to honor
simply and solely the offices of the President and of the
Secretary of State, but just as distinctly to honor the
persons of the General of the Army and the Admiral of
the Navy.

On the arrival of the party in Albany they came up to
the State House, and were received under the portico
by Governor Fenton and his staff. It was perfectly
understood that Governor Fenton, though a Republican,
was in sympathy with the party in the Senate which had
put this slight upon the President and Secretary of State
and Mr. Seward's action was characteristic. Having
returned a curt and dry reply to the guarded phrases of the
governor, he pressed by him with the President and his
associates to the ``Executive Chamber'' near the entrance,
the way to which he, of all men, well knew. In that room
the Senate were assembled and, on the entrance of the
visitors, Governor Fenton endeavored to introduce them
in a formal speech; but Mr. Seward was too prompt for
him; he took the words out of the governor's mouth and
said, in a way which thrilled all of us who had been
brought up to love and admire him, ``In the Executive
Chamber of the State of New York I surely need no
introduction. I bring to you the President of the United
States; the chief magistrate who is restoring peace and
prosperity to our country.''

The whole scene impressed me greatly; there rushed
upon me a strong tide of recollection as I contrasted what
Governor Fenton had been and was, with what Governor
Seward had been and was: it all seemed to me a ghastly
mistake. There stood Fenton, marking the lowest point
in the choice of a State executive ever reached in our
Commonwealth by the Republican party: there stood
Seward who, from his boyhood in college, had fought
courageously, steadily, powerfully, and at last triumphantly,
against the domination of slavery; who, as State
senator, as governor, as the main founder of the Republican
party, as senator of the United States and finally as
Secretary of State, had rendered service absolutely
inestimable; who for years had braved storms of calumny
and ridicule and finally the knife of an assassin; and who
was now adhering to Andrew Johnson simply because he
knew that if he let go his hold, the President would relapse
into the hands of men opposed to any rational settlement
of the questions between the North and South. I
noticed on Seward's brow the deep scar made by the
assassin's knife when Lincoln was murdered; all the
others, greatly as I admired Grant and Farragut, passed
with me at that time for nothing; my eyes were fixed upon
the Secretary of State.

After all was over I came out with my colleague, Judge
Folger, and as we left the Capitol he said: ``What was
the matter with you in the governor's room?'' I answered:
``Nothing was the matter with me; what do you
mean?''  He said: ``The moment Seward began to speak
you fastened your eyes intently upon him, you turned so
pale that I thought you were about to drop, and I made
ready to seize you and prevent your falling.''  I then
confessed to him the feeling which was doubtless the cause
of this change of countenance.

As one who cherishes a deep affection for my native
State and for men who have made it great, I may be
allowed here to express the hope that the day will come
when it will redeem itself from the just charge of
ingratitude, and do itself honor by honoring its two greatest
governors, De Witt Clinton and William H. Seward. No
statue of either of them stands at Albany, the place of all
others where such memorials should be erected, not
merely as an honor to the two statesmen concerned, but as
a lesson to the citizens of the State;--pointing out the
qualities which ought to ensure public gratitude, but
which, thus far, democracies have least admired.

CHAPTER VIII

ROSCOE CONKLING AND JUDGE FOLGER--1867-1868

At the beginning of my fourth year at Albany, in
1867, came an election to the Senate of the United
States. Of the two senators then representing the State,
one, Edwin D. Morgan, had been governor, and combined
the qualities of a merchant prince and of a shrewd politician;
the other, Ira Harris, had been a highly respected
judge, and was, from every point of view, a most worthy
man: but unfortunately neither of these gentlemen seemed
to exercise any adequate influence in solving the main
questions then before Congress.

No more important subjects have ever come before that
body than those which arose during the early years of
the Civil War, and it was deeply felt throughout the State
that neither of the senators fitly uttered its voice or
exercised its influence.

Mr. Cornell, with whom I had then become intimate, was
never censorious; rarely did he say anything in disapproval
of any man; he was charitable in his judgments, and
generally preferred to be silent rather than severe; but I
remember that on his return from a stay in Washington,
he said to me indignantly: ``While at the Capitol
I was ashamed of the State of New York: one great question
after another came up; bills of the highest importance
were presented and discussed by senators from Ohio,
Vermont, Missouri, Indiana, Iowa, and the rest; but from
New York never a word!''

The question now was, who should succeed Senator
Harris? He naturally desired a second term, and it would
have given me pleasure to support him, for he was an old
and honored friend of my father and mother, they having
been, in their early life, his neighbors and schoolmates,
and their friendship having descended to me; but like
others I was disappointed that Senator Harris had not
taken a position more fitting. His main efforts seemed to
be in the line of friendly acts for his constituents. In so
far as these were done for soldiers in the army they were
praiseworthy; though it was generally felt that while arising
primarily from a natural feeling of benevolence, they
were mainly devoted to securing a body of friends
throughout the State, who would support him when the
time should come for his relection. Apparently with the
same object, he was a most devoted supporter of New
York office-seekers of all sorts. He had pleasing personal
characteristics, but it was reported that Mr. Lincoln,
referring to the senator's persistency in pressing candidates
for office, once said: ``I never think of going to sleep now
without first looking under my bed to see if Judge Harris
is not there wanting something for somebody.''

Another candidate was Judge Noah Davis, then of
Lockport, also a man of high character, of excellent legal
abilities, a good speaker, and one who, had he been elected,
would have done honor to the State. But on looking about
I discovered, as I thought, a better candidate. Judge
Bailey, of Oneida County, had called my attention to the
claims of Mr. Roscoe Conkling, then a member of Congress
from the Oneida district, who had distinguished
himself as an effective speaker, a successful lawyer, and
an honest public servant. He had, to be sure, run foul of
Mr. Blaine of Maine, and had received, in return for what
Mr. Blaine considered a display of offensive manners, a
very serious oratorical castigation; but he had just fought
a good fight which had drawn the attention of the whole
State to him. A coalition having been formed between the
anti-war Democrats and a number of disaffected Republicans
in his district to defeat his relection to Congress, it
had seemed likely to overwhelm him and drive him out of
public life, and one thing seemed for a time likely to prove
fatal to him:--the ``New York Tribune,'' the great organ
of the party, edited by Horace Greeley, gave him no effective
support. But the reason was apparent later when it
became known that Mr. Greeley was to be a candidate
for the senatorship, and it was evidently felt that should
Mr. Conkling triumph in such a struggle, he would be a
very serious competitor. The young statesman had shown
himself equal to the emergency. He had fought his battle
without the aid of Mr. Greeley and the ``Tribune,'' and
won it, and, as a result, had begun to be thought of as a
promising candidate for the United States senatorship. I
had never spoken with him; had hardly seen him; but
I had watched his course closely, and one thing especially
wrought powerfully with me in his favor. The men who
had opposed him were of the same sort with those who had
opposed me, and as I was proud of their opposition, I
felt that he had a right to be so. The whole force of
Tammany henchmen and canal contractors throughout
the State honored us both with their enmity.

It was arranged among Mr. Conkling's supporters that,
at the great caucus which was to decide the matter, Mr.
Conkling's name should be presented by the member of
the assembly representing his district, Ellis Roberts, a
man of eminent character and ability, who, having begun
by taking high rank as a scholar at Yale, had become one
of the foremost editors of the State, and had afterward
distinguished himself not only in the State legislature, but
in Congress, and as the head of the independent treasury
in the city of New York. The next question was as to the
speech seconding the nomination. It was proposed that
Judge Folger should make it, but as he showed a curious
diffidence in the matter, and preferred to preside over the
caucus, the duty was tendered to me.

At the hour appointed the assembly hall of the old Capitol
was full; floor and galleries were crowded to suffocation.
The candidates were duly presented, and, among
them, Mr. Conkling by Mr. Roberts. I delayed my speech
somewhat. The general course of it had been thought out
beforehand, but the phraseology and sequence of argument
were left to the occasion. I felt deeply the importance
of nominating Mr. Conkling, and when the moment came
threw my heart into it. I was in full health and vigor, and
soon felt that a very large part of the audience was with
me. Presently I used the argument that the great State
of New York, which had been so long silent in the highest
councils of the Nation, demanded A VOICE. Instantly the
vast majority of all present, in the galleries, in the lobbies,
and on the floor, rose in quick response to the sentiment
and cheered with all their might. There had been no such
outburst in the whole course of the evening. Evidently
this was the responsive chord, and having gone on with
the main line of my argument, I at last closed with the
same declaration in different form;--that our great
Commonwealth,--the most important in the whole sisterhood
of States,--which had been so long silent in the Senate,
WISHED TO BE HEARD, and that, therefore, I seconded the
nomination of Mr. Conkling. Immediately the whole
house rose to this sentiment again and again, with even
greater evidence of approval than before; the voting began
and Mr. Conkling was finally nominated, if my memory
is correct, by a majority of three.

The moment the vote was declared the whole assembly
broke loose; the pressure being removed, there came a
general effervescence of good feeling, and I suddenly
found myself raised on the shoulders of stalwart men who
stood near, and rapidly carried over the heads of the
crowd, through many passages and corridors, my main
anxiety being to protect my head so that my brains might
not be knocked out against stairways and doorways;
but presently, when fairly dazed and bewildered, I was
borne into a room in the old Congress Hall Hotel, and
deposited safely in the presence of a gentleman standing
with his back to the fire, who at once extended his hand
to me most cordially, and to whom I said, ``God bless
you, Senator Conkling. ``A most hearty response
followed, and so began my closer acquaintance with the
new senator.

Mr. Conkling's election followed as a thing of course,
and throughout the State there was general approval.

During this session of 1867 I found myself involved in
two rather curious struggles, and with no less a personage
than my colleague, Judge Folger.

As to the first of these I had long felt, and still feel, that
of all the weaknesses in our institutions, one of the most
serious is our laxity in the administration of the criminal
law. No other civilized country, save possibly the lower
parts of Italy and Sicily, shows anything to approach the
number of unpunished homicides, in proportion to the
population, which are committed in sundry parts of our
own country, and indeed in our country taken as a whole.
In no country is the deterrent effect of punishment so
vitiated by delay; in no country is so much facility given
to chicanery, to futile appeals, and to every possible means
of clearing men from the due penalty of high crime, and
especially the crime of murder.

It was in view of this fact that, acting on the advice of an
old and able judge whose experience in criminal practice
had been very large, I introduced into the Senate a
bill to improve the procedure in criminal cases. The
judge just referred to had shown me the absurdities
arising from the fact that testimony in regard to character,
even in the case of professional criminals, was not
allowed save in rebuttal. It was notorious that professional
criminals charged with high crimes, especially in
our large cities, frequently went free because, while the
testimony to the particular crime was not absolutely
overwhelming, testimony to their character as professional
criminals, which, in connection with the facts established,
would have been absolutely conclusive, could not be admitted.
I therefore proposed that testimony as to character
in any criminal case might be introduced by the
prosecution if, after having been privately submitted to
the judge, he should decide that the ends of justice would
be furthered thereby.

The bill was referred to the Senate judiciary committee,
of which Judge Folger was chairman. After it had lain
there some weeks and the judge had rather curtly answered
my questions as to when it would be reported, it
became clear to me that the committee had no intention of
reporting it at all, whereupon I introduced a resolution
requesting them to report it, at the earliest day possible,
for the consideration of the Senate, and this was passed
in spite of the opposition of the committee. Many days
then passed; no report was made, and I therefore introduced
a resolution taking the bill out of the hands of the
committee and bringing it directly before the committee
of the whole. This was most earnestly resisted by Judge
Folger and by his main associate on the committee, Henry
Murphy of Brooklyn. On the other hand I had, to aid me,
Judge Lowe, also a lawyer of high standing, and indeed
all the lawyers in the body who were not upon the judiciary
committee. The result was that my motion was
successful; the bill was taken from the committee and
immediately brought under discussion.

In reply to the adverse arguments of Judge Folger and
Mr. Murphy, which were to the effect that my bill was an
innovation upon the criminal law of the State, I pointed
out the fact that evidence as to the character of the person
charged with crime is often all-important; that in our
daily life we act upon that fact as the simplest dictate of
common sense; that if any senator present had his watch
stolen from his room he would be very slow to charge the
crime against the servant who was last seen in the room,
even under very suspicious circumstances; but if he found
that the servant had been discharged for theft from various
places previously, this would be more important than
any other circumstance. I showed how safeguards which
had been devised in the middle ages to protect citizens
from the feudal lord were now used to aid criminals in
evading the law, and I ended by rather unjustly compar-
ing Judge Folger to the great Lord Chancellor Eldon, of
whom it was said that, despite his profound knowledge
of the law, ``no man ever did so much good as he
prevented.''  The result was that the bill was passed by the
Senate in spite of the judiciary committee.

During the continuance of the discussion Judge Folger
had remained in his usual seat, but immediately after the
passage of the bill he resumed his place as president of the
Senate. He was evidently vexed, and in declaring the
Senate adjourned he brought the gavel down with a sort
of fling which caused it to fly out of his hand and fall in
front of his desk on the floor. Fortunately it was after
midnight and few saw it; but there was a general feeling
of regret among us all that a man so highly respected
should have so lost his temper. By common consent the
whole matter was hushed; no mention of it, so far as I
could learn, was made in the public press, and soon all
seemed forgotten.

Unfortunately it was remembered, and in a quarter
which brought upon Judge Folger one of the worst
disappointments of his life.

For, in the course of the following summer, the Constitutional
Convention of the State was to hold its session and
its presidency was justly considered a great honor. Two
candidates were named, one being Judge Folger and the
other Mr. William A. Wheeler, then a member of Congress
and afterward Vice-President of the United States. The
result of the canvas by the friends of both these gentlemen
seemed doubtful, when one morning there appeared in the
``New York Tribune,'' the most powerful organ of the
Republican party, one of Horace Greeley's most trenchant
articles. It dwelt on the importance of the convention
in the history of the State, on the responsibility of its
members, on the characteristics which should mark its
presiding officer, and, as to this latter point, wound up
pungently by saying that it would be best to have a president
who, when he disagreed with members, did not throw
his gavel at them. This shot took effect; it ran through
the State; people asked the meaning of it; various exaggerated
legends became current, one of them being that he
had thrown the gavel at me personally;--and Mr. Wheeler
became president of the convention.

But before the close of the session another matter had
come up which cooled still more the relations between
Judge Folger and myself. For many sessions, year after
year, there had been before the legislature a bill for
establishing a canal connecting the interior lake system of the
State with Lake Ontario. This was known as the Sodus
Canal Bill, and its main champion was a public-spirited
man from Judge Folger's own district. In favor of the
canal various arguments were urged, one of them being
that it would enable the United States, while keeping
within its treaty obligations with Great Britain, to build
ships on these smaller lakes, which, in case of need, could
be passed through the canal into the great chain of lakes
extending from Lake Ontario to Lake Superior. To this
it was replied that such an evasion of the treaty was not
especially creditable to those suggesting it, and that the
main purpose of the bill really was to create a vast water
power which should enure to the benefit of sundry gentlemen
in Judge Folger's district.

Up to this time Judge Folger seemed never to care
much for the bill, and I had never made any especial effort
against it; but when, just at the close of the session,
certain constituents of mine upon the Oswego River had
shown me that there was great danger in the proposed
canal to the water supply through the counties of Onondaga
and Oswego, I opposed the measure. Thereupon
Judge Folger became more and more earnest in its favor,
and it soon became evident that all his power would be
used to pass it during the few remaining days of the
session. By his influence it was pushed rapidly through
all its earlier stages, and at last came up before the
Senate. It seemed sure to pass within ten minutes, when I
moved that the whole matter be referred to the approaching
Constitutional Convention, which was to begin its sessions
immediately after the adjournment of the legislature,
and Judge Folger having spoken against this motion, I
spoke in its favor and did what I have never done before
in my life and probably shall never do again--spoke
against time. There was no ``previous question'' in the
Senate, no limitation as to the period during which a
member could discuss any measure, and, as the youngest
member in the body, I was in the full flush of youthful
strength. I therefore announced my intention to present
some three hundred arguments in favor of referring the
whole matter to the State Constitutional Convention, those
arguments being based upon the especial fitness of its
three hundred members to decide the question, as shown
by the personal character and life history of each and
every one of them. I then went on with this series of
biographies, beginning with that of Judge Folger himself,
and paying him most heartily and cordially every
tribute possible, including some of a humorous nature.
Having given about half an hour to the judge, I then took
up sundry other members and kept on through the entire
morning. I had the floor and no one could dispossess me.
The lieutenant-governor, in the chair, General Stewart
Woodford, was perfectly just and fair, and although
Judge Folger and Mr. Murphy used all their legal acuteness
in devising some means of evading the rules, they
were in every case declared by the lieutenant-governor to
be out of order, and the floor was in every case reassigned
to me. Meantime, the whole Senate, though anxious to
adjourn, entered into the spirit of the matter, various
members passing me up biographical notes on the members
of the convention, some of them very comical, and
presently the hall was crowded with members of the
assembly as well as senators, all cheering me on. The
reason for this was very simple. There had come to be
a general understanding of the case, namely, that Judge
Folger, by virtue of his great power and influence, was
trying in the last hours of the session to force through a
bill for the benefit of his district, and that I was simply
doing my best to prevent an injustice. The result was
that I went on hour after hour with my series of biographies,
until at last Judge Folger himself sent me word
that if I would desist and allow the legislature to adjourn
he would make no further effort to carry the bill at that
session. To this I instantly agreed; the bill was dropped
for that session and for all sessions: so far as I can learn
it has never reappeared.

Shortly after our final adjournment the Constitutional
Convention came together. It was one of the best bodies
of the kind ever assembled in any State, as a list of its
members abundantly shows. There was much work for
it, and most important of all was the reorganization of
the highest judicial body in the State--the Court of
Appeals--which had become hopelessly inadequate.

The two principal members of the convention from the
city of New York were Horace Greeley, editor of the
``Tribune,'' and William M. Evarts, afterward Attorney-
General, United States senator, and Secretary of State of
the United States. Mr. Greeley was at first all-powerful.
As has already been seen, he had been able to prevent
Judge Folger taking the presidency of the convention,
and for a few days he had everything his own way. But
he soon proved so erratic a leader that his influence was
completely lost, and after a few sessions there was hardly
any member with less real power to influence the judgments
of his colleagues.

This was not for want of real ability in his speeches,
for at various times I heard him make, for and against
measures, arguments admirably pungent, forcible, and
far-reaching, but there seemed to be a universal feeling
that he was an unsafe guide.

Soon came a feature in his course which made matters
worse. The members of the convention, many of them,
were men in large business and very anxious to have a
day or two each week for their own affairs. Moreover,
during the first weeks of the session, while the main
matters coming before the convention were still in the hands
of committees, there was really not enough business ready
for the convention to occupy it through all the days of the
week, and consequently it adopted the plan, for the first
weeks at least, of adjourning from Friday night till Tuesday
morning. This vexed Mr. Greeley sorely. He insisted
that the convention ought to keep at its business
and finish it without any such weekly adjournments, and,
as his arguments to this effect did not prevail in the
convention, he began making them through the ``Tribune''
before the people of the State. Soon his arguments
became acrid, and began undermining the convention at
every point.

As to Mr. Greeley's feeling regarding the weekly
adjournment, one curious thing was reported: There was
a member from New York of a literary turn for whom the
great editor had done much in bringing his verses and
other productions before the public--a certain Mr. Duganne;
but it happened that, on one of the weekly motions
to adjourn, Mr. Duganne had voted in the affirmative, and,
as a result, Mr. Greeley, meeting him just afterward,
upbraided him in a manner which filled the rural bystanders
with consternation. It was well known to those best
acquainted with the editor of the ``Tribune'' that, when
excited, he at times indulged in the most ingenious and
picturesque expletives, and some of Mr. Chauncey Depew's
best stories of that period pointed to this fact. On this
occasion Mr. Greeley really outdid himself, and the
result was that the country members, who up to that
time had regarded him with awe as the representative of
the highest possible morality in public and private life,
were greatly dismayed, and in various parts of the room
they were heard expressing their amazement, and saying
to each other in awe-stricken tones: ``Why! Greeley
swears!''

Ere long Mr. Greeley was taking, almost daily in the
``Tribune,'' steady ground against the doings of his
colleagues. Lesser newspapers followed with no end of
cheap and easy denunciation, and the result was that the
convention became thoroughly, though unjustly, discredited
throughout the State, and indeed throughout the
country. A curious proof of this met me. Being at
Cambridge, Massachusetts, I passed an evening with Governor
Washburn, one of the most thoughtful and valuable
public men of that period. In the course of our conversation
he said: ``Mr. White, it is really sad to hear of the
doings at your Albany convention. I can remember your
constitutional convention of 1846, and when I compare
this convention with that, it grieves me.''  My answer
was: ``Governor Washburn, you are utterly mistaken:
there has never been a constitutional convention in the
State of New York, not even that you name, which has
contained so many men of the highest ability and character
as the one now in session, and none which has really
done better work. I am not a member of the body and
can say this in its behalf.''  At this he expressed his
amazement, and pointed to the ``Tribune'' in confirmation
of his own position. I then stated the case to him, and, I
think, alleviated his distress.

But as the sessions of the convention drew to a close and
the value of its work began to be clearly understood,
Greeley's nobler qualities, his real truthfulness and public
spirit began to assert themselves, and more than once he
showed practical shrewdness and insight. Going into
convention one morning, I found the question under
discussion to be the election of the secretary of state,
attorney-general, and others of the governor's cabinet, whose
appointment under the older constitutions was wisely
left to the governor, but who, for twenty years, had
been elected by the people. There was a wide-spread feeling
that the old system was wiser, and that the new had
by no means justified itself; in fact, that by fastening on
the governor the responsibility for his cabinet, the State
is likely to secure better men than when their choice is
left to the hurly-burly of intrigue and prejudice in a
nominating convention.

The main argument made by those who opposed such a
return to the old, better order of things was that the
people would not like it and would be inclined to vote
down the new constitution on account of it.

In reply to this, Mr. Greeley arose and made a most
admirable short speech ending with these words, given in
his rapid falsetto, with a sort of snap that made the whole
seem like one word: ``When-the-people-take-up-their-
ballots-they-want-to-see-who-is-to-be-governor: that's-all-
they-care-about: they-don't-want-to-read-a-whole-chapter-
of-the-Bible-on-their-ballots.''

Unfortunately, the majority dared not risk the popular
ratification of the new constitution, and so this amendment
was lost.

No doubt Mr. Greeley was mainly responsible for this
condition of things; his impatience with the convention, as
shown by his articles in the ``Tribune,'' had been caught
by the people of the State.

The long discussions were very irksome to him, and one
day I mildly expostulated with him on account of some
of his utterances against the much speaking of his colleagues,
and said: ``After all, Mr. Greeley, is n't it a pretty
good thing to have a lot of the best men in the State come
together every twenty years and thoroughly discuss the
whole constitution, to see what improvements can be
made; and is not the familiarity with the constitution and
interest in it thus aroused among the people at large worth
all the fatigue arising from long speeches?''  ``Well,
perhaps so,'' he said, but he immediately began to grumble
and finally to storm in a comical way against some of his
colleagues who, it must be confessed, were tiresome. Still
he became interested more and more in the work, and as
the new constitution emerged from the committees and
public debates, he evidently saw that it was a great gain
to the State, and now did his best through the ``Tribune''
to undo what he had been doing. He wrote editorials
praising the work of the convention and urging that it be
adopted. But all in vain: the unfavorable impression had
been too widely and deeply made, and the result was that
the new constitution, when submitted to the people, was
ignominiously voted down, and the whole summer's work
of the convention went for nothing. Later, however, a
portion of it was rescued and put into force through the
agency of a ``Constitutional Commission,'' a small body
of first-rate men who sat at Albany, and whose main
conclusions were finally adopted in the shape of amendments
to the old constitution. There was, none the less, a
wretched loss to the State.

During the summer of 1867 I was completely immersed
in the duties of my new position at Cornell University;
going through various institutions in New England and
the Western States to note the workings of their technical
departments; visiting Ithaca to consult with Mr. Cornell
and to look over plans for buildings, and credentials for
professorships, or, shut up in my own study at Syracuse,
or in the cabins of Cayuga Lake steamers, drawing up
schemes of university organization, so that my political
life soon seemed ages behind me.

While on a visit to Harvard, I was invited by Agassiz
to pass a day with him at Nahant in order to discuss
methods and men. He entered into the matter very
earnestly, agreed to give us an extended course of
lectures, which he afterward did, and aided us in many
ways. One remark of his surprised me. I had asked him
to name men, and he had taken much pains to do so, when
suddenly he turned to me abruptly and said: ``Who is to
be your professor of moral philosophy? That is by far
the most important matter in your whole organization.''
It seemed strange that one who had been honored by the
whole world as probably the foremost man in natural
science then living, and who had been denounced by many
exceedingly orthodox people as an enemy of religion,
should take this view of the new faculty, but it showed
how deeply and sincerely religious he was. I soon
reassured him on the point he had raised, and then went on
with the discussion of scientific men, methods, and equipments.

I was also asked by the poet Longfellow to pass a day
with him at his beautiful Nahant cottage in order to discuss
certain candidates and methods in literature. Nothing
could be more delightful than his talk as we sat
together on the veranda looking out over the sea, with the
gilded dome of the State House, which he pointed out to
me as ``The Hub,'' in the dim distance. One question of
his amused me much. We were discussing certain recent
events in which Mr. Horace Greeley had played an
important part, and after alluding to Mr. Greeley's course
during the War, he turned his eyes fully but mildly
upon me and said slowly and solemnly: ``Mr. White, don't
you think Mr. Greeley a very useless sort of man?''  The
question struck me at first as exceedingly comical; for, I
thought, ``Imagine Mr. Greeley, who thinks himself, and
with reason, a useful man if there ever was one, and whose
whole life has been devoted to what he has thought of the
highest and most direct use to his fellow-men, hearing this
question put in a dreamy way by a poet,--a writer of
verse,--probably the last man in America whom Mr.
Greeley would consider `useful.' ''  But my old admiration
for the great editor came back in a strong tide, and if I
was ever eloquent it was in showing Mr. Longfellow how
great, how real, how sincere, and in the highest degree
how useful Mr. Greeley had been.

Another man of note whom I met in those days was
Judge Rockwood Hoar, afterward named by General
Grant Attorney-General of the United States, noted as a
profound lawyer of pungent wit and charming humor, the
delight of his friends and the terror of his enemies. I
saw him first at Harvard during a competition for the
Boylston prize at which we were fellow-judges. All the
speaking was good, some of it admirable; but the especially
remarkable pieces were two. First of these was a
recital of Washington Irving's ``Broken Heart,'' by an
undergraduate from the British provinces, Robert Alder
McLeod. Nothing could be more simple and perfect in its
way; nothing more free from any effort at orating; all
was in the most quiet and natural manner possible. The
second piece was a rendering of Poe's ``Bells,'' and was
a most amazing declamation, the different sorts of bells
being indicated by changes of voice ranging from basso
profondo to the highest falsetto, and the feelings aroused
in the orator being indicated by modulations which must
have cost him months of practice.

The contest being ended, and the committee having
retired to make their award, various members expressed an
opinion in favor of Mr. McLeod's quiet recital, when
Judge Hoar, who had seemed up to that moment immersed
in thought, seemed suddenly to awake, and said: ``If I
had a son who spoke that bell piece in that style I believe
I'd choke him.''  The vote was unanimously in favor of
Mr. McLeod, and then came out a curious fact. Having
noticed that he bore an empty sleeve, I learned from
Professor Peabody that he had lost his arm while fighting on
the Confederate side in our Civil War, and that he was a
man of remarkably fine scholarship and noble character.
He afterward became an instructor at Harvard, but died
early.

During the following autumn, in spite of my absorption
in university interests, I was elected a delegate to the State
Convention, and in October made a few political speeches,
the most important being at Clinton, the site of Hamilton
College. This was done at the special request of Senator
Conkling, and on my way I passed a day with him at
Utica, taking a long drive through the adjacent country.
Never was he more charming. The bitter and sarcastic
mood seemed to have dropped off him; the overbearing
manner had left no traces; he was full of delightful
reminiscences and it was a day to be remembered.

I also spoke at various other places and, last of all, at
Clifton Springs, but received there a rebuff which was not
without its uses.

I had thought my speeches successful; but at the latter
place, taking the cars next morning, I heard a dialogue
between two railway employees, as follows:

``Bill, did you go to the meetin' last night?''  ``Yes.''
``How was it?''  ``It wa'n't no meetin', leastwise no P'LITICAL
meetin'; there wa'n't nothin' in it fur the boys; it was
only one of them scientific college purfessors lecturin'.''
And so I sped homeward, pondering on many things, but
strengthened, by this homely criticism, in my determination
to give my efforts henceforth to the new university.

CHAPTER IX

GENERAL GRANT AND SANTO DOMINGO--1868-1871

During the two or three years following my senatorial
term, work in the founding and building of Cornell
University was so engrossing that there was little
time for any effort which could be called political. In
the early spring of 1868 I went to Europe to examine
institutions for scientific and technological instruction,
and to secure professors and equipment, and during about
six months I visited a great number of such schools,
especially those in agriculture, mechanical, civil, and mining
engineering and the like in England, France, Germany,
and Italy; bought largely of books and apparatus,
discussed the problems at issue with Europeans who seemed
likely to know most about them, secured sundry professors,
and returned in September just in time to take
part in the opening of Cornell University and be inaugurated
as its first president. Of all this I shall speak more
in detail hereafter.

There was no especial temptation to activity in the
political campaign of that year; for the election of General
Grant was sure, and my main memory of the period is a
visit to Auburn to hear Mr. Seward.

It had been his wont for many years, when he came
home to cast his vote, to meet his neighbors on the eve of
the election and give his views of the situation and of its
resultant duties. These occasions had come to be anticipated
with the deepest interest by the whole region round
about, and what had begun as a little gathering of neighors
had now become such an assembly that the largest
hall in the place was crowded with voters of all parties.

But this year came a disappointment. Although the
contest was between General Grant,--who on various decisive
battle-fields had done everything to save the administration
of which Mr. Seward had been a leading member,
--and on the other side, Governor Horatio Seymour, who
had done all in his power to wreck it, Mr. Seward devoted
his speech to optimistic generalities, hardly alluding to
the candidates, and leaving the general impression that
one side was just as worthy of support as the other.

The speech was an unfortunate ending of Mr. Seward's
career. It was not surprising that some of his old
admirers bitterly resented it, and a remark by Mr. Cornell
some time afterward indicated much. We were arranging
together a program for the approaching annual
commencement when I suggested for the main address Mr.
Seward. Mr. Cornell had been one of Mr. Seward's
lifelong supporters, but he received this proposal coldly,
pondered it for a few moments silently, and then said
dryly, ``Perhaps you are right, but if you call him you
will show to our students the deadest man that ain't buried
in the State of New York.''  So, to my regret, was lost the
last chance to bring the old statesman to Cornell. I have
always regretted this loss; his presence would have given
a true consecration to the new institution. A career like
his should not be judged by its little defects and lapses,
and this I felt even more deeply on receiving, some time
after his death, the fifth volume of his published works,
which was largely made up of his despatches and other
papers written during the war. When they were first
published in the newspapers, I often thought them long
and was impatient at their optimism, but now, when I read
them all together, saw in them the efforts made by the
heroic old man to keep the hands of European powers
off us while we were restoring the Union, and noted the
desperation with which he fought, the encouragement
which he infused into our diplomatic representatives
abroad, and his struggle, almost against fate, in the time
of our reverses, I was fascinated. The book had arrived
early in the evening, and next morning found me still
seated in my library chair completely absorbed in it.

In the spring of the year 1870, while as usual in the
thick of university work, I was again drawn for a moment
into the current of New York politics. The long wished
for amendment of the State constitution, putting our highest
tribunal, the Court of Appeals, on a better footing
than it had ever been before, making it more adequate, the
term longer, and the salaries higher, had been passed, and
judges were to be chosen at the next election. Each of the
two great parties was entitled to an equal number of
judges, and I was requested to go to the approaching
nominating convention at Rochester in order to present
the name of my old friend and neighbor, Charles Andrews.

It was a most honorable duty, no man could have
desired a better candidate, and I gladly accepted the
mandate. Although it was one of the most staid and dignified
bodies of the sort which has ever met in the State, it had
as a preface a pleasant farce.

As usual, the seething cauldron of New York City politics
had thrown to the surface some troublesome delegates,
and among them was one long famed as a ``Tammany Republican.''

Our first business was the choice of a president for the
convention, and, as it had been decided by the State committee
to present for that office the name of one of the most
respected judges in the State, the Honorable Platt Potter,
of Schenectady, it was naturally expected that some member
of the regular organization would present his name
in a dignified speech. But hardly had the chairman of
the State committee called the convention to order when
the aforesaid Tammany Republican, having heard that
Judge Potter was to be elected, thought evidently that
he could gain recognition and applause by being the
first to present his name. He therefore rushed for-
ward, and almost before the chairman had declared the
convention opened, cried out: ``Mr. Chairman, I move
you, sir, that the Honorable `Pot Platter' be made
president of this convention.''  A scream of laughter went
up from all parts of the house, and in an instant a gentleman
rose and moved to amend by making the name ``Platt
Potter.''  This was carried, and the proposer of the
original motion retired crestfallen to his seat.

I had the honor of presenting Mr. Andrews's name.
He was nominated and elected triumphantly, and so began
the career of one of the best judges that New York
has ever had on its highest court, who has also for many
years occupied, with the respect and esteem of the State,
the position of chief justice.

The convention then went on to nominate other judges,
--nomination being equivalent to election,--but when the
last name was reached there came a close contest. An old
friend informed me that Judge Folger, my former colleague
in the Senate and since that assistant treasurer of
the United States in the city of New York, was exceedingly
anxious to escape from this latter position, and
desired greatly the nomination to a judgeship on the Court
of Appeals.

I decided at once to do what was possible to secure
Judge Folger's nomination, though our personal relations
were very unsatisfactory. Owing to our two conflicts at
the close of our senatorial term above referred to, and
to another case where I thought he had treated me
unjustly, we had never exchanged a word since I had left
the State Senate; and though we met each other from
time to time on the board of Cornell University trustees,
we passed each other in silence. Our old friendship, which
had been very dear to me, seemed forever broken, but I
felt deeply that the fault was not mine. At the same time
I recognized the fact that Judge Folger was not especially
adapted to the position of assistant treasurer of the United
States, and was admirably fitted for the position of judge
in the Court of Appeals. I therefore did everything possible
to induce one or two of the delegations with which I
had some influence to vote for him, dwelling especially
upon his former judgeship, his long acquaintance with the
legislation of the State, and his high character, and at last
he was elected by a slight majority.

The convention having adjourned, I was on my way to
the train when I was met by Judge Folger, who had just
arrived. He put out his hand and greeted me most heartily,
showing very deep feeling as he expressed his regret
over our estrangement. Of course I was glad that bygones
were to be bygones, and that our old relations were
restored. He became a most excellent judge, and finally
chief justice of the State, which position he left to become
Secretary of the Treasury.

To the political cataclysm which ended his public activity
and doubtless hastened his death, I refer elsewhere.
As long as he lived our friendly relations continued, and
this has been to me ever since a great satisfaction.

In this same year, 1870, occurred my first extended
conversation with General Grant. At my earlier meeting with
him when he was with President Johnson in Albany, I had
merely been stiffly presented to him, and we had exchanged
a few commonplaces; but I was now invited to his
cottage at Long Branch and enjoyed a long and pleasant
talk with him. Its main subject was the Franco-German
War then going on, and his sympathies were evidently
with Germany. His comments on the war were prophetic.
There was nothing dogmatic in them; nothing could be
more simple and modest than his manner and utterance,
but there was a clearness and quiet force in them which
impressed me greatly. He was the first great general I
had ever seen, and I was strongly reminded of his mingled
diffidence and mastery when, some years afterward, I
talked with Moltke in Berlin.

Another experience of that summer dwells in my memory.
I was staying, during the first week of September,
with my dear old friend, Dr. Henry M. Field, at Stockbridge,
in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts, and
had the good fortune, at the house of his brother, the
eminent jurist, David Dudley Field, to pass a rainy evening
in company with Mr. Burton Harrison, who, after a
distinguished career at Yale, had been the private secretary
of Jefferson Davis, president of the Southern Confederacy.
On that evening a storm had kept away all but a
few of us, and Mr. Harrison yielded to our entreaties to
give us an account of Mr. Davis's flight at the surrender of
Richmond, from the time when he quietly left his pew in
St. Paul's Church to that of his arrest by United States
soldiers. The story was most vivid, and Mr. Harrison, as
an eye witness, told it simply and admirably. There had
already grown out of this flight of Mr. Davis a most
luxuriant tangle of myth and legend, and it had come to
be generally believed that the Confederate president had
at last endeavored to shield himself behind the women of
his household; that when arrested he was trying to escape
in the attire of his wife, including a hooped skirt and a
bonnet, and that he was betrayed by an incautious display
of his military boots beneath his wife's flounces. The
simple fact was that, having separated from his family
party, and seeking escape to the coast or mountains, he
was again and again led by his affection for his family to
return to them, his fears for them overcoming all care
for himself; and that, as he was suffering from neuralgia,
he wore over his clothing, to guard him from the incessant
rain, Mrs. Davis' waterproof cloak. Out of this grew the
legend which found expression in jubilant newspaper
articles, songs, and caricatures.

This reminds me that some years later, my old college
friend, Colonel William Preston Johnston, president of
Tulane University, told me a story which throws light
upon that collapse of the Confederacy. Colonel Johnston
was at that period the military secretary of President
Davis, and, as the catastrophe approached, was much
vexed at the interminable debates in the Confederate
Congress. Among the subjects of these discussions was the
great seal of the Confederacy. It had been decided to
adopt for this purpose a relief representing Crawford's
statue of Washington at Richmond, with the Southern
statesmen and soldiers surrounding it; but though all
agreed that Washington, in his Continental costume, and
holding in his hand his cocked hat, should retain the
central position, there were many differences of opinion as
to the surrounding portraits, the result being that motions
were made to strike out this or that revolutionary hero
from one State and to replace him by another from another
State, thus giving rise to lengthy eulogies of these
various personages, so that the whole thing resembled the
discussions in metaphysical theology by the Byzantines
at the time when the Turks were forcing their way
through the walls of Constantinople. One day, just
before the final catastrophe, Mr. Judah Benjamin, formerly
United States senator, but at that time the Confederate
secretary of state, passed through Colonel Johnston's
office, and the following dialogue took place.

Colonel Johnston: ``What are they doing in the Senate
and House, Mr. Secretary?''

Mr. Benjamin: ``Oh, simply debating the Confederate
seal, moving to strike out this man and to insert that.''

Colonel Johnston: ``Do you know what motion I would
make if I were a member?''

Mr. Benjamin: ``No, what would you move?''

Colonel Johnston: ``I would move to strike out from
the seal everything except the cocked hat.''

Colonel Johnston was right; the Confederacy was
``knocked into a cocked hat'' a few days afterward.

In the autumn of that year, September, 1870, I was sent
as a delegate to the State Republican Convention, and
presented as a candidate for the lieutenant-governorship a
man who had served the State admirably in the National
Congress and in the State legislature as well as in great
business operations, Mr. DeWitt Littlejohn of Oswego. I
did this on the part of sundry gentlemen who were anxious
to save the Republican ticket, which had at its head my
old friend General Woodford, but though I was successful
in securing Mr. Littlejohn's nomination, he soon
afterward declined, and defeat followed in November.

The only part which I continued to take in State politics
was in writing letters and in speaking, on sundry social
occasions of a political character, in behalf of harmony
between the two factions which were now becoming more
and more bitter. At first I seemed to have some success,
but before long it became clear that the current was too
strong and that the bitterness of faction was to prevail. I
am so constituted that factious thought and effort
dishearten and disgust me. At many periods of my life
I have acted as a ``buffer'' between conflicting cliques
and factions, generally to some purpose; now it was
otherwise. But, as Kipling says, ``that is another story.''

The hard work and serious responsibilities brought
upon me by the new university had greatly increased.
They had worn deeply upon me when, in the winter of
1870-71, came an event which drew me out of my university
life for a time and gave me a much needed change:
--I was sent by the President as one of the three
commissioners to Santo Domingo to study questions relating
to the annexation of the Spanish part of that island which
was then proposed, and to report thereupon to Congress.

While in Washington at this time I saw much of President
Grant, Mr. Sumner, and various other men who were
then leading in public affairs, but some account of them
will be given in my reminiscences of the Santo Domingo
expedition.

I trust that it may be allowed me here to recall an
incident which ought to have been given in a preceding
chapter. During one of my earlier visits to the National
Capital, I made the acquaintance of Senator McDougal.
His distorted genius had evidently so dazzled his fellow-
citizens of California that, in spite of his defects, they had
sent him to the highest council of the Nation. He was a
martyr to conviviality, and when more or less under
the sway of it, had strange ideas and quaint ways of
expressing them. His talk recalled to me a time in my child-
hood when, having found a knob of glass, twisted, striated
with different colors, and filled with air bubbles, I enjoyed
looking at the landscape through it. Everything became
grotesquely transfigured. A cabbage in the foreground
became opalescent, and an ear of corn a mass of jewels,
but the whole atmosphere above and beyond was lurid, and
the chimneys and church spires were topsy-turvy.

The only other person whose talk ever produced an
impression of this sort on me was Tolstoy, and he will be
discussed in another chapter.

McDougal's peculiarity made him at last unbearable;
so much so that the Senate was obliged to take measures
against him. His speech in his own defense showed the
working of his mind, and one passage most of all. It
remains probably the best defense of drunkenness ever
made, and it ran as follows:

``Mr. President,--I pity the man who has never viewed
the affairs of this world, save from the poor, low, miserable
plane of ordinary sobriety.''

My absence in the West Indies covered the first three
months of the year 1871, and then the commission returned
to Washington and made its report; but regarding
this I shall speak at length in the chapter of my diplomatic
experiences, devoted to the Santo Domingo question.

CHAPTER X

THE GREELEY CAMPAIGN--1872

Having finished my duties on the Santo Domingo
Commission, I returned to the University in May
of 1871, devoted myself again to my duties as president
and professor, and, in the mass of arrears which had
accumulated, found ample occupation. I also delivered
various addresses at universities, colleges, and elsewhere,
keeping as remote from politics as possible.

In June, visiting New York in order to take part in a
dinner given by various journalists and others to my
classmate and old friend, George Washburne Smalley, at
that time the London correspondent of the ``New York
Tribune,'' I met, for the first time, Colonel John Hay,
who was in the full tide of his brilliant literary career and
who is, as I write this, Secretary of State of the United
States. His clear, thoughtful talk strongly impressed me,
but the most curious circumstance connected with the affair
was that several of us on the way to Delmonico's
stopped for a time to observe the public reception given to
Mr. Horace Greeley on his return from a tour through the
Southern States. Mr. Greeley, undoubtedly from the
purest personal and patriotic motives, had, with other
men of high standing, including Gerrit Smith, attached
his name to the bail bond of Jefferson Davis, which
released the ex-president of the Confederacy from prison,
and, in fact, freed him entirely from anything like
punishment for treason. I have always admired Mr. Greeley's
honesty and courage in doing this. Doubtless, too, an
equally patriotic and honest desire to aid in bringing
North and South together after the war led him to take
an extensive tour through sundry Southern States. He
had just returned from this tour and this reception was
given him in consequence.

It had already been noised abroad that there was a
movement on foot to make him a candidate for the Presidency,
and many who knew the characteristics of the man,
even those who, like myself, had been greatly influenced
by him and regarded him as by far the foremost editorial
writer that our country had ever produced, looked upon
this idea with incredulity. For of all patriotic men in
the entire country who had touched public affairs Horace
Greeley seemed the most eminently unfit for executive
duties. He was notoriously, in business matters, the
easy prey of many who happened to get access to him;--
the ``long-haired men and short-haired women'' of the
country seemed at times to have him entirely under their
sway; his hard-earned money, greatly needed by himself
and his family, was lavished upon ne'er-do-weels and cast
into all sorts of impracticable schemes. He made loans
to the discarded son of the richest man whom the United
States had at that time produced, and in every way
showed himself an utterly incompetent judge of men. It
was a curious fact that lofty as were his purposes, and
noble as were his main characteristics, the best men of
the State--men like Seward, Weed, Judge Folger, Senator
Andrews, General Leavenworth, Elbridge Spaulding, and
other really thoughtful, solid, substantial advisers of
the Republican party--were disliked by him, and yet no
other reason could be assigned than this:--that while they
all admired him as a writer, they could not be induced to
pretend that they considered him fit for high executive
office, either in the State or Nation. On the other hand,
so far as politics were concerned, his affections seemed to
be lavished on politicians who flattered and coddled him.
Of this the rise of Governor Fenton was a striking
example. Doubtless there were exceptions to this rule, but
it was the rule nevertheless. This was clearly and indeed
comically shown at the reception given him in Union
Square on the evening referred to. Mr. Greeley appeared
at a front window of a house on the Broadway side and
came out upon a temporary platform. His appearance
is deeply stamped upon my memory. He was in a rather
slouchy evening dress, his white hair thrown back off his
splendid forehead, and his broad, smooth, kindly features
as serene as the face of a big, well-washed baby.

There was in his appearance something at the same time
nave and impressive, and the simplicity of it was
increased by a bouquet, huge and gorgeous, which some
admirer had attached to his coat, and which forced upon
the mind of a reflective observer the idea of a victim
adorned for sacrifice.

He gave scant attention to his audience in the way of
ceremonial greeting, and plunged at once into his subject;
--beginning in a high, piping, falsetto voice which, for a
few moments, was almost painful. But the value of his
matter soon overcame the defects of his manner; the
speech was in his best vein; it struck me as the best, on the
whole, I had ever heard him make, and that is saying
much. Holding in his hands a little package of
cards on which notes were jotted down, he occasionally
cast his eyes upon them, but he evidently trusted to the
inspiration of the hour for his phrasing, and his trust was
not misplaced. I never heard a more simple, strong,
lucid use of the English language than was his on that
occasion. The speech was a very noble plea for the restoration
of good feeling between North and South, with an
effort to show that the distrust felt by the South toward
the North was natural. In the course of it he said in
substance:

``Fellow Citizens: The people of the South have much
reason to distrust us. We have sent among them during
the war and since the war, to govern them, to hold office
among them, and to eat out their substance, a number of
worthless adventurers whom they call ``carpet-baggers.''
These emissaries of ours pretend to be patriotic and pious;
they pull long faces and say `Let us pray'; but they spell
it p-r-E-y. The people of the South hate them, and they
ought to hate them.''

At this we in the audience looked at each other in
amazement; for, standing close beside Mr. Greeley, at
that very moment, most obsequiously, was perhaps the
worst ``carpet-bagger'' ever sent into the South; a man
who had literally been sloughed off by both parties;--
who, having been become an unbearable nuisance in New
York politics, had been ``unloaded'' by Mr. Lincoln, in an
ill-inspired moment, upon the hapless South, and who was
now trying to find new pasture.

But this was not the most comical thing; for Mr.
Greeley in substance continued as follows:

``Fellow Citizens: You know how it is yourselves.
There are men who go to your own State Capitol, nominally
as legislators or advisers, but really to plunder and
steal. These men in the Northern States correspond to the
`carpet-baggers' in the Southern States, and you hate
them and you ought to hate them.''  Thus speaking, Mr.
Greeley poured out the vials of his wrath against all this
class of people; blissfully unconscious of the fact that on
the other side of him stood the most notorious and corrupt
lobbyist who had been known in Albany for years;--
a man who had been chased out of that city by the sheriff
for attempted bribery, had been obliged to remain for a
considerable time in hiding to avoid criminal charges of
exerting corrupt influence on legislation, and whom both
political parties naturally disowned. Comical as all this
was, it was pathetic to see a man like Greeley in such a
cave of Adullam.