Part 52 (1/2)
”It was my misfortune, perhaps my fault, personally never to have known this eminent philanthropist and statesman.
The impulse was often strong upon me to go to him and offer him my hand, and my heart with it, and to express to him my thanks for his kind and considerate course toward the people with whom I am identified. If I did not yield to that impulse, it was because the thought occurred that other days were coming in which such a demonstration might be more opportune and less liable to misconstruction. Suddenly and without premonition, a day as come at last to which, for such a purpose, there is no to-morrow. My regret is therefore intensified by the thought that I failed to speak of him out of the fulness of my heart while there was yet time.”
That Mr. Lamar well understood what was to be the effect of this wonderful speech upon the whole country is shown by his letter to his wife the next day, in which he says: ”I never in all my life opened my lips with a purpose more single to the interests of our Southern people than when I made this speech.”
I said of this speech in an article in the _North American Review:_
”The eloquent words of Mr. Lamar so touched the hearts of the people of the North that they may fairly be said to have been of themselves an important influence in mitigating the estrangements of a generation.”
The following letter explains my absence from the Senate when Judge Lamar's death was announced:
WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D. C., January 29, 1893
_My Dear Madam:_
I was kept in bed, under the orders of my physician, the day the death of your husband was announced to the Senate.
I regret exceedingly that I could not be in my place to express my sense of the great public loss and my warm personal admiration for his great qualities of intellect and of heart. I served with him in the House of Representatives for more than four years, and in the Senate for more than eight years. It was a stormy and exciting time. We differed widely on very grave questions, and this difference was more than once very sharply manifested in public; but the more I knew him, the more satisfied I became of the sincerity of his patriotism, of his profound and far-sighted wisdom, of the deep fountain of tenderness in his affectionate and simple heart, and of his brave and chivalrous quality of soul. I was more than once indebted to him for very great kindness indeed, under circ.u.mstances when I do not think he supposed it would ever come to my knowledge.
Some of his judgments on the Supreme Bench are characterized by marvellous beauty and felicity of style. He maintained his place on that great tribunal to the satisfaction of his friends and that admiration of his countrymen, in spite of failing health and of the fact that the best years of his life had been given to other studies than that of the law.
It is a good omen for our country that the friends and disciples of Charles Sumner unite with the people of Mississippi in their reverence for this n.o.ble and manly character.
I am faithfully yours, GEORGE F. h.o.a.r Mrs. Lamar.
CHAPTER XVI SOME SOUTHERN SENATORS
Another most delightful Democrat, with whom it was my pleasure to form quite intimate relations, was Senator Howell E. Jackson of Tennessee. He had been in the Confederate service. I think he did not approve Secession, but like most others who dwelt in the South, thought his allegiance primarily due to his State. He was an admirable lawyer, faithful, industrious, clear-headed and learned in the law. He had been a Whig before the war, and, like other Southern Whigs, favored a moderate protective tariff. He was anxious to have the South take her place as a great manufacturing community, for which her natural resources of iron and coal and her great water power gave her such advantages. He was opposed to the Republican measures of Reconstruction and to placing the negro on a political equality with the whites. But he also discountenanced and condemned any lawless violence or fraud.
Senator Jackson was appointed Judge of the United States Circuit Court by President Cleveland. He held that office when a vacancy on the Bench of the Supreme Court came by the death of Justice Lamar. The election of 1892 had resulted in the choice of President Cleveland. The Democrats in the Senate were determined that no Republican who should be nominated by President Harrison should be confirmed, and did not mean, if they could help it, that the place should be filled during the December session. The only way to get such a confirmation would be for the Republican majority to put the question ahead of all other subjects, to go into Executive session every day as soon as the Senate met, and remain there until the judges.h.i.+p was disposed of. The Democrats must then choose between defeating the Appropriation Bills, and compelling an extra session, which the in-coming Administration would not like. In order to do that, however, the small Republican majority must hold together firmly, and be willing to take the risk of an extra session.
I called on President Harrison and urged upon him the appointment of Judge Jackson. I represented that it was desirable that there should be some Democrats upon the Bench, and that they should be men who had the confidence of their own part of the country and of the country at large; that Judge Jackson was a man of admirable judicial quality; that he had the public confidence in a high degree, and that it would be impossible for the Democratic Party to object to his selection, while it would strengthen the Bench. So I thought that even if we could put one of our men there without difficulty, it would be wise to appoint Jackson.
President Harrison was very unwilling, indeed, to take this view. He answered me at first in his rough impulsive way, and seemed very unwilling even to take the matter into consideration.
But after a considerable discussion he asked me to ascertain whether the Republicans would be willing, if he sent in a Republican name, to adopt the course above suggested, and transact no other business until the result was secured, even at the risk of defeating the Appropriation Bills and causing an extra session. I went back to the Senate and consulted a good many Senators. Nearly all of them said they would not agree to such a struggle; that they thought it very undesirable indeed; that the effect would be bad. So it was clear that nothing could be accomplished in that way. I went back to the White House and reported. I got the authority of the gentlemen I had consulted to tell the President what they said. The result was the appointment of Judge Jackson, to the great satisfaction of the country. He was a very industrious and faithful Judge. But his useful life came to an end soon afterward, I suppose largely as the result of overwork in his important and laborious office.
The Attorney-General said of Mr. Justice Jackson: ”He was not so much a Senator who had been appointed Judge, as a Judge who had served for a time as a Senator.”
I served with Senator Jackson on the Committee on Claims, and on the Committee on the Judiciary. We did not meet often in social life. He rarely came to my room. I do not remember that I ever visited him in his home. But we formed a very cordial and intimate friends.h.i.+p. I have hardly known a nature better fitted, morally or intellectually, for great public trusts, either judicial or political, than his. In the beginning, I think the framers of the Const.i.tution intended the Senate to be a sort of political Supreme Court, in which, as a court of final resort, the great conflicts which had stirred the people, and stirred the Representatives of the people in the lower House, should be decided without heat and without party feeling. It was, I have been told, considered a breach of propriety to allude to party divisions in early debates in the Senate, as it would be now deemed a breach of propriety to allude to such divisions in the Supreme Court of the United States.
Howell E. Jackson had this ancient Senatorial temperament.
He never seemed to me to be thinking of either party or section or popular opinion, or of the opinion of other men; but only of public duty.
He never flinched from uttering and maintaining his opinions.
He never caressed or cajoled his political antagonists. It is a great tribute to his personal quality that he owed his election as Senator to his political opponents who, when his own party was divided, joined a majority of his party to elect him. He also, as has been said, owed his appointment as a.s.sociate Justice of the Supreme Court to the impression which his probity and ability had made on his political opponents. When sick with a fatal illness he left a sick bed to take his place upon the Bench at the call of duty when the Income Tax case was to be decided. There is no doubt that the effort hastened his death. I do not agree with the conclusion to which he came on that great occasion. But the fact that he came to that conclusion is enough to make me feel sure that there were strong reasons for it, which might well convince the clearest understanding, and be reconciled with the most conscientious desire to do right.
No list of the remarkable Senators of my time would be complete which did not contain the name of Senator Vest of Missouri.
He was not a very frequent speaker, and never spoke at great length. But his oratoric powers are of a very high order.
On some few occasions he has made speeches, always speaking without notes, and I suppose without previous preparation so far as expression and style go, which have very deeply moved the Senate, though made up of men who have been accustomed to oratory and not easily stirred to emotion. Mr. Vest is a brave, sincere, spirited and straightforward man. He has a good many of the prejudices of the old Southern Secessionist.
I think those prejudices would long ago have melted away in the suns.h.i.+ne of our day of returning good feeling and affection, but for the fact that his chivalrous nature will not permit him to abandon a cause or an opinion to which he has once adhered, while it is unpopular. He is like some old cavalier who supported the Stuarts, who lived down into the days of the House of Hanover, but still toasted the King over the water.
Among the most interesting characters with whom it has been my fortune to serve is Senator John W. Daniel of Virginia.