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Thaddeus Stevens. 
 
THADDEUS STEVENS: 
 
 COMMONEB. 
 
 E. B. CALLENDER. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 A. WILLIAMS AND COMPANY. 
 
 ©Xa (S'Omet l&aak%iaxz. 
 
 1882. 
 
y4 2.-^Z^6- 
 
 ^\UBRARY 
 
 Copyright, 1882, 
 By A. WiLMAMS & Co. 
 
 BOSTOK STEEEOTTPE FOUITDBT, 
 4 FEABI. 8TB£BT. 
 
AUTHOE'S PEEFACE. 
 
 It has been remarked that republics are un- 
 grateful to their servants. The people forget 
 the great services rendere'd by those who have 
 put self out of sight in their desire to serve 
 others. Especially true is this in an age like 
 the present — so full of political curiosity and 
 so wanting in political talent. With the desire 
 of calling attention to the inestimable value to 
 the nation of the life of that great public ser- 
 vant, Thaddeus Stevens, and the importance of 
 his stalwart policy in securing the results of the 
 war, the author has written. The unthinking 
 endeavor to cast a stigma on the word stalwart 
 by associating it with the spoils system. But 
 it means more than that. The word stands for 
 that bold, courageous, and loyal policy which 
 will be the lasting glory of the Eepublican 
 party. No one better represented it than 
 
 iii 
 
iv AUTSOB'S PSEFACE. 
 
 Thaddeus Stevens. We may call him "the first 
 stalwart. " 
 
 The author expresses the hope that the exam- 
 ination of the " great commoner's " record may 
 lead others to a greater appreciation of the 
 Pennsylvania statesman's services, and of the 
 grand work accomplished by a direct, manly, 
 and stalwart policy in national affairs. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEB FAGB 
 
 I. Eaelt Life — Education — Profession 7 
 
 II. Mason and Anti-Mason ... 18 
 
 m. Free School — Buckshot Wab . . 31 
 
 rv. The Philippics 55 
 
 V. Ad Intekim — Republican Partt . . 78 
 
 VI. Heroic Epoch 100 
 
 VII. Fond Gaillard 152 
 
 Vin. Goes over to the Majority . . 162 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 I. Missouri Compromise . 
 II. Sumner's Eulogt . 
 
 169 
 
 200 
 
THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 COMMONER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EAELT LIFE. EDUCATION. PROFESSION. 
 
 The political world ti'ied to wake up about 
 the last part of the eighteenth century. The 
 American revolution was a start in the dark. 
 The French revolution was a nightmare — the 
 world tried to wake. It could only open its 
 eyes for a second, tortiously struggle, "swear 
 a prayer or two, then sleep again." Eeform 
 bills in England, abolition of the slave-trade, 
 and the like, were but twists and turns. It was 
 not till "emancipation," "suffrage," "amnesty," 
 and reconstruction had supplemented "all men 
 are created equal" with "all men continue 
 equal," that the world fairly awoke. In that 
 great awakening there was one who more than 
 any other, it seems to me, was a mastering spirit 
 and genius. When this nineteenth century 
 shall be peacefully laid away (if the century 
 that gave birth to telegraphs and railroads and 
 
8 THADDEUS STEVEN^S. 
 
 steamboats and sewing-machines and reapers 
 and the free ballot and liberty and equality can 
 ever be laid peacefully away) , I doubt if among 
 all the " large-hearted heroes bom in better 
 years," the muse of history wiU find one more 
 hostile to slavery, more devoted to freedom, 
 more desirous of happiness and equality for all 
 men, than Thaddeus Stevens, sumamed the 
 " Great Commoner." Garrison's fame may last 
 longer, but Garrison was only an abolitionist. 
 He agitated nothing beyond that. When 1863 
 brought emancipation, he declared the work 
 done. Even Sumner, at first, merely declared 
 hostility to the slave oligarchy. Lincoln said, 
 " I drift," and waited for the people's voice. 
 But Stevens, throughout his whole career, never 
 had but one purpose, — absolute equality for 
 all men before the law. 
 
 I do not propose a complete biography. 
 The time has not come for that. In an age 
 when political impotency is confounded with 
 political chastity, it is useless to draw the pic- 
 ture of a man. But, while it is yet day, and 
 before the nation has wholly followed the 
 strange gods of political sestheticism and im- 
 becility, it is well to ponder for a moment over 
 ;the record of one who was a man, a hero, a 
 king. 
 
TEADDSm STEVENS. 9 
 
 I will not dwell upon his ancestry. It was 
 lowly enough, no doubt. It had to be, to pro- 
 duce so human and great a character as his. 
 The nearer to the earth, the nearer to the com- 
 mon parent, endless generator of all energies. 
 Like all men of genius, Stevens derived his dis- 
 tinguishing characteristics from his mother, a 
 woman who possessed great strength of mind, 
 and whose will was iron. The story of his 
 parents is best told by himself. " I really think 
 the greatest gratification of my life resulted 
 from my ability to give my mother a farm of 
 two hundred and fifty acres, and a dairy of four- 
 teen cows, and an occasional bright gold piece, 
 which she loved to deposit in the contributors' 
 box of the Baptist Church, which she attended. 
 This always gave her great pleasure, and me 
 much satisfaction. My mother was a very ex- 
 traordinary woman. I have met very few 
 women like her. My father was not a well- 
 to-do man, and the support and education of 
 the family depended on my mother. She 
 worked day and night to educate me. I was 
 feeble and lame in youth ; and, as I could not 
 work on the farm, she concluded to give me an 
 education. I tried to repay her afterwards, but 
 the debt of a child to his mother, you know, is 
 one of the debts we can never pay. Poor 
 
10 THADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 woman ! The very thing I did to gratify 
 her most hastened her death. She was very 
 proud of her dairy and fond of her cows ; 
 and, one night going to look after them, she 
 fell and injured herself, so that she died soon 
 after." 
 
 Alexander Harris, in a r^sum^ of the charac- 
 ter of Thaddeus Stevens, contained in his work, 
 " The Political Conflict in America," tells how 
 this mother, during the terrible spotted-fever 
 plague, became a ministering angel to all the 
 people for many miles around her home, 
 visiting from family to family, and reliev- 
 ing their needs in every capacity in which she 
 was able to help them. In these visits she was 
 attended by young Thaddeus, who, on these 
 circuits of mercy, obtained a glimpse of life 
 which left an indelible impress on mind and 
 heart alike. Such sights of pain and poverty 
 and death so operated upon his sensibilities as to 
 make him ever afterwards kindly disposed to the 
 sick and poor of every class. " To such," says 
 Mr. Harris, " to the end of his life, he was ever 
 ready to extend a helping hand." Dr. Henry 
 Carpenter, of Lancaster, who was Mr. Stevens's 
 physician for many years, as well as an intimate 
 friend, tells the following incident : Lydia Jane 
 P , a Quaker widow of considerable literary 
 
THADDEUS STEVENS. 11 
 
 taste and ability, Avith whose husband Mr. 
 Stevens had been well acquainted, was left with 
 a family, and in very destitute circumstances. 
 First, Stevens gave her a farm in fee simple. 
 Then, desiring still further to help her, he 
 brought her eldest son, Byron P , to Lan- 
 caster to educate him. The boy had disease of 
 the knee-joint, which rendered that member 
 stiff. Soon after Byron's arrival in Lancaster, 
 Mr. Stevens called on Dr. Carpenter, and asked 
 him if he had noticed the boy. He replied that 
 he had, and stated his trouble. Mr. Stevens 
 said that a good many physicians had been con- 
 sulted, who said that nothing could be done, 
 and asked the doctor if he could do anything to 
 relieve him. He replied that he could, and after 
 about five weeks' treatment the boy was able to 
 walk about. And as soon as Mr. Stevens saw 
 him out without crutches, he was delighted, and 
 expressed his thanks and gratitude to the doc- 
 tori He wished to know what the charge was, 
 and when the physician replied, that it was 
 a matter of benevolence on all sides, and 
 there was no charge, he insisted upon giving 
 him a very handsome fee, saying, at the same 
 time, — " Now, doctor, if you come across 
 any poor boy that is deformed or disabled in 
 his limbs in any manner, take him in hand 
 
12 TEADDSUS STEVENS. 
 
 and relieve him, and I will pay you liberally 
 for it." 
 
 So Thaddeus Stevens was born to poverty, 
 enslaved by physical deformity, acquainted with 
 the ills of others. With such surroundings in 
 his youth, it was natural that he should follow 
 straight the road which led therefrom ; to toil 
 for those who could not work ; to speak for 
 those whose lips were dumb ; to lift the trodden- 
 down, and make the cause of the oppressed his 
 own. And hence a commoner. 
 
 The place of his birth was Danville, Cale- 
 donia County, Vermont. The date, April 4, 
 1792. It was a proper year for his birth. It 
 was the year England voted the gradual aboli- 
 tion of the slave-trade ! It was the year that 
 saw Louis XVI. dethroned, and the French 
 Revolution born ! It was the year that prepared 
 Hayti for Toussaint and emancipation. I say it 
 was a proper year for the birth of one, who, 
 more than any other man, was to destroy human 
 slavery and pronounce human equality on this 
 Western Continent. The education which his 
 mother procured for young Stevens was by no 
 means inferior, and in 1815 he graduated at 
 Dartmouth College, and immediately found oc- 
 cupation as a teacher in the Academy of Dr. 
 Perkins, at York, Pennsylvania. At that time 
 
TEADDEVS STEVENS. 13 
 
 he is described by a gentleman who then resided 
 in the same place, as " one of the most back- 
 ward, retiring, and modest young men he had 
 ever seen." 
 
 " But at his desk he had the look 
 And air of one who wisely schemed, 
 And hostage from the future took, 
 In trainfed thought and lore of hooks. 
 Large-brained, clear-eyed, — of such as he 
 Shall Freedom's grand, apostles be." 
 
 Engaged in preparing himself for the law, he 
 passed some time here following the course so 
 many great advocates before him had trod — 
 teaching by day, the horn books at night. But 
 when the time had come for admission to the 
 bar, to his surprise he found the door closed. 
 For certain members of the bar in the county 
 where he had been living, had passed resolutions 
 to the eflFect that no person should be recognized 
 as a lawyer who followed any other vocation 
 whilst preparing himself for admission. The 
 blow was aimed at Stevens. It is difficult to 
 imagine what cause of dislike they possessed 
 against him. Was it the contempt which thor- 
 oughly trained lawyers always have for their 
 less fortunate brothers, who are obliged to 
 acquire their knowledge in the hard, practical 
 road of life, struggling for existence ? Or did 
 
14 THADDEU8 STEVENS. 
 
 they accuse him of " not belonging to the ' bettei 
 element,'" that potent argument of moderr 
 times ! Or, perhaps, like the independents of 
 the present day, who cannot find a flaw in ar 
 opponent's character, they shrugged their shoul- 
 ders and said darkly, "we object to his methods" 
 Stevens was equal to the emergency. He quietlj 
 made his way to Harford County, Maryland, 
 where he applied to the court then in session foi 
 admission, was examined, a certificate grantee 
 him, and in a few days, settled at Gettysburg, 
 he began the practice of the law. The exhibi- 
 tion of selfish exclusiveness and discriminatior 
 on the part of the York bar was another circum- 
 stance to urge him on in his work to obtain foi 
 all an equal chance. 
 
 It was a dark opening. He had few friends. 
 He had little money. His fellow-members of 
 the bar were Pharisees of the strictest type, 
 They referred to him as the " club-footed attor- 
 ney." The poorer class of clients came to him. 
 Most of these had been discarded by his rivals. 
 What little money he had saved slowly dwindlec 
 away. Poverty stared him in the face. Failure 
 seemed imminent. At times the hours were 
 unendurable. At times he determined to givt 
 up the profession. Almost broken-hearted ht 
 struggled and struggled, hope ever growing 
 
TBADDEUS STEVENS. 15 
 
 fainter. Strange, when life is merely a scene 
 of invariable melancholy, where every moment 
 is a moment of anguish, that we should wish to 
 continue on that scene and prolong that moment, 
 fearful lest the next may bring a severer fate. 
 What power of attraction there is in mere exist- 
 ence, with its illusions of joy and realities of 
 sorrow I And yet we cling to it like the ship- 
 wrecked mariner to the floating spar. The 
 indomitable will his mother gave him was all 
 that was left him, when at last the morning 
 broke. A murder had been committed in the 
 neighborhood. So brutal were the circumstances 
 surrounding it, no lawyer of standing could be 
 retained for the defence. In despair the friends 
 of the accused went to Mr. Stevens, who accepted 
 the retainer. To the preparation and trial of 
 this cause he brought all his talents and energy. 
 The verdict was against his client, but his adroit 
 and brilliant defence was as great a surprise to 
 every one as was Patrick Henry's early forensic 
 triumph when he " pleaded against the parsons." 
 The lane had turned. From this onward, the 
 sun shone. In an incredibly short time his 
 clientelage assumed large proportions. He 
 became a real estate owner. His fame spread 
 through neighboring counties. He was a man 
 of influence in the town. Success was assured. 
 
16 TSAVDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 In those days a lawyer's reputation could be 
 made or marred by a single case. The nearness 
 of Gettysburg to Maryland, whence slaves were 
 constantly escaping into the free states, gave 
 opportunity to Stevens, who defended many of 
 the refugees, to take a close look at that pecu- 
 liar institution, curse to North and South alike. 
 That look left lasting impress. In other years, 
 the sighs of his unfortunate clients, fleeing from 
 slavery, might have been heard in the philippics 
 he thundered against the champions of barbarism. 
 The struggles of those unfortunate ones found 
 utterance in the great statutes of freedom the 
 commoner spread upon his country's roll. Could 
 we get at all the facts, I think we should find 
 this early life at Gettysburg the growing period 
 in his life, the heroic time. One's heart goes 
 out to a man struggling as he did under aU 
 difficulties — deformed, friendless, half starved, 
 hated, perhaps feared. Fighting terrific odds ; 
 fighting alone. Fighting for what? Himself? 
 You cannot explain it on that theory. Was it 
 fame? No man held it lighter. Was it wealth? 
 No man cared less for it. When he died, they 
 found among his effects bills and notes to the 
 extent of a hundred thousand dollars, which he 
 never pressed for payment, knowing the makers 
 needed the money more than he did. That long 
 
THADDEUS STEVENS. 17 
 
 struggle had something deeper in it than mere 
 gain. You can trace back every act and word 
 of his life to those bitter days. They were 
 times of terror to him. But, as Emerson says, 
 "times of terror are generally times of heroism." 
 Stevens found the door of " the throng, miscalled 
 society," closed against him ; saw only the vices 
 and abuses of social life, its knaves and dupes, 
 and he was arrayed against it. He had visions 
 of misery he would have no other know, and his 
 hand was opened to the human need. He had 
 studied his profession under difficulties, he would 
 extend education " without money and without 
 price" to all. He had looked upon the victim 
 of the fetter and the lash, and he labored for his 
 release. He found men hostile to each other, 
 felt the truth of the lines, — 
 
 " Amid the woods the tiger knows his kind, 
 The panther preys not on the panther brood, 
 Man only is the common foe of man," 
 
 and he would break the barrier which separates 
 them and offer the inheritance to all. This was 
 the result of those early difficulties. It was a 
 Gettysburg, indeed, — a mortal struggle and a 
 happy victory. 
 
CHAPTER n. 
 
 MASON AND ANTI-MASON. ENTRANCE INTO 
 
 POLITICS. A PENNSYLVANIA LEGISLATOR. 
 
 On September 26, 1831, the first national 
 anti-masonic convention assembled at Baltimore 
 Twelve States were represented, the New Eng- 
 land and Middle States, Ohio and Maryland 
 making the number. Among the delegates 
 present, the following stood conspicuous : Abner 
 Phelps and Amasa Walker, of Massachusetts; 
 Benj. F. Hallett, of Rhode Island; William 
 Henry Seward, James Geddes, Myron HoUey, 
 and William G. Verplanck, of New York ; the 
 Vanderpoels, of New Jersey ; Samuel McKee- 
 han, Owen Stover, and Thaddeus Stevens, of 
 Pennsylvania. Massachusetts, New York, and 
 Pennsylvania sent complete delegations. Only 
 one delegate was present, south of Mason and 
 Dixon's line, namely, from Maryland. It was 
 the first national political convention in which 
 Mr. Stevens had a seat ; and he made his mark. 
 The delegates from the Eastern States went 
 home with the inquiry, " Why have we not heard 
 18 
 
TEADDEUS STEVENS. 19 
 
 of Lawyer Stevens before ? To them he was the 
 most eloquent man in the convention. On Sep- 
 tember 28, a ballot was taken for President and 
 Vice-President, resulting in the nomination of 
 "William Wirt (once a mason) and Amos Ell- 
 maker, I'espectively. Both candidates received 
 one hundred and eight out of one hundred and 
 eleven votes cast. Mr. Wirt's letter of accept- 
 ance was admirable in its tone. Like every- 
 thing that charming man did, it was patriotic 
 and wise. " Not only," wrote Mr. Wirt, " have 
 I never sought the office, but I have, long since, 
 looked at it with far more dread than desire, 
 being fully aware of its dreadful responsibilities, 
 and of the fact, demonstrated in past experience, 
 that no degree of purity and intelligence that can 
 be exerted in the discharge of its duties, can 
 protect the possessor from misrepresentation and 
 aspersion. " After congratulating the convention 
 that the object of its members was not to pro- 
 scribe all who were masons, but merely to assert 
 the supremacy of the constitution and the laws, 
 he proceeded as follows : " Any secret society, 
 which by the force of mysterious oaths and obli- 
 gations, and by the extent of its combination, 
 seeks to disturb the action of our laws, to set 
 them at defiance, to ride over and control them, 
 to usurp the government, to hold the lives, peace 
 
20 THADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 and happiness of society at their mercy, and to 
 establish a reign of terror over the initiated and 
 uninitiated, is a political monster, as fearful as 
 the invisible tribunal of Germany, or the in- 
 quisition of Spain, and ought to be extirpated, 
 without delay, by the use of all the peaceable 
 means which the constitution and laws of our 
 country furnish." Farther on he declared that, 
 from his own experience, and from what had 
 been told him, and from the fact of Washington's 
 connection with the order, he assured the con- 
 vention that he could not believe the intentions 
 of the masons were at war with their duties as 
 patriotic men and Christians. " I have continually 
 regarded masonry as nothing more than a social 
 and charitable club for the promotion of good 
 feeling among its members, and for the pecuni- 
 ary relief of their indigent brethren." The letter 
 was too moderate to suit the more ardent anti- 
 masons, but the majority felt satisfied that it 
 would place the party in a most patriotic light. 
 Mr. Wirt's estimate of the convention may be 
 found in a letter written by him to Salmon P. 
 Chase, under date of November 11, 1831. He 
 there says, " the convention was one of the most 
 respectable assemblies I have ever seen, either 
 in a legislative or any other character. The Chief 
 Justice of the United States [John Marshall] , 
 
TSADDEUS STEVENS. 21 
 
 and several other gentlemen, myself among 
 them, were invited to attend a reading of some 
 of their reports ; and never have I witnessed 
 the display of more talent and dignity on any 
 occasion." But the campaign was one-sided 
 from the start. With Gen. Jackson, Henry Clay, 
 and Floyd in the field, the ra(?e was a hopeless 
 one for Wirt. But throughout it all, he main- 
 tained an honorable dignity, a freedom from 
 personality and a patriotic course, rare even 
 among the best of men. Xo pressure or emer- 
 gency ever stirred him to commit any sharp 
 trick, or make any bargain. Writing to his 
 friend. Judge Carr, December 5, 1831, he says : 
 " It has been suggested to me by a clergyman, 
 that the Presbyterians are thinking of coming to 
 my aid. I belong to their church. They are 
 said to number a hundred and twenty thousand 
 votes. My advice to them is, to stick to their 
 religion, and not to sully it by mixing in political 
 strife. They will make more hypocrites than 
 Christians by such a course." Later presidential 
 aspirants have not been thus delicate. The 
 result of the contest was two hundred and nine- 
 teen electoral votes for Gen. Jackson, forty-nine 
 for Clay, eleven for Floyd, seven for Wirt. The 
 seven votes received by Mr. Wirt came from 
 Vermont (the state of Thaddeus Stevens' birth) . 
 
22 THADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 At this day it is hard to realize the height 
 reached by party spirit in this attempted de- 
 struction of masonry. Prominent men deserted 
 the order. That the movement was looked upon 
 by wise and virtuous men as proper and neces- 
 sary, it is sufficient to point to the names of 
 Adams, William Henry Seward, Myron Holley, 
 Carroll of Carrollton, John Marshall, Richard 
 Rush, Pliny Merrick, and Thaddeus Stevens. 
 These men believed the country to be in danger. 
 The abduction and murder of William Morgan 
 (who had in press a work detailing the secrets 
 of the first three degrees in masonry) by prom- 
 inent members of the masonic order, aroused 
 the greatest indignation throughout New York, 
 Pennsylvania, and New England. Those who 
 did not belong to the order saw in this violation 
 of law, an attempt to subvert the liberties of the 
 country. In the titles and honors of the order 
 the aiiti-masons thought they saw the building 
 up of an aristocratic and feudal hierarchy which 
 must eventually override the free institutions 
 of the land. In its secrecy, they saw plots and 
 treason. "Standing secrecy," said Thaddeus 
 Stevens, "always implies shame and guilt." In 
 its rules and regulations they saw the conceal- 
 ment of crime, and succor to the vicious. They 
 charged that in the first degree, the candidate 
 
TSADDSUS STEVENS. 23 
 
 pledges himself under oath, and upon forfeiture 
 of his life, if he does not redeem the pledge, to 
 ever conceal and never reveal the secrets of 
 masonry which he has then received, is about to 
 receive, or which niaj"^ thereafter be entrusted to 
 him. That among the secrets, which the candi- 
 date may and must be instructed in if he takes 
 the second degree, is that of his pledge of pas- 
 sive obedience to the laws of all the lodges and 
 all regular summonses sent him by a brother of 
 that degree. If he takes the third degree, 
 among those secrets are pledges to fly to the 
 relief of a brother of that degree, when mason- 
 ically required so to do, at the risk of his own 
 life ; should there be a greater probability of 
 saving the life of the brother requiring, than of 
 losing his own, to apprise a brother of all 
 approaching danger, if possible, and to conceal 
 the secrets of a brother master mason, when 
 communicated to him as such, murder and trea- 
 son only excepted, and they left at his discretion. 
 And if he takes the royal arch degree, among 
 those secrets are pledges to extricate a brother 
 of that degree from danger, if he can, whether 
 that brother be right or wrong, — to promote his 
 political preferment before that of all others 
 of equal qualifications, and to conceal his 
 secrets, murder and treason not excepted, so 
 
24 THADDEUS STMVENS. 
 
 that concealment of crime was made a masonic 
 duty. 
 
 They further charged that Morgan was mur- 
 dered on the 19th of September, 1826. That 
 to this fearful consummation none were privy, 
 but those who had, as masons, sworn to assist 
 each other, right or wrong, and to conceal each 
 other's murder and treason. That, after the 
 murder, all the precaution possible was taken 
 for concealing it, but this not proving success- 
 ful, and legal prosecution being threatened, the 
 criminals frequently met and consulted together 
 for their mutual safety. That the most influen- 
 tial among them insisted that, if called by the 
 legal authorities of the country to testify, they 
 one and all must swear they knew nothing of 
 the matter ; otherwise they would be forsworn 
 to masonry, and might lose the life they would 
 thus forfeit. That as witnesses, as magistrates, 
 as sheriffs, as grand jurors, as petit jurors, as 
 legislators, these masons and others with whom 
 they were intimate would know nothing about 
 it. That in all their civil relations they violated 
 their oaths and most sacred duties. That they 
 spirited away witnesses they feared would know 
 too much, they perjured themselves in court, 
 they prevented the judicial ascertainment and 
 punishment of the foulest criminals, they made 
 
TEADDEU8 STEVIINS. 25 
 
 common cause in behalf of these criminals 
 against the rights of the citizens and the laws of 
 land. When people cried out that Washington 
 was a mason, they admitted that Washington 
 and his brother officers of glorious memory were 
 masons ; but pointed to the fact, that farther 
 than the third degree they did not go in the 
 early days of our independence, that Washing- 
 ton never visited a lodge but once or twice 
 after 1768, that he never presided in one, and 
 that afterwards he in effect renounced masonry. 
 They sneered at the credulity of those Avho be- 
 lieved in the antiquity of the institution, and 
 showed that the origin of speculative masonry 
 was traced to the year 1717, in England, and 
 the averments of a more ancient deduction were 
 entirely fabulous. No arguments could make 
 an anti-mason think otherwise. He believed 
 the nation's life imperilled, and he cried " havoc, 
 and let slip the dogs of war." In Massachusetts, 
 Abner Phelps, Thomas Walley, William Mar- 
 ston, and others, by memorial, prayed Gover- 
 nor Levi Lincoln to interfere and put a stop 
 to masonry within the borders of the Bay 
 State. . The governor, while sympathizing with 
 many of their views, felt his official position 
 would not warrant his interference, and re- 
 fused the prayer. In New York the mails were 
 
26 TEABDEXJS STEVENS. 
 
 flooded with petitions and memorials begging 
 the governor's aid. But the best organization 
 of the anti-masons was to be found in Pennsyl- 
 vania, shaped by the hand of Thaddeus Stevens. 
 Open as the day, he hated the secrecy of night. 
 Believing in equal opportunities for all, his 
 spirit was avoused that there were privileges 
 and rights possessed by a few, which could not 
 become the property of the many. Kemember- 
 ing the Constitution abolished titles, he saw in 
 the appellations of masonic votaries an enmity to 
 the spirit of our laws. He looked abroad and 
 saw in the free States men protesting against 
 the exclusive order ; he turned to the baronial 
 States of the South and heard no murmur. 
 Where slavery existed, masonry flourished ; 
 where freedom and equality ruled, it decayed. 
 His mind was made up. This way his path led. 
 No privileges, no exclusive rights, no imperium 
 in imperio was his motto. He was among the 
 first to take up the cudgel, and the very last to lay 
 it down. As an anti-mason he took his seat in 
 the lower house of the Pennsylvania Legislature 
 in the fall of 1833. The anti-masons had re- 
 ceived a severe defeat in the late presidential 
 campaign. But defeat was nothing to a man 
 like Stevens. He immediately made himself the 
 leader of the anti-masons, and organized the 
 
TBADDEUS STEVEN'S. 
 
 members of the Legislature of that persuas 
 into a thoroughly trained force, of which he ^ 
 the absolute ruler. His first step was to int 
 duce the foUowino: resolution : : — 
 
 ■'D 
 
 " Resolved, That a committee be appointed 
 inquire into the expediency of providing by 1 
 for making Freemasonry a good cause of p 
 emptory challenge to jurors in all cases, wl 
 one of the parties is a Freemason and the ot 
 is not ; and on the part of the Commonweal 
 in all prosecutions for crimes and misdemeanc 
 when the defendant is a mason ; and also, wl 
 the judge and one of the parties are Freei 
 sons, to make the same provisions for the tri 
 of causes as now exist when the judge and eit 
 of the parties are related to each other by bl( 
 or marriage ; and to make the same provis 
 relative to the summoning and return of jure 
 where the sheriff and either of the parties 
 Freemasons, as now exists where they are 
 lated to each other by blood or marriage ; i 
 that said committee have power to send for p 
 sons and papers." 
 
 On the second reading of the resolution, 
 vote was thirty-four yeas to forty-five nays, i 
 Mr. Stevens was defeated. Nothing daunt 
 
28 THADDEXfS STEVENS. 
 
 he held closely to his cause. The next year, or 
 a resolution offered by him, instructing the 
 judiciary committee to bring in a bill to sup- 
 press masonry, he was again defeated, the vote 
 standing thirty-eight to fifty-eight. But the 
 year following, he secured the appointment of a 
 committee to investigate the evils of Freema- 
 sonry and other secret societies. This com- 
 mittee was called the " Star Chamber Com- 
 mittee." It at once entered upon its work, and 
 subpcenas were served upon many of the most 
 distinguished masons in the State. But those 
 who had received subpoenas refused to testify. 
 They claimed the State had no right to interfere 
 with any organization which did not hinder jus- 
 tice or obstruct the laws ; that the institution 
 of masonry existed when the Constitution was 
 adopted, and it was unconstitutional therefore 
 now to destroy it ; that it was an institution 
 which existed for mutual enjoyment and im- 
 provement, and the Constitution of the United 
 States guaranteed the right of pursuit of happi- 
 ness. The committee, thus balked, appeared 
 before the house, and asked authority to com- 
 mit for contempt. This was refused, and the 
 investigation fell through. Well, this was a 
 defeat, some will say. True, but the general- 
 
T3ADi)i:US STEVENS. 29 
 
 admiration from the most bitter masons. Look 
 at it for a moment. In 1831 the anti-masons 
 had received a crushing defeat. The movement 
 received a decisive check. In 1833 and in 1834, 
 in the Pennsylvania Legislature, Stevens and the 
 anti-masons were signally defeated. In Massa- 
 chusetts, and even in New York, the struggle 
 was at an end, every one had lost his interest in 
 the matter. But in 1835 we find Stevens has 
 carried his point and obtained his committee. 
 Now, that could only have been accomplished 
 by a master tactician. That required the highest 
 grade of generalship, and it was given by Ste- 
 vens. At this late day one can judge coolly of 
 the merits of that struggle. There is little doubt 
 that those masons who sympathized with the 
 Morgan crusade forgot their civil duties. There 
 is also little doubt of the fact that the masonic 
 fraternity has ever contained among its members 
 many of the best patriots this country has pro- 
 duced. But there is one thing the agitation 
 produced which cannot be forgotten. The 
 attention of men was called to the true princi- 
 ples of republican government, to the impro- 
 priety of titles, to the necessity of equal privi- 
 leges for all, to the great ideas of freedom and 
 equality. In one respect this was of vital in- 
 terest to the country. Anti-masonry received 
 
30 THADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 its final defeat in 1835. The same year the 
 abolition of slavery became a question of na- 
 tional importance in American politics. The 
 anti-masonic agitation had no small eflfect in 
 rousing the anti-slavery sentiment. The one 
 question disappeared, the other made the 
 most important issue in our politics. I think 
 the desire of equality and freedom, which ani- 
 mated the anti-masons, was not destroyed, but 
 was transferred to the anti-slavery movement. 
 Why there should have existed at that particular 
 time such a burning thirst for freedom and 
 equality in the breasts of so many, cannot be 
 explained. Like as at certain periods in the 
 world's history, assassination and atheism have 
 been epidemic. You cannot explain it. You 
 cannot hide it. It exists. That is sufficient. 
 It is in the air. Many of the distinguished 
 anti-masons became the leaders in the new agi- 
 tation. Seward and Adams and Holley and 
 Stevens and a host of others passed into the 
 control of the new movement that was to be the 
 crowning glory of America. 
 
CHAPTER ni. 
 
 THE FREE SCHOOL. — THE BUCKSHOT WAE. 
 
 The Pennsylvania Constitution of 1790 pro- 
 vided that " tiie Legislature, as soon as may be, 
 shall provide by law for the establishment of 
 schools throughout the State, in such manner 
 that the poor may be taught gratis." But it was 
 not till 1834 that a bill establishing a general 
 free school system could be passed. And then 
 so great was the opposition to it among the 
 Democrats, that at the next election an anti-free 
 school Legislature was chosen. [Strange that 
 the Democracy partake so largely of the ad- 
 vantages of the free schools, and yet so bitterly 
 antagonize them.] Thaddeus Stevens naturally 
 enough became the ardent supporter of the free 
 school educational system, and was its special 
 champion on the floor of the House. The 
 hostility of the Democracy and the wealthy tax- 
 payers of Pennsylvania to its new education 
 system in 1835 is almost incredible to the 
 present generation ! Mr. Stevens was returned 
 from his own county only by a small majority, 
 
 31 
 
32 THADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 and under positive instructions to vote for the 
 repeal of the law. Instead of doing so, he 
 became its chief defender, and when the bill 
 repealing the law came from the Senate, where 
 it had passed, to the House, he made what is 
 conceded to have been the most eflfective speech 
 of his life. In fact, he himself styled his labors 
 in that cause as "the crowning utility of his 
 life ; " and at another time he remarked he 
 should feel himself abundantly rewarded for all 
 his efforts in behalf of universal education if a 
 single child, educated by the Commonwealth, 
 should drop a tear of gratitude on his grave. 
 During its delivery in the hall of the House 
 at Harrisburg, the scene was dramatic and 
 the interest intense. The orator was forty- 
 three years old. He was in the fullness of his 
 vigor. There was nothing weak or literary 
 about him. His action was virile. His classic 
 countenance, noble voice, and directness of 
 style, coupled with the glorious cause he was 
 advocating, created such a feeling among his 
 fellow-members that for once at least a Legisla- 
 ture rose superior to all selfish interests, and 
 obeyed the instincts of a higher nature. The 
 motion to repeal the law failed, and the number 
 of votes pledged to sustain it were changed 
 upon the spot. Inevitable defeat at first seemed 
 
TSADDBUa STEVENS. 33 
 
 imminent ; but an unequivocal victory was the 
 result. The free school was saved to Pennsyl- 
 vania. The name of its savior was Thaddeus 
 Stevens. How hopeless the cause appeared at 
 the beginning of the session may be learned 
 from the fact that there were presented to the 
 Legislature 558 petitions with 31,988 names in 
 favor of the Repeal, and only 49 petitions, con- 
 taining but 2,575 signers, against it ! 
 
 For a brief moment I would call the attention 
 of the reader to certain events, of little im- 
 portance now (save so far as they show the 
 character of Mr. Stevens under trying circum- 
 stances) , known in Pennsylvania politics as the 
 " Buckshot War." 
 
 In the election of 1838, Charles J. Ingersol, 
 Democratic candidate for Congress in the Phila^ 
 delphia district, was declai-ed defeated by the 
 first count. His supporters believed him to 
 have been elected, and charged that frauds had 
 been committed in a district known as the 
 Northern Liberties, and demanded that the 
 whole vote of that district, amounting to four 
 or five thousand votes, should be thrown out. 
 This they asked of the return judges, who 
 numbered ten Democrats and seven Whigs, and 
 who, of course, decided the question on political 
 grounds. If the whole vote of the said district 
 
34 THADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 was disregarded, it made a vast difference in 
 the political complexion of the House and 
 Senate at Harrisburg. As the judges were 
 divided, two sets of returns declaring different 
 members elected were forwarded by the Whig 
 and Democratic judges respectively to the Sec- 
 retary of State. The Whig return reached the 
 Secretary first, wherefore he chose to consider 
 it the only legal one. The Whigs said they 
 had been cheated of their rights by Democratic 
 canards and false statements. The Democrats 
 contended that the Whigs were trying to force 
 a minority representation on them. Which 
 delegation would be received at Harrisbursf 
 was the one question on everybody's lips. 
 Thaddeus Stevens had made up his mind early, 
 as usual ; and immediately, as leader of tiie 
 WTiigs, laid his adroit plans. No man ever 
 received such Democratic maledictions as he 
 did. Every movement of the Whigs was 
 charged to him. It was said he was encour- 
 aging insurrection and disobedience to the laws. 
 He was called an arch traitor, a destroyer of 
 his country's peace. But it did not disturb the 
 commoner in the least. Nothing in the way of 
 personal abuse ever did. He relentlessly pur- 
 sued the course he had mapped out. At eleven 
 o'clock on the forenoon of Dec. 4, 1868, the 
 
THADDEXJS STEVENS. 35 
 
 clerk called the House to order, and both of 
 the Philadelphia returns were handed in and 
 received ; so the two delegations were ap- 
 parently admitted. So close were the two 
 parties numerically, that should either delega- 
 tion be thrown out, the other party would 
 organize the House. Great confusion prevailed 
 during the reading of the roll by the clerk. 
 As soon as the clerk finished the reading, 
 some one nominated one William Hopkins foi 
 speaker, and tellers were appointed. Now 
 came Mr. Stevens's opportunity. He rose in 
 his place, and, in a clear voice, named as 
 speaker Thomas S. Cunningham ; appointed 
 tellers, himself put the motion, announced his 
 candidate elected, and conducted him to the 
 chair. Such audacity fairly stunned the Hop- 
 kins party. But they soon recovered, and 
 under the lead of Thomas B. McElwee, pushed 
 Cunningham from his chair, and placed the 
 Democrat in his stead. And now the great- 
 est excitement and disorder prevailed. Botl 
 speakers were sworn in. One party adjourned 
 the House till 2.30 p. m. the next day; while 
 the other faction announced that the House 
 would meet the next day at ten. But the 
 Democrats left trusty guards around the capito] 
 
36 THADDEUS StJBVUNS. 
 
 At the meeting of the Senate there was great 
 confusion ; and Stevens, who was present as a 
 spectator, barely escaped with his life. Harris- 
 burg trembled with excitement. The governor 
 issued proclamations ; the civil magistrates did 
 likewise. The Democrats, thinking the Whigs 
 had possession of the arsenal, surrounded it, 
 and planted cannon in front in order to lay 
 siege to it. Everywhere men could be seen 
 moving in squads as if an insurrection were 
 imminent. Committees of safety and commit- 
 tees of conference were appointed. On Dec. 
 5, the governor wrote to the captain of the 
 United States Dragoons at Carlisle, impor- 
 tuning him forthwith to march the troops at 
 his command to Harrisburg, for the protection 
 of the constituted authorities of the Common- 
 wealth, for the suppression of the insurrection, 
 and for the preservation of our Republican form 
 of government, agreeably with the Constitution 
 of the United States. 
 
 Two days later he wrote to the President of 
 the United States, asking his aid and inter- 
 ference. To his request, the President (Mar- 
 tin Van Buren) , through the Secretary of War, 
 made an unfavorable reply. "The commo- 
 tion," he wrote, "which now threatens the peace 
 of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, does 
 
TEADDEUS STEVENS. 37 
 
 not appear to arise from any opposition to the 
 laws, but grows out of a political contest 
 between the different members of the govern- 
 ment, most, if not all of them, admitted to be 
 the legal representatives of the people consti- 
 tutionally elected, about their relative rights, 
 and especially in reference to the organization 
 of the popular branch of the Legislature. To 
 interfere in any commotion growing out of a 
 controversy of so grave and delicate a char- 
 acter, by the Federal authority, armed with 
 the military form of the government, would be 
 attended with dangerous consequences to our 
 republican institutions. In the opinion of the 
 President, his interference in any political com- 
 motion in a State, could only be justified by the 
 application for it, being clearly within the mean- 
 ing of the fourth section of the fourth article 
 of the Constitution, and of the Act of Con- 
 gress passed in pursuance thereof, and while 
 the domestic violence brought to his notice is 
 of such a character that the State authorities, 
 civil and military, after having been duly called 
 upon, have proved inadequate to suppress it." 
 The governor called for troops. A thousand, 
 under command of Gen. Patterson, came from. 
 Philadelphia. 'Gen. Alexander was m com- 
 mand at Harrisburg of a numbeTM troops 
 
38 THADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 from Carlisle. All over the State the militia 
 was being gathered together and put in order 
 for marching to the capital at a moment's notice. 
 The Cunningham party, seeing the danger of 
 longer continuing the struggle, and feeling per- 
 haps that their opponents had a primd facie 
 case at least, weakened and enough deserted to 
 the Hopkins House, to give that organization 
 a decided majority, and by Dec. 25 all had 
 gone over to the Hopkins Legislature, save 
 only one — Thaddeus Stevens. He could die. 
 He would never surrender. How fiercely par- 
 tisan spirit raged in this remarkable political 
 contest, may be seen from the testimony of 
 Col. Pleasanton, which I find in Niles' Na- 
 tional Eegister, vol. 57, p. 27. Col. Pleasanton 
 said: "On the 20th of January last, I called 
 to see Col. McElwee, a member of the House 
 of Representatives from Bedford, on some pub- 
 lic business, at his lodgings in the evening. He 
 was undressed, and about to go to bed, but 
 entered into conversation with me on the sub- 
 ject of my business, in the course of which he 
 referred to the character of the volunteer troops 
 from Philadelphia, who had been in service in 
 the preceding month of December at this place. 
 He spoke very favorably of them, and said that 
 it was well for them that so many of them were 
 
TBADDEUS STEVENS. 39 
 
 Democrats, as otherwise they would never have 
 lived to have reached Harrisburg. He then 
 stated that on the announcement here that the 
 troops from Philadelphia would obey the order 
 of the governor, and would march for Harris- 
 burg, it was agreed by himself and two or three 
 others whom he did not name, to prevent their 
 arrival at this place at all hazards, supposing at 
 the moment that, as the troops belonged to 
 Philadelphia, they were all Whigs, and favorable 
 to the State administration. To carry out this 
 agreement, he said it was determined to remove 
 a few of the rails on the railroad at the most 
 dangerous part of it, and also to form a mine 
 imder the most exposed part, to be filled with 
 gunpowder, so that in the confusion which 
 would arise from the train of cars containing 
 the troops being overthrown by thus running 
 off the track, the mine might be sprung, and the 
 whole body of them be blown into the air 
 together! For this purpose, he himself had 
 purchased three barrels of gunpowder, and 
 said that he had paid forty dollars out of his 
 own pocket for the purchase. To convince me 
 that he was serious in what he stated to have 
 been their design, he further said that his asso- 
 ciates therein were men of tried courage, and, 
 having been officers of the army during the 
 
40 THADDEU8 STEVEXfS. 
 
 late war, knew how to execute the project they 
 had conceived. This design was abandoned by 
 them in consequence of information having been 
 received subsequently to the purchase of the 
 gunpowder, that the troops then on their route 
 from Philadelphia were not all of the same 
 political party, a large portion of them belong- 
 ing to the Democratic party, to which Col. 
 McElwee and his associates also belonged. 
 He further said that it was to this circumstance 
 alone that the arrival of the troops from Phil- 
 adelphia at Harrisburg without injury or loss 
 was to be attributed. The design was aban- 
 doned because it would have been impossible to 
 have separated the Democrats from the Whigs 
 in its execution, and protected them from the 
 danger of the explosion." 
 
 As I said above, Mr. Stevens did not go over 
 to the majority. Pride and a consciousness of 
 being right in his own course prevented him. 
 He informed his constituents that he believed 
 the organization of the " Hopkins House " ille- 
 gal, and therefore ought not be expected to act 
 with it. Still he agreed to attend the special 
 session to be held in May of that year. At the 
 very beginning of the session his enemies en- 
 deavored to have his seat declared vacant. A 
 committee was appointed under a resolution 
 
THADDEWS STEVENS- 41 
 
 offered by McElwee to investigate Stevens's 
 claim to a seat and his forfeiture of the same. 
 The committee gave him notice of the time and 
 place of the hearing. To all of which he sent 
 a protest* stating his position. Thirty-eight 
 Democrats, hovrever, entered the following pro- 
 test to the action of the majority. It states so 
 clearly the principles involved in the discussion 
 that I give it in full. 
 
 " The Protest of the Democratic Members of the House of 
 Representatives, against the proceedings of the majority 
 of that body in relation to Mr. Stevens. 
 
 "The undersigned, members of the House of 
 Representatives, present the following reasons 
 for their vote on the resolution that the admis- 
 sion of Thaddeus Stevens ' be postponed for the 
 present, and that a committee of five be ap- 
 pointed to investigate the claims of the said 
 Thaddeus Stevens to a seat in the House of 
 Representatives of the Commonwealth of Penn- 
 sylvania, and whether he has, if duly elected, 
 forfeited his seat, by mal-conduct.' And the 
 undersigned demand, under the rules of this 
 House, that these reasons be placed upon the 
 journal thereof. The third section of the first 
 article of the Constitution provides that 'no 
 person shall be a representative who shall not 
 
 *NiIes' National Register, Vol. 56, p. 228. 
 
42 THADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 have attained the age of twenty-one years, and 
 have been a citizen and inhabitant of the State 
 three years next preceding his election, and the 
 last year thereof an inhabitant of the district in 
 and for which he shall be chosen a representa- 
 tive, unless he shall have been absent on the 
 public business of the United States or of this 
 State.' It is not disputed by the majority in 
 this House, nor by any member of it, that the 
 qualifications pointed out in this article, or 
 either of them, are possessed by Thaddeus 
 Stevens ; nor is it pretended that he was not 
 elected a representative of the county of Adams, 
 and that the certificate of his election was made 
 out, and returned through the Secretary of the 
 Commonwealth, according to the provisions of 
 the several acts relating to elections now in 
 force, and in strict conformity with the estab- 
 lished usages of this House. 
 
 " We contend, therefore, — First, That in the 
 absence of a constitutional qualification, the 
 speaker cannot refuse to administer the oath of 
 oflice to a member elect, when he appears at the 
 bar to be sworn : nor can the House, without 
 an illegal assumption of power, exclude such 
 member elect fi-om a seat. The inquiry contem- 
 plated by resolution above referred to, cannot 
 therefore be ordered, because the House has no 
 
TEADDEUS STiJVUNS. 43 
 
 power to punish a member elect for mal-con- 
 duct before admission. It matters not how 
 grave may be the charges brought against him, 
 — it matters not how gross may be his mal- 
 conduct as a private individual, — it is of no 
 consequence thjit he may have spoken or written 
 disrespectfully of the House or its members. 
 The Constitution nowhere indicates these thines 
 as operating to disqualify a member elect from 
 taking his seat in the first instance, and the 
 House has no legal power to raise a committee 
 to try an offender whom they have no power to 
 punish if found guilty of the charges preferred 
 against him. 
 
 " We contend, — Second, That the principles 
 advocated in this House, that non-user of office 
 is sufficient to work forfeiture, is false and un- 
 tenable in law as regards an elective representa- 
 tive office, and that no precedent can be found 
 even among the parliamentary records of Great 
 Britain for the establishment of such a doctrine, 
 though in that country the parliament is the 
 supreme power, and there is no written consti- 
 tution to restrain it, unless the Magna Charta 
 and the Bill of Eights may be considered to be 
 such. It is true that in England there are 
 offices of an executive character of which non- 
 user may cause a forfeiture ; but even there the 
 
44 TEADDEXJS STEVENS. 
 
 forfeiture must be declared while the non-user 
 continues i and before the claimant shall appear 
 to assume the duties of his trust. In a Re- 
 publican Government, where the Constitution 
 is the supreme law, no forfeiture can take 
 place except for causes indicated by the Con- 
 stitution itself. 
 
 " We contend, — Third, That this House has no 
 power to exclude a member elect for writing or 
 speaking contemptuously of the House, its pro- 
 ceedings, or its members, because a member 
 elect, being unqualified by oath, is to such in- 
 tents and purposes a private citizen ; and the 
 seventh section of the ninth article of the Con- 
 stitution which declares that ' the printing press 
 shall be free to every person who undertakes to 
 examine the proceedings of the legislature or 
 any branch of government, and no law shall 
 ever be made to restrain the right thereof,' 
 withdraws the citizen from any jurisdiction 
 which the legislature may seek to exercise for 
 the use of this privilege. 
 
 " We contend, — Fourth, That no vacancy has 
 been created in the representation of the county of 
 Adams by death or resignation ; and that in no 
 other conceivable mode could the seat of Thad- 
 deus Stevens have been vacated, but by the 
 action of the house or by law. He could not 
 
TEADDEUS STEVENS. 45 
 
 be expelled, because he was not a qualified 
 member of the house, and the house had no 
 power of expulsion from a seat he did not hold. 
 
 "It cannot be pretended that he has resigned, 
 for the reason that he could not resign to any 
 other than the presiding officer of the body of 
 which he was a member elect ; and no such 
 resignation has been made. The people of 
 Adams county, who elected him to a seat in 
 this house, could not have received his resigna- 
 tion, nor could they have proceeded to fill by a 
 new election the place so resigned; because 
 such an election would not be valid under the 
 Constitution, nor could the house have recog- 
 nized the validity by receiving the returns. 
 
 "If a vacancy could have been created by a 
 resolution of the house, or by law, then, if 
 such resolution or law had been passed, it would 
 have been the duty of the speaker, in accordance 
 with the nineteenth section of the first article of 
 the Constitution, and the provisions of the act 
 of the 10th of February, 1799, to issue his writ 
 directed to the sheriff of Adams county, com- 
 manding him, on a day therein expressed, to 
 hold an election for the supply of the vacancy. 
 No such resolution or law has been passed, and 
 therefore the right of Thaddeus Stevens to a 
 seat in this House has never been impaired, and 
 
46 TMADDEJTS STEVENS. 
 
 cannot now be disputed. For these reasons the 
 undersigned do solemnly protest against the 
 majority in refusing to admit Thaddeus Stevens, 
 a member elect from the county of Adams, to 
 his seat in this House — believing that such a 
 refusal is a direct violation of the law and the 
 Constitution, and involves a principle destructive 
 of the rights and liberties of the people of this 
 Commonwealth . " 
 
 The committee appointed under McElwee's 
 resolution made a report adverse to Mr. Stevens, 
 and on the resolution declaring the seat of Mr. 
 Stevens vacant, the vote was fifty-eight in favor 
 of, to thirty-four against, the resolution. A 
 special election was thereupon ordered, and Mr. 
 Stevens was chosen by a handsome vote. He 
 then presented himself to the legislature and 
 took the oath of oflSce. I am indebted to Niles' 
 Register * for Mr. Stevens's address to his con- 
 stituents at the time of this special election. 
 The address is as follows : — 
 
 " Fellow-Citizens : In accordance with youc 
 wishes, I presented myself to the body now 
 exercising the duties of the House of Represen- 
 tatives of this Commonwealth, and desired to 
 have administered to me the oath prescribed by 
 
 * Vol. 56, p. 216. 
 
THADDBUa BTEVBNa. 47 
 
 law. A majority of that body, using the same 
 unconstitutional and unlawful means which 
 invested them with official authority, refused to 
 allow me to occupy that seat to which I had 
 been called by the free choice of my fellow- 
 citizens. Under the most shallow, hypocritical 
 and false pretences, they have declared my seat 
 vacant, and imposed upon you the expense of a 
 new election, to be held on the 14th of June 
 next. In doing so, they have committed an 
 unprecedented outrage on the rights of the 
 people. If submitted to by the people, liberty 
 has become but a mere name. Already is the 
 Constitution suspended, and the most sacred 
 contracts between the State and individuals 
 are violated with the most daring and reckless 
 audacity. The tyrants who have usurped power 
 have determined to oppress and plunder the 
 people. It is for you to say whether you will 
 be their willing slaves. If they are permitted 
 finally to triumph, you hold your liberty, your 
 lives, your reputation, and your property at 
 their will alone. 
 
 "I had hoped that no circumstances would 
 occur which would render it necessary for me 
 to be again a candidate for your suffrages. 
 Both my inclination and my interest require me 
 to retire from public life. But I will not exe- 
 
48 TSADVEUS STEVENS. 
 
 cute that settled intention when it will be 
 construed into cowardice or despondency. To 
 refuse to be a candidate now would be seized 
 upon by my enemies as evidence that I distrust 
 the people, and am afraid to entrust to them the 
 redress of their own wrongs. I feel no such 
 fear, no such distrust. Without intending any 
 invidious comparison, I have always said what 
 I still believe, that the people of Adams county 
 have more intelligence, and not less honesty, 
 than the people of any county of the State. To 
 such a people I can have no fear in appealing 
 against lawless aggression. To them I appeal to 
 restore to me that which was theii* free gift, and 
 therefore my right, and of which I have been 
 robbed by those who 'feel power and forget 
 right.' 
 
 "I present myself to you as a candidate to fill 
 that vacancy which was created to wound my 
 and your feelings. I do not want to receive a 
 party nomination from my friends. The ques- 
 tion now to be decided is above party considera- 
 tions, and would be disgraced by sinking it to 
 the level of a party contest. Every freeman 
 must be impelled to resist this public outrage 
 as a personal wrong to himself. Everything 
 dear to him in his country, — his liberty, the 
 liberty of his children, and the title to his 
 
THADDEU8 STEVEN'S. 49 
 
 property, — admonish him to rise above every 
 paltry personal consideration, and rebuke tyr- 
 anny at that great tribunal of freedom — the 
 ballot box. 
 
 "While, however, you are determined, reso- 
 lute and energetic, let me implore you not to 
 imitate the example of our oppressors, but do 
 everything calmly and temperately. This ad- 
 monition is hardly necessary to the orderly 
 citizens of Adams county ; but when oppression 
 is so intolerable as at present, it is difficult for 
 the most peaceable and quiet men to control 
 their indignation. 
 
 " With respect and gratitude, your obedient 
 servant, Thaddeus Stevens. 
 
 " Haeeisbukg, May 25, 1839." 
 
 It is interesting to note how the " whirligig 
 of time brings its revenges round." A year 
 afterwards this very McElwee, who had taken 
 the leading part in excluding Mr. Stevens, was 
 himself expelled from the Legislature by a vote 
 of fifty-eight to twenty-six, and did not present 
 himself as a candidate for re-election. 
 
 I have dwelt on this subject of the " Buckshot 
 War," not because it is of any special interest 
 to-day, but simply because it gives us an insight 
 into the courage, adroitness, and virile tactics 
 
50 TEADDEU8 STMVUJVS. 
 
 of the man who but a few years before had been 
 described as " backward, retiring and modest." 
 In this manner does defeat and difficulty 
 strengthen, while success weakens. On every 
 question, save that of education, had he suf- 
 fered defeat ; but from every reverse he grew 
 stronger. Like Antaeus, invigorated by touch- 
 ing his mother earth, he rose the stronger for the 
 fall. The audacious manner in which he nom- 
 inated and declared elected his own candidate 
 for speaker, his utter lack of fear, as regards 
 results when in the right, his aversion to com- 
 promise, his refusal to barter away his manliness 
 and honor for personal advantages, were typical 
 of the man, and were the distinguishing charac- 
 teristics of his later years. The Thaddeus 
 Stevens of reconstruction fame is plainly re- 
 cognizable in the representative from Adams 
 county. It is all there, — courage, power, 
 persistency, honor. They were all his. In 
 1841 he left the Legislature and devoted him- 
 self to his profession. At the time, the Harris- 
 burg Telegraph paid a well deserved tribute to 
 Mr. Stevens' ability and character as a legislator, 
 which I now append. I am indebted to Mr. 
 Harris's work for knowledge of it : — 
 
 " To judge of the varied powers of Thaddeus 
 Stevens, it is only necessary to review his 
 
THADDEXra STEVENS. 51 
 
 course during the brief limit of the present 
 session. In this review would be included his 
 powerful argument on the right of petitions, 
 even from a meeting of repudiators ; his cogent 
 appeals on the necessity of placing a constitu- 
 tional limit to the State debt, and taking from 
 any future Legislature the power of continuing 
 the present system of wasteful expenditure 
 without any provision to meet liabilities in- 
 curred thereby ; his able and practical remarks 
 on the vital importance of the protective policy 
 to the interests of our nation, showing how the 
 flood of commerce poured into England under 
 the Navigation Act ; how Holland, once the 
 commercial carrier of the whole world, was 
 paralyzed under the influence of free trade 
 doctrines ; and how the first principle of legisla- 
 tion demands that home labor should be fos- 
 tered and protected. Whoever has heard Mr. 
 Stevens, at this session or at any other, cannot 
 hesitate to accord to him the most commanding 
 abilities and sound constitutional sentiments. 
 Hence it is, standing as he does, a giant among 
 his pigmy opponents, that every shaft of malice 
 and invective is hurled at him by every puny 
 whipster, who, like the fool of Crete, exposes his 
 waxy softness to the fervid glow of his eloquent 
 reply. 
 
52 THADDETTS STEVENS. 
 
 " It is not so much our wish to eulogize Mr. 
 Stevens as to direct the public attention to the 
 position he has attained, and so well maintains. 
 We want the eyes of the Commonwealth directed 
 toward him. We want him judged of by his 
 acts, and not through the false medium of 
 political vituperation. We desire to see his 
 course scanned with impartial discrimination, 
 and on its issue we want our Commonwealth to 
 pronounce its judgment. If he varies a line 
 from the most matured principles of legislative 
 economy, let that judgment be of condemnation, 
 but if he pass the trial, justice demands that the 
 praises be awarded to him which are the meed 
 of every public servant who has labored long 
 and faithfully for the best interests of the Com- 
 monwealth." 
 
 After so many years of constant political 
 strife, the return to law was refreshing to Ste- 
 vens, and brought him needed rest. The law 
 is a jealous mistress. He paid her the demands 
 she exacted in industrious toil and intense appli- 
 cation. What occupation is so delightful as 
 that of the country lawyer? His leisure for 
 thought and reading, unharassed by the impor- 
 tunate inquiries of nervous traders ! The respect 
 shown him by the villagers ! His supposed 
 importance to the existence of society ! All 
 
THADDEUS STEVENS. 53 
 
 this and mor.e make the life of the country 
 squire quaint, agreeable, satisfactory. But 
 the quiet town of Gettysburg was not the field 
 for a man like Thaddeus Stevens. His place 
 was where great things are to be done. Soon 
 after the session of the Legislature closed (1842) 
 he moved to Lancaster, Penn., and there made 
 his permanent home. With astonishing rapidity 
 his clientelage grew. Almost immediately he 
 sprung into one of the most lucrative practices 
 in Pennsylvania. His greatest success was be- 
 fore the jury. Here was his throne. He 
 never took or used notes of the evidence. He 
 relied wholly on his memory. In argument he 
 cited but few authorities, and those directly to 
 the point. He always examined, before they 
 were called, the important witnesses on his side. 
 He trusted to the strength of his own case, 
 rarely indulging in lengthy cross-examinations. 
 He moulded the " twelve honest men of the hun- 
 dred" to his will. He was not a first class 
 lawyer in the true meaning of the term. He 
 was too great a man to be that. His mind and 
 heart were too ample to be slaves to precedent 
 and mistaken judgment. Nor yet could he be 
 called an eloquent advocate in the true sense of 
 that term ; but the directness of his attack and 
 the fury of his charge swept his antagonist from 
 
54 TEADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 the field. His earnestness, his singleness of 
 purpose, took the place of rhetoric, learning, 
 and style. He always picked out two or three 
 points in a case, and spent his energy on these, 
 and thus drove into the minds of the jury 
 the facts on which he relied and from which 
 they could not escape. Here, as everywhere 
 else with him, it was power, will, virility, that 
 gave him the victory. The " honey-tongued 
 charms of persuasion" were not his. He did 
 not endeavor to convince his antagonist. He 
 knocked him down with one blow. Some stub- 
 born fact, some bitter sarcasm, or some terrific 
 conclusion, felled his foe. He feared no one, and 
 all dreaded him. He was successful when far 
 keener attorneys failed. He was always on the 
 alert. He was always ready. As Cecil said of 
 Lord Burleigh, " he toiled terribly." 
 
CHAPTER rv. 
 
 THE PHILIPPICS. 
 
 If the return to private life was satisfactory 
 to Mr. Stevens, yet its quiet was tiresome, and he 
 longed for a wider political field than he had be- 
 fore known. So in 1848 he presented himself 
 as a candidate for Congress from the Lancaster 
 district. He was nominated in the Whig con- 
 vention and was elected. When the 31st Con- 
 gress met, it found a contest awaiting it at the 
 very outset. The election of Speaker was one 
 of the most exciting struggles that had occurred 
 in Washington for years. Mr. Stevens was no 
 believer in the false prudence that dictates a 
 silent and reserved course for a congressman's 
 first term. Being elected to represent his dis- 
 trict, the commoner felt it his duty to put his 
 hand to the plough at once. He entered the 
 fight immediately, — nay, more, was a candidate 
 for Speaker himself this very first year of his 
 congressional service, to the extent of four 
 votes. And so great was the confidence placed 
 
 65 
 
56 TEADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 in him by the friends of freedom, that, accord- 
 ing to Joshua Giddings, the eight Free-Soil 
 members of the House were willing to vote for 
 him (a Whig) for Speaker without other pledges 
 than his antecedent opinions and acts. Mon- 
 day, Dec. 3, 1849, the Thirty-first Congress 
 assembled. It was a "notable body. In the 
 Senate sat Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine ; John P. 
 Hale, of New Hampshire ; Daniel S. Dickinson 
 and William Henry Seward, of New York ; 
 Thomas Corwin and Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio ; 
 Pierre Soule, of Louisiana ; Jefierson Davis and 
 Henry S. Foote, of Mississippi; Thomas H. 
 Benton, of Missouri ; Lewis Cass, of Michigan ; 
 and Sam Houston, of Texas ; — while high above 
 them all towered the great triumvirate; Web- 
 ster, Clay, Calhoun. Nor was the House less 
 distinguished. Maine sent Elbridge Gerry ; 
 New Hampshire was represented by Amos Tuck ; 
 Massachusetts had a distinguished delegation : 
 Charles Allen, George Ashmun, Eobert C. Win- 
 throp, Julius Kockwell, Horace Mann, and 
 others. Alexander Stephens, Eobert Toombs, 
 and Howell Cobb were there from Georgia. 
 There was George W. Julian, of Indiana ; Hum- 
 phrey Marshall, of Kentucky; Joseph M. Boot 
 and Joshua Giddings, of Ohio ; and David Wil- 
 mot, of Pennsylvania. This Congress was for- 
 
THADDEUS STEVENS. 57 
 
 tunate in its great names, but it needed them 
 all, every one of them. Anti-slavery had be- 
 come the great issue in the country. This Con- 
 gress was to grapple with that question at any 
 rate. Everything pointed that way. Texas 
 had recently been annexed against the protest 
 of the Northern free States, and contrary to the 
 promises of the South. The North was aroused. 
 She had been sleeping on her arms too long. 
 She did not fear the threats of the South. She 
 distrusted sometimes the faithfulness of her own 
 servants. Seward, notwithstanding his brilliant 
 panegyrics on freedom, was ever open to com- 
 promise. Some even doubted the sincerity of 
 John P. Hale. They felt with him it was a 
 parliamentary struggle, in which tact, wit, com- 
 posure, good humor, were the weapons. True, 
 Giddings was fearless and Chase bold. Horace 
 Mann let no opportunity slip to record himself 
 among the lovers of freedom. But all generally 
 acted on the defensive. A man was needed 
 who knew how to attack ; who would fly at the 
 throat of the monster. Slavery, and hang there 
 like grim death. Such a man was found in 
 Thaddeus Stevens. He of all others was fitted 
 to hurl the spear of Ithuriel. He entered the 
 contest without reproach and without fear. 
 The first matter before the House was the 
 
58 TSADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 election of a speaker. On the first roll-call, 
 Howell Cobb received one hundred and three 
 votes to ninety-six for Mr. Winthrop, there being 
 twenty-two scattering. The second, third, and 
 fourth calling of the roll showed little change. 
 The next day there was little change in the 
 voting ; so, too, on the third. The contest went 
 on, day after day, with varying changes. On 
 the fortieth ballot, "William J. Brown received 
 one hundred and twelve votes, lacking only 
 two of an election. But it beinw discovered 
 that Mr. Brown had been in communication 
 with David Wilmot, and had agreed to make the 
 committees satisfactory to the Free-Soilers, he 
 was immediately dropped and passed out of the 
 list of candidates. Still the contest went on ; 
 and, finally, on Dec. 22, a resolution that 
 a plurality should elect having been passed, Mr. 
 Cobb received the highest number of any one 
 candidate, and was declared elected. In an- 
 nouncing the committees, the chair placed Mr. 
 Stevens on the judiciary, to which position he 
 was well fitted. 
 
 On Feb. 20, 1850, the House being in 
 committee of the whole on the state of the 
 Union, on the reference of the President's 
 Annual Message, Mr. Stevens delivered his 
 first philippic against slavery. He began by 
 
THADDEUS STEVENS. 59 
 
 referring to the means used in the slavery dis- 
 cussion by members from the South, as calcu- 
 lated to use up time, without advantage to the 
 country, and as being revolutionary. He pro- 
 ceeded as follows : " Here, then, we have a well- 
 defined and palpable conspiracy of Southern 
 members combined to stop the supplies neces- 
 sary to the existence of the government, dis- 
 organize and dissolve it, until the bands that 
 bind the Union together are severed, and, as 
 a gentleman early in the session desired, ' dis- 
 cord reigns.' . . . Let us inquire, what is the 
 grave ofi'ence, the mighty wrong, which can 
 justify a threat big with such portentous con- 
 sequences ? The refusal of Congress to propa- 
 gate or to establish a doubtful, or even an 
 admitted good in the territories, would surely 
 be no cause for rebellion or revolution, much 
 less would the refusal to extend an evil, an 
 admitted evil, an unmitigated wrong. Will an 
 intelligent and free posterity believe it, when 
 impartial history records that the only cause for 
 this high threat was the apprehension that the 
 Congi-ess of this free Republic would not propa- 
 gate, nor permit to be propagated, the institu- 
 tion of human slavery in her vast territories 
 now free ? Yet such is the simple fact. It is 
 proper, then, to inquire whether the thing 
 
60 THADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 sought to be forced upon the territories, at the 
 risk of treason and rebellion, be a good or an 
 evil. I think it is a great evil which ought to 
 be interdicted ; that we should oppose it as 
 statesmen, as philanthropists, and as moralists, 
 notwithstanding the extraordinary position taken 
 by the gentleman from Alabama. 
 
 " While I thus announce my unchangeable 
 hostility to slavery in every form, and in every 
 place, I also avow my determination to stand by 
 all the compromises of the Constitution, and 
 carry them into faithful effect. Some of those 
 compromises I greatly dislike ; and, were they 
 now open for consideration, they should never 
 receive my assent. But I find them in a Con- 
 stitution formed in difficult times, and I would 
 not disturb them." With a master's hand he 
 described the evils of slavery. 
 
 " That republic," said he, " must be feeble, 
 both in peace and war, that has not an intelli- 
 gent and industrious yeomanry, equally removed 
 from luxury and from poverty. The middling 
 classes, who own the soil and work it with their 
 own hands, are the main support of every free 
 government. Despotism may be powerful and 
 long sustained by a mixed population of serfs 
 and nobles. But free representative republics, 
 that rely upon the voluntary action of the peo- 
 
THADDETJS STEVENS. 61 
 
 pie, never can. Under such governments, those 
 who defend and support the country must have 
 a stake in the soil ; must have interests to pro- 
 tect and rights to defend. Slave countries 
 never can have such a yeomanry ! never can 
 have a body of small proprietors who own the 
 soil and till it with their own hands, and sit 
 down in conscious independence under their 
 own vine and fig tree. There is no sound con- 
 necting link between the aristocrat and the 
 slave. True, there is a class of human beings 
 between them ; but they are the most worthless 
 and miserable of mankind. The poor white 
 laborer is the scorn of the slave himself. For 
 slavery always degrades labor. The white 
 people who work with their hands are ranked 
 with the other laborers — the slaves. They are 
 excluded from the society of the rich. Their 
 associations, if anywhere, are with the colored 
 population. They feel that they are degraded 
 and despised, and their minds and conduct gen- 
 erally conform to their condition. The soil 
 occupied by slavery is much less productive 
 than a similar soil occupied by freemen ; men 
 who are to receive none of the wages of their 
 labor, do not care to multiply its fruits. Sloth, 
 negligence, improvidence, are the consequence. 
 The land, being neglected, becomes poor and 
 
62 TEADDEXJS STEVENS. 
 
 barren ; as it becomes exhausted, it is thrown 
 out as waste, for slave labor never renovates 
 its strength." 
 
 When Mr. Stevens rose to speak, few of the 
 Southern members tui-ned to hear him. In fact, 
 they sat with averted faces as if it was a matter 
 which in no wise concerned them. But, as the 
 speaker depicted the evils of slavery and told 
 them unwelcome truths, they turned nervously 
 in their seats as though the devil had come to 
 torment them before their time. As he went 
 on and showed how education in a slave com- 
 munity must be ine\dtably confined to the rich ; 
 as he told them that their boast of military 
 glory was empty, since the North furnished the 
 soldiers, while the South gave the epaulettes 
 merely ; as he depicted the leprous growth of 
 the black evil, finally destroying the whole sys- 
 tem, they turned with anxious gaze toward the 
 man who was eloquent simply because he had 
 something to say and dared say it. Nay, they 
 were almost awed at his boldness when, turning 
 toward certain representatives from the North 
 who tried to face both ways, he cried out in a 
 voice that penetrated the whole chamber — 
 " Sir, for myself, I should look upon any North- 
 ern man, enlightened by a Northern education, 
 who would directly or indirectly, by omission 
 
THADDEUS STEVENS. 63 
 
 or commission, by basely voting or cowardly 
 skulking, permit slavery to spread over one 
 rood of God's free earth, as a traitor to liberty 
 and recreant to his God !" How all that must 
 have cut poor Winthrop, who had directed all 
 the powers of his mind to find a way to act 
 with both sides on a question to which there 
 could be but one side. Mr. Stevens told them 
 not to threaten too much, that though the North, 
 and especially his own State, had sent many a 
 doughface to Congress, there were men at home 
 who could not be frightened, and then closed 
 with a peroration which cannot be omitted 
 here. 
 
 " The eloquent gentleman from Virginia 
 [Mr. Seddon] , the other day, in his beautiful 
 peroration, personated the great States of Vir- 
 ginia, Kentucky, and Louisiana, and in their 
 name apostrophized the good, and I will add, 
 the great man who now occupies the executive 
 chair ; and in their name besought him, as he 
 loved the place of his birth, the place of his 
 nurture, and the place of his residence, not to 
 forsake his Southern brothers in this emergency, 
 but to stand by them in the defence of human 
 bondage. How much more effective, enduring, 
 and hallowed would that eloquence have been, 
 had the orator's lips been touched with a coal 
 
64 THADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 from the Altar of Freedom ! Then could he 
 have gone with friendly anxiety to that noble, 
 benevolent and heroic man, and admonished 
 him that, although he had gathered all the 
 earthly laurels that can be reaped by the sickle 
 of death, yet if he would have his name descend 
 to posterity with increasing lustre, he must, by 
 one great, just, and patriotic example, wipe out 
 the only spot that obscures the sun of his glory. 
 He might with propriety have taken with him 
 the learned gentleman from Alabama [Mr. 
 Hilliard] and together have pointed him to that 
 solemn hour, which to him, and to all of us who 
 are treading the down hill of life, must soon 
 arrive, when the visions of ambition and of 
 earthly wealth shall have passed from before 
 his eyes, and left him nothing but a gaping 
 grave. 
 
 " The accomplished gentleman from Alabama 
 might, with peculiar propriety, do what, with 
 profane lips I dare not, go to his illustrious 
 friend, and with fervid piety and eloquence more 
 thrilling than that which made Felix tremble, 
 implore him by a love deeper than that of 
 birthplace, of nurture, and of residence, by the 
 love of his own immortal soul, to be warned 
 in time by the awful, the inexorable doom, 
 ' Accursed is the man-stealer ! ' He might, 
 
TRADDBUS STEVENS. 65 
 
 pei'haps, have pointed him to the gloomy- 
 journey that leads through the dark shadow, 
 and shown him how inefiably brighter are the 
 glories of that kingdom where all are free. 
 Perchance, too, he would have noticed the 
 thronging thousands travelling to that same 
 dread tribunal, summoned to give evidence of 
 deeds done in the body ; some of whom were 
 bondsmen and slaves on earth, but whose dis- 
 embodied spirits were then disenthralled, erect, 
 tall as the proudest of earth's oppressors ; and 
 asked him to inquire of his own conscience, who 
 was most hkely to meet a hearty welcome there 
 — he, whose cause was advocated by the sup- 
 plicating voices of thousands with whom he had 
 dealt justly on earth, and made free indeed, or 
 he, whose admission should be withstood by 
 myriads of crushed and lacerated souls, showing 
 their chains, their stripes, and their wounds to 
 their Father, and to his Father : to their God, 
 and to his Judge." It was no ordinary moment. 
 The Southern members said to themselves, "The 
 enemy has a general now. This man is rich, 
 therefore vre cannot buy him. He does not Avant 
 hio-her offices, therefoi*e we cannot allure him. 
 He is not vicious, therefore we cannot seduce 
 him. He is in earnest. He means what he 
 says. He is bold. He cannot be flattered or 
 
66 TSADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 frightened." Ithuriel had come at last. Ever 
 afterward the Abolitionists turned their eyes 
 towards this Pennsylvania Whig, who without 
 boast or promise of what he would do, had 
 carried the war into the enemy's camp. From 
 that day on, the anti-slavery cause had no surer 
 champion on the floor of Congress than Thad- 
 deus Stevens, the slave no more faithful pro- 
 tector. The great California debate, which 
 made and ruined so many reputations, and 
 brought to a head the compromise measures of 
 1850, afforded Mr. Stevens another opportunity 
 to attack the slave power. Few debates have 
 occurred in the halls of Congress so important 
 in the questions involved, so remarkable in the 
 character of the participants. If that debate on 
 Mr. Clay's compromise resolution buried Mr. 
 Webster, it is equally true that it raised Mr. 
 Seward to the highest point of his fame. Poli- 
 ticians said, that man is the presidential candi- 
 date of 1856. How those sentences ring even 
 to-day ! How the great son of York thrilled 
 his audience, as with earnest face and voice 
 trembling with emotion, he cried out, "Shall 
 California be received? For myself, upon my 
 individual judgment and conscience, I answer. 
 Yes. For myself, as an instructed representa- 
 tive of one of the States — of that one even of 
 
TEADDEWS STEVENS. 67 
 
 the States which is soonest and longest to be 
 pressed in commercial and political rivalry by 
 the new commonwealth — I answer, Yes : let 
 California come in. Every new State, whether 
 she come from the East or the West — every new 
 State, coming from whatever part of the con- 
 tinent she may, is always welcome. But 
 California, that comes from the clime where the 
 West dies away in the rising East — California, 
 which bounds at once the empire and the con- 
 tinent — California, the youthful queen of the 
 Pacific, in her robes of freedom, gorgeously 
 
 inlaid with gold, is doubly welcome." 
 
 It was three months after Mr. Webster's sad 
 speech before Mr. Stevens had an opportunity 
 to express his views on the California question. 
 The long discussion and wrangle in the Senate 
 had caused a feeling of disgust at the subject m 
 the minds of all. But so great was the stake 
 that the public mind still followed the debate, 
 looking for some outlet that could bring peace 
 and honor to the distracted nation. On June 
 10, 1850, in committee of the whole on the 
 state of the Union, on the President's Message 
 relating to California, Mr. Stevens delivered 
 his second philippic. The power to admit new 
 States he claimed to have been expressly given 
 by the Constitution, but to have been limited to 
 
68 THADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 territory belonging to the Union. He then 
 went on to assert the belief that the legislation 
 for the territories was conferred on Congress 
 alone. He ably controverted Mr. Clay's propo- 
 sition that Congress can abolish, prohibit or 
 establish slavery in the territories. He showed 
 it was not unjust that a slaveholder should lose 
 his slave property by removing to a free ter- 
 ritory, because the common law did not recog- 
 nize property in man, and quoted in support 
 thereof Lord Mansfield's famous decision in the 
 case of the Somerset. By the common law, if 
 a slave escapes from a slave State into a free 
 State, he is free. That principle he admitted 
 was prevented from operating in the States by 
 a clause in the Constitution. But it was in full 
 force, he claimed, in the territories where that 
 provision did not extend. While it is thus 
 found that Cemgress had the right to prohibit 
 and abolish slavery in the territories, he argued 
 that it did not follow that it had the power to 
 establish, it. His reference to his critics was in 
 his most bitter style of personal invective. "I 
 do not remember," he said, " one of the numer- 
 ous gentlemen who have referred to my 
 remarks, who has attempted to deny one of the 
 facts or refute one of the arguments ; they have 
 noticed them merely to vituperate their author. 
 
TSADDEUS STEVENS. 69 
 
 To such remarks there can be no reply by him 
 who is not willing to place himself on a level 
 with blackguards. I cannot enter that arena. 
 I will leave the filth and shme of Billingsgate to 
 the fishwomen, and to their worthy coadjutors, 
 the gentleman from Virginian [Mr. Millson], 
 from North Carolina [Mr. Stanly], from Ken- 
 tucky [Mr. Stanton], from Tennessee [Mr. 
 Williams] , and aU that tribe. With them I can 
 have no controversy. When I want to combat 
 with such opponents and such weapons, I can 
 find them any day by entering the fish market, 
 without defiling this hall. There is in the 
 natural world a little, spotted, contemptible 
 animal, which is armed by nature with a fetid, 
 volatile, penetrating virus, which so pollutes 
 whoever attacks it as to make him offensive to 
 himself and all around him for a long time. 
 Indeed, he is almost incapable of purification. 
 Nothing, sir, no insult shall provoke me to crush 
 so filthy a beast ! " Strong as was his hatred 
 for the Southern slaveholder, it was the Northern, 
 doughface who had to receive his utter contempt. 
 He compared the two thus : " I entertain no 
 ill-will toward any human being, nor any brute, 
 that I know of, not even the skunk across the 
 way, to which I referred. Least of all would I 
 reproach the South. I honor her coumge and 
 
70 THADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 fidelity. Even in a bad, a wicked cause, she 
 shows a united front. All her sons are faithful 
 to the cause of human bondage, because it is 
 their cause. But the North — the poor, timid, 
 mercenary, drivelling North — has no such 
 united defenders »f her cause, although it is the 
 cause of human liberty. None of the bright 
 lights of the nation shine upon her section. 
 Even her own great men have turned her 
 accusers. She is the victim of low ambition — 
 an ambition which prefers self to country, 
 personal aggrandizement to the high cause of 
 human liberty. She is offered up a sacrifice to 
 propitiate Southern tyranny — to conciliate 
 Southern treason." At another time, referring 
 to the willingness of the North to sacrifice all 
 principles to personal gain, he said, bitterly, 
 "Some of my colleagues voted for all those 
 western measures, to give away all the wet 
 lands to States, and all the dry lands to corpor- 
 ations ; and slave laws to the South, in order to 
 get a tariff, and they got it — didn't they?" 
 Few men were more chagrined at Webster's 
 change of face than Stevens. He had been led 
 to understand that Mr. Webster would declare 
 for freedom, and when the blow came on March 
 7th it aroused his indignation to the highest 
 pitch. In the closing lines of his California 
 
TEADDEUS STEVENS. 71 
 
 speech it is supposed he had the great New 
 Englander in mind when he said : " Sir, so long 
 as man is vain and fallible, so long as great 
 men have like passions with others, and, as in 
 republics, are surrounded with stronger tempta- 
 tions, it were better for themselves if their fame 
 acquired no inordinate height until the grave 
 had precluded error. The errors of obscure 
 men die with them, and cast no shame on their 
 posterity. How different with the great ! How 
 much better had it been for Lord Bacon, that 
 greatest of human intellects, had he never, 
 during his life, acquired glory, and risen to high 
 honors in the state, than to be degraded from 
 them by the judgment of his peers. How much 
 better for him and his, had he lived and died 
 unknown, than to be branded through all future 
 time as the 
 
 '^Wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind.' 
 
 So now, in this crisis of the fate of liberty, if 
 any of the renowned men of this nation should 
 betray her cause, it were better that they had 
 been unknown to fame. It need not be hoped 
 that the brightness of their past glory will dazzle 
 the eyes of posterity, or illumine the pages of 
 impartial history. A few of its rays may linger 
 on a fading sky, but they will soon be whelmed 
 
72 THADBEUS STEVENS. 
 
 in the blackness of darkness. For, unless pro- 
 gressive civilization, and the increasing love of 
 freedom throughout the Christian and civilized 
 world are fallacious, the Sun of Libertj'-, of 
 universal liberty, is already above the horizon, 
 and fast coursing to his meridian splendor, when 
 no advocate of slavery, no apologist of slavery, 
 can look upon his face and live." From these 
 acrimonious philippics let us turn for a moment 
 and view another side of Stevens's character. 
 If at times he seems bitter, harsh and uncom- 
 promising, we are to bear in mind that he was 
 fighting a great battle where the amenities of 
 social life have no place. He was bearing 
 witness to great truths, and "great truths," said 
 Vauvenargues, "come from the heart." No 
 warmer heart than that of Thaddeus Stevens 
 ever beat in the human bosom. He loved his 
 fellow-man like none other, and his friendship for 
 those who labored for the welfare of* mankind 
 was strong as iron. He was bound with no 
 slight friendship to his colleague, Henry Nes, 
 who died Sept. 10, 1850, and whose death he 
 announced to the House on the 13th of the same 
 month. In describing his many virtues, one 
 notes how strongly he dwelt on those humanizing 
 qualities in his character which always won the 
 affection of the great commoner. 
 
THADDEUS STEVEHTS. 73 
 
 " Few men possessed as gi'eat and as enviable 
 popularity as Dr. Nes. His popularity was not 
 accidental or evanescent, for his constituents 
 had known him from his childhood. It was 
 founded in the most amiable qualities in the 
 human heart. Benevolence, generosity, and 
 unfeigned pity for misfortune, were prominent 
 characteristics of his nature. No child of afflic- 
 tion was ever so poor or humble as to seek his 
 professional or pecuniary assistance in vain. 
 The poor and the afflicted were all his friends, 
 and their sorrow at his grave will do more 
 honor at his obsequies than would the most 
 splendid equipages of the great. He has left 
 behind him numerous, respectable, attached and 
 mourning friends, but not a single enemy. If 
 the blessings of the unfortunate, and the sincere 
 prayers of pure and grateful hearts can furnish 
 a safe passport to a better world, his has been a 
 happy exit from this." 
 
 Mr. Clay's omnibus bill failed, but it paved 
 the way for the various compromise measures 
 of 1850, and the Thirty-first Congress ended its 
 days, foolishly thinking that it had saved the 
 Union and slavery as well. 
 
 Dec. 1, 1851, the Thirty-second Congress 
 assembled. Many who had taken so prominent 
 a part in the deliberations of the previous 
 
74 THADDEFS STEVENS. 
 
 Congress were no longer there. Calhoun was 
 dead. Clay was soon to follow. Charles 
 Sumner sat in Daniel Webster's place. Benton 
 had been defeated. The old regime was dying. 
 A new light was coming over the horizon. 
 
 The consideration of the Army Appropriation 
 bill aflforded Mr. Stevens an opportunity to de- 
 liver another philippic against slavery. It was 
 less harsh than some of his earlier attacks, but 
 through it all one notices that grim humor 
 which in later years characterized his utterances. 
 For example, in referring to Robert Toombs, he 
 said : " But the gentleman from Georgia — I 
 speak of the gentleman from Georgia only — a 
 part for the whole — and when you take a small 
 part you have got nearly all." In closing, he 
 addressed himself directly to the slaveholders 
 and warned them of the coming storm in these 
 words : — 
 
 " Do you believe that the North, tame as she 
 is, when so often trod upon, will never turn? 
 And, if the issue shall be made, the result cannot 
 be doubtful. 
 
 " I know your answer will be that then you 
 will vindicate yourselves by a separate con- 
 federacy. I see and feel that this is the tendency 
 of your movement; but are you quite sure 
 that with your increasing slaves and increased 
 
THADBBTTS STEVENS. 75 
 
 burdens, you can protect yourselves against 
 foreign foes and servile dangers ? 
 
 "You could find no nation who would enter 
 into a treaty with you for the extradition of 
 your fugitives from labor. You would be in 
 constant collision with surrounding nations, and 
 war would ensue. Your chivalry would not 
 permit you to yield upon that point. And, with 
 impending or existing wars, might not some 
 Spartacus of African blood arise, and call his 
 brethren to arms to shake off oppression ? With 
 the sjrmpathies of the civilized world in their 
 favor, might they not find allies who would 
 compel you to grant them a just emancipation ? 
 These dangers are not to be treated lightly. St. 
 Domingo found energetic leaders who were able 
 to inflict terrible retribution upon their former 
 masters. The ancient gladiator, with an army 
 of slaves, ravaged the very heart of Italy, and 
 for three years held one of her richest and finest 
 provinces against the whole imperial power of 
 Eome. I know you would scorn the idea of 
 treating with such an enemy, but if it be true, 
 as your greatest statesman has declared, that in 
 such a conflict every attribute of the God of 
 armies would be upon their side, might they not 
 bury their chains beneath the ruins of your 
 empire ? 
 
76 THADDEU8 STEVENS. 
 
 " These are painful reflections, but no candid 
 and intelligent statesman can calmly contemplate 
 passing events, and exclude from his saddened 
 mind these fearful forebodings. May the sound 
 sense and tme patriotism of the American 
 people arrest the headlong career of reckless 
 men." 
 
 With such bold utterances did the commoner 
 address the supporters of the slave oligarchy. 
 At this day it is hard to realize that to make a 
 speech like that, at that time, required the exer- 
 cise of the greatest courage. But Stevens was 
 never found wanting in that regard. 
 
 Mr. Stevens was a leader, and therefore he 
 must have followers. But, with only a handful 
 of freemen on whom he could rely, it was folly 
 to attack the South with its united front. His 
 opportunity had not arrived. In order to be 
 master he must have forces to lead. Even 
 Archimedes must have a point on which to 
 rest his lever before he can move the world. 
 From 1853 to 1859, Mr. Stevens remained a 
 private citizen, attending to the demands of an 
 arduous profession, being engaged in the trial 
 of most of the important causes before the 
 Pennsylvania courts. However, he watched 
 every move on the political chess-board, and 
 kept himself in the political current, allowing 
 
THADDEUS STEVENS. 77 
 
 no important fact to escape him. During these 
 years of professional activity there is little to 
 tell of him. He himself once said, " I have no 
 history ; my life-long regret is that I have lived 
 so long and so uselessly." But if his life was 
 without special interest at this time, it was far 
 different with the political world, which was 
 teeming with new ideas, new men and new par- 
 ties. 
 
CHAPTEE V. 
 
 AD INTEEIM — THE GEEAT YEAR 1854 — BIKTH 
 OF THE EEPUBLICAN PAETY.* 
 
 At the presidential election of 1852, the 
 Democrats had a popular plurality of 202,000. 
 They carried twenty-seven out of thirty-one 
 States, and cast 254 electoral votes out of 296. 
 In the Senate the Democrats had a clear ma- 
 jority of fourteen, and in the House a majority of 
 eighty-four. The Free-Soil party had polled 
 only 157,000 votes. Besides this immense 
 advantage there were other circumstances which 
 aided the democracy. The finances were in a 
 healthy condition. Industry and trade were 
 signally prosperous. People no longer grew 
 excited over the tariff question. The great 
 yield of gold in California had had a stim- 
 ulating effect on enterprise and emigration; 
 and the North was getting over the excitement 
 engendered by the fugitive slave law. When 
 the Thirty-third Congress assembled, a bill to 
 
 * See Appendix. 
 78 
 
THADDEUS STUVEIfS. 79 
 
 organize the territory of Nebraska was referred 
 to the committee on territories. It was report- 
 ed back by Senator Douglass. On Senator 
 Dixon of Kentucky giving notice that he should 
 offer an amendment providing that the act of 
 1820 (Missouri Compromise) should not be so 
 construed as to apply to the territory contem- 
 plated by this act, nor to any other territory 
 of the United States, Mr. Douglass had the bill 
 recommitted. Subsequently the bill was reported 
 in a different shape, so as to create the two terri- 
 tories of Kansas and Nebraska, with the pro- 
 vision that all questions pertaining to slavery in 
 the territories and in the new States, to be 
 formed therefrom, should be left to the action of 
 the people thereof through their appropriate 
 representatives, and that the provisions of the 
 Constitution and laws of the United States, in 
 respect to fugitives from service, should be 
 carried into faithful execution in all the organ- 
 ized territories the same as in the States. In 
 the bill admitting Missouri, (1820) as a slave 
 State, was the following section : — 
 
 "Sect. 8. Be it further enacted, That in all 
 that territory ceded by France to the United 
 States, under the name of Louisiana, which 
 lies north of thirty-six degrees, and thirty 
 minutes of north latitude, not included within 
 
80 THADDEXTS STEVEN'S. 
 
 the limits of the State contemplated by this 
 act, slavery and involuntary servitude, other- 
 wise than as the punishment of crimes, shall 
 be, and is hereby forever prohibited." 
 
 The territory which the Kansas-Nebraska 
 bill was intended to organize was within the 
 above prohibition. In that part of the bill 
 providing for the election of a delegate to Con- 
 gress, was the following : — 
 
 " That the Constitution and all laws of the 
 United States, which are not locally inapplicable, 
 shall have the same force and effect within said 
 territory as elsewhere in the United States." 
 
 But the amended bill as reported back from 
 the committee added this : 
 
 " Except the section of the act preparatory to 
 the admission of Missouri into the Union, 
 approved March 6, 1820, which was super- 
 seded by the principles of the legislation of 
 1850, commonly called the , compromise meas- 
 ure, and is declared inoperative." 
 
 Now this territory, under and by virtue of the 
 sacred terms of the Missouri Compromise, had 
 been dedicated to freedom forever. Missouri 
 had been admitted on this condition, and the 
 slave power had her slave senators and repre- 
 sentatives all these years. This proposition to 
 abrogate the Missouri Compromise roused the 
 
THADDMUS STSVENS. 81 
 
 North. The North felt she had yielded enough 
 in the compromise measures of 1850, and this 
 attempt to do away with the sacred compact of 
 1820 brought the North to her feet. A most 
 exciting debate now took place in the Senate, 
 and in place of the above, the following reser- 
 vation was adopted : — 
 
 " Except the section of the act preparatory to 
 the admission of Missouri into the Union, ap- 
 proved March 6, 1820, which being inconsistent 
 with the principle of non-intervention by Con- 
 gress with slavery in the States and territories, as 
 recognized by the legislation in 1850 (com- 
 monly called the compromise measure), is 
 hereby declared inoperative and void, it being 
 the true intent and meaning of this act not to 
 legislate slavery into any territory or State, nor 
 to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people 
 thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their 
 domestic institutions in their own way, subject 
 only to the Constitution of the United States." 
 
 The bill thus amended finally passed the 
 Senate by a vote of thirty-seven to fourteen. 
 The bill passed the House one hundred and 
 thirteen to one hundred. It was approved by 
 President Pierce, and became a law. It is the 
 last straw that breaks the camel's back. The 
 North now was aroused to action. The Whig 
 
82 THADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 party was moribund. The power of the Free- 
 Soilers was contemptible. Something must be 
 done. Something was done. The Eepublican 
 party was born. The repeal of the Missouri 
 Compromise opened the way. There were 
 earnest men in all parties who were unwilling 
 longer to endure the crime and tyranny of 
 slavery. To unite these various elements was 
 the one thing necessary. The stalwart State of 
 Michigan, ever true to justice and right, took 
 the lead, and many of her great citizens, among 
 them, names now of proud historic import, 
 issued the following call for a mass convention 
 of freemen : — 
 
 "to the people of MICHIGAN. 
 
 " A great wrong has been perpetrated. The 
 slave power has triumphed. Liberty is trampled 
 under foot. The Missouri compromise, a solemn 
 compact entered into by our fathers, has been 
 violated, and a vast territory, dedicated to free- 
 dom, has been opened to slavery. 
 
 " This act, so unjust to the North, has been per- 
 petrated under circumstances which deepen its 
 perfidy. An administration placed in power by 
 Northern votes has brought to bear all the re- 
 sources of executive corruption in its support. 
 
 "Northern Senators and Representatives, in 
 
THABBEUS STEVENS. 83 
 
 face of the overwhelming public sentiment of 
 the North, expressed in the proceedings of public 
 meetings and solemn remonstrances, without a 
 single petition in its favor on their table, and 
 not daring to submit this great question to the 
 people, have yielded to the seductions of execu- 
 tive patronage, and Judas-like, betrayed the 
 cause of liberty : while the South , inspired by 
 a dominant and grasping ambition, has, with- 
 out distinction of party, and with a unanim- 
 ity almost entire, deliberately trampled under 
 foot the solemn compact entered into in the 
 midst of a crisis threatening to the peace of 
 the Union, sanctioned by the greatest names in 
 our history, and the binding force of which has, 
 for a period of more than thirty years, been 
 recognized and declared by numerous acts of 
 legislation. Such an outrage upon liberty, such 
 a violation of pledged faith, cannot be submitted 
 to. This great wrong must be righted, or there 
 is no longer a North in the councils of the 
 nation. The extension of slavery under the 
 folds of the American flag, is a stigma upon 
 liberty. The indefinite increase of slave repre- 
 sentation in Congress is destructive of that 
 equality between freemen which is essential to 
 the permanency of the Union. 
 
 " The safety of the Union, the rights of the 
 
84 TEABDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 North, the interests of free labor, the des- 
 tiny of a vast territory and its untold millions 
 for all coming time, — and, finally, the high 
 aspirations of humanity for universal free- 
 dom, — all are involved in the issue forced upon 
 the country by the slave power and its plastic 
 Northern tools. 
 
 " In view, therefore, of the recent action of 
 Congress upon this subject, and the evident de- 
 signs of the slave power to attempt still further 
 aggressions upon freedom — we invite all our 
 fellow-citizens, without reference to former 
 political associations, who think that the time 
 has arrived for a Union at the North to pro- 
 tect Liberty from being overthrown and down- 
 trodden, to assemble in 
 
 MASS CONTENTION, 
 
 On Thursday, the 6th of July next, at 1 o'clock, p. m., 
 
 AT JACKSON, 
 
 there to take such measures as shall be thousrht 
 best to concentrate the popular sentiment of 
 this State against the aggressions of the slave 
 power." 
 
 At the time and place appointed the conven- 
 tion assembled, but the city hall was too small to 
 accommodate the vast number, so an adjourn- 
 ment was had to a beautiful grove adjacent to 
 
TEADDEUS STEVENS. 85 
 
 the city. And there, "under the oaks," the first 
 Republican convention was organized. One 
 of the moving spirits of this meeting, in fact 
 its master, was a merchant of Detroit, known 
 then only as Zach. Chandler. 
 
 The resolutions of that convention were the 
 first united resistance to "the shame that had 
 cursed the country for seventy years," and were 
 in these words : — 
 
 " The Freemen of Michigan, assembled in 
 convention in pursuance of a spontaneous call, 
 emanating from various parts of the State, to 
 consider upon the measures which duty demands 
 of us, as citizens of a free State, to take in 
 reference to the late acts of Congress on the 
 subject of slavery and its anticipated further 
 extension, do 
 
 "Resolve, That the institution of slavery, 
 except in punishment of crime, is a great moral, 
 social and political evil ; that it was so regarded 
 by the fathers of the Eepublic, the founders and 
 best friends of the Union, by the heroes and 
 sages of the Revolution who contemplated and 
 intended its gradual and peaceful extinction as 
 an element hostile to the liberties for which they 
 toiled ; that its history in the United States, the 
 experience of men best acquainted with its 
 workings, the dispassionate confession of those 
 
86 TBADDEU8 STEVENS. 
 
 who are interested in it ; its tendency to relax 
 the vigor of industry and enterprise inherent in 
 the white man ; the very surface of the earth 
 where it subsists; the vices and immoralities 
 which are its natural growth; the stringent 
 policy, often wanting in humanity and speaking 
 to the sentiments of every generous heart, which 
 it demands; the danger which it has already 
 wrought, and the future danger which it por- 
 tends to the security of the Union and our 
 constitutional liberties — all incontestably prove 
 it to be such evil. Surely, that institution is 
 not to be strengthened or encouraged against 
 which Washington, the calmest and wisest of 
 our nation, bore unequivocal testimony ; as to 
 which Jefferson, filled with a love of liberty, 
 exclaimed : ' Can the liberties of a nation be 
 ever thought secure when we have removed 
 their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds 
 of the people that their liberties are the gift of 
 God ? that they are not to be violated but with 
 His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country 
 when I reflect that God is just ; that His justice 
 cannot sleep forever ; that, considering numbers, 
 nature and nationality means only a revolution 
 of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation 
 is among possible events ; that it may become 
 probable by supernatural interference ! The 
 
THADDEUS STEVENS. 87 
 
 Almighty has no attribute which can take sides 
 with us in such a contest ! ' And as to which 
 another eminent patriot in Virginia, on the close 
 of the revolution, also exclaimed: 'Had we 
 turned our eyes inwardly when we supplicated 
 the Father of mercies to aid the injured and 
 oppressed, when we invoked the Author of 
 Eighteousness to attest the purity of our motives 
 and the justice of our cause, and implored the 
 God of battles to aid our exertions in its defence, 
 should we not have stood more self-convicted 
 than the contrite publican ? ' We believe these 
 sentiments to be as true now as they were then. 
 "Resolved, That slavery is a violation of the 
 rights of man as a man ; that the law of nature, 
 which is the law of liberty, gives to no man 
 rights superior to those of another ; that God 
 and nature have secured to each individual the 
 inalienable right of equality, any violation of 
 which must be the result of superior force ; and 
 that slavery therefore is a perpetual war upon 
 its victims, that whether we regard the institu- 
 tion as first originating in captures made in war, 
 or the subjection of the debtor as the slave of 
 his creditor, or the forcible seizure and sale of 
 children by their parents, or subjects by their 
 king, and whether it be viewed in this country 
 as a ' necessary evil' or otherwise, we find it to 
 
88 TEADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 be, like imprisonment for debt, but a relic of 
 barbarism as well as an element of weakness in 
 the midst of the State, inviting the attack of 
 external enemies, and a ceaseless cause of 
 internal apprehension and alarm. Such are the 
 lessons taught us, not only by the histories of 
 other commonwealths, but by that of our own 
 beloved country. 
 
 " Resolved, That the history of the formation 
 of the Constitution, and particularly the enact- 
 ment of the ordinance of July 13, 1787, pro- 
 hibiting slavery north of the Ohio, abundantly 
 shows it to have been the purpose of our fathers 
 not to promote, but to prevent the spread of 
 slaver3^ And we, reverencing their memories 
 and cherishing free republican faith as our 
 richest inheritance, which we vow, at whatever 
 expense, to defend, thus publicly proclaim our 
 determination to oppose by all the powerful and 
 honorable means in our power, now and hence- 
 forth, all attempts, direct or indirect, to extend 
 slavery in this country, or to pennit it to extend 
 into any region or locality in which it does not 
 now exist by positive law, or to admit new slave 
 States into the Union. 
 
 "Resolved, That the Constitution of the United 
 States gives to Congress full and complete 
 power for the municipal government of the ter- 
 
THADDEUS STEVENS. 89 
 
 ritories thereof, a power which, from its nature, 
 cannot be either alienated or abdicated without 
 yielding up to the territory an absolute politi- 
 cal independence, which involves an absurdity. 
 That the exercise of this power necessarily looks 
 to the formation of States to be admitted into 
 the Union ; and, on the question whether they 
 shall be admitted as free or slave States, Congress 
 has a right to adopt such prudential and pre- 
 ventive measures as the principles of liberty 
 and the interests of the whole country require. 
 That this question is one of the gravest impor- 
 tance to the free States, inasmuch as the Consti- 
 tution itself creates an inequality in the appor- 
 tionment of representatives, greatly to the det- 
 riment of the free, and to the advantage of the 
 slave States. This question, so vital to the 
 interests of the free States, (but which we are 
 told by certain political doctors of modern 
 times, is to be treated with utter indifference), 
 is one which we hold it to be our right to 
 discuss; which we hold it the duty of Congress, 
 in every instance, to determine in unequivocal 
 language, and in a manner to prevent the spread 
 of slavery and the increase of such unequal 
 representation. In short, we claim that the 
 North is a party to the new bargain, and is 
 entitled to have a voice and influence in settling 
 
90 THADDEUS STEVESS. 
 
 its terms. And in view of the ambitious designs 
 of the slave power, we regard the man or the 
 party who would forego this right, as untrue to 
 the honor and interest of the North and un- 
 worthy of its support. 
 
 "Resolved, That the repeal of the 'Missouri 
 Compromise,' contained in the recent act of 
 Congress, for the creation of the territories 
 Nebraska and Kansas, thus admitting slavery 
 into a region, till then sealed against it by law, 
 equal in extent to the thirteen old States, is an 
 act unprecedented in the history of the country, 
 and one which must engage the earnest and 
 serious attention of every Northern man. And 
 as Northern freemen, independent of all former 
 party ties, we here hold this measure up to the 
 public execration, for the following reasons : — 
 
 " That it is a plain departure from the policy 
 of the fathers of the Eepublic in regard to sla- 
 very, and a wanton and dangerous frustration 
 of their purposes and their hopes. 
 
 " That it actually admits, and was intended to 
 admit, slavery into said territories, and thus (to 
 use the words applied by Judge Tucker of 
 Virginia to the fathers of that commonwealth) , 
 ' sows the seeds of an evil which, like a lep- 
 rosy, hath descended upon their posterity with 
 accumulated rancor, visiting the sins of the 
 
THADDEUS STEVENS. 91 
 
 fathers upon succeeding generations.' That it 
 was sprung upon the country stealthily and by 
 surprise, without necessity, without petition, 
 and without previous discussion, thus violating 
 the cardinal principle of republican government, 
 which requires all legislation to accord with the 
 opinions and sentiments of the people. 
 
 " That on the part of the South, it is an open 
 and undisguised breach of faith, as contracted 
 between the North and South in the settlement 
 of the Missouri question in 1820, by which the 
 tranquillity of the two sections was restored ; a 
 compromise binding upon all honorable men. 
 
 " That it is also an open violation of the com- 
 promise of 1850, by which, for the sake of 
 peace, and to calm the distempered impulse of 
 certain enemies of the Union, and at the South, 
 the North accepted and acquiesced in the odious 
 ' fugitive slave law ' of that year. 
 
 "That it is also an undisguised and unmanly 
 contempt of the pledge given to the country by 
 the present dominant party at their national 
 convention in 1850, not to 'agitate the subject 
 of slavery in and out of Congress,'' being the 
 same convention which nominated Franklin 
 Pierce to the Presidency. 
 
 " That it is greatly injurious to the free States, 
 and to the territories themselves, tending to 
 
92 TSADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 retard the settlement and to prevent the 
 improvement of the country by means of free 
 labor, and to discourage foreign immigrants 
 resorting thither for their homes. 
 
 " That one of its principal aims is to give to 
 the slave States such a decided and practical 
 preponderance in all the measures of govern- 
 ment as shall reduce the North, with all her 
 industry, wealth and enterprise, to be the mere 
 province of a few slaveholding oligarchs of the 
 South — to a condition too shameful to be con- 
 templated. 
 
 "Because, as openly avowed by its Southern 
 friends, it is intended as an entering wedge to 
 the still further augmentation of the slave-power 
 by the acquisition of the other territories, 
 cursed with the same ' leprosy.' 
 
 " Resolved, That the obnoxious measures to 
 which we have alluded ought to be repealed, 
 and a provision substituted for it, prohibiting 
 slavery in said territoi-ies, and each of them. 
 
 " Resolved, That after this gross breach of 
 faith and wanton affront to us northern men, we 
 hold ourselves absolved from all ' compromises,' 
 except those expressed in the Constitution, for 
 the protection of slavery and slave-owners ; 
 that we now demand measures of protection 
 and immunity for ourselves ; and among them 
 
THADDEUS STEVEISTS. 93 
 
 we demand the repeal of the fugitive 
 SLAVE LAW, and an act to abolish slavery in the 
 Disti-ict of Columbia. 
 
 " Resolved, That we notice without dismay cer- 
 tain popular indications, by slaveholders on the 
 frontier of said territories, of a purpose on their 
 part to prevent by violence the settlement of the 
 country by non-slaveholding men. To the lat- 
 ter we say : Be of good cheer, persevere in the 
 right, remember the Republican motto. ' The 
 North will defend you.' 
 
 "Resolved, That postponing and suspending all 
 differences with regard to political economy or 
 administrative policy, in view of the imminent 
 danger that Kansas and Nebraska will be 
 grasped by slavery, and a thousand miles of 
 slave soil be thus interposed between the free 
 States of the Atlantic and those of the Pacific, 
 we will act cordially and faithfully in unison to 
 avert and repeal this gigantic wrong and shame. 
 
 " Resolved, That in view of the necessity of 
 battling for the first principles of Eepublican 
 government, and against the schemes of aris- 
 tocracy, the most revolting and oppressive 
 with which the earth was ever cursed or 
 man debased, we will co-operate and be 
 known as Eepublicans until the contest be 
 terminated. 
 
94 THADDEUS STEVUNS. 
 
 Resolved, That we earnestly recommend the 
 calling of a general convention of the free 
 States, and such of the slaveholding States, or 
 portions thereof, as may desire to be there 
 represented, with a view to the adoption of 
 other more extended and effectual measures in 
 resistance to the encroachments of slavery ; and 
 that a committee of five persons be appointed to 
 correspond and co-operate with our friends in 
 other States on the subject. 
 
 "Resolved, That in relation to the domestic 
 affairs of the State, we urge a more economical 
 administration of the government, and a more 
 rigid accountability of the public officers ; a 
 speedy payment of the balance of the public 
 debt, and the lessening of the amount of taxa- 
 tion ; a careful preservation of the primary 
 school and university funds, and their diligent 
 application to the great objects for which they 
 were created, and also further legislation to 
 prevent the unnecessary or imprudent sale of 
 the lands belonging to the State. 
 
 "Resolved, That in our opinion the commercial 
 wants require the enactment of a general rail- 
 road law, which, while it shall secure the invest- 
 ment and encourage the enterprise of stockhold- 
 ers, shall also guard and pi'otect the rights of 
 the public and of individuals, and that the prepa- 
 
TEADDBU8 STEVIINS. 95 
 
 ration of such a measure requires the first talents 
 of the State." 
 
 I have given the platform at length because it 
 states the issue so well and shows the mission 
 of the Republican party. If a nation's history 
 is best read in its laws, a party's genius is best 
 seen in its platforms. 
 
 The nominee of the convention for Governor 
 was Kinsley S. Bingham, and his great popu- 
 larity combined w^ith the strength of the new 
 party gave him an easy victory. On July 13, 
 1854, the first Republican convention in Wis- 
 consin was held, the members being those " who 
 were opposed to the repeal of the Missouri Com- 
 promise and the extension of the slave power." 
 Massachusetts followed July 19, 1854, and 
 resolved in convention, "that in co-operation 
 with the friends of freedom in sister States, we 
 hereby form the Republican party of Massachu- 
 setts." In this same convention Mr. Sumner 
 said : " As Republicans we go forth to meet the 
 oligarchs of slavery." On the day of the date 
 of the Wisconsin convention, a mass convention 
 was held in Vermont of persons "in favor of 
 resisting, by all constitutional means the usurpa- 
 tions of the propagandists of slavery." On the 
 same day a convention was held in Columbus, 
 0., of those "in favor of breaking the chains 
 
96 THADDEUS STEVEJSS. 
 
 now forging to bind the nation to the car of 
 American slavery." In both Ohio and Vermont 
 the name Eepublican was used as the party 
 designation. Likewise, on the same day with 
 the conventions in Ohio, Vermont and Wiscon- 
 sin, did the inauguration of the Eepublican 
 party in Indiana take place. When we remem- 
 ber that the history of the nation since 1860 has 
 been simply the record of the Eepublican party, 
 and when we remember that the years from 1860 
 to 1870 comprise the Heroic Epoch of our history 
 shall we hesitate to declare the year which wit- 
 nessed the birth of that grand party one of the 
 landmarks in our country's progress — the 
 great year 1854 ! Up to that time parties had 
 been formed on questions of locality, mercantile 
 interest, constitutional construction, administra- 
 tive reform. For the first time, we see in the 
 platform of this party all material considerations 
 trampled under foot and the flag of liberty 
 raised to the fore. Well might William Henry 
 Seward say that the Eepubhcan party, " being 
 founded on immortal principles, was therefore 
 indestructible in its essence and eternal in its 
 career." It "was born in weakness ; it was 
 raised in glory. It started as the defender of 
 the friendless ; in a short time the rich and 
 powerful crowded to it as a protector. It owed 
 
TEADDEUS STEVENS. 97 
 
 its birth and glory not to Christianitj'^. The 
 churches hastened early to record themselves in 
 favor of human bondage. It was something 
 deeper than love of sects that brought men 
 together in that great combination. It was the 
 moral sentiment in man, to whose existence we 
 owe what is pure and strong in this world. " To 
 the energy of the private conscience," says 
 James Martineau, " God has committed the true 
 welfare of the race." Whether there is a 
 Divinity that shapes our end may be disputed 
 by some, but if a strong proof were wanted of the 
 existence of a Divine being, I would point to 
 the great anti-slavery struggle, its failures and 
 its final success under the Republican party, as 
 the best of evidence. Whenever that party 
 was just, God Almighty was to it more than 
 generous. When it faltered, disaster awaited 
 it. When it was true to its convictions, victory 
 crowned its arms. How often during the dark 
 hours 1860-1864, the lightest breath might 
 have turned the scale ! Suppose Pickett had 
 charged an hour earlier at Gettysburg ! Sup- 
 pose the " Monitor " had ari'ived at Hampton 
 Roads an hour later ! Suppose Granger had not 
 driven Longstreet back at Chickamauga ! Who 
 forgets Abraham Lincoln's solemn prayer and 
 promise to free the slave if our arms should 
 
98 THABDEUS BTEYENS. 
 
 drive the invader from Maryland ! Say not it 
 is all chance ! If the divine finger in human his- 
 tory was ever seen it was seen there. " Some 
 ships come into port that are not steered." If 
 a date is of any value, the date of the birth of 
 this party of liberty should be imprinted on 
 every school-boy's mind, for it is the birth of 
 freedom, it is the prelude to our Heroic Epoch ! 
 And now great events follow each other rapidly. 
 May 22, 1856, Charles Sumner is stricken 
 down in the Senate. About a month later the 
 first national Eepublican convention is held and 
 Fremont is nominated for the presidency, and 
 for that office receives 1,341,264 votes, against 
 1,838,169 for Buchanan, and 874,534 for Fill- 
 more. Now following fast comes the Dred Scott 
 decision, the Lecompton struggle, the Lincoln 
 and Douglass canvass in Illinois, Mr. Seward's 
 "Irrepressible Conflict" speech at Rochester, 
 and finally the John Brown raid and his 
 execution December 2, 1859. On that fatal 
 date Theodore Parker, about to die, writing 
 from Florence to friends in this country, says : 
 " Such is my confidence in Democratic institu- 
 tions that I do not fear the final result. There 
 is a glorious future for America — hut, the 
 other side of the Red Sea." Nov. 6, 1860, 
 the old regime comes to an end. And on 
 
TEADDEUS STEVENS. 99 
 
 Nov. 7, 1860, Wendell Phillips announced to 
 his excited audience in Music Hall in Boston, 
 that, " if the telegraph speaks the truth, for the 
 first time in our history the slave has chosen a 
 President, of the United States." In truth, the 
 Heroic Epoch had begun. 
 
CHAPTES VI. 
 
 HEEOIO EPOCH. 
 
 Me. Stevens's whole heart -was bound up in 
 the welfare of the Republican party. He was 
 among the first to join it, and he never deserted. 
 He was a delegate to its first national conven- 
 tion, and as a Republican representative from 
 Lancaster, he entered the Thirty-sixth Congress 
 Dec. 5, 1859. He was past his prime. He 
 seems to have realized this, if we may judge 
 from his remarks at the obsequies of his col- 
 league, Hon. John Schwartz. Speaking of him 
 he said : " He was an aged man, and it may be 
 thought that his loss, private and public, was 
 less than if cut off in the vigor of manhood. I 
 may be so. Mr. Speaker, there are but few in 
 this House who with me can appreciate the force 
 of that suggestion. Who can realize how unfit 
 he is, whose energies are paralyzed by age or 
 disease, to mingle in the turbulent and boister- 
 ous arena of public life?" On his first entrance 
 into Congress, ten years before, he was imme- 
 100 
 
THABDEUS STEVENS. 101 
 
 diately engaged in a contest on the speakership 
 question. The Thirty-sixth Congress afforded a 
 similar struggle. Mr. Stevens championed the 
 cause of Galusha A. Grow, and made his nomina- 
 tion. It was two months before a candidate could 
 be elected, and the fortunate one was William 
 Pennington of New Jersey. During one of the 
 debates which occurred during the long struggle, 
 some one sneering at Stevens's pretended knowl- 
 edge of affairs at the White House, inquired 
 where he obtained it. The commoner, with a 
 comical look on his face, informed him he must 
 remember the President was one of his constitu- 
 ents. The second session of the Thirty-sixth 
 Congress was bound to be a stormy one. The 
 election of Mr. Lincoln was construed by the 
 slave States as a warning that their power was 
 at an end. The action of South Carolina, the 
 embassy from Virginia to that State, the weak- 
 ness, nay, criminal negligence, of the adminis- 
 tration, offered ample opportunity for acrimoni- 
 ous debate. Mr. Stevens saw plainly that there 
 could be no compromise, no peaceable secession. 
 The only door to a more perfect union was 
 through war., Ense petit placidam. And so 
 when the House resumed, on Jan. 29, 1861, 
 the consideration of the report of the special 
 committee of thirty-three, Mr. Stevens took the 
 
102 THADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 first opportunity to address the House. He 
 was the leader of the Eepublicans. It was a 
 sad hour. " "Will the Union go to pieces ? " men 
 asked with pale lips. Statesmen of renown 
 knew not what position to take. All were at 
 sea. It was therefore with the greatest interest 
 that men listened to what the great commoner 
 had to say. "The hour's come, likewise the 
 man." The curtain rose upon the grandest 
 drama the world had ever witnessed. The 
 grim, iron-willed man stepped forward to do 
 his appointed work. Amidst many illustrious 
 men he was the most strildng figure of them all. 
 He had no doubt. He did not know fear. 
 Like Carlyle's Mirabeau, he had swallowed all 
 formulas. He seized the opportunity to hew 
 out America's giant curse, and those rigid lips 
 never relaxed while he thought a single root or 
 branch retained vitality. 
 
 He spoke in no uncertain tones. After apolo- 
 gizing for the poor state of his health, which 
 would prevent his voice being heard in 
 all parts of the hall, he announced his belief 
 that there could be no compromise, in these 
 words : " I regret, sir, that I am com- 
 pelled to concur in the belief stated yesterday 
 by the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Pryor] , 
 that no compromise which can be made will 
 
TEADDEUS STEVENS. 103 
 
 have any effect in averting the present difficulty. 
 I concur in that belief because it is my belief, 
 although I regret the fact ; for when I see these 
 States in open and declared rebellion against 
 the Union, seizing upon her public forts and 
 arsenals, and robbing her of millions of the 
 public property ; when I see the batteries of 
 seceding States blockading the highway of the 
 nation, and their armies in battle array against 
 the flag of the Union ; when I see. Sir, our flag 
 insulted, and that insult submitted to, I have no 
 hope that concession, humiliation and compro- 
 mise can have any effect whatever . . . Vir- 
 ginia sends ambassadors to the head and front 
 of the empire that is proposed to be erected 
 upon the ruins of this government, for the 
 purpose of getting South Carolina to appoint 
 commissioners for the purpose of proposing 
 amendments to the Constitution of the United 
 States, to secure their rights, as they say ; and 
 that kingdom of South Carolina peremptorily 
 refuses to appoint any such commissioners, for 
 the reason that it has no desire or design of 
 promoting the ultimate object set forth in the 
 joint resolutions of the State of Virginia — that 
 is the procurement of amendments to, or new 
 guarantees in, the Constitution of the United 
 States. Thus ends negotiation ; thus ends con- 
 
104 TEADDMUS STEVJEN'S. 
 
 cession ; thus ends compromise, by tlie solemn 
 declaration of the seceding party that they will 
 not listen to concession or compromise." 
 
 Regardins: the resolution of the General 
 Assembly of South Carolina, declaring that 
 the separation of that State from the Federal 
 Union is final, he said : — 
 
 " The question of the dissolution of the Union 
 is a grave one, and should be approached with- 
 out excitement, or passion, or fear. Homilies 
 upon the Union, and jeremiads over its destruc- 
 tion, can be of no use, except to display fine 
 rhetoric and pathetic eloquence. The Southern 
 States will not be turned from their deliberate 
 and stern purpose by soft words and touching 
 lamentations. After the extent to which they 
 have gone, it would do them no credit ; con- 
 demnation, which is now felt for their conduct, 
 would degenerate into contempt." He ridiculed 
 the idea of the right of secession ; claimed the 
 nation was one people, and that the government 
 had the power, authority, and right (nay, it 
 was its duty !) to coerce obedience and to treat 
 the plotters of disunion as traitors. "I would 
 certainly not advise the shedding of American 
 blood, except as a last resort. If it should 
 become necessary, I see no diflaculty, with the 
 ordinary forces of the United States, to dissi- 
 
THADDEVS STEVENS. 105 
 
 pate the rebels, whether of high or low degree." 
 He depicted the weakness of a Southern con- 
 federation ; showed the puerility of South Caro- 
 lina constructing a navy, and then, while urging 
 peace, declared it must not be purchased by 
 dishonorable concessions. "Let there be no 
 bloodshed until the last moment ; but let no 
 cowardly counsels unnerve the people ; and 
 then, at last, if needs be, let every one be ready 
 to gird on his armor, and do his duty. Sir, I 
 am reminded that is not the lano^uaffe of Penn- 
 sylvania, as represented by the united voices of 
 her two Senators. I know it is not. But I do 
 not believe that either of them represented the 
 principles of any considerable portion of the 
 people of that State. While Pennsylvania 
 would go, as I would, to the verge of the Con- 
 stitution and of her principles, to maintain 
 peace, I believe it is a libel on the good name 
 of her virtuous people to say that she would 
 sacrifice her principles to obtain the favor of 
 rebels. I believe it to be a libel on her man- 
 hood to say that she will purchase peace by 
 unprincipled concessions to insurgents with 
 arms in their hands. If I thought such was her 
 character I would expatriate myself. I would 
 leave the land where I have spent my life from 
 early manhood to declining age, and would seek 
 
106 THADDEJJS STEVENS. 
 
 some spot untainted by the coward breath of 
 servility and meanness. To her pleasant valleys 
 I would prefer the rugged, bold State of my 
 nativity [Vermont] ; nay, any spot in the most 
 barren Arctic region, amid whose pure icicles 
 dwells manly freedom." The North had spoken 
 by the lips of her bravest son. Yes, she would 
 wait long before shedding blood ; but if it must 
 come to that, she would accept the issue rather 
 than yield one inch of principle. Well might 
 Mr. Phillips say of the Yankee, "he is slow to 
 fight, but he fights but once." The Thirty-sixth 
 Congress found the country in an excited, fever- 
 ish condition. It left it pierced by treason, 
 broken by disunion, distracted, poor, defence- 
 less. When Abraham Lincoln entered upon 
 his duties he found but few assets on which 
 to administer. No man better described the 
 shameful condition in which the country's prop- 
 erty was left by the Democratic party than 
 did Zach. Chandler in his speech on the Pension 
 bill. "Mr. Jefierson Davis came from the 
 Cabinet of Franklin Pierce into the Senate 
 of the United States, and took the oath 
 with me to be faithful to this government. 
 During four years I sat in this body with Mr. 
 Jefferson Davis, and saw the preparations going 
 on from day to day for the overthrow of this 
 
THADDEUS STEVENS. 107 
 
 government. With treason in his heart and 
 perjury upon his lips he took the oath to sus- 
 tain the government that he meant to over- 
 throw. 
 
 " Sir, there was method in that madness. He, 
 in co-operation with other men from his section 
 and in the Cabinet of Mr. Buchanan, made care- 
 ful preparation for the event that was to follow. 
 Your armies were scattered all over the broad 
 land, where they could not be used in an 
 emergency ; your fleets were scattered wherever 
 the winds blew and water was found to float 
 them, where they could not be used to put down 
 the rebellion ; your treasury was depleted until 
 your bonds bearing six per cent, principal and 
 interest payable in coin, were sold for eighty- 
 eight cents on the dollar for current expenses and 
 no buyers. Preparations were carefully made. 
 Your arms were sold under an apparently inno- 
 cent clause in an army bill providing that the 
 Secretary of "War might, at his discretion, sell 
 such arms as he deemed it for the interest of 
 the government to sell." Mr. Stevens once 
 described the action of Buchanan's Cabinet as 
 follows : " They transferred most of the best 
 weapons of war from the North, where they were 
 manufactured, to the South, where they could 
 be readily seized. They plunged the nation 
 
108 TEADDEVS STEVENS. 
 
 into a heavy debt in time of peace. When the 
 treasury was bare of cash, they robbed it of 
 millions of bonds and whatever else they could 
 lay their hands on. They fastened upon us an 
 incipient free-trade system, which impaired our 
 revenue, paralyzed our national industry, and 
 compelled the exportation of our immense pro- 
 duction of gold. They had reduced our navy 
 to an unserviceable condition, or dispersed it to 
 the farthest ocean. Our little army was on the 
 Pacific coast, sequestered in Utah, or defending 
 the Southern States from their own Indians." 
 With the country in that condition it was evident 
 that the real ruler of the nation must be the 
 Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means 
 on the part of the House. 
 
 With the Thirty-seventh Congress, Thaddeus 
 Stevens began his undisputed rule of the country 
 as the Chairman of the Committee on Ways and 
 Means. Few men have ruled over an empire like - 
 the one he controlled. He held, as it were, the 
 destinies of a nation in his hand. He directed 
 the spirit of the war in the halls of Congress. 
 Men yielded to him even when they believed 
 him wrong. The power of bringing men to his 
 side, of submitting them to him, he possessed 
 in a remarkable degree. But deeper than all that 
 was the man's reality which made him a cloud 
 
TEADDEUS STEVENS. 109 
 
 by day, a pillar of fire by night. There was no 
 sham about him. No cant. He believed in 
 something ; was in earnest ; was real ; and men 
 trusted him, not wholly feared him, nay, at heart 
 they loved and admired him. He stood for 
 something. He had an object in view, and he 
 pursued it relentlessly' to the end — the equality 
 of all men before the law. He meant fight, too, 
 if it was necessary. He was the opposite of 
 Seward, who was the orator of the party. Mr. 
 Seward had immense faith in the Union ; laughed 
 at disunion ; thought the war could not last 
 sixty days at the most ; told everybody so ; 
 was buoyant and spring-like ; chipper as the 
 lark. "What do you think, now?" said Jerry 
 Black to Seward, after the Union cause had met 
 with its most serious disasters during the war, 
 and despair was casting its deepest shadows. 
 " Why," said Mr. Seward, " I think, as I have 
 always thought, that the Union will be saved." 
 "Well," said the ex- Attorney-General, "you are 
 the most sanguine man I ever saw." "Not 
 unreasonably so," said Mr. Seward. "What 
 would you say if j'ou were to see a man with 
 pains in his back, fever in his pulse, and his 
 skin covered with eruptions ? " "I should say 
 he had the small-pox and would die," said ]\Ir. 
 Black. "I should not," said Mr. Seward; "I 
 
110 THADDEWS STEVENS. 
 
 should say he would live, for in such cases it is 
 the rule to live, and the exception to die." 
 
 Stevens looked at facts. He took no chances ; 
 did not speculate on events. He did vrhat 
 had to be done, — never was weak or literary. 
 He did something. He knew the war, which 
 was the result of seventy years' crime, was 
 something more than a midnight insurrection, 
 and with energy he devoted himself to the 
 increasing of the army, to the passage of appro- 
 priations large enough to maintain the power of 
 the government and strengthen the hands of the 
 Executive. As early as July 24, 1861, in reply 
 to Mr. Colfax, he said : — 
 
 " Now, the gentleman does not expect, I sup- 
 pose, that this war is only to last for a few 
 months, and that we will not need this money. 
 He does not expect it will cease of itself. I 
 look upon it, as I have looked upon it ever 
 since these States went deliberately into treason, 
 as one which will be a protracted and bloody 
 war. Some gentlemen have an idea that our 
 enemies, being rebels, will surrender — will 
 succumb in the course of a few months, and 
 with little expense, and that they will not fight 
 what they have undertaken. I flatter myself 
 with no such hope. I believe that the battles 
 which are to be fought are to be desperate and 
 
TBADDEUS STEVENS. Ill 
 
 bloody battles, and that they are to be 
 numerous. I believe that many thousand val- 
 uable lives will be lost, and that millions of 
 money will be expended. The only question is, 
 whether this government is prepared to meet 
 all these perils, and to overcome them. If 
 they are, they must submit to taxes which are 
 burdensome : which the people, I know, at 
 any other time, would not submit to for a 
 moment, but which I believe they will now sub- 
 mit to." Did not history justify Mr. Stevens's 
 prediction ? What fitter hand was there to pro- 
 vide the means of maintaining the war? One 
 of the peculiar incidents of the heroic epoch was 
 the manner in which the lawyers stuck to tech- 
 nicalities. They were always crying out, "It 
 is not in the Constitution." 
 
 No man ever disposed of such nonsense better 
 than did the commoner in the debate on the 
 Confiscation bill. " We are told," said he, " that 
 because the Constitution does not allow us to 
 confiscate a certain species of property, there- 
 fore we cannot liberate slaves. Mr. Speaker, I 
 thought the time had come when the laws of 
 war were to govern our action ; when Consti- 
 tutions, if they stood in the way of the laws 
 of war, in dealing with the enemy, had no right 
 to interfere. Who pleads the Constitution 
 
112 THADDEm STEVENS. 
 
 against our action ? Who says the Constitution 
 must come in bar of our action? It is the 
 advocates of rebels, of rebels who have sought 
 to overthrow the Constitution and trample it in 
 the dust, who repudiate the Constitution. Sir, 
 these rebels, who have disregarded and set at 
 defiance that instrument are, by every rule of 
 municipal and international law, estopped from 
 pleading it against our action. The law estab- 
 lished in the days of Cicero — Inter arma silent 
 leges — is a law that has been in force down to 
 the present time ; and any nation which disre- 
 gards that law is a poor, pusillanimous nation, 
 which submits its neck to be struck off by 
 the enemy." Now such direct language as 
 that is refreshing. It is cathartic. It puri- 
 fies the whole system. It is of far greater 
 import than had it been wrought into heavy- 
 sounding, phlegmatic periods, or gracefully inlaid 
 with the scattered thoughts of carpet knights, 
 while the views expressed are far truer than the 
 doubts of hesitating lawyers, "letting I dare 
 not wait upon I would." But the best of 
 it is yet to come. In referring to the slaves 
 and their freedom, he believed the government 
 had power to and could free the blacks. " But it 
 is said the South will never submit — that we 
 cannot conquer the rebels — that they will suffer 
 
TSADDEU8 STEVENS. 113 
 
 themselves to be slaughtered, and their whole 
 country to be laid waste. Sir, war is a griev- 
 ous thing at best, and civil war more than any 
 other ; but if they hold this language, and the 
 means which they have suggested must be 
 resorted to ; if their whole country must be 
 laid waste and made a desert, in order to save 
 this Union from destruction, so let it be. I 
 would rather. Sir, reduce them to a condition 
 where their whole country is to be re-peopled 
 by a band of freemen, than to see them perpe- 
 trate the destruction of this people through our 
 agency. I do not say it is time to resort to 
 such means, and I do not say that the time will 
 come, but I never fear to express my senti- 
 ments. It is not a question with me of policy, 
 but a question of principle. K this war is con- 
 tinued long, and is bloody, I do not believe that 
 the free people of the North will stand by and 
 see their sons and brothers and neighbors 
 slaughtered by thousands and tens of thousands 
 by rebels, with arms in their hands, and forbear 
 to call upon their enemies to be our friends, 
 and to help us in subduing them. I, for one, if 
 it continues long, and has the consequences 
 mentioned, shall be ready to go for it, let it 
 horrify the gentleman from New York, or any- 
 body else. That is my doctrine, and that will 
 
114 THADDEXI8 STEVENS. 
 
 be the doctrine of the whole free people of the 
 North, before two years roll round, if this war 
 continues. 
 
 " As to the end of the war, until the rebels are 
 subdued, no man in the North thinks of it. 
 If the government are equal to the people, and 
 believe they are, there will be no bargaining, 
 there will be no negotiation, there will be no 
 truces with the rebels, except to bury the dead, 
 until every man shall have laid down his arms, 
 disbanded his organization, submitted himself 
 to the government, and sued for mercy. And, 
 Sir, if those who have the control of the gov- 
 ernment are not fit for this task, and have not 
 the nerve and mind for it, the people will take 
 care that there are others who are — although. 
 Sir, I have not a bit of fear of the present 
 administration, or the present Executive. 
 
 " I have spoken more freely, perhaps, than 
 gentlemen within my hearing might think poli- 
 tic, but I have spoken just what I felt. I have 
 spoken what I believe will be the result ; and 
 I warn Southern gentlemen, that if this war 
 is to continue, there will be a time when my 
 friend from New York will see it declared 
 by this free nation, that every bondman in the 
 South belonging to a rebel — recollect, I con- 
 fine it to them — shall be called upon to aid us 
 
TIIADDEUS STEVENS. 115 
 
 in war against their masters, and to restore 
 this Union." 
 
 Tlius early did he foresee what the logic of 
 events would produce. None saw so soon, so 
 clearly, what the result of the war must be. 
 None knew better than he the Southern character 
 and temperament. He perceived the only way 
 to win was to strike decisive blows. He knew 
 the most lethal weapon was to free and arm the 
 slaves, and as early as the first day of the second 
 session of the Thirty-seventh Congress (Dec. 
 2, 1861), he introduced a bill to emancipate the 
 slaves. The world thought the war on the part 
 of the North was a struggle to perpetuate the 
 Union. Stevens understood the signs of the 
 time better than that. He knew the result of 
 the war was freedom. On Jan. 22, 1862, 
 he had an opportunity to declare his views on 
 that point. "This is no accidental rebellion," 
 said he. " We are in the midst of a crisis which 
 a sagacious statesman foretold thirty years ago, 
 before the agitation existed. The rebels are 
 proud, haughty, and obstinate. Their training 
 has led them to believe that they are born to 
 command. They will sufi"er disastrous defeat 
 before their pride is humbled. They have a 
 vast country to overrun. They declare they 
 will suffer it to become a smoking ruin before 
 
116 THADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 tliey will submit. That issue must be accepted. 
 Better lay their whole country waste than suffer 
 the nation to be murdered. Better depopulate 
 them, and plant a new race of freemen on their 
 desolated and deserted fields, than suffer rebellion 
 to triumph. Such is the voice of the free people 
 of the North. If our rulers prove equal to the 
 wishes of the people, there will be no negotia- 
 tion, no parley, no truce, until every rebel 
 shall have laid down his arms, disbanded his 
 organization, and submitted to the government. 
 The people are humane and this is humanity. 
 
 " How, then, and when will this war end? In 
 other words, how can the South be wholly 
 exhausted? Let us not be deceived. Those 
 who talk about peace in sixty days are shallow 
 statesmen. When, I again ask, will this war 
 be ended ? I can venture to answer that it will 
 not end until the government shall more fully 
 comprehend the magnitude of the crisis ; until 
 they have discovered that this is an internecine 
 war in which one party or the other must be 
 reduced to hopeless feebleness, and the power of 
 further effort shall be utterly annihilated. You 
 must adopt a new mode of warfare. You may 
 raise larger armies ; you may gain battle after 
 battle ; you may overrun nmch of their terri- 
 tory : you cannot hold it. Their soldiers are as 
 
THADDEUS STEVENS. 117 
 
 brave as yours. So long as they are left the 
 means of cultivating; their fields through forced 
 labor, you may expend the blood of tens of 
 thousands of freemen, and billions of money, 
 year after year, without being any nearer the end. 
 Their domestic institutions give them great 
 advantage over the free States in time of war. 
 They need not, and they do not, withdraw a 
 single hand from the cultivation of the soil. 
 Their freemen never labor. Every able-bodied 
 man can be spared for the araiy. Although the 
 black man never lifts a weapon, he is really the 
 mainstay of the war. 
 
 " And now, pray, which is most to be 
 abhorred, a rebellion of slaves fighting for their 
 liberty, or a rebellion of freemen fighting to 
 murder the nation? Which seems to you the. 
 most cruel, calling on bondsmen to quell the 
 insurrection, or shooting down their masters to 
 eflPect the same object? You send forth your 
 sons and brothers to shoot and sabre and Imyonet 
 the insurgents, but you hesitate to bi"eak the 
 bonds of their slaves to reach the same end. 
 AVhat puerile inconsistency ! 
 
 " Self-preservation is our first duty. And in 
 a just war we have a right to put in practice 
 against the enemy every measure that is neces- 
 sary to weaken him and disable him from 
 
118 TBAVDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 resisting us and supporting injustice. The slave 
 is in a state of war with his master. Why not 
 employ the enemy of our enemy to weaken his 
 power ? 
 
 "The occasion is forced upon us, and the 
 invitation presented to sti'ike the chain from four 
 millions of human beings, and create them 
 men; to extinguish slavery on this whole con- 
 tinent ; to wipe out, so far as we are concerned, 
 the most hateful and infernal blot that ever 
 disgraced the escutcheon of man ; to write a 
 page in the history of the world whose bright- 
 ness shall eclipse all the records of heroes and 
 of sages." 
 
 He spoke the truth, but, Cassandra-like, was 
 not believed. He was ahead of his party and 
 his time. When the repeal of the corn laws 
 came about under the Protectionist, Peel, peo- 
 ple said, '' Ah ! the famine forces Peel's hand." 
 So with Lincoln and emancii^ation. It was only 
 when the invaders rushed into Maryland and 
 ■were almost at the doors of the Capitol that he 
 took his oath to liberate the blacks. Not till 
 then. But the battle had been fought for him 
 by Stevens in the House, and it required only 
 the fear and terror of an invasion to force 
 Lincoln's hand. At the beginning of the year 
 1862, the whole Union army amounted to more 
 
TRADDEUS STEVENS. 119 
 
 than five hundred thousand men. The second 
 session of the Thirty-seventh Congress ended 
 July 17, 1862. Important military events had 
 taken place during its continuance — the battle 
 of Fair Oaks, the Seven Days' battle of the 
 Peninsula, Malvern Hill, the contest betvreen 
 the Monitor and Merrimac, the fall of Forts 
 Henry and Donelson, the battle of Pittsburg 
 Landing and the capture of New Orleans, were 
 among the most noted. 
 
 But before that Congress assembled for its 
 third session, one of the most important events 
 of Lincoln's administration took place. Sept. 
 22, 1862, the President issued the following 
 proclamation : — 
 
 "That, on the first day of January, in the 
 year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred 
 and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within 
 any State, or designated part of a State, the 
 people whereof shall then be in rebellion against 
 the United States, shall be then, thenceforth, 
 and forever free ; and the Executive Government 
 of the United States, including the military and 
 naval authority thereof, will recpgnize and 
 maintain the freedom of such persons, and will 
 do no act or acts to repress such persons, or 
 any of them, in any eflTort they may make for 
 their actual freedom." 
 
120 TBADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 In his message to Congress, -when it assembled 
 Dec. 1, 1862, the President explained the 
 proclamation by showing that in giving freedom 
 to the slave we assure freedom to the free, 
 honorable alike in what we give and what we 
 preserve. The way he claimed was plain, 
 peaceable, glorious, just — a way which, if 
 followed, the world would ever applaud, and 
 God would forever bless. 
 
 It may seem to some that at times Mr. Stevens 
 disregarded rules and usas^es in order to accom- 
 plish his purposes ; that with him the end justified 
 the means ; that he acted arbitrarily ; put aside 
 the plain postulates of the Constitution, and 
 hurried on to the goal. Not so. In fact, the 
 opposite was the truth. No man believed in 
 the Constitution and laws more than he. No 
 one followed them more closely in cases where 
 they should be followed. Before the war, he 
 always held himself bound by the compromises 
 of the Constitution, though he disputed the 
 wisdom of many of them. "When the war came 
 he asserted that the Constitution never was 
 framed with the view of a civil war, and that 
 least of all could those who had thrown it off 
 claim its protection. And he sneered at those 
 who were afraid to step outside of the Constitu- 
 tion in time of war, but tried to cover their 
 
TEADDEUS STEVENS. 121 
 
 policy by twisting tiie great charter. His 
 position is well defined in the debate on the 
 admission of "West Virginia. 
 
 The Constitution provided that no new State 
 shall be formed or erected within the jurisdic- 
 tions of any other State, nor any State be formed 
 by the junction of two or more States, or parts 
 of States without the consent of the Legislatures 
 of the States concerned, as well as of the Con- 
 gress. 
 
 Mr. Stevens voted for the admission of the 
 new State but took occasion to put on record an 
 explanation of his vote. " By the Constitution, 
 a State may be divided by the consent of the 
 Legislature thereof, and by the consent of Con- 
 gress admitting the new State into the Union. 
 Now, Sir, it is but mockery, in my judgment, to 
 tell me that the Legislature of Virginia has ever 
 consented to this division. There are two hun- 
 dred thousand, out of a million and a quarter of 
 people, who have participated in this proceed- 
 ing. They have held a convention, and they 
 have elected a Legislature in pursuance of a de- 
 cree of that convention. Before all this was 
 done the State had a regular organization, a Con- 
 stitution under which that corporation acted. 
 By a convention of a very large majority of the 
 people of that State, they changed their Consti- 
 
122 THABDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 tution, and changed their relations to the Fed- 
 eral Government from that of one of its mem- 
 bers to that of secession from it. Now, I need 
 not be told that that is treason. I know it. 
 And it is treason in all the individuals that 
 participated in it. But so far as the State muni- 
 cipality or corporation was concerned, it was a 
 valid act and governed the State. Our Govern- 
 ment does not act upon the State. The State, as 
 a separate and distinct body, was the State of a 
 majority of the people of Virginia, whether 
 rebel or loyal, whether convicts or freemen. 
 The majority of the people of Virginia was the 
 State of Virginia, although individuals had com- 
 mitted treason. The State of Virginia has never 
 given her assent to the separation. Now, then, 
 these seceding States have declared that they 
 are no longer members of the Union — they 
 have raised an army and a power which the 
 governments of Europe have recognized as a 
 belligerent power. We ourselves, by what I 
 consider a most unfortunate act, not well con- 
 sidered — declaring a blockade of their ports — 
 have acknowledged them as a power. We can- 
 not blockade our own ports. It is an absurdity. 
 We blockade an enemy's points. Declaring a 
 blockade is admitting the power of those you 
 blockade. We should have repealed the law 
 
THADDEUS STEVENS. 123 
 
 creating those ports of entry, and thus stopping 
 their intercourse with the world. If we had re- 
 pealed the laws making them ports of entry, 
 there would have been no need of a blockade. 
 No nation would have had a right to send ves- 
 sels there even though we might not have had a 
 ship of war within a hundred miles. 
 
 "Now then, Sir, these rebellious States being a 
 power, by the acknowledgment of European 
 nations and of our own nation, subject and en- 
 titled to belligei'ent rights, they become subject 
 to the rules of war, and the Constitution has no 
 longer the least effect upon them. 
 
 "I say, then, we may admit West Virginia as 
 a new State, not by virtue of any provision in the 
 Constitution, but under the absolute power 
 which the laws of war give us under the circum- 
 stances in which we are placed. I shall vote 
 for this bill upon that theory, and upon that 
 alone ; for I will not stultify myself by sup- 
 posing that we have any warrant in the Consti- 
 tution for this proceeding." 
 
 In all these speeches one cannot help noticing 
 how honest and open the man is. He always 
 places himself on the undisputed fact. He does 
 not try to find authorities or excuses for his 
 action. He does not need them. He is a hero 
 carrying on a great war. His own personal 
 
124 THADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 prowess will carry him through, when treatises 
 on engineering would fail. Being a hero he 
 speaks the truth. See how impregnable were 
 the positions he took during those stormy days. 
 First, there should be no compromise with 
 traitors. Second, there could be no peaceable 
 solution of the great problem, war was inevita- 
 ble. Third, it was the duty of the government 
 to put down the rebellion and coerce the rebels. 
 Fourth, that of necessity the war must be long 
 and bloody. Fifth, that in a state of war the 
 rebellious States could not claim the protection 
 of a Constitution they had forsworn. Sixth, 
 that therefore confiscation was a duty, and 
 emancipation just. Seventh, that we had fool- 
 ishly acknowledged the South as a belligerent 
 power, and therefore she must be subdued like 
 any foreign enemy. Now the truth of all these 
 propositions was denied by statesmen of the 
 Seward stamp. Suppose Mr. William Henry 
 Seward had been Chairman of the Ways and 
 Means Committee, where, pray, would the nation 
 have drifted? Certainly not to victory. With 
 any other man in Stevens's place, the issue 
 might have been doubtful. But with the old 
 hero and commoner at the head, victory was 
 assured. Antagonized on all sides by all fac- 
 tions, he held the ship of State true to her 
 
TEADDEUS STEVENS. 125 
 
 course. In a great war, the most important 
 buttles are fought not in the field but in the 
 legislative chamber. The greatest general is 
 the one in civil life. If the civil power be cor- 
 rupt or weak the military power will surely fail. 
 The hero of Vicksburg, Atlanta, or New Or- 
 leans may be no more important a figure than 
 the leader of the House. His battles are of a 
 difierent kind, but equally decisive. With the 
 issuing of the emancipation proclamation affairs 
 took a fresh start. From that time forth victory 
 seemed to turn northward. The second nomi- 
 nation of Lincoln, his triumphant election fol- 
 lowed by the wonderful second inaugural address 
 showed plainly where the North stood and 
 whither tending. Always busied about the 
 welfare of his country and the interests of his 
 fellow-man, never ambitious for higher oflSce, 
 th^ commoner paid little attention in informing 
 people what his purpose in life was. That they 
 could judge of from his acts. But in Jan. 1865, 
 in the course of a debate with Mr. Pendleton 
 he announced his only ambition and perhaps 
 described that of the Ohio statesman. 
 
 " So far as the appeals of the learned gentle- 
 man [Mr. Pendleton] are concerned, in his 
 pathetic winding up, I will be willing to take 
 my chance, when we all moulder in the dust. 
 
126 THADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 He may have his epitaph written, if it be truly 
 written : ' Here rests the ablest and most per- 
 tinacious defender of slavery and opponent of 
 liljerty.' And I will be satisfied if my epitaph 
 shall be written thus : ' Here lies one who never 
 rose to any eminence, and who only courted 
 the low ambition to have it said that he had 
 striven to ameliorate the condition of the poor, 
 the lowly, the down-trodden of every race and 
 language and color.' I shall be content, with 
 such an eulogy on his lofty tomb, and such an 
 inscription on my humble grave, to trust our 
 memories to the judgment of after ages." 
 
 But times change verily. For now this " per- 
 tinacious defender of slavery and opponent of 
 liberty " poses as the aesthetic candidate for the 
 Presidency in 1884, and receives the applause 
 of the independent press and the callow youth 
 of the nation. O tempora ! O mores I 
 
 The early part of the year 1865 was filled 
 with much discussion as regarded peace and the 
 propositions of the rebel commissioners. Mr. 
 Stevens upheld the expressed views of the 
 President on that point. The idea of a Southern 
 Confederacy, acknowledged by the North as the 
 terms of peace, was extremely distasteful to 
 him, and he fiercely combated the idea. At 
 that time he showed how well he understood 
 
TEADDEUS STEVENS. 127 
 
 the Southern character, for he foretold the 
 birth of the Ku Klux and guerilla warfare, 
 which succeeded the end of the war. 
 
 On April 14, 1865, good, careful Abraham 
 Lincoln died by the assassin's hand. A man 
 full of cares, carrying a great weight of respon- 
 sibility, but " happy in his life, fortunate in the 
 opportunity of his death." Since the greatest 
 of Kotnan writers wrote those words concerning 
 Gcrmanicus, they have never been applied to a 
 more opportune death. He lived to see the 
 Union restored, Richmond taken, Lee's army 
 surrendered, slavery at an end, his malignant 
 opposers silenced ; then he died, and all the 
 bitterness of his enemies changed to silent 
 respect or repentant gratitude. Rising from the 
 humblest position in the nation to the highest 
 among men, he ennobled that great office more 
 than the office ennobled him. But, alas ! the 
 man that was to take his place was a being of a 
 far different order; one who belonged, if to 
 any era, to that of the troglodytes. At the 
 very outset, while in the act of taking the 
 oath of office, he showed himself to the world 
 in a state of beastly intoxication. It shocked 
 the sensibilities of every honest man. It was 
 a peculiarly sad spectacle to Stevens, who 
 was a man of the most temperate habits. 
 
128 THADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 And here let me rehearse the circumstance 
 M-hich made Mr. Stevens so rigid in this re- 
 gard : — 
 
 While he was engaged in his profession at 
 Gettysburg, he was a member of a sort of club 
 of congenial spirits who were accustomed to 
 meet round at each other's houses and spend 
 the evening in playing cards and drinking 
 liquor. One evening, one of the party, a great 
 favorite, who was cashier of the bank in Gettys- 
 burg, becoming a little inebriated, was escorl 
 home by two of his friends, who opened 1 
 door of his house and left him in the enti 
 supposing he would find his way up-stairs. 
 the morning, when his wife came down, s 
 found him on the floor — dead ! When J 
 Stevens heard of it, he went into his eel 
 with a hatchet, broke open the heads of '. 
 wine and whiskey barrels, and would never ta 
 anything of the sort afterwards. When 
 became an old man and very delicate, ' 
 physician prescribed some alcoholic stimul... 
 as a medicine. He absolutely refused to touch 
 it. After holding out for several days, he came 
 to the doctor's office one morninor, and dra^srinff 
 himself wearily up the steps, took hold of each 
 side of the door frame to draw himself into the 
 room. On his complaining of great prostration, 
 
TEADDBUS STEVENS. 129 
 
 the doctor told him frankly that he must either 
 take what was prescribed or die. " Then," said 
 he, " I'll take it." 
 
 But the vice of intemperance was the least of 
 the new President's faults. He came into power 
 at a most dangerous period, — the time when a 
 reaction might take place, and all that the war 
 gained, be lost. Heaven and history only know 
 how that miserable old man tried to produce 
 such a reaction and turn back the wheels of 
 time. 
 
 Mr. Stevens recognized that liberty had a 
 traitor in the White House, and that the battle 
 for freedom was only half won. At the very 
 opening of the next session of Congress, Dec. 
 4, 1865, he threw down the gauntlet to the 
 President by making his motion for a special 
 committee on reconstruction. Many thought it 
 unwise ; but then it was " Old Thad " that did 
 it, and they kept their feelings to themselves. 
 If Mr. Stevens knew how to conduct the war so 
 as to destroy the South, he knew well how to 
 reconstruct that country. To him, more than 
 to any one man, we owe the safeguards which 
 now protect the black and prevent the slave- 
 holder from evading the results of the war. 
 Stevens realized that there must be no reaction ; 
 that eveiy door must be closed and locked, and 
 
130 THADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 that the future would depend wholly on the thor- 
 oughness with which the work was done then. 
 He knew the mistake of our ancestors when, 
 having beheaded Charles, in a few years they 
 allowed the hated race to sit upon the throne. 
 No such experiment as that was to be made. 
 If we could not have indemnity for the past, Ave 
 must have security for the future. K the 
 rebellious States were to come back into the 
 Union, they must come with solemn guarantees. 
 And to this work — all for others, and not for 
 himself — he gave his dying years. 
 
 The first thing to do was to prevent the new 
 chief magistrate from undoing the work of the 
 war ; and to guard against this, it was necessary 
 for Congress to reconstruct the South rather 
 than trust that work to the tender mercies of 
 the Border State President. Mr. Stevens, 
 under a suspension of the rules, on the first day 
 -ef the first session of the Thirty-ninth Congress, 
 introduced his now famous reconstruction reso- 
 lution. It ran as follows : — 
 
 "Resolved, That a joint committee of fifteen 
 members shall be appointed, nine of whom shall 
 be members of the House, and six members of 
 the Senate, who shall inquire into the condition 
 of the States which formed the so-called Con- 
 federate States of America, and report whether 
 
THADDEWS STEVENS. 131 
 
 they or any of them are entitled to be repre- 
 sented in either House of Congress, with leave 
 to report at any time by bill or otherwise ; and 
 until such report have been made and finally 
 acted upon by Congress, no member shall be 
 received into either House from any of the said 
 so-called Confederate States ; and all papers 
 relative to the representation of the said States 
 shall be referred to the said committee without 
 debate." Of that committee Mr. Stevens was 
 chairman. 
 
 Nothing could be more iron-clad than that. 
 None but Stevens could have drafted such a 
 paper, none but he would have oifered it to the 
 House. But there was work to do, and the 
 President must be checked at once. The Pres- 
 ident's love for amnesty was not fully ap- 
 preciated by the Eepublicans. On Dec. 18, 
 Stevens had all parts of the President's message 
 relating to the subject of reconstruction referred 
 to the joint committee on reconstruction. On 
 this occasion he made A very solid and bril- 
 liant speech on the subject, and outlined 
 strongly his views as to the way in which the 
 Southern States should come back into the 
 Union ; and wiser than many of his associates, 
 he saw the necessity of negro suffrage, as well 
 as its justice. And in this fashion did he pro- 
 
132 TEADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 claim himself : " Our fathers repudiated the 
 whole doctrine of the legal superiority of fami- 
 lies or races, and proclaimed the equality of 
 men before the law. Upon that they created a 
 revolution and gave birth lo the Republic. 
 They were prevented by slavery from perfect- 
 ing the superstructure whose foundation they 
 had thus broadly laid. For the sake of the 
 Union they consented to wait, but never relin- 
 quished the idea of its final completion. The 
 time to wMch they looked forward has come. 
 It is our duty ito complete their work. If this 
 Republic is not now made to stand on their 
 great principles, it has no honest foundation, 
 and the Father of all men will shake it to its 
 centre. If we .have not yet been sufficiently 
 scourged. for our national sin, to teach us to do 
 justice to all God's creatures, without distinc- 
 tion of race or color, we must expect the still 
 more heavy vengeance of an offended Father, 
 still increasing his inflictions as he increased the 
 severity of the plagues' of Egypt until the tyrant 
 consented to do justice. And when the tyrant 
 repented of his reluctant consent, and attempted 
 to enslave the people, as our Southern tyrants are 
 attempting to do now, he filled the Red Sea 
 with broken chariots and drowned horses, and 
 strewed the shores with dead carcasses. 
 
THADDEU8 STEVENS. 133 
 
 " This is not a ' white man's government ' in 
 the exclusive sense in which it is used. To say 
 so, is political blasphemy, for it violates the 
 fundamental principles of our gospel of liberty. 
 This is man's government ; the government of 
 all men alike ; not that all men will have equal 
 power and sway within it. Accidental circum- 
 stances, natural and acquired endowment and 
 ability, will vary their fortunes. But equal 
 right to all the privileges of the government is 
 innate in every immortal being, no matter what 
 the shape or color of the tabernacle which it 
 
 inhabits "Without the right of suffrage 
 
 in the late slave States, I believe the slaves had 
 far better been left in bondage. This doctrine 
 of a ' white man's government ' is as atrocious 
 as the infamous sentiments that damned the 
 late Chief Justice to everlasting fame ; and, 
 I fear, to everlasting fire ! " The motion pre- 
 vailed, and the committee entered on its great 
 work. 
 
 The first step taken was to continue the 
 Freedmen's Bureau. The act was called "An 
 Act to continue in force, and to amend 'An 
 Act to establish a Bureau for the relief of Freed- 
 men and Kefugees,' and for other purposes." 
 Of course Johnson vetoed the bill, and of 
 course the Senate and House promptly passed 
 
134 TSADDEVS STSVSNS. 
 
 the bill, notwithstanding the veto, and it became 
 a law. The second step was to confer equal 
 rights on all inhabitants of the so-called Confed- 
 erate States. This, with other provisions affect- 
 ing representation, and the validity of the 
 public debt, was secured by the Fourteenth 
 amendment. The resolution proposing such 
 amendment, was of course vetoed by the Presi- 
 dent, passed both Houses of Congress, by the 
 requisite majority, and was received at the State 
 Department June 16, 1866. The amendment 
 was not wholly satisfactory to Mr. Stevens. 
 But he did not oppose its passage, as he 
 fully realized that it was necessary to do some- 
 thing, and, rather than antagonize it and lose 
 all, he gave it his aid. But a few days after- 
 wards, in proposing a more comprehensive and 
 stronger scheme to the House, he took the 
 opportunity to remark that something more was 
 necessary than had already been done. 
 
 "Notwithstanding surrounding discourage- 
 .ments, the exhortation, 'Be not weary in well 
 doing,' encourages me to make one more, per- 
 haps an expiring effort, to do something which 
 shall be useful to my fellow-men ; something to 
 elevate and enlighten the poor, the oppressed 
 and the ignorant, in this great crisis of human 
 affairs. I do not feel that this august body, 
 
TEADDSm STEVENS. 135 
 
 this grand council of a nation of freemen, has 
 done anything worthy of its glorious oppor- 
 tunity, worthy of its duty to the immortal 
 beings whose destinies for good or evil, for hap- 
 piness or woe, it holds in its hands ; when I 
 reflect with how few acts of justice, with how 
 few wise enactments, most of us seem content 
 to close our labors, and disperse to the periph- 
 ery of the nation in search of cool shades, purl- 
 ing trout streams, and to see our bulls and 
 beeves. I beg it to be understood, I do not 
 claim a right to speak this reproachfully or 
 complainingly. Especially, when I consider my 
 own life — too much of which has been spent 
 in idleness or frivolous amusement — and find 
 myself almost ready to J'ield, before every man 
 is secured equal rights and impartial privi- 
 leges, I cannot avoid feeling humbled. I can- 
 not escape the pangs of self-condemnation. 
 Congress has certainly done some good legisla- 
 tion to aid the white man, if he choose, to pro- 
 tect the poor of all races and colors. But 
 nothing has been done to enable any but the 
 white man to protect himself. How precarious 
 and worthless is that protection which depends 
 wholly on the will of others, and leaves one- 
 self defenceless !" He then explained the de- 
 tails of the plan he ofiered, which, if accepted, 
 
136 THADDEVS STEVENS. 
 
 would make the future secure, and then touch- 
 ingly closed, thus : — 
 
 " In this, perhaps my final action on this 
 great question, upon a careful review, I can see 
 nothing in my political course, especially in 
 regard to human freedom, which I would wish 
 to have expunged or changed. I believe that 
 we must all account hereafter for deeds done in 
 the body, and that political deeds will be among 
 those accounts. I desire to take to the bar of 
 that final settlement the record which I shall 
 this day make on the great question of human 
 rights. While I am sure it will not mak 
 atonement for half my errors, I hope it will b 
 some palliation. 
 
 " Are there any who will venture to take th 
 list, with their negative seal upon it, and wi] 
 dare to unroll it before that stern Judge who ia 
 the Father of the immortal beings whom they 
 have been trampling under foot, and whose souls 
 they have been crushing out ? " 
 
 As soon as Congress adjourned, the President, 
 or "the man at the other end of the avenue," 
 as Stevens loved to call him, mounted a higher 
 horse than ever, and rode rough-shod over all. 
 Men were "kicked out," as the phrase was, 
 under the " my policy " rule ; and hungry rebels 
 became the chief magistrate's boon companions. 
 
THADDEUS STEVENS.. 137 
 
 When the second session of Congress began in 
 December, Mr. Stevens was already active, old 
 and feeble as he was, in his hostility to Johnson. 
 And every move made by the President was 
 promptly checkmated by the " commoner." In 
 fact Johnson's apostacy was Stevens's oppor- 
 tunity and the black man's boon. For it is more 
 than probable that had not the Southern plan 
 been disclosed by the chief magistrate, none 
 would have dreamed of the dangers ahead, and 
 the safeguards would have been wanting which 
 his folly brought about. On the re-assembling 
 of Congress, Mr. Stevens pressed strongly his 
 schemes for reconstruction, always having in 
 view that there should be no reconstruction 
 unless the corner-stone was equal rights for all. 
 Jan. 3, 1867, in offering his substitute to 
 the bill providing for the restoration of the 
 States lately in insurrection to their full political 
 rights, he made an argument more lengthy than 
 one would suppose his health would allow. 
 But so dear was the cause, that mind and soul 
 triumphed over matter, and nobly he cham- 
 pioned the cause of freedom. And thus he 
 described the state of the negro at that date : 
 " We have broken the material shackles of four 
 million slaves. We have unchained them from 
 the stake so as to allow them locomotion, pro- 
 
138 TIIADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 vided they do not walk in paths trod by white 
 men. We have allowed them the unwonted 
 privilege of attending church, if they can do so 
 without offending the sight of their former 
 masters. We have even given them that high- 
 est and most agreeable evidence of liberty as 
 defined by the 'great plebeian,' the 'right to 
 work.' But in what have we enlarged their 
 liberty of thought? In what have we taught 
 them the science and granted them the privilege 
 of self-government? We have imposed upon 
 them the privileges of fighting our battles, of 
 dying in defence of freedom, and of bearing 
 their equal portion of the taxes; but where 
 have we given them the privilege of even par- 
 ticipating in the formation of the laws for the 
 government of their native land? By what 
 civil weapon have we enabled them to defend 
 themselves against oppression and injustice? 
 Call you this liberty? Call you this a free 
 republic, where four millions are subjects but 
 not citizens ? Then Persia, with her kings and 
 satraps, was free ! Then Turkey is free ! Their 
 subjects had liberty of motion and labor, but 
 the laws were made without and against their 
 will ; but I must declare that, in my judgment, 
 they were as really free governments as ours is 
 to-day. Think not I would slander my native 
 
TRADDEUS STEVENS. 139 
 
 land : I would reform it. Twenty years ago I 
 denounced it as a despotism. Then, twenty 
 million white men enchained four million black 
 men. I pronounce it no nearer to a true 
 republic now, when twenty-five millions of a 
 privileged class exclude five million from all 
 participation in the rights of the government. 
 The freedom of a government does not depend 
 upon the quality of its laws, but upon the power 
 that has the right to create them. During' the 
 dictatorship of Pericles, his laws were just, but 
 Greece was not free. During the last century 
 Russia has been blessed with most remarkable 
 emperors, who have generally decreed wise and 
 just laws, but Eussia is not free. No govern- 
 ment can be free that does not allow all its 
 citizens to participate in the formation and 
 execution of her laws. These are degrees of 
 tyranny ; but every other government is a 
 despotism. It has always been observed that 
 the larger the number of the rulers the more 
 cruel the treatment of the subject races. It 
 were better for the black man if he were gov- 
 erned by one king than by twenty million. 
 . . . But it will be said, ' this is negro equality.' 
 What is negro equality, about which so much 
 is said by knaves, and some of which is be- 
 lieved by men who are not fools ? It means, as 
 
140 TEADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 understood by honest Republicans, just this and 
 no more : Every man, no matter what his race 
 or color, every earthly being who has an im- 
 mortal soul, has an equal right to justice, hon- 
 esty and fair play with every other man ; and 
 the law should secure him those rights. The 
 same law which condemns or acquits an African 
 should condemn or acquit a white man. The 
 same law which gives a verdict in a white man's 
 favor, should give a verdict in a black man's fa- 
 vor, on the same state of facts. Such is the law 
 of God, and such ought to be the law of man." 
 
 Next following the above measure came the 
 famous reconstruction bill of 1867. Here again 
 Mr. Stevens drew his physical forces together 
 in order to still further impress his ideas of the 
 duty of the hour, and to warn the country that 
 mercy is oftentimes among the worst forms of 
 cruelty, and so he speaks : — 
 
 " For the last few months Congress has been 
 sitting here, and while the South has been 
 bleeding at every pore, Congress has done 
 nothing to protect the loyal people there, white 
 or black, either in their persons, in their liberty, 
 or in their property. Although we are insensi- 
 ble to it, the whole country is alive to the effect 
 of the supineness with which this Congress has 
 conducted itself. I of course have no right to 
 
TEADBEUS STEVENS. 141 
 
 reproach anybody. I do not reproach any one. 
 I simply grieve that such is the condition of the 
 country, one which is not realized apparently 
 by the House, and especially that part of it 
 which is responsible to the nation. We are en- 
 joying ourselves in a tolerable way, those of us 
 who have health and spirits, while the South is 
 covered all over with anarchy and murder and 
 rapine." And thus, describing the state of 
 aifairs, he addressed himself directly to those 
 who were pleading for leniency to traitors : " I 
 know that gentlemen on the other side of the 
 House believe that this is a harsh measure ; 
 and so does the gentleman from Ohio on this 
 side, who to-day, and the other day, made beau- 
 tiful appeals to our sense of humanity, and 
 depicted the glory of a great nation forgiving 
 criminals for unrepented crimes. I am aware 
 that gentlemen, here and elsewhere, have 
 seemed to be ambitious to enunciate principles 
 of forgiveness, benevolence, and many still 
 more startling and saintly than those of the 
 Athenian or Galilean sage. Sir, generosity and 
 benevolence are the noblest qualities of our 
 nature, and when you squander them upon 
 vagabonds and thieves you do that which can 
 command no respect from any quarter. The 
 sublime, I might almost say divine, doctnnes or 
 
142 TEADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 religion promulgated by Socrates, and so much 
 more nobly and divinely expressed in the Ser- 
 mon on the Mount, seem to require acts of self- 
 restraint almost beyond the reach of man. And 
 yet, in urging forgiveness, they refer simply to 
 private offences, to jiersonal transgressions, 
 where men can well forgive their enemies and 
 smother their feelings of revenge without injury 
 to anybody. But what has that to do with 
 municijial punishment? What has that to do 
 with political sanction of political crimes? 
 When public tribunals, municipalities, nations, 
 pass sentence for crimes committed and decree 
 confiscation for crimes unrepented, there is no 
 question of malignity. When the judge sen- 
 tences the convict he has no animosity. When 
 the hangman executes the culprit he rather 
 pities than hates him. These acts have no fac- 
 ulty of cruelty in them. Cruelty does not belong 
 to their vocabulary. These officers of the law 
 are but carrying out what the law decrees. 
 The law commands, the law executes ; but the 
 law is unimpassioned. The law has no feeling 
 of malignity, no feeling of vengeance. Gentle- 
 , men mistake, therefore, when they make these 
 appeals to us in the name of humanity." Was 
 the miserable sophistry of " mercy " and " am- 
 nesty " ever better answered ? 
 
TIIADDEZrS STEVENS. 143 
 
 Nor did he stop here. " An old man broken 
 with the storms of state," he never faltered in 
 his course, but with iron will worked on in the 
 interests of freedom and justice. Believing that 
 our sympathies should be enlisted for the loyal 
 Unionist who had lost all, for the Union soldier 
 who was maimed, for the black man who was to 
 begin life anew without the means to sustain it, 
 he set himself to work to have confiscation de- 
 creed of rebel property for the benefit of those 
 three classes. And when the confiscation bill 
 came up on March 19, 1867, he announced that 
 to that end he should devote the small remnant 
 of his life. So, with one foot in the grave, he 
 still pursued his grand objects. Supplementary 
 reconstruction bills, " military bills," and what 
 not were drafted, debated and passed under his 
 hand. In a debate on one of these bills in July, 
 1867, he expressed himself in vigorous terms 
 regarding the treatment which should have been 
 extended to the rebels. His views thereon will 
 commend themselves to every fearless patriot. 
 " While I would not be bloody-minded, yet if I 
 had my way I would long ago have organized a 
 military tribunal under military power, and I 
 would have put Jefierson Davis and all the 
 members of his Cabinet on trial for the murders 
 at Andersonville, the murders at Salisbury, the 
 
144 THADDEUa STUrSKS. 
 
 shooting down our prisoners of war in cold 
 blood. Every man of them is responsible for 
 those crimes. It was a mockery to try that 
 wicked fellow, Wirz, and make him responsible 
 for acts of which the Confederate Cabinet were 
 guilty. Of course they should be condemned. 
 Whether they should be executed afterwards I 
 give no opinion. As to the question of confis- 
 cation, I think that a man who has murdered a 
 thousand men, who has robbed a thousand 
 widows and orphans, who has burned down 
 a thousand houses, escapes well, if, owning 
 $100,000 he is fined $50,000 as a punishment 
 and to repair his ravages. I do not say, nor do 
 I ask, that anybody should be executed in this 
 country. There has got to be a sickly humanity 
 here which I dare not get alongside of for fear 
 I might catch it. And it is now held by one of 
 the most liberal and enlightened gentlemen in 
 this country, that we should even pay a portion 
 of the damages inflicted on the rebels, and pay 
 a portion of the rebel debt." 
 
 In those days the friends of liberty, knowing 
 that the "commoner" had not lone: to last, 
 crowded into the House whenever it was 
 known that he was to speak, though for 
 a second. And all wondered at the man's 
 vitality. The press had his biography set up 
 
THADDEUS STEVENS. 145 
 
 in print, momentarily expecting his death. 
 His face grew thinner day by day, his lips were 
 bloodless, and his dark wig, with its hair hanging 
 by the pale cheeks, gave him the appearance of 
 a corpse. His gestures were angular, his 
 movements stiff and constrained, and he was 
 often supported by others while speaking. 
 What he said could not be heard in the galleries, 
 save when stung at the cowardice of his asso- 
 ciates, he flamed up and the excitement carried 
 his voice to the remotest corner. Still, he fol- 
 lowed on in the course he had laid out for 
 himself, and had so faithfully followed. Some 
 of the short speeches in those latter days were 
 among his best. One in particular, 1 remem- 
 ber, which illustrates so well his sarcasm, his 
 mother wit, and sterling sense of humanity, that 
 I give it in full. It was in reply to Mr. Brooks 
 of New York. 
 
 "Mr. Speaker — I have listened with very 
 great pleasure (as I always do) to the golden- 
 mouthed gentleman from New York in his 
 attempt to prove the Bible a lie. That book 
 says that God created of one blood all the 
 nations of the earth. The question at issue 
 between the gentleman from New York and the 
 authors of that sacred volume, I shall not 
 attempt to decide. It is too high for me. But, 
 
146 TEADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 Sir, the gentleman has given us a history of the 
 negro race from, I believe, the time of the 
 Queen of Sheba. I am not sure whether he 
 included her in that race or not. But, going 
 over the whole field from that time to this, he 
 has, I think, very well described the shape of 
 the negro's foot, the crook of his ankle, the 
 contour of his face. And then the gentleman 
 went on to consider the intellect of the negro. 
 Now, does the gentleman by all this mean to say 
 that the sons of Ethiopia — of whom the great 
 pcet of antiquity speaks as the ' blameless sons 
 of Ethiopia,' among whom the gods always 
 retired when they wished to spend an innocent 
 and a quiet hour — have not immortal souls ; 
 that they are to be classed among ' the beasts 
 that perish ' ; and that God, who is to judge 
 them, will not damn him of he deserves it? 
 (Laughter.) I am sorry, Sir, if such has come 
 to be the condition of that race in this country. 
 I had thought that the members of that race had 
 shown in our day some evidences of strength 
 and power. To be sure, I looked upon them 
 as barbarians for having, with their own hands 
 in defence of liberty, stricken down thousands of 
 the friends of the gentleman who has been 
 enlightening us to-day. (Laughter.) This 
 conduct on their part did, I confess, show a 
 
TEADDEJJS STEVENS. 147 
 
 cruelty and a barbarism which are perhaps hard 
 to excuse. But the gentleman must recollect that 
 all are not equally mild in their demeanor, and 
 that even the white man might have done the 
 same thing had he been in a similar condition. 
 As to intellect, there are various degrees of it. 
 In that regard, the gentleman from New York 
 towers above the rest of us, though, I fear, he 
 sometimes abuses his superiority by the decla- 
 mation which he travels out of his road to inflict 
 upon us with regard to the various nations of 
 the earth. But that in intellectual gifts the 
 gentleman stands above all of us, no man who 
 has heard him to-day or heretofore can deny ; 
 and I do not, I assure you. Sir, speak this ironi- 
 cally (laughter), for I do not know when I 
 have heard anything more eloquent than the 
 discourse which the learned gentleman has given 
 us to-day. But I have one proposition to make. 
 For the oratorical championship of America I 
 am willing to match Fred Douglass or Langston 
 against the gentleman from New York. I will 
 allow the latter gentleman to select two out of 
 three of the judges. Let the topic be anything 
 the gentleman pleases, except the negro's shin 
 (laughter) , and if at the end of the discussion he 
 does not 'thi-ow up the sponge' I will admit 
 that the negro is an inferior animal — not only 
 
148 TUADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 inferior to the gentleman from New York, but 
 inferior to the rest of us." (Laughter.) 
 
 The long struggle with the President finally- 
 culminated in the impeachment trial. The 
 moving spirit, of course, could have been none 
 other than Thaddeus Stevens. Others there 
 were equally ready to be the standard-bearer in 
 that fight. But all felt that Mr. Stevens should 
 have the first place. And, on Feb. 22, 1868, 
 as chairman of the committee on reconstruction, 
 he reported the following resolution : " Re- 
 solved, That Andrew Johnson, President of the 
 United States, be impeached of high crimes and 
 misdemeanors in office." Feb. 24, Mr. Stevens 
 and John A. Bingham were appointed a com- 
 mittee to notify the Senate of the action of the 
 House. On the next day Mr. Stevens and 
 Mr. Bingham appeared at the bar of the Senate 
 and were announced as the committee from the 
 House of Representatives. It was a proud 
 moment for the "commoner." It was the cul- 
 minating point of his long struggle with Johnson. 
 The battle had been fought, and he stood before 
 the Senate to do what none other had ever done 
 — to impeach the President of the United 
 States. Of his appearance on that solemn occa- 
 sion Mr. Sumner has given ample testimony. 
 " I know not if Mr. Stevens could be called an 
 
T3ADDEU8 STEVENS. 149 
 
 orator. And yet I doubt if words were ever 
 delivered with more effect than when, broken 
 with years and decay, he stood before the 
 Senate, and in the name of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives and of all the people of the United 
 States, impeached Andrew Johnson, President 
 of the United States, of high crimes and mis- 
 demeanors in office. Who can forget his steady, 
 solemn utterance of this great arraignment? 
 The words wer'e few, but they will sound 
 through the ages. The personal triumph in his 
 position at that moment was merged in the 
 historic grandeur of the occasion. For a long 
 time, against opposition of all kinds, against 
 misconceptions of the law, and against apologies 
 for transactions without apologies, he had insisted 
 on impeachment ; and now this old man, totter- 
 ing to your door, dragged the Chief Magistrate 
 of the Republic to judgment. It was he who 
 did this thing, and I should do poor justice to 
 his life if on this occasion I failed to express 
 my gratitude for the heroic deed. His merit is 
 none the less because other influences prevailed 
 in the end." Mr. Stevens's failing health pre- 
 vented his attending to the duties of the trial in 
 any great degree. His part had really been 
 played in getting the House to pass the resolu- 
 tion of impeachment. Still, with the grave 
 
150 TEADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 staring Avide before him, he addressed himself 
 to whatever work was waiting for him. One 
 of his last acts in that Fortieth Congress was his 
 championship of the free school system for the 
 District of Columbia. He wished to do for that 
 district what he had done for his own State. 
 
 " Obeyed the voice at eve obeyed at prime." 
 
 Well might one of his eulogists say, " There is 
 not a child in Pennsylvania conning a spelling- 
 book beneath the humble rafters of a village 
 school, who does not owe him gratitude ; not a 
 citizen rejoicing in that security which is found 
 only in liberal institutions, founded on the equal 
 rights of all, who is not his debtor." On July 
 27, 1868, Congress took a recess, and Mr. 
 Stevens had the satisfaction of knowing that 
 though his failing condition told him he might 
 never again carry on his great battles of freedom 
 in that arena which had known him so long, yet 
 nearly every wish had been granted him. He 
 had seen slavery abolished ; he had seen the 
 freedmen lifted to equality of political rights by 
 act of Congress ; he had seen the colored race 
 throughout the whole land lifted to equality of 
 civil rights by act of Congress. It only re- 
 mained that he should see them throughout 
 the whole land lifted to the same equality in 
 
THAVDEXrS STEVENS. 151 
 
 political rights, and then the promises of the 
 Declaration of Independence would be all ful- 
 filled. But he was called away before this final 
 triumph. 
 
CHAPTEE Vn. 
 
 "fond gaillard." 
 
 Caeltle tells us in his essay on Mirabeau, 
 that the great Frenchman had about him that 
 " fond gaillard" (basis of gayety), which car- 
 ried him through many difficulties. Stevens 
 possessed the same quality in a remarkable de- 
 gree. Beneath the bitter sarcasm, the merci- 
 less thrust, the unsparing ridicule, there was 
 always a solid ground-work of true wit, a ^fond 
 gaillard" a basis of gayety. Though life was 
 to him a battle and not a dream, one long 
 struggle, a constant contention with difficulties, 
 yet there crops out everywhere, this " basis of 
 gayety." 
 
 In the halls of Congress how often he anni- 
 hilated the weary argument of some doubt- 
 ing Thomas by a single query, a droll as- 
 sertion, — not now preserved — for often in the 
 record we come across the reporter's note, that 
 " Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, from his seat 
 made some remark inaudible to the reporter." 
 
 152 
 
TEADBEUS STEVENS. 153 
 
 To a certain degree, Mr. Stevens met the fate 
 of John Randolph, who said that all the bastard 
 wit of the country was left at his door. But 
 Stevens used his powers- of raillery and ridicule 
 simply as a weapon to a great end. He must 
 destroy his antagonist, and the best fitted 
 weapon must be used. The tools to him who 
 can use them. During the debate on the 
 abolition of slavery, some gentlemen thought 
 such a course unadvisable, as it would tend to 
 excite the South. Stevens pricked that bubble 
 of imbecility by informing the members that it 
 reminded him of the timid captain in the Rev- 
 olution, who raised a company of soldiers with 
 which to fight the British, and when his com- 
 pany was brought before the enemy and were 
 about to shoot, cried out, " For God's sake, 
 don't fire ; for don't you see it will make them 
 a great deal madder ! " During; the discussion 
 on one of the early emancipation resolutions, 
 which was in a very mild form, the "great 
 commoner " expi'essed his inability to see what 
 made one side so anxious to pass, or the other 
 side so anxious to defeat it, for he considered 
 it about the "most diluted milk and water 
 gruel " proposition that was ever given to the 
 American nation. In fact, he said, the only 
 reason he could discover why any gentlemen 
 
154 THADDEUS STEVENS. 
 
 should wish to postpone the measure was for 
 the purpose of having a chemical analysis, to see 
 whether there might be any poison in it. On 
 the free trade and protection debate, having 
 referred to the Democrats as being interested in 
 the cause of England, save a fragment, who 
 were right on the question, and being inter- 
 rupted by Cochrane, of New York, inquiring 
 whether by "fragment" he alluded to Mr. 
 Florence, who was for specific duties on iron, 
 he replied : " I do ; but I do not call him a vul- 
 gar fraction." In the early part of the war, 
 when many Republicans were extremely weak- 
 kneed, and it required all Stevens' will and 
 power to bring them up to concert pitch, he 
 answered some one who complained of his aus- 
 terity by telling him that he knew that many 
 had the good fortune to be made of more 
 pliable stuff than himself, and that one-half of 
 the world everywhere melts into the softest 
 dough, from the nape of the neck to the 
 OS coccygis. His references to President John- 
 son were always amusing. His "man at the 
 other end of the avenue," and " the late lamented 
 Andrew Johnson, of blessed memory," will 
 never be forgotten. Johnson always claimed 
 that Sumner and Stevens were plotting to assas- 
 sinate him. This was always very entertaining 
 
TEADDEUS STEVENS. 155 
 
 to Stevens, — to have the President look upon 
 him as a probable assassin. And on the occasion 
 of his having photographs of himself taken, being 
 informed by a friend that he purchased one, he 
 said drolly : " Which picture did you buy, the 
 assassination one ?" The " assassination one " 
 represented Mr. Stevens with his hand to his 
 forehead, apparently engaged in deep thought. 
 But the truthfulness of his sayings is what gave 
 them a large part of their flavor. During a 
 discussion-in committee on a Southern election 
 case, where fraud was charged on either side, 
 the members expressed themselves very frank- 
 ly about the qualifications of the contestants. 
 "Well, the sitting member is a damned rascal," 
 said one. " So is the contestant," joined in 
 another. "True," said Stevens; "but which 
 is our damned rascal?" At the time of the 
 Voorhis disputed election, where the decision 
 was against Voorhis, the defeated candidate 
 upbraided Stevens in very strong terms. 
 
 " There, Stevens," he said, " I knew your old 
 Republican committee would decide against me 
 anyhow, but I knew you were an honest man 
 and I supposed you would do the fair thing. 
 But you're as bad as the rest of them." " Oh ! 
 no," said the " commoner," " the fact was, we 
 needed just one vote in the House to give us a 
 
156 THADDEUS STEVElfS. 
 
 requisite two-thirds, and so we had to seat the 
 Republican in order to carry on reconstruction. 
 Your case was good enough, but it was that 
 two-thirds vote that killed you, — that fatal two- 
 thirds." And he hobbled off with his peculiar 
 chuckle. Voorhis appreciated the situation and 
 smiled as well. When Gen. Taylor came to 
 Washington, shortly after the war, he visited 
 Sumner, Stevens, and others with reference to 
 a meeting of Jefferson Davis and Northern 
 leaders. He expressed his delight at the 
 cordial and elegant greeting extended him by 
 Mr. Sumner, but complained because he could 
 not get a definite answer. " Why, Sumner 
 tallied for two hours on Greece and Rome, and 
 uttered numberless quotations from dead lan- 
 guages, but never reached the point ; while 
 Thaddeus Stevens, who was the most honest of 
 them all, said in his opinion Jefferson Davis and 
 the rest of us ought to have been executed long 
 since." 
 
 The easy way in which he referred to his own 
 health has also this " basis of gayety." During 
 his later years he was carried up the Capitol 
 steps in the arms of two brawny negroes. One 
 daj' he looked toward them affectionately, and 
 said: "What shall I do when you die?" A 
 correspondent of the Philadelphia Times says 
 
TEADDEUS STEVENS. 157 
 
 that one autumn Mr. Stevens was very ill with 
 an attack of dropsy of the heart and chest. 
 Such was the pressure of the water upon his 
 heart and lungs that he could scarcely breathe. 
 The doctors prescribed very powerful remedies, 
 but they seemed to have no effect. So great 
 was the fear of suffocation, that when the doc- 
 tor paid his last visit for the night, at 10 p. m., 
 in answer to his " good-night," Mr. Stevens 
 said : " Good-night, doctor : I don't know 
 whether I'll see you again ? " The physician 
 said something re-assuring, knowing, however, 
 that his condition was most critical. The next 
 morning when he went over to see his patient, 
 he found him sitting in bed smiling and very 
 lively. " Ah ! good morning, doctor : I'm all 
 right this morning; medicine began to take 
 effect a couple of hours after you left." And 
 then with a grim and gratified smile, " I've dis- 
 appointed those fellows again, but last night I 
 was mighty afraid I'd have to head a little pro- 
 cession up the hill," with a motion of his hand 
 toward the cemetery. "Those fellows " were 
 certain politicians who were waiting for the suc- 
 cession. One of the best specimens of Stevens's 
 drollery and raillery is found in a speech to his 
 constituency, at the time Johnson was " swing- 
 ing round the circle." 
 
158 TEABDEJJS STEYENa. 
 
 "I come not to make a speech, but for the 
 want of one. When I left Washington I was 
 somewhat worn by labors and disease, and I 
 was directed by my physician neither to think, 
 to speak, or read until the next session of Con- 
 gress, or I should not regain my strength. I 
 have followed the first injunction most re- 
 ligiously, for I believe I have not let an idea 
 pass through my mind to trouble me since Con- 
 gress adjourned. The second one — not to 
 speak — I was seduced from keeping by some 
 noble friends in the mountain districts of Penn- 
 sylvania, and I made a speech at Bedford, the 
 only one I have made. The third one — not to 
 read — I have followed almost literally. 
 
 " It is true, I have amused myself with a little 
 light frivolous reading. I have taken up the 
 dailies and publications of that kind, and read 
 things that would make no impression on my 
 mind. For instance, there was a serial account 
 from day to day of a very remarkable circus 
 that travelled through the country, from Wash- 
 ington to Chicago and St. Louis, and Louisville 
 back to Washington. I read that with some 
 interest, expecting to see in so celebrated an 
 establishment — one which, from its heralding, 
 was to beat Dan Eice and all the old cir- 
 cusses that ever went forth — I expected great 
 
THADDETJS STEVENS. 159 
 
 wit from the celebrated character of its clowns 
 (laughter). They were well provided with 
 clowns : instead of one there were two, as the 
 circus was to have a large circulation. One of 
 these clowns was high in office and somewhat 
 advanced in years : the other was a little less 
 advanced in office, but older in years. They 
 started out with a very respectable stock company. 
 In order to attract attention they took with them, 
 for instance, a celebrated general; they took 
 with them an eminent naval officer, and they 
 chained him to the rigging so that he could not 
 get away, though he tried to do so once or 
 twice. 
 
 " They announced the most respectable stock 
 company that ever went forth with a menagerie 
 or a circus, though they had no very good man 
 for the spring-boards, but they took with them 
 for a short distance a very good man accustomed 
 to ground and lofty tumbling, called Mont- 
 gomery Blair (laughter) . And as they wanted 
 to get up side shows, as is always precedent 
 where anything is to be made out of these con- 
 cerns, they switched him off in various directions 
 with a hand organ and a monkey ( laughter) . In 
 the East they called his monkey Senator Doo^ 
 little, because he looked so much like one 
 (laughter^. Up through the mountain region 
 
160 THADBEUS STEVENS. 
 
 where I encountered them, Montgomery Blair 
 was there, and his monkey and organ was 
 called Judge Kinnel. 
 
 " But the circus went on all the time, giving 
 performances at different points, sometimes one 
 clown performing and sometimes the other. So 
 far as I was able to judge, the younger clown was 
 the most vigorous, and had the most energy and 
 malignity. The elder clown, owing to the wear 
 and tear of age and suffering — you know he 
 had his arm broken and his jaw broken, and his 
 neck broken almost (laughter) — inducing a ne- 
 cessity for opiates, which had very much broken 
 down his vigor — I looked upon his performance 
 as rather silly. For instance the younger clown 
 told them, in the language of the ancient heroes 
 who trod the stage, that he had it in his power, 
 if he chose, to be Dictator. The elder clown 
 pointed to the other one, and said to the people, 
 ' Will you have him for President, or will you 
 take him for King?' (Laughter.) He left you 
 but one alternative. 
 
 " You are obliged to take him for one or the 
 other, either for President or King, if 'My 
 Policy' prevails. I am not following them all 
 round. I shall not describe to you how some- 
 times they cut outside the circle and entered 
 into street broils with common blackguaipds ; 
 
THADDEU8 STEVENS. 161 
 
 how they fought at Cleveland and Indianapolis, 
 and other points, I shall not tell you ; for is it 
 not all written down in Colonel Forney's Chroni- 
 cle? (Laughter and cheers.) 
 
 " But, coming round, they told you, or one of 
 them did, that he had been everything but one. 
 He had been a tailor, I think he did not say 
 drunken tailor : no, he had been a tailor (laugh- 
 ter). He had been a constable (laughter). He 
 had been city alderman (laughter). He had 
 been in the Legislature. God help that Legis- 
 lature (great merriment). He had been in 
 Congress and now he was President. He had 
 been everything but one — he had never been a 
 hangman, and he asked leave to hang Thad 
 Stevens" (laughter). 
 
CHAPTER Vin. 
 
 GOES OVER TO THE MAJORITY. 
 
 Power is only a tool. It belongs to nobody. 
 Its possessor is merely a trustee thereof as the 
 opulent is simply steward of his wealth. The 
 purpose is the man. "The tools to him who 
 can use them." Stevens's purpose was the 
 equality of all men. He supplemented Jeifer- 
 son's "all men are created equal," by "born 
 equal, men continue so before the law." So far 
 as the tools the Almighty gave him would allow, 
 he had accomplished his work. It is sad that 
 he could not live to see complete justice done to 
 the ostracized unionist, and hold intact the box 
 for the negro's ballot. That would have rounded 
 his life. But it was ordered otherwise. " Th' 
 unfinished window in Aladdin's tower, unfinished 
 must remain." He had lived long enough to 
 behold many of the fruits of his labor. He saw 
 slavery dethroned, the broad gulf in the nation 
 closing, the black man standing in the light of 
 freedom. And so, having fulfilled the work 
 162 
 
TBADDEUS STEVENS. 163 
 
 given him to do, on the 11th day of August, 
 A. D. 1868, he went over to the majority. His 
 place is with our "large-hearted heroes, born in 
 better years." "He sleeps with the primeval 
 giants, he has gone over to the majority. Ahiit 
 adplures" 
 
 As he was dying, he said to his nephew that 
 the great questions of the day were reconstruc- 
 tion, the finances, and the railway system of the 
 country. He expressed the belief that Grant 
 would be elected President, and would carry 
 out the spirit as well as the letter of the recon- 
 struction laws. And in that hope he died. On 
 Aug. 13, his body was removed to the rotunda 
 of the Capitol, the cofBn being borne by five 
 colored and three white pall-l)earers. The guard 
 of honor were the Butler Zouaves, a colored 
 military organization of Washington. The 
 remains were then taken to Lancaster and 
 deposited in a humble cemetery, and for his 
 epitaph he had written the following : — 
 
 I repose in this quiet and secluded spot, not 
 from any natural preference for solitude, but finding 
 other cemeteries limited by charter rules as to race, 
 I have chosen it that I might be enabled to illus- 
 trate in my death the principles which I have 
 advocated through a long life — equality of man 
 before his Creator. 
 
164 TEADDEVS STEVEWS. 
 
 This was all he did for his own resting-place. 
 But in his will, written during the last year of 
 his life, he did not forget to make ample provi- 
 sion for the care of his mother's lot — that mother 
 to whom he ascribed whatever success he had 
 met in life. And the clause ran thus : "That the 
 sexton keep her grave in good order, and plant 
 roses and other cheerful flowers at each of the 
 four corners of said grave every spring." And 
 farther on in the will, in devising $1000 in aid 
 of the establishment at his home of a Baptist 
 church, of which society his mother was an 
 earnest member, he says : — 
 
 " I do this out of respect to the memory of my 
 mother, to whom I owe what little of prosperity I 
 have had on earth, which, small as it is, I desire 
 emphatically to acknowledge." 
 
 Nothing is more touching than the strong love 
 
 o o o 
 
 for his mother which pervaded the whole life of 
 this man, whom so many thought cruel, bitter, 
 and self-willed. 
 
 I fear it is rash in me to have praised such a 
 hero in these "piping times of peace," when 
 civil service pamphleteers and public penurists 
 thrive. But it is because he was so much of a 
 man, and they so little ; because he sank his 
 own personal advantage in the propagation of a 
 royal purpose, while they feign the possession 
 
TBADDEUS STEVENS. 165 
 
 of sentiments that will bring them praise and 
 gain, that I have told this meagre story of his 
 life, and for this brief space held back his name 
 and fame from the eternal silence whither he 
 has gone. He belongs with the giants of the 
 race, with the defenders of justice, with the 
 friends of truth, with the lovers of liberty — 
 the stalwarts of humanity ! " Politician, cal- 
 culator, time-server, stand aside! A hero 
 statesman has passed to his reward." 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 I. MISSOURI COMPEOMISE. 
 II. SUMNER'S EULOGY ON STEVENS. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 I. 
 
 MISSOUEI COMPROMISE. 
 
 The inciting cause making possible tlie birth 
 of the Eepublican party was the repeal of the 
 Missouri Compromise contained in the Kansas- 
 Nebraska legislation. It is therefore altogether 
 fitting and proper that all should understand the 
 full meaning and history of that phrase, the 
 " Missouri Compromise." 
 
 Jan. 8, 1818, the Speaker of the House of 
 Representatives presented to that body a petition 
 from sundry inhabitants of the Territory of 
 Missouri praying that said Territory might be 
 erected into a State, and admitted into the 
 Union, on an equal footing with the original 
 States. On March 16, a bill to that eifect was 
 reported to the House, read twice, and then 
 referred to the Committee of the "Whole. Feb. 
 15, 1819, the House being in committee of the 
 whole, Mr. Tallmadge (of New York) moved 
 to amend the bill by inserting the following 
 proviso : — 
 
 169 
 
170 APPENDIX. 
 
 " And provided, — That the further introduc- 
 tion of slavery or involuntary sei-vitude be 
 prohibited, except for the punishment of crimes, 
 whereof the party shall have been fully con- 
 victed ; and that all children born within the 
 said State, after the admission thereof into the 
 Union, shall be free at the age of twenty-five 
 years." 
 
 This proviso was strongly opposed by Henry 
 Clay, and brilliantly supported by Mr. Taylor, 
 of New York, who stated the argument in favor 
 of it with great force. Regarding the power of 
 Congress to insert such a proviso, Mr. Taylor 
 sijoke as follows : — 
 
 " Congress has no power unless it be expressly 
 granted by the Constitution, or necessary to the 
 execution of some power clearly delegated. 
 What, then, are the grants made to Congress 
 in relation to the Teri'itories ? The third section 
 of the fourth article declares, that 'the Congress 
 shall have power to dispose of and make all 
 needful rules and regulations respecting the ter- 
 ritory or other property belonging to the United 
 States.' It would be difficult to devise a more 
 comprehensive grant of power. The whole 
 subject is put at the disposal of Congress, as 
 well the right of judging what regulations are 
 proper to be made, as the power of making 
 
APPENDIX. 171 
 
 them is clearly granted. Until admitted into 
 the Union, this political society is a territory ; 
 all the preliminary steps relating to its admission 
 are territorial regulations. Hence, in all such 
 cases. Congress has exercised the power of 
 determining by whom the Constitution should 
 be made, how its framers should be elected, 
 when and where they should meet, and what 
 propositions should be submitted to their deci- 
 sion. After its formation, the Congress may 
 examine its provisions, and if approved, admit 
 the State into the Union, in pursuance of a 
 power delegated by the same section of the 
 Constitution, in the following words : 'New 
 States may be admitted by the Congress into 
 the Union.' This grant of power is evidently 
 alternative ; its exercise is committed to the 
 sound discretion of Congress ; no injustice is 
 done by declining it. But if Congress has the 
 power of altogether refusing to admit new States, 
 much more has it the power of prescribing such 
 conditions of admission as may be judged 
 reasonable. The exercise of this power, until 
 now, has never been questioned. The act of 
 1802, under which Ohio was admitted into the 
 Union, prescribed the condition that its Consti- 
 tution should not be repugnant to the ordinance 
 of 1787. The sixth article of that ordinance 
 
172 APPENDIX. 
 
 declares, 'there shall be neither slavery nor 
 involuntary servitude in the said Territory, 
 otherwise than in the punishment of crimes 
 whereof the party shall have been duly con- 
 victed.' The same condition was imposed by 
 Congress on the people of Indiana and Illinois. 
 These States have all complied with it, and 
 framed constitutions excluding slavery. Mis- 
 souri lies in the same latitude. Its soil, pro- 
 ductions, and climate are the same, and the 
 same principles of government should be applied 
 to it. . . . 
 
 " The sovereignty of Congress in relation to 
 the States is limited by specific grants ; but, 
 in regard to the Territories, it is unlimited. 
 Missouri M'as purchased with our money, and, 
 until incorporated into the family of States, it 
 may be sold for money. Can it then be main- 
 tained that although we have the power to 
 dispose of the whole territory, we have no right 
 to provide against the further increase of slavery 
 within its limits? That, although we may 
 change the political relation of its free citizens 
 by transferring their country to a foreign power, 
 we cannot provide for the gradual abolition of 
 slavery within its limits, nor establish those 
 civil regulations which naturally flow from self- 
 evident truth ? No, sir, it cannot ; the practice 
 
APPENDIX. 173 
 
 of nations and the common sense of mankind 
 have long since decided these questions. 
 
 " History will record the decision of this day 
 as exerting its influence for centuries to come 
 over the population of half our continent. If 
 we reject the amendment and sufier this evil, 
 now easily eradicated, to strike its roots so deep 
 in the soil that it can never be removed, shall 
 we not furnish some apology for doubting our 
 sincerity when we deplore its existence? shall 
 we not expose ourselves to the same kind of 
 censure which was pronounced by the Saviour 
 of mankind upon the Scribes and Pharisees, who 
 builded the tombs of the prophets and garnished 
 the sepulchres of the righteous, and said, if 
 they had lived in the days of their fathers, they 
 would not have been partakers with them in the 
 blood of the prophets, while they manifested 
 a spirit which clearly proved them the legitimate 
 descendants of those who killed the prophets, 
 and thus filled up the measure of their fathers' 
 iniquity? . . . 
 
 "Now, whence came the people who, with a 
 rapidity never before witnessed, have changed 
 the wilderness between the Ohio and the Missis- 
 sippi into fruitful fields? who have erected 
 there, in a period almost too short for the 
 credibility of future ages, three of the freest 
 
174 APPENDIX. 
 
 and most flourishing States in our Union ? They 
 came from the eastern hive : from that source 
 of population which, in the same time, has 
 added more than one hundred thousand inhabi- 
 tants to my native State, and furnished seamen 
 for a lai'ge portion of the navigation of the 
 world : seamen who have unfurled your banner 
 in every port to which the enterprise of man 
 has gained admittance, and who, though poor 
 themselves, have drawn rich treasures for the 
 nation from the bosom of the deep. Do you 
 believe that these people will settle in a country 
 where they must rank with negro slaves? 
 Having neither the ability nor the will to hold 
 slaves themselves, they labor cheerfully while 
 labor is honorable ; make it disgraceful, they 
 will despise it. You cannot degrade it more 
 effectually than by establishing a system where- 
 by it shall be performed principally by slaves." 
 
 I have given these short extracts as they state 
 faithfully the logic and sentiment of the argument 
 in favor of the famous amendment. 
 
 The amendment was agreed to ; seventy-nine 
 voting for it and sixty-seven against it. 
 
 The bill came up the next day before the 
 House, being reported by the Committee of the 
 Whole. Every thing was agreed to at once, save 
 Tallmadge's amendment, which was discussed 
 
APPENDIX. 175 
 
 at length. Mr. Scott, of Missouri, made a 
 vigorous protest against the amendment. He 
 entertained the opinion that, under the Consti- 
 tution, Congress had not the power to impose 
 this or any other restriction, or to require of 
 the people of Missouri their assent to this 
 condition as a prerequisite to their admission 
 into the Union. He contended this from the 
 language of the Constitution itself; from the 
 practice in the admission of new States under 
 that instrument ; and from the express terms of 
 the treaty of cession. By the third article of 
 that treaty of cession it was stipulated that " the 
 inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incor- 
 porated in the Union of the United States, and 
 admitted, as soon as possible, according to the 
 principles of the Federal Constitution, to the 
 enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and 
 immunities of citizens of the United States, 
 and, in the meantime, they shall be maintained 
 and protected in the free enjoyment of their 
 liberty, property, and the religion which they 
 profess." "The people of Missouri," said Mr. 
 Scott, " are, if admitted into the Union, to come 
 in on an equal footing with the original States. 
 The people of the other States had the right to 
 regulate their own internal police, to prescribe 
 the rules of their own conduct, and, in the 
 
176 APPENDIX. 
 
 foimation of their constitutions, to say whether 
 slavery was or was not admissible. How, then, 
 are the citizens of Missouri placed on an equal 
 footing with the other members of the Union? 
 They are to be bound down by onerous con- 
 ditions, limitations, and restrictions, to which I 
 know they will not submit." The debate con- 
 tinued at length, being carried on by Mr. Storrs, 
 of New York ; Mr. Holmes, of Massachusetts ; 
 Mr. Colston, of Virginia ; and Mr. Spencer, 
 of New York. Mr. Tallmadge, the mover of 
 the amendment, closed the debate. After 
 referring to the violent language used by some 
 members, the threats of war and disunion in 
 which some * had indulged, he said : " Sir, 
 language of this sort has no effect on me ; my 
 purpose is fixed, it is interwoven with my 
 existence, its durability is limited with my life ; 
 it is a great and glorious cause, setting bounds 
 to a slavery the most cruel and debasing the 
 world ever witnessed ; it is the freedom of man ; 
 it is the cause of unredeemed and unregenerated 
 human beings. Sir, if a dissolution of the 
 Union must take place, let it be so. If civil 
 war, which gentlemen so much threaten, must 
 come, I can only say, let it come. My hold on 
 life is probably as frail as that of any man who 
 now hears me; but, while that hold lasts, it 
 
APPENDIX. m 
 
 shall be deyoted to the service of my country 
 — to the freedom of man. If blood is necessary 
 to extinguish any fire which I have assisted to 
 kindle, I can assure gentlemen, while I regret 
 the necessity, I shall not forbear to contribute 
 my mite. Sir, the violence to which gentlemen 
 have resorted on this subject will not move my 
 purpose, nor drive me from my place. I have 
 the fortune and the honor to stand here as the 
 representative of freemen, who possess intelli- 
 gence to know their rights, who have the spirit 
 to maintain them. I know the will of my 
 constituents, and, regardless of consequences, 
 I will avow it ; as their repi'esentative, I will 
 proclaim their hatred to slavery in every shape. 
 As their representative, here will I hold my 
 stand, until this floor, with the Constitution of 
 my country which supports it, shall sink beneath 
 
 me 
 
 " Look down the long vista of futurity. See 
 your empire, in extent unequalled; in advan- 
 tageous situation without a parallel ; and occupy- 
 ing all the valuable part of our continent. 
 Behold this extended empire, inhabited by the 
 hardy sons of American freemen — knowing 
 their rights, and inheriting the will to protect 
 them — owners of the soil on which they live, 
 and interested in the institutions which they 
 
178 APPENDIX. 
 
 labor to defend — with two oceans laving your 
 shores ; and, tributary to your purposes, bearing 
 on their bosoms the commerce of your people. 
 Compared to yours, the governments of Europe 
 dwindle into insignificance, and the whole world 
 is without a parallel. But, sir, reverse this 
 scene ; people this fair dominion with the slaves 
 of your planters ; extend slavery — this bane of 
 man, this abomination of heaven — over your 
 extended empire, and you prepare its dissolu- 
 tion ; you turn its accumulated strength into 
 positive weakness ; you cherish a canker in your 
 breast ; you put poison in your bosom ; you 
 place a vulture on your heart — nay, you whet 
 the dagger and place it in the hands of a portion 
 of your population, stimulated to use it by 
 every tie, human and divine. Your enemies 
 will learn the source and the cause of your 
 weakness. As often as internal dangers shall 
 threaten, or internal commotions await you, 
 •you will then realize that, by your own pro- 
 curement, you have placed amidst your families, 
 and in the bosom of your country, a population 
 producing at once the greatest cause of indi- 
 vidual danger and of national weakness. "With 
 this defect, your government must crumble to 
 pieces, and your people become the scoff of the 
 world." 
 
APPENDIX. 179 
 
 In taking the vote, the amendment was divided. 
 The first part was carried 87 to 76, and the 
 latter part was carried 82 to 78. So the whole 
 amendment was agreed to. And the bill was 
 ordered to be engrossed by a vote of 97 yeas to 
 56 nays. The bill then went to the Senate. 
 Certain amendments were added in that branch, 
 but the amendment regarding slavery was 
 stricken out. The bill then went back to the 
 House minus that clause, but with other amend- 
 ments annexed. The two Houses could not 
 agree, each adhering to its position, and the 
 bill failed to become a law. Thus ended the 
 Missouri legislation at that session of Congress. 
 It will be noticed how strong was the anti-slavery 
 sentiment in the House, though abolitionism 
 had not then become a national question. The 
 anti-slavery agitation was not then arousing the 
 country. Members had not been elected on 
 that issue. Yet the temper of the House was 
 for freedom, and the boldness of the speeches 
 of Northern (notably New York) members was 
 in striking contrast with the timidity shown by 
 their successors in later years. 
 
 Dec. 8, 1819, at the first session of the Six- 
 teenth Congress, on motion of Mr. Scott, the 
 several memorials of the Legislature of the Ter- 
 ritory of Missouri and of the inhabitants ot the 
 
180 APPENDIX. 
 
 said Territory, presented to the House at the 
 last session of Congress, relative to the admis- 
 sion of that Territory into the Union, as a sep- 
 arate and independent State were referred to a 
 select committee. The next day Mr. Scott 
 reported a bill from the committee. On the 
 first of March the bill was read the third time 
 and the question stated, " Shall the bill pass ? " 
 Mr. Eandolph, of Virginia, spoke against the 
 bill at great length, on the ground of the un- 
 constitutional and unjust restriction which it 
 imposed on the people of Missouri, as a condi- 
 tion of their admission into the Union. The 
 bill passed the House, ninety-one to eighty-two, 
 and went to the Senate. At that time there 
 was pending in the Senate, the House bill ad- 
 mitting Maine into the Union. When that bill 
 was reported in the Senate from the committee 
 to which it had been referred, it had tacked to 
 it as an amendment, the whole of the bill 
 authorizing the people of Missouri to form a 
 constitution without any slavery restriction. 
 Mr. Roberts, of Pennsylvania, then moved: — 
 " That the bill for the admission of the State 
 of Maine into the Union, and the amendment 
 thereto reported, be recommitted to the Judi- 
 ciary Committee, with instructions so to modify 
 its provisions as to admit the State of Maine into 
 
APPENDIX. 181 
 
 the Union," (divested of the amendment embra- 
 cing Missouri) . 
 
 This opened the debate in earnest. And 
 motions and substitutes followed in quick suc- 
 cession. It was a long debate and graced by 
 manj'- noble utterances. The most notable 
 speech in the Senate was that of William Pinck- 
 ney, of Maryland — William Pinckney, whom 
 Theophilus Parsons styled the greatest lawyer 
 the American bar had ever possessed. Pinck- 
 nej^ had come to the Senate crowned with the 
 laurels of the forum. The senate chamber was 
 crowded. The talent, the taste and beauty of 
 the land were there. All business was sus- 
 pended in the House of Representatives, and 
 members rushed into the upper chamber. His 
 speech was a brilliant combination of eloquence 
 and argument, beauty and strength, amplitude 
 and condensation. Pinckney sowed his argu- 
 ments broadcast. His speech is the best state- 
 ment of the South side view of the Missouri 
 Compromise. His central idea was that you 
 must make the Union as to the new States what 
 it is to the old. He treated the question from a 
 purely constitutional standpoint. Beginning 
 with a brilliant exordium, he directed his atten- 
 tion at once to the question before the Senate. 
 
 " Sir, it was but the other day that we were 
 
182 APPENDIX. 
 
 forbidden (properly forbidden, I am sure, for 
 the prohibition came from you), to assume that 
 there existed any intention to impose a prospec- 
 tive restraint on the domestic legislation of 
 Missouri — a restraint to act upon it contempo- 
 raneously with its origin as a State, and to con- 
 tinue adhesive to it through all the stages of its 
 political existence. We are now, however, 
 permitted to know that it is determined by a 
 sort of political surgery to amputate one of the 
 limbs of its local sovereignty, and thus mangled 
 and disparaged, and thus only, to receive it 
 into the bosom of the constitution. It is now 
 avowed that while Maine is to be ushered into 
 the Union with every possible demonstration of 
 studious reverence on our part, and on hers 
 with colors flying, and all the other graceful ac- 
 companiments of honorable triumph, this ill-con- 
 ditioned upstart of the West, this obscure 
 foundling of a wilderness that was but yesterday 
 the hunting ground of the savage, is to find her 
 way into the American family, as she can, with 
 a humiliating badge of remediless inferiority 
 patched upon her garments, with the mark of 
 recent qualified manumission upon her, or rather 
 with a brand upon her forehead, to tell the 
 story of her territorial vassalage, and to perpet- 
 uate the memory of her evil propensities. It is 
 
APPENDIX. 183 
 
 now avowed, that the robust District of Maine is 
 to be seated by the side of her truly respectable 
 parent, co-ordinate in authority and honor, and 
 is to be dandled into that power and dignity of 
 which she does not stand in need, but which un- 
 doubtedly she deserves. The more infantine 
 and feeble Missouri is to be repelled with harsh- 
 ness, and forbidden to come at all, unless with 
 the iron collar of servitude about her neck, in- 
 stead of the civic crown of republican freedom 
 upon her brows, and is to be doomed forever to 
 leading strings, unless she will exchange those 
 leading strings for shackles. 
 
 " I am told that you have the power to estab- 
 lish this odious and revolting distinction, and I 
 am referred for the proofs of that power to 
 various parts of the Constitution, but princi- 
 pally to that part of it which authorizes the 
 admission of new States into the Union. I am 
 myself of opinion that it is in that part only that 
 the advocates for this restriction can, with any 
 hope of success, apply for a license to oppose it, 
 and that the efforts which have been made to 
 find it in other portions of that instrument, are 
 too desperate to require to be encountered. I 
 shall, however, examine those other portions 
 before I have done, lest it should be supposed 
 by those who have relied upon them, that what 
 
184 APPENDIX. 
 
 I omit to answer I believe to be unanswerable. 
 The clause of the Constitution which relates to 
 the admission of new States, is in these words : 
 ' The Congress may admit new States into this 
 Union,' etc., and the advocates for restriction 
 maintain that the use of the word, ' may,' im- 
 ports discretion to admit or to reject : and that 
 in this discretion is wrapped up another, — that 
 of prescribing the terms and conditions of ad- 
 mission in case you are willing to admit. Cujus 
 est dare ejus est disponere. I will not for the 
 present, inquire whether this involved discretion 
 to dictate the terms of admission belongs to you 
 or not. It is fit that I should first look to the 
 nature and extent of it. I think I may assume, 
 that if such a power be anything but nominal, it 
 is much more than adequate to the present 
 object ; that it is a power of vast expansion, to 
 which human sagacity can assign no reasonable 
 limits ; that itis a capacious reservoir of authority, 
 from which you may take, in all time to come, 
 as occasion may serve, the means of oppression 
 as well as of benefaction. I know that it pro- 
 fesses at this moment to be the chosen instru- 
 ment of protecting mercy, and would win upon 
 us by its benignant smiles : but I know, too, it 
 can frown and play the tyrant, if it be so dis- 
 posed. Notwithstanding the softness which it 
 
APPENDIX. 185 
 
 now assumes, and the care with which it con- 
 ceals its giant proportions beneath the deceitful 
 drapery of sentiment, when it next appears be- 
 fore you it may show itself with a sterner coun- 
 tenance, and in more awful dimensions. It is, 
 to speak the truth. Sir, a power of colossal size : 
 if, indeed, it be not an abuse of language to call 
 it by the gentle name of a power. Sir, it is a 
 wilderness of powers, of which fancy, in her 
 happiest mood, is unable to perceive the far 
 distant and shadowy boundary. Armed with 
 such a power, with religion in one hand, and 
 philanthropy in the other, and followed with a 
 goodly train of public and private virtues, you 
 may achieve more conquests over sovereignties, 
 not your own, than falls to the common lot of 
 even uncommon ambition. , . . Slavery, we 
 are told is now rolling onward with a rapid 
 tide towards the boundless regions of the 
 West, threatening to doom them to sterility and 
 sorrow, unless some potent voice can say to it, 
 ' Thus far shalt thou go and no farther.' Slavery 
 engenders pride and indolence in him who com- 
 mands, and inflicts intellectual and moral deg- 
 radation on him who serves. Slavery, in fine, 
 is unchristian and abominable. Sir, I shall not 
 stop to deny that slavery is all this and more : 
 but I shall not think myself the less authorized 
 
186 APPENDIX. 
 
 to deny that it is for you to stay the course of 
 this dark torrent, by opposing to it a mound 
 raised up by the labors of this portentous dis- 
 cretion on the domain of others : a mound which 
 you cannot erect but through the instrument- 
 ality of a trespass of no ordinary kind — not the 
 comparatively innocent trespass that beats down 
 a few blades of grass which the first kind sun or 
 the next refreshing shower may cause to spring 
 again — but that which levels with the ground 
 the lordliest trees of the forest, and claims im- 
 mortality for the destruction which it in- 
 flicts. . . . 'New States may be admitted by 
 the Congress into this Union.' It is objected 
 that the word ' may,' imports power, not obliga- 
 tion — a right to decide — a discretion to grant 
 or refuse. To this it might be answered, that 
 power is duty on many occasions. But let it be 
 conceded that it is discretionary. What conse- 
 quence follows? A power to refuse in a case 
 like this, does not necessarily involve a power 
 to exact terms. You must look to the result, 
 which is the declared object of the power. 
 Whether you will arrive at it or not may depend 
 on your will : but you cannot compromise with 
 the result intended and professed. What, then, 
 is the professed result ? To admit a State into 
 this Union. What is that Union ? A confed- 
 
APPENDIX. 187 
 
 eration of States equal in sovereignty, capable 
 of everything which the Constitution does not 
 forbid, or authorize Congress to forbid. It is 
 an equal union between parties equally sovereign. 
 They were sovereign, independently of the 
 Union. The object of the Union was common 
 protection for the exercise of already existing 
 sovereignty. The parties gave up a portion of 
 that sovereignty to insure the remainder. As 
 far as they gave it up by the common compact 
 they have ceased to be sovereign. The Union 
 provides the means of defending the residue : 
 and it is into that Union that a new State is 
 to come. By acceding to it, the new State is 
 placed on the same footing with the original 
 States. It accedes for the same purpose, that 
 is, protection for its unsurrendered sovereignty. 
 If it comes in shorn of its beams — crippled and 
 disparaged beyond the original States, it is not 
 into the original Union that it comes. For it is 
 a different sort of a Union. The first was 
 Union inter pares. This is a Union between 
 disparates, between giants and a dwarf, be- 
 tween power and feebleness, between full pro- 
 portioned sovereignties and a miserable image 
 of power — a thing which that very Union has 
 shrunk and shrivelled from its just size, instead 
 of preserving it in its true dimensions. It is 
 
188 APPENDIX. 
 
 into ' this Union,' that is, the Union of the Fed- 
 eral Constitution, that you are to admit or 
 refuse to admit. You can admit into no other. 
 You cannot make the Union, as to the new 
 State, what it is not as to the old : for then it 
 is not this Union that you open for the entrance 
 of a new party. If you make it enter into a 
 new and additional compact, is it any longer the 
 same Union ? ... Is the right to hold slaves a 
 right which Massachusetts enjoys? If it is, 
 Massachusetts is under this Union in a different 
 character from Missouri. The power of Con- 
 gress is different — everything which depends 
 upon the Union, is in that respect, different. 
 
 " But it is immaterial whether you legislate 
 for Missouri as a State or not. The effect of 
 your legislation is to bring it into the Union 
 with a portion of its sovereignty taken away. 
 
 " It is said that the word may, necessarily im- 
 plies the right of prescribing the terms of 
 admission. Those who maintain this are aware 
 that there are no express words (such as, upon 
 such terms and conditions as Congress shall 
 think fit), words which it was natural to expect 
 to find in the Constitution, if the effect intended 
 for was meant. They put it, therefore, on the 
 word may, and on that alone. 
 
 " Give to that word all the force you please, 
 
APPENDIX. 189 
 
 what does it import? That Congress is not 
 bound to admit a new State into this Union. 
 Be it so for argument's sake. Does it follow 
 that when you consent to admit into this Union, 
 a new State, you can make it less in sovereign 
 power than the original parties to that Union : 
 that you can make the Union as to it, what it is 
 not to them : that you can fashion it to your 
 liking by compelling it to purchase admission 
 into a Union, by sacrificing a portion of that 
 power which it is the sole purpose of the Union 
 to maintain in all the plenitude which the Union 
 itself does not impair ? Does it foUow that you 
 can force upon it an additional compact not 
 found in the compact of Union : that you can 
 make it come into the Union less a State, in re- 
 gard to sovereign power, than its fellows in that 
 Union : that you can cripple its legislative com- 
 petency (beyond the Constitution, which is the 
 part of Union, to which you make it a party as 
 if it had originally been a party to it), by what 
 you choose to call a condition, but which, what- 
 ever it may be called, brings the new govern- 
 ment into the Union, under new obligations to 
 it, and with disparaged powers to be protected 
 by it? 
 
 " I have thus endeavored to show that even 
 if you have a discretion to refuse to admit, you 
 
190 APPENDIX. 
 
 have no discretion, if you are willing to admit, 
 to insist upon any terms that impair the sover- 
 eignty of the admitted State, as it would other- 
 wise stand in the Union by the Constitution 
 which receives it into its bosom. To admit or 
 not, is for you to decide. Admission once con- 
 ceded, it follows as a corollary that you must 
 take the new State as an equal companion with 
 its fellows : that you cannot recast or new- 
 model the Union ])ro hoc vice: but that you 
 must receive it into the actual Union, and recog- 
 nize it as a parcener in the common inheritance, 
 without any other shackles than the rest have, 
 by the Constitution, submitted to bear, without 
 any other extinction of power than is the work 
 of the Constitution acting indifferently upon all. 
 " A territory cannot surrender to Congress by 
 anticipation, the whole or any part, of the sover- 
 eign power, which, by the Constitution of the 
 Union, will belong to it when it becomes a State 
 and a member of the Union. Its consent, is 
 therefore nothing. It is under the government 
 of Congress : if it can barter away a part of its 
 sovereignty, by anticipation, it can do so as to the 
 whole : for Where will you stop ? If it does not 
 cease to be a State, in the sense of the Constitu- 
 tion, with only a certain portion of sovereign 
 power, what other smaller portion will have that 
 
APPENDIX. 191 
 
 eflfect ? If you depart from the standard of the 
 Constitution, that is, the quantity of domestic 
 sovereignty left in the first contracting States, 
 and secured by the original compact of Union, 
 where will you get another standard ? Consent 
 is no standard : for consent may be gained to a 
 surrender of all. 
 
 " Sir, if we too closely look to the rise and 
 progress of long-sanctioned establishments and 
 unquestioned rights, we may discover other sub- 
 jects than that of slavery with which fraud and 
 violence may claim a fearful connection, and 
 over which it may be our interest to throw the 
 mantle of oblivion. What was the settlement 
 of our ancestoi's in this country but an invasion 
 of the rights of the barbarians who inhabited it ? 
 That settlement, with slight exception, was 
 effected by the slaughter of those who did no 
 more than defend their native land against the 
 intruders of Europe, or by unequal compacts 
 and purchases, in which feebleness and ignorance 
 had to deal with power and cunning. The sav- 
 ages who once built their huts where this proud 
 Capitol, rising from its recent ashes, exempli- 
 fies the sovereignty of the American people, 
 were swept away by the injustice of our fathers 
 and their domain usurped by force, or obtained 
 by artifices yet more criminal. Our continent 
 
192 APPENDIX. 
 
 was full of those aboriginal inhabitants. Where 
 are they or their descendants? Either 'with 
 years beyond the flood,' or driven back by the 
 swelling tide of our population from the borders 
 of the Atlantic to the deserts of the West. 
 You follow still the miserable remnants, and 
 make contracts with them that seal their ruin. 
 You purchase their lands, of which they know 
 not the value, in order that you may sell them 
 to advantage, increase your treasure, and en- 
 large your empire. Yet further: you pursue 
 as they retire ; and they must continue to retire 
 until the Pacific shall stay their retreat, and 
 compel them to pass away as a dream. Will 
 you recur to those scenes of various iniquity for 
 any other purpose than to regret and lament 
 them ? Will you pry into them with a view to 
 shake and impair your rights of property and 
 domain? . . . 
 
 The power is, ' to admit new States into this 
 Union ' : and it may be safely conceded that here 
 is discretion to admit or refuse. The question is, 
 what must we do, if we do anything? What 
 must we admit, and into what? The answer is, 
 a State — and into this Union. The distinction 
 between Federal rights and local rights is an 
 idle distinction. Because the new Statp acquires 
 Federal rights, it is not, therefore, in the 
 
APPENDIX. 193 
 
 Union. The Union is a compact : and is it an 
 equal party to that compact, because it has equal 
 Federal rights ? How is the Union formed ? By 
 equal contributions of power. Make one 
 member sacrifice more than another, and it 
 becomes unequal. The compact is of two parts : 
 1. The thing obtained — federal rights ; 2. The 
 price paid — local sovereignty. 
 
 " You may disturb the balance of the Union, 
 either by diminishing the thing acquired, or in- 
 creasing the sacrifice paid. What were the 
 purposes of coming into the Union among the 
 original States? The States were originally 
 sovereign, without limit, as to foreign and do- 
 mestic concerns. But being incapable of pro- 
 tecting themselves singly, they entered into the 
 Union to defend themselves against foreign 
 violence. The domestic concerns of the people 
 were not, in general, to be acted on by it. The 
 security of the power of managing them by 
 domestic legislature, is one of the great objects 
 of the Union. The Union is a means, not an 
 end. By requiring greater sacrifices of domestic 
 power, the end is sacrificed to the means. 
 Suppose the surrender of all, or nearly all, the 
 domestic powers of legislation were required : 
 the means would there have swallowed up the 
 end." 
 
194 APPENDIX. 
 
 The opponents of slavery had argued that 
 the restriction against involuntary servitude 
 should be introduced, because slavery was un- 
 Eepublican and the Constitution guaranteed a 
 Republican form of government to every State. 
 On this branch of the argument Mr. Pinckney 
 spoke as follows : " The government of a new 
 State, as well as of an old State, must, I agree, 
 be Eepublican in '\\s,form. But it has not been 
 very clearly explained what the laws which such 
 a Government may enact can have to do with 
 its form. The form of the Government is ma- 
 terial only as it furnishes a security that those 
 laws will protect and promote the public happi- 
 ness, and be made in a Republican spirit. The 
 people being, in such a Government, the foun- 
 tain of all power, and their servants being 
 periodically responsible to them for its exercise, 
 the Constitution of the Union takes for granted, 
 (except so far as it imposes limitations), that 
 every such exercise will be just and salutary. 
 The introduction or continuance of civil slavery 
 is manifestly the mere result of the power of 
 making laws. It does not in any degree enter 
 into the form of government. It pre-supposes 
 that form already settled, and takes its rise not 
 from the particular frame of the government, 
 but the general power which every government 
 
APPENDIX. 195 
 
 involves. Make the government what you will 
 in its organization and in the distribution of its 
 authorities, the introduction or continuance of 
 involuntary servitude by the legislative power 
 which it has created, can have no influence on 
 its pre-established form, whether monarchical, 
 aristocratical, or republican. The form of gov- 
 ernment is still one thing, and the law, being 
 a simple exertion of the ordinary faculty of leg- 
 islation by those to whom that form of govern- 
 ment has entrusted it, another. The gentlemen, 
 however, identify an act of legislation, sanction- 
 ing involuntary servitude, with the form of 
 government itself, and they assure us that the 
 latter is changed retroactively by the first, and 
 is no longer Eepublican. 
 
 " But if a Eepublican form of government is 
 that in which all the men have a share in the 
 public power, the slaveholding States will not 
 alone retire from the Union. The constitutions 
 of some of the other States do not sanction uni- 
 versal suffrage, or universal eligibility. They 
 require citizenship, and age, and a certain 
 amount of property, to give a title to vote or to 
 be voted for : and they who have not these 
 qualifications are just as much disfranchised, 
 with regard to the government and its power, 
 as if they were slaves. They have civil rights, 
 
196 APPENDIX. 
 
 indeed, (and so have slaves in a less degree) 
 but they have no share in the government." 
 
 He then discussed at length the clause of the 
 Constitution, relating to the migration or impor- 
 tation, before the year 1808, of such persons as 
 any of the States then existing, should think 
 proper to admit; and closed his speech by 
 expressing a hope that (what he deemed) the 
 perilous principles urged by those in favor of 
 the restriction upon the new State, would be 
 disavowed or explained, or that, at all events, 
 the application of them to the subject under 
 discussion would not be pressed, but that it 
 might be disposed of in a manner satisfactory 
 to all , by a prospective prohibition of slavery in 
 the territory to the North and West of Missouri. 
 Mr. Pinckney's remarks had left a deep impres- 
 sion on every one. His speech was declared 
 far superior to that of Rufus King, to whose 
 arguments Pinckney had given most of his 
 attention. The South had stated her position 
 on the great question through the lips of the 
 nation's greatest lawyer. No one rose to reply, 
 and Mr. Otis, of Massachusetts, moved an 
 adjournment, which was carried. This was 
 February 15. On the 17th, the vote was taken 
 on the bill. The amendment of Mr. Thomas, 
 of Illinois, was as follows : — 
 
APPENDIX. 197 
 
 "And be it further enacted, That in all that 
 territory ceded by France to the United States, 
 under the name of Louisiana, which lies north 
 of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north 
 latitude, excepting only such part thereof as is 
 included within the limits of the State contem- 
 plated by this act, slavery and involuntary 
 servitude, otherwise than in the punishment of 
 crimes whereof the party shall have been duly 
 convicted, shall be and is forever prohibited. 
 Provided always. That any person escaping 
 into the same, from whom labor or service is 
 lawfully claimed in any State or territory of the 
 United States, such fugitive may be lawfully 
 reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming 
 his or her labor or service as aforesaid." This 
 amendment was adopted by a vote of thirty-four 
 to ten. The bill was then engrossed and read 
 a third time. The bill as amended then went 
 to the House. And on February 23, the House 
 disagreed to those amendments which incor- 
 porated the admission of Missouri in the bill 
 admitting Maine. And then the House rejected 
 all the amendments to the bill admitting Maine. 
 The Senate was equally firm and refused to 
 recede from its amendments. A committee of 
 conference was then appointed. It will be 
 remembered the Missouri bill which had passed 
 
198 APPEKDIX. 
 
 the House was now in the Senate. On March 
 2, a message from the Senate announced the 
 passage of the Missouri bill (with the Thomas 
 and Storrs amendment excluding slavery from 
 the territory west of the Mississippi, north of 
 thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north latitude, 
 except within the proposed State of Missouri). 
 The same day the managers of the conference 
 recommended the Senate to recede from its 
 amendments to the said Maine bill, and both 
 houses to strike out from the Missouri bill 
 (originating in the House) the section excluding 
 slavery, and insert thereof the Thomas amend- 
 ment above referred to. This accommodation 
 was agreed to, and the Missouri bill thus 
 amended passed both Houses. The bill to admit 
 Maine was approved March 3, 1820. The act 
 to authorize the people of Missouri Territory to 
 form a Constitution and State government, and 
 for the admission of such State into the Union 
 on an equal footing with the original States, 
 and to prohibit slavery in certain territories, 
 was approved March 6, 1820. And thus ended 
 the famous struggle. And in this manner did 
 our ancestors enter into a solemn ajrreement 
 prohibiting slavery north of thirty-six degrees 
 thirty minutes north latitude in the territory 
 ceded us by France, under the name of Louis- 
 
APPENDIX. 199 
 
 iana, save that part admitted under the name 
 of Missouri. They thought the question settled. 
 They never supposed that solemn treaty would 
 be broken. Alas ! they knew not the corrupting 
 power of slavery. That was left for their 
 posterity to learn in blood ! 
 
n. 
 
 SUMNEE'S EULOGY. 
 
 Bemarks of Charles Sumner in the United States Senate. 
 December 18, 1868. 
 
 " The visitor, as he paces the corridor leading 
 to the House of Commons, stops with reverence 
 before the marble statues of the men who, 
 during two centuries of English history, adorned 
 that famous chamber. There are twelve in all, 
 each speaking to the memory as he spoke in 
 life ; beginning with the learned Selden and the 
 patriot Hampden ; with Falkland, so sweet and 
 loyal in character ; Somers, so great as a defender 
 of constitutional liberty ; and embracing in the 
 historic group the silver-tongued Murray ; the 
 two Pitts, father and son ; Fox, always first in 
 debate ; and that orator whose speeches con- 
 tribute to the wealth of English literature, 
 Edmund Burke. 
 
 " In the lapse of time, as our history extends, 
 similar monuments may illustrate the approach 
 to our House of Representatives, arresting the 
 reverence of the visitor. If our group is confined 
 to those whose fame has been won in the House 
 200 
 
APPENDIX. 201 
 
 alone, it will be small ; for members of the 
 House are mostly birds of passage only perching 
 on their way to another place. Few remain so 
 as to become identified with the House, or their 
 service there is forgotten in the blaze of other 
 service elsewhere, as was the case with Madison, 
 Marshall, Clay, Webster and Lincoln. It is not 
 difficult to see who will find a place in this small 
 company. There must be a statue of Josiah 
 Quincy, whose series of eloquent speeches is the 
 most complete of our history before Webster 
 pleaded for Greece ; and also a statue of Joshua 
 R. Giddings, whose faithful championship of free- 
 dom throughout a long and terrible conflict, 
 makes him one of the great names of our country. 
 And there must be a statue of Thaddeus Stevens, 
 who was, perhaps, the most remarkable charac- 
 ter identified with the House, unless we except 
 John Quincy Adams ; but the fame of the latter 
 is not that of a representative alone, for he was 
 already illustrious from various service before 
 he entered the House. 
 
 "All of these hated slavery, and labored for its 
 overthrow. On this account they were a mark 
 for obloquy, and were generally in a minority. 
 Already compensation has begun. As the cause 
 which they upheld so bravely is exalted, so is 
 their fame. By the side of their far-sighted, 
 
202 APPENDIX. 
 
 far-reaching and heroic efforts, how diminutive 
 is all that was done by others at the time ! How 
 vile the spirit that raged against them ! 
 
 " Stevens was a child of New England, as 
 were Quincy and Adams ; but after completing 
 his education he found a home in Pennsylvania, 
 which had already given birth to Giddings. If 
 this great central State can claim one of these 
 remarkable men by adoption only, it may claim 
 the other by paternity. Their names are among 
 its best glories. 
 
 "Two things Stevens did for his adopted 
 State, by which he repaid largely all her hospi- 
 tality and favor. He taught her to cherish 
 education for the people, and he taught her 
 respect for human rights. The latter lesson was 
 slower learned than the former. In the prime 
 of life, when his faculties were in their highest 
 vigor, he became conspicuous for earnest effort, 
 crowned by most persuasive speech, whose 
 echoes have not yet died away, for those common 
 schools, which, more even than railroads, are the 
 hand-maids of civilization, besides being the true 
 support of republican government. His power- 
 ful word turned the scale, and a great cause was 
 won. This same powerful word was given 
 promptly and without hesitation to that other 
 cause, suffering then from constant and most 
 
APPENDIX. 203 
 
 cruel outrage. Here he stood always like a 
 pillar. Suffice it to say that he was one of the 
 earliest of abolitionists, accepting the name and 
 bearing the reproach. Not a child in Penn- 
 sylvania, conning a spelling-book beneath the 
 humble rafters of a village school, who does not 
 owe him gratitude ; not a citizen, rejoicing in 
 that security which is found only in liberal 
 institutions, founded on the equal rights of- all, 
 who is not his debtor. 
 
 " When he entered Congress it was as cham- 
 pion. His conclusions were already matured, 
 and he saw his duty plain before him. The 
 English poet foreshadows him when he pictures — 
 
 ' One in whom persuasion and belief 
 Had ripened Into faith, and faith become 
 A passionate conviction.' 
 
 Slavery was wrong and he would not tolerate it. 
 Slave-masters, brimming with slavery, were 
 imperious and lawless. From him they learned 
 to see themselves as others saw them. Strong 
 in his cause and in the consciousness of power, 
 he did not shrink from any encounter, and, when 
 it was joined, he used not only argument and 
 history, but all those other weapons by which 
 a bad cause is exposed to scorn and contempt. 
 Nobody said more in fewer words, or gave to 
 language a sharper bite. Speech was with him 
 
204 APPENDIX. 
 
 at times a cat-o'-nine-tails, and woe to the 
 victim on whom the terrible lash descended. 
 
 "Does any one doubt the justifiableness of 
 such debate? Sarcasm, satire, and ridicule are 
 not given in vain. They have an office to 
 perform in the economies of life. They are 
 faculties to be employed prudently in support 
 of truth and justice. A good cause is helped 
 if its enemies are driven back ; and it cannot be 
 doubted that the supporters of wrong and the 
 procrastinators shrank often before the weapons 
 he wielded. Soft words turn away wrath ; but 
 there is a time for strong words as for soft 
 words. Did not the Saviour seize the thongs 
 with which to drive the money-changers from 
 the temple? Our money-changers long ago 
 planted themselves within our temple. Was it 
 not right to lash them away ? Such an exercise 
 of power in a generous cause must not be con- 
 founded with that personality of debate which 
 has its origin in nothing higher than irritability, 
 jealousy, or spite. In this sense, Thaddeus 
 Stevens was never personal. No personal 
 thought or motive controlled him. What he 
 said was for his country and mankind. 
 
 "As the rebellion assumed its gigantic pro- 
 portions, he saw clearly that it could be smitten 
 only through slavery ; and, when after a bloody 
 
APPENDIX. 205 
 
 struggle it was too tardily vanquished, he saw 
 clearly that there could be no true peace except 
 by founding the new government on the equal 
 rights of all. And this policy he urged with a 
 lofty dogmatism which was as beneficent as 
 uncompromising. The rebels burned his prop- 
 erty in Pennsylvania, and there were weaklings 
 who attributed his conduct to the smart at his 
 loss. How little they understood his nature ! 
 Injury provokes and sometimes excuses resent- 
 ment. But it was not in him to allow a private 
 grief to influence his public conduct. The 
 losses of the iron-master were forgotten in the 
 duties of the statesman. He asked nothing for 
 himself. He did not ask his own rights except 
 as the rights of man. 
 
 " I know not if he could be called an orator, 
 perhaps, like Fox, he were better called a de- 
 bater. And yet I doubt if words were ever 
 delivered with more effect than when, broken 
 with years and decay, he stood before the Sen- 
 ate, and in the name of the House of Represen- 
 tatives, and of all the people of the United 
 States, impeached Andrew Johnson, President 
 of the United States, of high crimes and misde- 
 meanors in office. Who can forget his steady, 
 solemn utterance of this great arraignment? 
 The words were few, but they will sound 
 
206 APPENDIX. 
 
 through the ages. The personal triumph in 
 his position at that moment was merged in the 
 historic grandeur of the occasion. For a long 
 time, against opposition of all kinds, against 
 misconceptions of the law and against apologies 
 for transactions without apology, he had insisted 
 on impeachment ; and now this old man, totter- 
 ing to your door, dragged the Chief Magistrate 
 of the Republic to judgment. It was he who 
 did this thing ; and I should do poor justice to 
 his life if on this occasion I failed to express my 
 gratitude for the heroic deed. His merit is 
 none the less because other influences prevailed 
 in the end. His example will remain forever. 
 " In the House, which was the scene of his 
 triumphs, I never heard him but once : but I 
 cannot forget the noble eloquence of that brief 
 speech. I was there by accident just as he 
 rose. He did not speak more than ten min- 
 utes ; but every sentence seemed an oration. 
 With unhesitating plainness he arraigned Penn- 
 sylvania for her denial of equal rights to an 
 oppressed race, and rising with the theme, 
 declared that this State had not a Republican 
 government. His explicitness was the more 
 striking because he was the Representative of 
 Pennsylvania. I presume the speech will be 
 found in the Globe. Nobody, who has con- 
 
APPENDIX. 207 
 
 sidered with any care what constitutes a Repub- 
 lican government, especially since the definition 
 supplied by our Declaration of Independence, 
 can doubt that he was right. His words will 
 live as the courageous testimony of a great 
 character on this important question. 
 
 " The last object of his life was the establish- 
 ment of equal rights throughout the whole 
 country by the recognition of the requirement 
 of the Declaration of Independence. I have 
 before me two letters in which he records his 
 convictions, which are, perhaps, more weighty, 
 because the result of most careful consideration, 
 when age had furnished experience and tem- 
 pered the judgment. 
 
 " ' I have,' says he, ' long, and with such 
 ability as I could command reflected upon the 
 subject of the Declaration of Independence, and 
 finally have come to the sincere conclusion that 
 universal suffrage was one of the inalienable 
 rights intended to be embraced in that instru- 
 ment.' It is difficult to see how there can be 
 any hesitation on this point, when the great 
 title-deed expressly says that governments de- 
 rive their just powers from the consent of the 
 governed. But this is not the only instance in 
 which he was constrained by the habits of that 
 profession, which he practised so successfully. 
 
208 APPENDIX. 
 
 A great Parliamentarian of France has said : 
 'The more one is a lawyer the less he is a 
 Senator.' Plus on est avocat moins on est 
 Senateur. If Stevens reached his conclusion 
 slowly, it was because he had not completely 
 emancipated himself from that technical reason- 
 ing which is the boast of the lawj'er rather than 
 of the statesman. The pretension that the 
 power to determine the 'qualifications ' of voters, 
 embraced the power to exclude for color, and that 
 this same power to exclude for color was in- 
 cluded in the asserted power of the States to 
 make 'regulations' for the elective franchise, 
 seems at first to have deceived him ; as if it was 
 not insulting to the reason, and shocking to the 
 moral sense, to suppose that any unalterable 
 physical condition, such as color of hair, eyes, 
 or skin, could be a 'qualification,' and, as if it 
 was not equally offensive to suppose, that under 
 a power to determine ' qualifications ' or to 
 make ' regulations,' a race could be disfran- 
 chised. Of course, this whole pretension is a 
 technicality set up against human rights. JNoth- 
 ing can be plainer than that a technicality may 
 be employed in favor of human rights, but never 
 against them. Stevens came to his conclusion 
 at last, and rested in it firmly. It was his final 
 aspiration to see it prevail. He had seen much 
 
APPENDIX. 209 
 
 for which he had striven, embodied in the in- 
 stitutions of his country. He had seen slavery 
 aboh'shed. He had seen the freedman lifted to 
 equality of political rights, by act of Congress ; 
 he had seen the colored race throughout the 
 ■whole land lifted to equality of civil rights, by 
 act of Congress. It only remained that he 
 should see them throughout the whole land 
 lifted to the same equality in political rights ; 
 and then the promises of the Declaration of 
 Independence would be all fulfilled. But he 
 was called away before this final triumph. A 
 great writer of antiquity, a perpetual authority, 
 tells us, that, ' the chief duty of friends is not 
 to honor the departed by idle grief, but to re- 
 member their purposes, and to carry out their 
 mandates.' These are the words of Tacitus. 
 I venture to add that we shall best honor him 
 whom we now celebrate, if we adopt his aspira- 
 tion, and strive for its fulfilment. 
 
 "It is as a defender of human rights, that 
 Thaddeus Stevens deserves our homage. Here 
 he is supreme. On other questions he erred. 
 On the finances his errors were signal. But 
 history will forget these and other failings, as it 
 bends with reverence before those exalted labors 
 by which humanity has been advanced. Already 
 he takes his place among illustrious names, 
 
210 APPENDIX. 
 
 which are the common property of mankind. I 
 see him now, as I have so often seen him during 
 life. His venerable form moves slowly and 
 with uncertain steps ; but the gathered strength 
 of years is in his countenance, and the light of 
 victory on his path. Politician, calculator, time- 
 server, stand aside ! A hero-statesman passes 
 to his reward." 
 
 Boston stereotype Foundry, No. 4 Pearl Street. 
 
OF THE 
 
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