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 HISTCiRICALAND POLITICAL ESSAYS. Crown 
 
 8vo, ^1.25. 
 
 SPEECHES. 8vo, boards, Si.oo. 
 
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 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY, 
 
 Boston and New York. 
 
HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL 
 ESSAYS 
 
 HENRY CABOT LODGE 
 
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 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 1892 
 
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 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
 Electrotyped and Fruited by H. O. Houghton & Co. 
 
TO 
 
 FRANCIS PARKMAN 
 
 IN TOKEN OP ADMIRATION FOR HIS GREAT WORK 
 
 AS AN AMERICAN HISTORIAN, AND FOR 
 
 HIS CHARACTER AS A MAN 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028759276 
 
I MERELY desire, by way of preface, to thank 
 most heartily the publishers of The Atlantic 
 Monthly and Andover Review; my friend, Mr. 
 R. W. Gilder, Editor of The Century ; Mr. James 
 Knowles, Editor of The Nineteenth Century; and 
 The New York Tribune, for their kindness in per- 
 mitting me to reprint the essays which I have 
 
 brought together here. 
 
 H. C. L. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 William H. Sewabd 1 
 
 James Madison 47 
 
 goutbbneur morris 75 
 
 Why Patronage in Office is Un-American . . 114 
 The Distribution of Ability in the United States . 138 
 Pabuambntary Obstruction in the United States . 169 
 
 Parliamentary Minorities 180 
 
 Party Alleoianoe 198 
 
HISTOEICAL AND POLITICAL 
 
 ESSAYS 
 
 WILLIAM H. SEWARD.i 
 
 Geeat social and political movements whicli 
 end either in peaceful or in violent revolution de- 
 velop two wholly distinct sets of leaders. First 
 come the agitators and fanatics, crying in the wil- 
 derness, and cursing alike the actual oppressors, 
 and the Gallios, who "care for none of those 
 things." By their appeals and their invective, by 
 their sufferings and their martyrdom, these early 
 pioneers, if their cause be just, sooner or later 
 arouse the slumbering conscience of the world 
 about them ; and when this is thoroughly accom- 
 plished their work is really done. The great task 
 then passes to other hands ; for although the true 
 fanatic may be able to caU the people from their 
 
 1 The Life of Seward by his son has appeared since the 
 first publication of this essay in The Atlantic Monthly for 
 May, 1884. That extensive and elaborate biography has of 
 course added greatly to our knowledge of the details of Mr. 
 Seward's career, but as it has not altered the view of his 
 character and services which I took in 1884, at the time of 
 the publication of Seward's Works, I have allowed the essay 
 to stand as it was originally written. 
 
2 WILLIAM H. SEWARD 
 
 tents, he cannot organize them. He is, as a rule, 
 incapable of leadership, or, in other words, of deal- 
 ing with his fellow-men. He would not be what 
 he is if this were not so ; for men of that type 
 must be, in the nature of things, different from the 
 mass of their fellow-beings. They must have the 
 solitary temperament in some form or other, for 
 they are obliged to endure mental and moral, if 
 not social, isolation ; they must be imbued with the 
 spirit of the mediaeval ascetic, utterly given over to 
 one idea, emotional and unreasonable. Such men 
 have played great parts at all epochs, and are no 
 doubt essential to the progress of the human race. 
 In modern times, however, all important reforms 
 are carried by organization and combination ; and 
 this is precisely what extreme and violent agitators, 
 who appear as the precursors of great moral move- 
 ments, are unable to compass. 
 
 Yet although the forces are marshaled and the 
 battle won by others, the extremists who first raised 
 their voices against vested abuses frequently have 
 a compensation in the fact that if they live for 
 some years after the triumph of their cause they 
 are often regarded not only as the champions of 
 a once despised but now successful principle, but 
 also as the men who bore that principle to victory. 
 Mankind love the striking and picturesque, and 
 when they see among them some one who in earlier 
 days sustained a great cause in the midst of perse- 
 cution and obloquy, and who now rests from his 
 labors with all the world on his side,, they are daz- 
 zled by the contrast. Not content with awarding 
 
WILLIAM H. SEWARD 3 
 
 him the praise which is rightfully his, they give 
 him credit for much that he did not do, and for ■ 
 achievements wholly alien to men of his type. 
 Time, which sets all things even, remedies this in- 
 justice. In history the agitator finds his proper 
 place ; and while he obtains the commendation 
 which he really deserves, he is no longer burdened 
 with praise which injures because it is misplaced 
 and inappropriate. 
 
 In our anti-slavery struggle, leaders of the two 
 very different classes to which allusion has just 
 been made were of course developed, and I have 
 been led to make the preceding remarks about 
 them because there has been of late a disposition 
 to treat the original and extreme abolitionists as if 
 they not only began the great movement, and car- 
 ried the conflict for freedom to a successful termi- 
 nation, but as if they were in fact the chief, if not 
 the sole persons concerned. The early and radical 
 abolitionists deserve, and will always receive, honor 
 for their sacrifices, their courage, and their success 
 in awakening the sleeping conscience of the coun- 
 try. This they did, and they are entitled to fuH 
 credit for this part of the great work. No one 
 would think of denying their heroism in support 
 of a noble principle, or the value of their services 
 to the cause of humanity. At the same time, they 
 are not, except in this indirect way, as the original 
 and exciting cause, the men who actually stopped 
 the extension of slavery, saved the Union, and 
 destroyed human bondage in the United States. 
 To meet and overcome the slave power it was 
 
4 WILLIAM H. SEWARD 
 
 necessary to form a great political organization, 
 or, in other words, to obtain the concerted action 
 of large bodies of men. This the abolitionists 
 could not do. They did not even have coherence 
 among themselves. Some of them acted politi- 
 cally ; others refused even to vote. Some of them 
 wished to push the cause of women's rights ; otbers 
 thought one issue at a time enough. Some favored 
 a choice between the two great parties; others 
 would vote for no candidates except their own. 
 They were continually extending and strengthening 
 the anti-slavery sentiment among the people, but 
 they could not add to their own numbers. The 
 avowal by many of them of secession principles, 
 coupled with wild denunciation of the constitution, 
 shocked thousands who deeply sympathized with 
 their objects, and they were unable to formulate a 
 practicable plan of action which was capable of 
 obtaining substantial support. There were of 
 course all shades of opinion among the abolition- 
 ists, and no general description can possibly be 
 just to each individual. There can be no doubt, 
 however, that while as a body they powerfully af- 
 fected public opinion, they were unable to convert 
 their principles into effective political questions, 
 and thence into legislative acts. 
 
 In one division, the political abolitionists, we find 
 the germs of a party which, after various modifica- 
 tions and transformations, developed into the Free- 
 Soil party, which was constitutional, practical, and 
 therefore possible ; but which, in becoming so, sep- 
 arated from the uncompromising abolitionists of 
 
WILLIAM H. SEWARD 5 
 
 the most extreme and well-marked type. The 
 work of the new party was to point out and define 
 a ground to which anti-slavery men who had clung 
 to the Whig and Democratic parties could come, 
 and where they could unite for concerted action. 
 This the Free Soilers accomplished ; and so well 
 did they succeed that when the crash came and 
 political bonds were loosened a place was provided 
 where all anti-slavery men could gather. From 
 less than two hundred thousand votes in 1852 
 the constitutional anti-slavery party rose to over a 
 million and a quarter in 1856. This quick and 
 mighty increase could not have come by purely 
 natural processes of growth during four years. It 
 was due chiefly to the sudden concentration of all 
 the opponents of slavery. Public opinion, aroused 
 and formed by the abolition propaganda, was, it is 
 true, terribly stimulated in those four years by the 
 aggressions of the slave power, but the main ele- 
 ments had been develoj)ing for a much longer 
 period. When the inevitable operation of the slave 
 question had shattered the Whigs and divided the 
 Democrats, great bodies of men who had been for 
 years in real sympathy, but who had been working 
 with different methods and in different directions, 
 were at last set free. They needed only a rallying 
 point, and that the Free Soilers offered them in 
 the policy of resistance to the extension of slavery 
 in the Territories. When they came together and 
 polled their votes, they were themselves startled at 
 tlie magnitude of the powerful organization which 
 almost seemed to have sprung into existence in the 
 
6 WILLIAM H. SEWARD 
 
 night. Now for the first time were the enemies of 
 slavery united. They came from all sides, — Aboli- 
 tionists, Free Soilers, Democrats, and Whigs. The 
 waiting had been long, but they met at length 
 under one roof and on one platform, the only anti- 
 slavery men who held aloof being the little band 
 of non-political abolitionists. In this way the Re- 
 publican party was formed, but the largest addition 
 to its strength was composed of Whigs, who came 
 in under the leadership of the distinguished states- 
 man whose name stands at the head of this essay. 
 
 The advent of Seward marked the period when 
 resistance to slavery ceased to be mere agitation or 
 the object.of isolated efforts, and became a polit- 
 ical question, capable of solution by ordinary and 
 constitutional methods, and the watchword of a 
 compact and organized party. Seward represented 
 fully the class of statesmen, who, taking up a great 
 reform, are able by their wisdom, moderation, 
 firmness, and above all by their capacity for com- 
 bination, to secure a large popular following, and 
 thus carry their principles to victory. These new 
 leaders were men of great ability and vigorous 
 character. Some came, like Hale and Julian, from 
 the old Liberty party ; others, like Adams, Sum- 
 ner, and Wilson, had been engaged in the Free- 
 Soil movement ; but most of them were fresh from 
 their affiliations with the Whig and Democratic 
 parties, which they now left forever. Coming 
 from every political quarter and from every part of 
 the free North, the Republican chiefs were all im- 
 bued with a common purpose. They had taken upon 
 
WILLIAM H. SEWARD 7 
 
 themselves a heavy burden, and if they had known 
 that in addition to the conflict with slavery they 
 were soon to be brought face to face with civil war, 
 and charged with the salvation of the Union, their 
 courage might not have been so cheerful as it was 
 when they faced the country with Fremont and 
 Dayton as their candidates. 
 
 To the younger generations in the United States 
 no period is so vague and unfamiliar as that which 
 extends from the compromises of 1850 to the first 
 election of Grant. It is neither contemporary nor 
 historical, and those who cannot remember it have 
 as yet but meagre opportunities of understanding 
 the course of events during those momentous 
 years. The time has come, however, when it is 
 most important that just ideas should prevail in 
 regard to the men who confronted the slave power 
 in its last desperate struggle for supremacy, first 
 at the ballot - box, and then on the battle - field. 
 There ought to be no misapprehension in regard to 
 these men. Their characters, abilities, and ser- 
 vices ought to be fully and thoroughly understood, 
 and for this reason the appearance of Seward's 
 works 1 in a new and handsome edition, now ex- 
 tended to five volumes, and covering the years of 
 the war, ought to be generally welcomed and widely 
 read. Nowhere else can we obtain an equally just 
 idea of the purposes and principles of the men who 
 put the anti-slavery movement into such a shape as 
 
 1 The Works of William H. Seward. Edited by George 
 E. Baker. In five volumes. New edition. Boston : Hough- 
 ton, Mifflin & Co. 1884. 
 
8 WILLIAM H. SEWARD 
 
 to assure practical success, and then performed the 
 far greater work of saving the Union and carrying 
 the civil war to a triumphant conclusion. This 
 could not be said of the writings of many party 
 leaders ; but Seward was so temperate, so reasona- 
 ble, so lucid, and at the same time held such a 
 commanding position before the country from 1850 
 to 1861, that his speeches must be regarded as the 
 best authority for the wishes and intentions of the 
 masses of the Republican party at that period. 
 Any one ought to be well satisfied to let the case 
 of the North and of freedom go to the tribunal 
 of history on Seward's presentation ; and there is 
 nothing which shows more clearly the absolute 
 criminality of the slave-ridden South in plunging 
 the country into war than the fair, vigorous, and 
 courteous exposition of anti-slavery principles and 
 purposes which was made by the New York Senator. 
 
 By a fortunate coincidence the life of Thurlow 
 Weed, Seward's closest friend, also comes to the 
 public at this time.' I intend, therefore, vdth the 
 aid of this new material and of other authorities as 
 well, to discuss briefly the career and character of 
 the man who led the anti-slavery movement from 
 1850 to 1860, and who afterwards held the seals of 
 state during the direst perils which have ever beset 
 us as a people. 
 
 William Henry Seward was born in Orange 
 County, New York, in May, 1801. His father was 
 a man of education, and apparently not without 
 
 1 Memoir of Thurlow Weed. By his grandson, Thurlow 
 Weed Barnes. Boston : Houghton, Mifain & Co. 1884. 
 
WILLIAM H. SEWARD 9 
 
 ability. Bred a physician, lie not only practiced 
 Ms profession, but was a farmer, store-keeper, poli- 
 tician, and local magistrate. He was a true Jack- 
 of-all-trades, but was sufficiently master of them to 
 thrive in his various undertakings and amass a 
 considerable fortune, a large part of which he de- 
 voted to founding an academy. He was evidently 
 an eccentric man, and very unwise in his mode 
 of bringing up his children. On one occasion he 
 made his son William, when a very little boy, re- 
 cite a poetical address before some of his neigh- 
 bors. At the conclusion one of the bystanders 
 asked the child which of his father's somewhat 
 numerous professions he should follow. The boy 
 innocently answered that he intended to be a jus- 
 tice of the peace. Thereupon his father took him 
 severely to task for speaking of an office in the 
 gift of others as if it were the proper subject of a 
 " usurping ambition ; " and this unreasoning sever- 
 ity apparently continued and was habitual. 
 
 Seward's evident precocity, joined to early deli- 
 cacy of health, led to his selection as the member 
 of the family who should receive the highest edu- 
 cation then attainable. After the iisual school 
 preparation, therefore, he entered Union College, 
 where he was successful in his studies, and popular 
 with both professors and students. Although he 
 was far from being a spendthrift, his father's ill- 
 judged parsimony finally induced the young colle- 
 gian to run away, and seek his fortune in the 
 South. In Georgia he at once obtained a position 
 as instructor in a newly established academy ; but 
 
10 WILLIAM H. SEWARD 
 
 before he could enter on his duties he was discov- 
 ered, and summoned home by his parents. In this 
 excursion he caught his first glimpse of slavery, to 
 which he conceived a strong and instinctive aver- 
 sion, little dreaming then that under his hand and 
 seal would one day issue the Emancipation Procla- 
 mation of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 On his return he went back to college, gradu- 
 ated in due course, and received his degree. His 
 father's treatment was evidently not forgotten, and 
 it is obvious that there was a marked coolness be- 
 tween them for many years. Seward's affection in 
 boyhood and youth was given to his mother, by 
 whose influence he was brought back from the 
 South, and whom he loved, cherished, and mourned 
 with an exhibition of feeling quite unusual to his 
 calm nature. Through his mother he received a 
 tinge of Irish blood, to which we may attribute his 
 easy temper, sanguine disposition, and constant 
 sympathy with the jieople of that race. 
 
 On leaving college Seward studied law in the 
 city of New York, and thence moved to the little 
 village of Auburn, where he established himself, 
 married weU and most happily, and began the dili- 
 gent practice of his profession. With untiring in- 
 dustry and a remarkable capacity for hard work, 
 he soon gathered clients, and his fortunes rose with 
 those of the little town in which he had made his 
 home. The country lawyer was an important man 
 in those days, and Seward was soon drawn into the 
 current of politics, for which he had a strong nat- 
 ural aptitude. He was deeply patriotic, and had 
 
WILLIAM H. SEWARD 11 
 
 already delivered one or two addresses which show 
 much thought and power for so young a man. He 
 had been bred a Republican, as the Democrats 
 were then called, and had been taught to believe 
 that all Federalists were traitors and aristocrats. 
 Yet, as he himself remarks, when he came to choose 
 his side in politics, he allied himself with the op- 
 ponents of the Democracy, and voted against that 
 party ever after. The fact is that by instinct 
 Seward was one of the men who became the polit- 
 ical heirs of the Federalists, and no amount of edu- 
 cation or artificial prejudice could alter his nature. 
 In theory he was one of the " regular " Democrats, 
 or, in the slang of that day, the " Bucktails ; " but 
 as soon as he entered active politics he went into 
 open opposition to his supposed party. Western 
 New York was deeply interested in canals, and the 
 policy of building these great water-ways strongly 
 appealed to Seward's far-seeing mind. This feel- 
 ing, strengthened by the friendship then formed 
 with Thurlow Weed, led him into the opposition, 
 which then was composed of a portion of the 
 Democrats and of those voters who had once been 
 Federalists. In this way the would-be Democrat 
 found himself speaking, writing, and voting in be- 
 half of DeWitt Clinton, the champion of internal 
 improvements, whom he had always distrusted, for 
 Governor, and of John Quincy Adams, the oppo- 
 nent of the Virginian dynasty, for President. The 
 action was characteristic of the man. He chose 
 his side deliberately, and on broad public grounds, 
 at an age when prejudice and impulse are far more 
 
12 WILLIAM H. SEWARD 
 
 apt to rule than a cool consideration of general 
 principles. 
 
 Once engaged, however, he never let go his 
 hold, although there were intervals subsequently 
 when he persuaded himself that his public career 
 was over. It was of course impossible that this 
 should be the case, for he could not have lived 
 without political action. Natural genius and ca- 
 pacity are the strongest agents in shaping a man's 
 destiny, and this was especially true of Seward. 
 In 1833 he wrote : " Enthusiasm for the right and 
 ambition for personal distinction are passions of 
 which I cannot divest myself ; and while every 
 day's experience is teaching me that the former is 
 the very agent which must defeat the latter, I am 
 far from believing that I should be more happy 
 were I to withdraw altogether from political ac- 
 tion." This correct bit of introspection was true 
 when it was written, and equally true of all periods 
 of Seward's life, from the beginning to the end. 
 
 When he had once fairly started he moved for- 
 ward rapidly, for ability, pleasant manners, inge- 
 nuity and facility stamped him as a leader. His 
 first political success came to him in a curious 
 way, through that oddest of aU political move- 
 ments, anti-masonry. Even when they were old 
 men, writing their autobiographies, after the close 
 of most active careers, both Seward and Weed 
 were unable to rid themselves of the idea that 
 there was real meaning and force in the anti-ma- 
 sonic agitation. Beginning as a local excitement, 
 induced by the foUy and violence of a few head- 
 
WILLIAM H. SEWARD 13 
 
 strong and determined men, anti-masonry devel- 
 oped into a political crusade against secret socie- 
 ties. So far as we can judge now, the only- 
 peculiar principle of the anti-masons was to ex- 
 clude masons from office. In other respects, their 
 creed was that of the National Republicans, or 
 Whigs. They succeeded sufficiently to carry one 
 State in a presidential election, and cast a consid- 
 erable vote at various times in other States. They 
 crippled the Whigs, then in their infancy, they en- 
 listed the support of such men as John Quincy 
 Adams and William Wirt, and they elected here 
 and there a number of local candidates. It is a 
 matter of profound surprise that they should have 
 accomplished even as much as this, or that they 
 should have contrived to exist for several years. 
 One cannot help suspecting that Weed saw in the 
 violent local feeling about Morgan's abduction an 
 opportunity for a movement which should break 
 the dominant party in the State, and that almost 
 any issue, if once fairly started, would spread and 
 flourish, in the absence of broader questions. 
 There is no evidence that prior to the Morgan 
 case the masons, as such, took part in politics ; and 
 it is inconceivable that intelligent naen and shrewd 
 politicians should have supposed that any party 
 could reaUy endure, when it had no principle ex- 
 cept opposition to secret societies, which were per- 
 fectly legal and proper, beneficial to their mem- 
 bers, and wholly harmless to every one else. In 
 western New York, the scene of Morgan's abduc- 
 tion, the anti-masonic feeling was of course most 
 
14 WILLIAM H. SEWARD 
 
 intense, and there, at least, the anti-masons effected 
 one excellent result by taking up Seward, who bad 
 thrown himself into the movement with great 
 vigor, and sending him to the state senate for two 
 successive terms, placing him in this way in the 
 line of political advancement. 
 
 In the condition of politics at that time, when 
 everything was in a state of solution, it mattered 
 comparatively little whether the anti-masons were 
 a sound party or not, provided that they opened the 
 way for young and energetic men to enter politics. 
 Seward owed them much for giving him his oppor- 
 tunity, which is all any man can demand of fate, 
 and he certainly made the most of his, for he had 
 this great quality of success strongly developed. 
 
 It is amusing to read his own account of his first 
 speech at Albany, which he delivered in a condition 
 of blind confusion, and to reflect that this embar- 
 rassed orator was the man who, in the Senate of 
 the United States, faced for ten years a desperate 
 and fierce majority of slaveholders, and argued 
 with unsurpassed clearness and courage the cause 
 of freedom. After the ice was once broken, how- 
 ever, Seward moved on easily enough. He had a 
 fine gift of speech, and was fortunate also in being, 
 during these first four years, one of a hopeless mi- 
 nority, — the best training which a young man can 
 have for a political and parliamentary career. 
 
 The senate of New York was then a highly im- 
 portant body, for, in addition to its legislative func- 
 tions, it sat as a court of last appeal, after the 
 fashion of the House of Lords. Seward thus had 
 
WILLIAM H. SEWARD 15 
 
 an opportunity to establish his legal as well as his 
 parliamentary reputation. How well he succeeded 
 is shown by the fact that his skillful and bold re- 
 sistance to the measures of the all-powerful Jack- 
 sonian Democracy and his ability in dealing with 
 all local questions made him at the close of his sec- 
 ond term, and when he was only thirty-three years 
 old, the acknowledged leader of the opposition in 
 the State. This was so universally admitted that 
 in 1834 he was put forward as the candidate of the 
 young Whig party for governor, and, although de- 
 feated, made a fine run and polled a large vote. 
 
 Thus thrown out of the race, Seward returned to 
 the law, avowing that his political career was ended, 
 and resolved on professional success. His business 
 rapidly revived, but the abstention from politics, 
 which was to have been absolute, was in reality so 
 purely imaginary that in 1838 he was again nomi- 
 nated for governor by the Whigs, then just on the 
 eve of their first great success. This time he was 
 triumphantly elected, and on the lat of January, 
 1839, before he had attained his thirty-ninth year, 
 was duly inaugurated at Albany. 
 
 Space forbids that I should trace in detail the 
 busy years of Seward's governorship, except in so 
 far as he was concerned with the great question to 
 which his life was to be devoted. He made an ad- 
 mirable governor, and in regard to all issues of the 
 day, on internal improvements, education, prison 
 reform, and other less important matters, he ex- 
 hibited the breadth of view, the foresight, and the 
 courage of opinion which were his most conspicu- 
 
16 WILLIAM H. SEWARD 
 
 ous qualities as a statesman. Seward was naturally 
 prudent and cautious ; he was always regarded as 
 a keen and wary politician, and in his later career 
 his enemies charged that he was given to cunning 
 and time-serving. Yet if any one now dispassion- 
 ately studies his course as governor, the most marked 
 characteristics of the man, and those which, if we 
 take the pains to understand him, were never, either 
 then or afterwards, lost or impaired, were his en- 
 tire courage and complete superiority to clamor and 
 prejudice. This was shown by his fearless inde- 
 pendence of party and popular feeling on many 
 state questions, and especially by his liberality to- 
 ward Roman Catholics. His course on various 
 matters, deliberately adopted in opposition to the 
 views of his more careful friends, caused him to 
 fall several thousand votes behind the ticket when 
 he was reelected ; but he neither heeded warnings 
 when they were uttered, nor grieved over their sub- 
 sequent fulfillment, because he was satisfied that he 
 was right. In nothing was his independence better 
 shown than in the constantly recurring questions of 
 pardons. The rich, prosperous, strong, and well 
 educated, who had fallen into crime, and came with 
 powerful and influential support in search of mercy, 
 were sent to prison or to the gallows, to meet their 
 merited punishment. The poor, unfortunate, and 
 neglected were those who received executive clem- 
 ency, which was exercised with kindly wisdom, and 
 at the same time with a moderation which is in 
 strong contrast to the indiscriminate use of the 
 pardoning power now so unfortunately common. 
 
WILLIAM H. SEWARD 17 
 
 There was one question, however, then just be- 
 ginning to cast its ominous shadow over the land, 
 which dwarfed all others, and brought to a crucial 
 test the mental and moral strength of the young 
 governor of New York. It was, in fact, at this 
 time that Seward was first brought into actual con- 
 flict with the slave power. Before the election the 
 New York abolitionists addressed a series of ques- 
 tions to both the Whig and the Democratic candi- 
 dates for governor and lieutenant-governor. The 
 latter, avowed pro-slavery men, treated these in- 
 quiries with silent contempt ; the forTner returned 
 respectful answers. Seward's response shows a 
 little of the adroitness which was popularly attrib- 
 uted to him. He contrived to manifest his entire 
 sympathy with the opposition to slavery, but he 
 declined, properly enough, to make ante-election 
 pledges, and left his position to be guessed at 
 rather than known. It was the only utterance of 
 his life on that great question which any one could 
 think of calling evasive, and his acts quickly showed 
 that his prudence had no touch of timidity. Very 
 soon after his election he was called upon by the 
 governor of Virginia to surrender three negro sail- 
 ors, accused of helping a slave, who had been since 
 recaptured, to escape from servitude. Seward de- 
 clared that the evidence on which the demand was 
 based was wholly insufficient, and not content with 
 this took up the broad ground that New York did 
 not recognize assistance to a fugitive slave to be a 
 crime, and therefore he could not comply with the 
 requisition. He said to the governor of Virginia, 
 
18 WILLIAM H. SEWARD 
 
 " I need not inform you, sir, that there is no law of 
 this State which recognizes slavery, — no statute 
 which admits that one man can be the property of 
 another, or that one man can be stolen from an- 
 other. On the other hand, our constitution and 
 laws interdict slavery in every form. Nor is it 
 necessary to inform you that the common law does 
 not recognize slavery, nor make the act of which 
 the parties are accused in this case felonious or 
 criminal. The offense charged in the affidavit, 
 and specified in the requisition, is not a felony nor 
 a crime within the meaning of the constitution, 
 and, waiving all the defects in the affidavit, I can- 
 not surrender the supposed fugitives, to be carried 
 to Virginia for trial under the statute of that 
 State." These were bold words, and we can hardly 
 realize the shock they produced in that day, when 
 Northern office-holders were wont to hasten, with 
 bated breath, to do the bidding of the South. Such 
 language people expected from abolition fanatics ; 
 but coming from a man who held a high and re- 
 sponsible office, it had a startling effect. The ene- 
 mies of slavery took heart, and it was evident to all 
 who looked beyond the immediate present that a 
 new leader had appeared in American politics. 
 
 Through the long controversy which ensued Sew- 
 ard never abated by one tittle the high, firm, and 
 yet courteous tone which he had adopted at the 
 outset. He remained unmoved by the retaliatory 
 measures of Virginia, which threatened to prevent 
 the surrender of ordinary criminals escaping from 
 New York. He also defended the New York law, 
 
WILLIAM H. SEWARD 19 
 
 then a subject of much irritation at the South, 
 which gave to fugitive slaves the right of trial by- 
 jury. He refused to comply with a requisition 
 from South Carolina, similar to that made by Vir- 
 ginia ; and when, in his second term, a Democratic 
 assembly undertook to disapprove his action, he de- 
 clined to transmit their resolutions to the Virginian 
 authorities. At the close of his second term he vol- 
 untarily retired from office, and renewed the prac- 
 tice of his profession ; but his conduct in regard to 
 fugitive slaves had sunk deep into the public mind. 
 He probably did not realize it himself, but the calm, 
 high courage which, as governor, he had displayed 
 on this question had marked him out as the future 
 leader of the anti-slavery movement. It was now 
 inevitable that when the time came men would turn 
 to him, and put him at their head as the chosen 
 captain in the warfare which was to check the ex- 
 tension of slavery through the virgin Territories 
 and the free States of the North. 
 
 When Seward left Albany in January, 1843, the 
 first period of his life closed, and he himself felt 
 that his career as a public man was at an end. He 
 had received the highest honor within the gift of 
 the people of his State, and was content. But the 
 real work of his life was still to be done, and the 
 time was to come when he would be called forth by 
 that imperious public necessity which at the ap- 
 pointed hour surely brings the man. Before that 
 hour came, there was a long interval of six years, 
 which he devoted to his profession, and during 
 which he made his fame as a lawyer. Seward pos- 
 
20 WILLIAM H. SEWARD 
 
 sessed legal abilities of a very high order, and his 
 time was constantly occupied with arguments be- 
 fore the Supreme Court of the United States and 
 the highest state tribunals. The most extensive 
 and lucrative part of his profession was in patent 
 eases, an intricate branch which he took up com- 
 paratively late in life, and in which he speedily be- 
 came proficient by his quick, clear perceptions, his 
 versatility of mind, and his unfailing industry. 
 
 It was as a jury lawyer, however, that Sew- 
 ard touched his highest point professionally, and 
 achieved a reputation which very few advocates 
 have equaled. Some of the cases, notably the de- 
 fense of Greeley in Cooper's libel suit, and of the 
 Michigan rioters, made a great stir in their day, 
 although they are now well-nigh forgotten. His 
 arguments before the Supreme Court of the United 
 States in two famous fugitive-slaye cases, although 
 not addresses to a jury, had some of the popular 
 qualities belonging to the latter, and by "tifeenr-iear- 
 less ability attracted widespread attention. There 
 is one case, however, in which Seward was engaged 
 at this period that cannot be passed over with a 
 mere allusion ; for there is scarcely any event in his 
 life which displays his highest and strongest quali- 
 ties in a better light. 
 
 In 1846 Seward had voluntarily acted as counsel 
 for a convict named Wyatt, who had murdered one 
 of his keepers, and he had rested the defense on 
 the ground of insanity. There was a good deal of 
 feeling about the case, and when the jury disagreed 
 Seward came in for much animadversion. Before 
 
WILLIAM H. SEWARD 21 
 
 Wyatt could be brought again to trial a whole 
 famUy, respectable and prosperous people, were 
 butchered at Auburn by a negro named Freeman, 
 recently discharged from the state prison. The 
 popular excitement was intense. Freeman nar- 
 rowly escaped lynching, and the universal rage at 
 his atrocious crime reached even to the bench. So 
 strong, indeed, was the feeling that it was gener- 
 ally believed that no one could be found who would 
 dare to act as counsel for the murderer. Seward 
 was satisfied of what was unquestionably the truth, 
 — that the wretched criminal was not only de- 
 mented, but so hopelessly idiotic as to be little re- 
 moved from the brutes. A jury was summoned to 
 pass upon Freeman's sanity, and when the court 
 asked who appeared for the prisoner Seward rose, 
 and undertook the defense. The jury decided in 
 substance that Freeman was sane enough to be 
 hanged, and he was at once put on trial. The 
 miserable wretch, deaf and idiotic, could not even 
 plead guilty or not guilty, and when asked who was 
 his counsel replied that he did not know. Then 
 Seward rose again, pale with excitement, but cool 
 and determined, and announced that he would act 
 as counsel. Hoarse murmurs of indignation ran 
 through the crowded court -room. Friends and 
 neighbors turned their backs on the daring lawyer, 
 and there was hardly anybody who would speak to 
 him. With perfect courage, however, Seward con- 
 ducted the case to the end, using every fair means 
 of defense ; but wholly in vain, for Freeman was 
 in reality condemned before he was tried. After 
 
22 WILLIAM H. SEWARD 
 
 the sentence Seward appealed to the goveilior, but 
 pardon was refused. He then moved the Supreme 
 Court for a new trial, which was granted ; but be- 
 fore it came on Freeman died in jail, and the post- 
 mortem examination revealed a brain diseased to 
 the last point. 
 
 Seward's action in taking this case showed not 
 only humanity and generosity of the finest type, 
 but courage of an uncommon quality. It was no 
 light matter to face, alone and unsupported, the 
 fierce prejudice and intense excitement of the com- 
 munity in which he lived, in behalf of a low, bru- 
 talized criminal, belonging to a despised and hated 
 race. There was no hope or prospect of reward of 
 any kind. There was nothing to tempt any man 
 in such a revolting task. Seward took up the 
 ungracious work with nothing before him at the 
 moment as a result but universal hatred and con- 
 demnation ; and he made this sacrifice solely from 
 devotion to the principles of law and justice in 
 which he had been bred. Not content, moreover, 
 with doing his simple duty as counsel, he appealed 
 to the jury in a speech of impassioned fervor and 
 consummate abUity. There are very few jury 
 speeches which can be ranked above it, and that 
 this statement is not an exaggeration is proved by 
 the opinion of the greatest of modern English ora- 
 tors. Mr. Gladstone said to Mr. Sumner, "Mr. 
 Seward's argument in the Freeman case is the 
 greatest forensic effort in the English language." 
 An English gentleman who was present said, " The 
 greatest? Mr. Gladstone, you forget Erskine." 
 
WILLIAM H. SEWARD 23 
 
 "No," replied Mr. Gladstone, "I do not forget 
 Erskine; Mr. Seward's argument is the greatest 
 forensic effort in the language." With such praise 
 from such a judge we may be content to leave the 
 question of Seward's powers as a jury lawyer and 
 forensic orator. 
 
 Although Seward, during these years of devotion 
 to the law, believed that he had permanently with- 
 drawn to private and professional life, he found it 
 impossible, after having held the office of governor 
 and been an acknowledged leader of public opin- 
 ion, to keep entirely aloof from politics. His aid 
 and direction were constantly sought, and he could 
 not, consistently with his views of public duty, re- 
 fuse to give them. He supported Clay in 1844, 
 Taylor in 1848, and Scott in 1852. During this 
 time his hostility to slavery strengthened and deep- 
 ened from day to day, and he became more and 
 more outspoken on that burning question. His 
 well-known views on slavery, indeed, led to the 
 unfounded charge that his support of Clay was 
 insincere and half-hearted. No accusation was 
 ever more untrue, but it arose from Seward's pub- 
 lic, explicit, and repeated expressions of regret 
 that the brilliant Whig candidate should be a 
 slave-holder. With even greater heartiness, but 
 still with the same reservation, he supported Tay- 
 lor; and again, after his return to public life, 
 advocated the election of Scott, despite the ap- 
 proval given to the pro-slavery compromises by the 
 Whig platform. If Seward had been a timid 
 shuffler, such a course would not have been sur- 
 
24 WILLIAM H. SEWARD 
 
 prising ; but since he was so pronounced and hardy 
 an opponent of slavery that he even received the 
 encomium of Wendell Phillips, it seems at first 
 sight somewhat inexplicable. We can in fact 
 understand his action only by a perfect compre- 
 hension of his views in regard to parties, and as to 
 the most advantageous manner in which any man 
 could aid the progress of the principles he had 
 most at heart. The subject is well worth study, 
 especially by those who seek ta promote some im- 
 portant reform ; because in this way can be learned 
 the philosophy of a man who by well-judged action 
 did as much for the advancement of a great cause 
 as any man of equal talent who has ever lived 
 among us, and who, wasting nothing, made himself 
 count to the uttermost. 
 
 When a very young man, Seward says, he came 
 to the conclusion that, " whatever might be a man's 
 personal convictions, and however earnestly he 
 might desire to promote the public welfare, he 
 could only do it by associating himself with one of 
 the many religious sects which divided the commu- 
 nity, and one of the two political parties which 
 contended for the administration of the govern- 
 ment. A choice between sects and parties once 
 made, whether wisely or unwisely, it was easy to 
 see, must be practically irrevocable. . . . But 
 though I thus chose my religious denomination and 
 political party, I did so with a reservation of a 
 right to dissent and protest, or even separate, if 
 ever a conscientious sense of duty or a paramount 
 regard to the general safety or welfare should re- 
 
. WILLIAM H. SEWARD 25 
 
 quire." lu 1844 a young friend, of strong aboli- 
 tion principles, consulted him about leaving his 
 church and party because of their weakness in re- 
 spect to slavery. Seward said, " If you had the 
 power, would you regard it as wise to abstract from 
 the Presbyterian church of this country all its anti- 
 slavery element, or would you desire to add to it 
 all the anti-slavery reinforcement you could com- 
 mand ? How much better oJEE would that church 
 be with all you anti-slavery men out of it ? How 
 much better off, to do any good, would you be if 
 all withdrew ? Would you thereby gain any more 
 personal influence than you now have ? Look at 
 the Whig party of to-day. Everybody knows that 
 I am an anti-slavery man. Whenever I write a 
 political letter, or make a political speech, my 
 words are reproduced in every Whig paper in the 
 country, and reach the eyes and ears of everybody 
 in the land. But it is because I remain in the 
 party, and consequently enjoy their confidence. 
 They will hear me and consider what I say. But 
 should I leave the Whig party, and join the radi- 
 cal anti-slavery party, although my speeches and 
 ■writings would doubtless be read by that class who 
 do not need my influence, they would not reach the 
 much larger class who do need to know the truth. 
 No ; I think I can do more good where I am. . . . 
 Stick to the ship, and work away. In a few years 
 you will see that we anti-slavery men in the Whig 
 party will not have labored in vain. Do you be as 
 faithful in your church as I will try to be in the 
 Whig party, and you will see that, if you would do 
 
26 WILLIAM H. SEWARD . 
 
 your fellow-men any good at all, you must not 
 withdraw yourself from their association because 
 you think you know more or are better than they 
 are." 
 
 In 1848 he spoke at Cleveland, where there 
 was great danger of a serious defection of anti- 
 slavery Whigs. In the course of his speech, which 
 was most eloquent and effective, he said, " You 
 expect to establish a new and better party, that 
 wiU carry our common principles to more speedy 
 and universal triumph. You will not succeed in 
 any degree, either now or hereafter, because it is 
 impossible. Society is divided, classified, already. 
 It is classified into two great, all-pervading na- 
 tional parties or associations. These parties are 
 founded on the principles, interests, and affections 
 of the people. Society cannot admit, nor will it 
 surrender either of the existing parties to. make 
 room for, a third. The interests, the sentiments, 
 and the habits of society forbid : — 
 
 " ' The stars in their courses war against Sisera.' 
 
 It is in the power of a seceding portion of one 
 party, or of seceding portions of both, to do just 
 this, and no more, to wit : to give success, long or 
 short, to one of the existing parties. Those who 
 do this, whatever be their objects or motives, are 
 responsible for the consequences. Theirs is the 
 merit if the consequences are beneficent, and theirs 
 is the blame if the result is calamitous." Seven 
 years later a new party was founded, and Seward 
 made one of his greatest political speeches at Al. 
 
WILLIAM H. SEWARD 27 
 
 bany on " The Advent of the Republican Party." 
 A few brief extracts show his line of thought: 
 " You, old, tried, familiar friends, ask my counsel 
 whether to cling yet longer to traditional contro- 
 versies and to dissolving parties, or to rise at once 
 to nobler aims, with new and more energetic as- 
 sociations. I do not wonder at your suspense, nor 
 do I censure caution or even timidity. Fickleness 
 in political associations is a weakness, and precipi- 
 tancy in public action is a crime. Considered by 
 itself, it is unfortunate to be obliged to separate 
 from an old party and to institute a new one."' 
 Then, in discussing the question whether the time 
 for a new party had arisen, he made that famous 
 exposition of the " privileged classes," or slave 
 power, which rang from one end of .the country 
 to the other ; and when he came to the end of his 
 description he asked, "What, then, is wanted? 
 Organization ! Organization ! Nothing but organ- 
 ization ! Shall we organize ? Why not ? Can we 
 maintain the revolution so auspiciously begun with- 
 out organization? Certainly not. . . . How shall 
 we organize? The evil is a national one. The 
 power and the influence and the organization of 
 the privileged class pervade all parts of the Union. 
 Our organization, therefore, must be a national 
 one." After depicting the character of the organ- 
 ization required, he said, " It is best to take an 
 existing organization that answers to these condi- 
 tions, if we can find one ; if we cannot find one 
 such, we must create one. Let us try existing 
 parties by this test. . . . Shall we report our- 
 
28 WILLIAM H. SEWARD 
 
 selves to the Whig party ? Where is it ? Gentle 
 shepherd, tell me where ! . . . The privileged class, 
 who had debauched it, abandoned it because they 
 knew that it could not vie with its rival in the 
 humiliating service it proffered them ; and now 
 there is neither Whig party nor Whig south 
 of the Potomac. How is it in the unprivileged 
 States ? Out of New York the lovers of freedom, 
 disgusted with its prostitution, forsook it, and 
 marched into any and every other organization. 
 We have maintained it here, and in its purity, 
 until the aiders and abettors of the privileged class, 
 in retaliation, have wounded it on all sides, and it 
 is now manifestly no longer able to maintain and 
 carry forward, alone and unaided, the great revo- 
 lution that i\ inaugurated. He is unfit for a states- 
 man, although he may be a patriot, who will cling 
 even to an honored and faithful association when 
 it is reduced so low in strength and numbers as to 
 be entirely ineffectual, amid the contests of great 
 parties by which republics are saved. Any party, 
 when reduced so low, must ultimately dwindle and 
 dwarf into a mere faction. Let, then, the Whig 
 party pass." 
 
 It must not be forgotten, in considering Seward's 
 utterances on these matters, that he was as far re- 
 moved as possible from being a thick-and-thin par- 
 tisan. I doubt if any man of modern times has left 
 a collection of political speeches, delivered for the 
 most part at a period of intense excitement, which 
 are so absolutely free from undue partisanship; 
 for Seward rarely discussed men, but confined him- 
 
WILLIAM H. SEWARD 29 
 
 self to measures and principles, and lie never ap- 
 pealed to mere party allegiance for votes. He was 
 not a partisan, but he was a strong believer in 
 parties, because he thought that only through par- 
 ties any practical and beneficent result could be 
 achieved. History and experience taught him that 
 in representative governments there could be at 
 once only two great parties having any effective 
 life. A third party, while the two leading parties 
 held their strength, was simply a faction, and the 
 multiplication of parties was the mulbiplication of 
 factions, with all the evils incident to political 
 anarchy. His primary test of a party was its 
 capacity for efficient work, and this was to be 
 largely determined by its numbers and the vigor 
 of its organization. He also well understood that 
 a third party could have but one result, — the 
 defeat of the organization to which it was most 
 nearly allied in character and purpose. For this 
 reason he opposed third-party movements, and he 
 maintained his party standing because he deemed 
 it the most efficient weapon he possessed for the 
 successful advancement of a cause which he placed 
 above party. From such motives he refused to 
 leave the Whigs, although he held quite as radical 
 views about slavery as the Free Soilers in 1848 
 and 1852. Thanks to his sanguine temperament, 
 he continued to hope that the Whigs could be 
 made the party of freedom ; but when that party 
 perished, not in the least through the third-party 
 action, but by the operation of the slavery ques- 
 tion and by its own inherent vices, no one recog- 
 
30 WILLI AM H. SEWARD 
 
 nized its dissolution more quickly than Seward. 
 In 1855 the time had come for him to move, 
 and then was seen the force of his position. He 
 marched not alone, but with thousands at his back, 
 and wielding greater influence than ever, to join 
 the ranks of the Republicans, who sprang at once 
 to the front, not as a third or fourth faction, but 
 as one of the two great political divisions of the 
 country. In this way the overthrow of slavery 
 was made certain, and in no other manner could it 
 have been brought about. 
 
 Seward's course teaches the wholesome lesson 
 that men may work in thorough sincerity for the 
 same end, although in very different ways ; -and 
 that attacks on parties, under our system, simply 
 because they are organizations, is idle nonsense. 
 There is no necessary or peculiar virtue in remain- 
 ing outside of parties, or in belonging to third 
 parties or small factions, although they may be 
 important and useful factors in solving political 
 problems. There is no greater mistake or more 
 illiberal habit than to assail men for belonging to 
 parties. No greater injury can be done to any 
 cause than by belittling a leader who, earnestly 
 favoring it, has at the same time party standing 
 and influence, or by persuading such a man to cast 
 away that which increases his value and effect 
 enormously, and to come out of his organization 
 while it is stiU powerful, and reduce himself to 
 mere isolated action. Seward would have been a 
 leader, and a great one, whatever position he might 
 have chosen to occupy ; but by his wise course he 
 
WILLIAM H. SEWARD 31 
 
 counted a hundred-fold more for the cause of hu- 
 man freedom than he could have done in any 
 other way. 
 
 The wave of Whig success which carried Taylor 
 to the White House made Seward Senator from 
 New York, and the great period of his life began. 
 His influence opened Taylor's eyes to the plain 
 fact that the South was the real aggressor, and that 
 her outcries against Northern interference were 
 merely intended to mislead. When his mind was 
 once made up the old soldier did not hesitate. 
 Although unversed in the ways of politics, he saw 
 clearly that the duty of the hour was to admit 
 California ; and he gave it to be clearly understood 
 that if Congress would perform its part he would 
 do his, and would see to it that the republic was 
 not injured or the Union impaired. This policy 
 Seward advocated with great force in the Senate ; 
 but neither he nor the President could hold their 
 own party. The Whigs gave way in all directions, 
 and their fate was sealed. Seward had hoped that 
 the Whigs might become the party of freedom ; 
 and if they had followed his lead and Taylor's in 
 1850, they might have done the work and reaped 
 the glories and the reward of the Republicans. 
 They failed at the supreme moment, and thus went 
 down into the dust ; for great issues are inexora- 
 ble, and when they are not obeyed they crush. 
 
 From the Whig chiefs themselves came the 
 policy of compromise — or, in other words, of 
 concession — to slavery. Webster feU on the 7th 
 of March, and Seward, with unflinching courage, 
 
32 WILLIAM H. SEWARD 
 
 stepped into the vacant place, and grasped the 
 standard of the free North as it dropped from the 
 hands of the great Senator from Massachusetts. 
 He stoutly contested the compromises, but all in 
 vain. That policy succeeded, and its brief victory 
 cost the Whig party its life. There were a few 
 years of seeming peace, and then the strife broke 
 out again. The South tore the compromises of 
 1850 asunder. They seized Kansas by the throat, 
 and kept her in anarchy and misery because she 
 would not accept slavery, and thus made it clear 
 that only slave States were to be admitted to the 
 Union. Goaded on by the inherent weakness of 
 their cause, they next destroyed the Missouri Com- 
 promise, and in so doing bent even the Supreme 
 Court to their purposes. At last everything was 
 theirs. They had thrown open the Territories to 
 slaves ; they would admit no States but slave 
 States ; and the next step would have been to force 
 slavery upon the free States, and make them, if 
 not slave-holders, slave-catchers. But in winning 
 these Pyrrhic victories they sealed their own ruin, 
 and it fell to Seward to lead the new party, which 
 Southern madness did so much to build up. 
 
 The years preceding the war are so murky with 
 the tempests of passion and hate which raged 
 through them that it is even now difficult to see 
 them clearly. On that dark background a few 
 figures stand out luminous and distinct, — men 
 with clear views and perfect courage, and conspicu- 
 ous among them is Seward. In his speeches in 
 the Senate we can trace aU the phases of the 
 
WILLIAM H. SEWARD 33 
 
 struggle. We see him beaten on one question 
 after another, and then the tide turns, and he 
 moves forward to success. It is on that period 
 and on the debates of that time that Seward's rep- 
 utation as a parliamentary orator must rest. There 
 is a very even excellence in these speeches. The 
 Kansas-Nebraska speech of 1854 is very noble and 
 fine, and the careful and cutting attack on Pierce 
 in 1856 is extremely effective ; but selection is dif- 
 ficult and unfair, for the whole series deserves 
 high rank. Seward was not eloquent after the 
 manner of Webster and Clay. He lacked the 
 grandeur as well as the dramatic force and sweep of 
 the former, and the impassioned fervor so marked 
 in the latter. His speeches, however, have outlived 
 those of Clay, and will always be read with plea- 
 sure and interest both for their subjects and their 
 style. Their most striking trait is the blending of 
 grace and strength, which is a very rare combina- 
 tion. Graceful speakers as a rule have little force, 
 and are the most ephemeral of orators. But Sew- 
 ard, despite his smoothness and grace, had the root 
 of the matter in him, and all he said went home 
 with telling effect. In his earlier days he had a 
 tendency, which was very common at that time, to 
 indulge in rhetorical outbursts. He did not be- 
 come turgid at such moments, but he occasionally 
 was guilty of commonplace fine writing. As he 
 grew older his taste improved, and by the time he 
 reached the Senate of the United States he had 
 freed himself entirely from this fault, and his style, 
 although not particularly simple, was pure and 
 
34 WILLIAM H. SEWARD 
 
 clear. He had, too, a remarkable power of strong, 
 lucid, and ingenious statement and great variety 
 in presentation. He was never dull, and yet at 
 the same time he bad a reason and moderation in 
 expression which rendered all he said convincing, 
 and made him especially valuable to an unpopular 
 cause which needed converts. His speeches did 
 more than anything else to formulate a creed by 
 which all the anti-slavery elements in the country 
 could live and work unitedly. Seward had also 
 considerable felicity of quotation ; for although 
 not a scholar, he read widely and well, and remem- 
 bered much. He was gifted likewise with a fine 
 humor, dry and quizzical, but very attractive and 
 singularly effective in debate. This quality comes 
 out strongly in many passages of his autobiograr 
 phy, which is very charming, and has by no means 
 the reputation that it deserves. 
 
 He employed humor discreetly and with much 
 effect in his speeches. In 1853, in a speech on 
 Continental rights and relations, he said, " Sec- 
 ondly, the Senator from Michigan invokes our 
 attention to what Lord George Bentinck has said 
 in the British Parliament. WeU, sir, that is im- 
 portant, — what an English lord has said, and said 
 in Parliament, too ; that must be looked into. 
 Well, what did Lord George Bentinck say ? Sir, 
 he said very angry things, very furious things ; in- 
 deed, very ferocious things. Prepare yourself to 
 hear them, sir. Lord George Bentinck did say, in 
 so many words, — and in Parliament, too ! — what 
 I am going to repeat. His lordship did say that 
 — ' he quite agreed with Captain Polkington.' " 
 
WILLIAM H. SEWARD 35 
 
 The whole passage runs on at a length too great 
 for quotation, but in the same vein ; and the Sen- 
 ator from Michigan must have devoutly wished, at 
 the conclusion, that he had never alluded to Lord 
 George Bentinck. Further extracts might be 
 made if space would permit, but those who desire 
 to use fun and irony in debate, without degenerat- 
 ing into buffoonery, cannot do better than study 
 these speeches. They are good models in that 
 way as well as in many others. 
 
 After the repeal of the Missouri Compromise 
 there was a short period when even Seward's con- 
 stitutional cheerfulness gave way ; but he made no 
 sign at the time, and hope soon returned. We 
 can detect the tone of rising confidence in every- 
 thing he says, as he became convinced that Kansas 
 could not be conquered, and that the spirit of the 
 North was at last aroused. 
 
 When 1860 came Thurlow Weed felt that the 
 time had arrived for Seward's candidacy for the 
 presidency, and this feeling was shared by the mass 
 of the party in the strong Republican States, and 
 by the ablest leaders everywhere ; for Seward was 
 their acknowledged chief and their most conspicu- 
 ous statesman. When the Republican delegates 
 assembled at Chicago there was no man in the 
 country who had such claims and such a reputa- 
 tion, or who was such an exponent of their princi- 
 ples, as the New York Senator. But Seward was 
 now to reap the reward of years of eminence and 
 conflict. There was a strong movement made 
 against him on the ground of availability, and in- 
 
36 WILLIAM H. SEWARD 
 
 stigated by personal hostility, which was at first 
 laughed at, but which steadily assumed more for- 
 midable proportions. The attack was headed by 
 Horace Greeley, and Greeley and those who 
 thought with him prevailed. The convention be- 
 came convinced that Seward was not available, 
 and Lincoln was nominated on the third ballot. 
 When the Republicans made this choice they 
 builded far better than they knew ; for they took 
 the one man who had all the elements of greatness, 
 and all the qualities which fitted him beyond any 
 one else in the country to stand at the head of a 
 great nation in the agonies of civil war. By their 
 selection they also made it possible to unite Lin- 
 coln and Seward in the cabinet, — each in the 
 place for which he was best adapted. But all this 
 the Republicans at Chicago could not know at the 
 moment, and their action carried dismay and bitter 
 regret not merely to Seward's immediate friends, 
 but to the masses of the party in the Eastern States. 
 Seward himself showed no sign of the disappoint- 
 ment he must have felt. With perfect and hearty 
 cheerfulness he gave his adhesion to the ticket, 
 and, feeling that he was still the responsible leader 
 of the campaign, he put himself in the forefront 
 of the battle. The entire magnanimity of Seward's 
 course shows that with him devotion to his cause 
 was far stronger than any personal ambition. 
 
 The speeches which Seward made during this 
 campaign must be taken in conjunction with those 
 which he delivered during the campaign of 1856, 
 and together they form a complete presentation of 
 
WILLIAM H. SEWARD 37 
 
 the case of the anti-slavery party. At the outset 
 he portrayed the manner in which the slave-hold- 
 ing aristocracy had gained entire possession of 
 every department of the government. He then 
 delineated the " irrepressible conflict " of freedom 
 and slavery, and brought home to the North the 
 conviction that one or the other must perish ; that 
 even the North American continent did not afford 
 room for their joint existence. He defined the Re- 
 publican position so that it was plain to aU. men 
 that it was constitutional and lawful, and that, 
 while his party proposed to stop the extension of 
 slavery, it would not interfere with the guaranteed 
 rights of the States. Finally, in the Senate he de- 
 monstrated the truth of Sumner's proposition, that 
 " freedom was national, and slavery sectional," by 
 inviting the Southern Senators to come to the 
 North and argue their cause before the people, who 
 there would give them fair hearing and free speech, 
 while in the South a man who dared to speak in 
 public against slavery was hunted to death, or 
 driven from the State. A cause which thus stifled 
 free speech was in its nature irredeemably vicious 
 and sectional, and nothing was more effective than 
 the manner in which Seward drove this fact home. 
 To Seward's speeches at this time men will al- 
 ways look for the official announcement of Repub- 
 lican principles prior to 1861, and by them it is 
 proved, if proof is needed, that the cry that the 
 election of Lincoln meant the destruction of South- 
 ern rights and Southern property was the meanest 
 excuse ever put forward to cover a great political 
 crime. 
 
38 WILLIAM H. SEWARD 
 
 According to Seward's argument, the election of 
 Lincoln meant the stoppage of slave extension, 
 and that the South would have no choice but to 
 submit to the popular will, or to go into open revo- 
 lution. To his sanguine mind and loyal tempera- 
 ment the latter alternative seemed incredible ; but 
 when he returned to Washington, after the elec- 
 tion, he found civil war actually at the gates. 
 Seward believed, and believed correctly, that the 
 fact of the election of Lincoln really settled the 
 question of slavery ; because when the people said 
 to slavery. Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther, 
 the end had come, inasmuch as without extension 
 slavery must sooner or later perish utterly. With 
 this belief Seward saw the far greater question of 
 national existence open before him. The Union 
 was in danger, and if the Union were to dissolve 
 it mattered little what became of the slave ques- 
 tion, with two confederacies, — one wholly free, 
 and the other wholly slave-holding, existing side by 
 side. He therefore pushed the slavery question 
 aside, and threw his whole energies into the work 
 of saving the Union. He advocated the cause of 
 conciliation and peace in a great speech ; and 
 while he did not abate one jot of the true result 
 of the election, the stoppage of slave extension, he 
 set it aside for the time being as inferior to the 
 work of maintaining the Union. 
 
 From heated partisans, and from radical men 
 generally, there went up a cry that Seward had 
 lost heart, and was about to betray the cause of 
 freedom ; and from this time dates the notion, 
 
WILLIAM H. SEWARD 39 
 
 assiduously cultivated in hours of great excitement, 
 that he was a timid time-server. Nothing could be 
 more unjust. Seward felt that his first duty, and 
 that of every loyal citizen, was to save the Union ; 
 and that the danger from slavery, except as a 
 means of destroying the Union, had passed. He 
 also saw clearly that the government must be held 
 together in some way until the new administration 
 came in. Largely through his efforts treason in 
 Buchanan's cabinet was checked, and together with 
 Stanton and Dix he then labored to keep the peace 
 and strengthen the Federal power. Lincoln, with 
 intuitive vdsdom, had selected Seward to abide at 
 his right hand, in the trial that was upon them ; 
 and when they at last took the helm they agreed 
 wholly about the course which they ought to steer. 
 Lincoln perceived, without any instruction, that 
 the first thing was to preserve our national exist- 
 ence. So he and his secretary strove to keep the 
 States together by peaceful means, and failed. 
 They struggled next to narrow the limits of the 
 rebellion by holding the border States ; but as is 
 always the case when revolution is afoot, the ex- 
 treme men were at the front on both sides, the 
 strong tide of passion was sweeping all before it, 
 and they failed again. They made one further 
 great effort. They resolved to make the war 
 wholly and distinctly a war for the Union, and not 
 allow it to be placed on any other ground. In this 
 they succeeded, and by so doing they stopped dis- 
 integration in the North, broke down party lines, 
 and brought a thoroughly united people to their 
 
40 WILLIAM H. SEWARD 
 
 side, entirely imbued with the determination to 
 maintain the nation. This task of uniting the 
 loyal people of the country was the first and essen- 
 tial step toward victory, and it was peculiarly the 
 work of Lincoln and Seward. 
 
 If we study the war purely as history, the most 
 striking fact is the inevitable character of the re- 
 sult, although at the time it appeared as if the out- 
 come hung in grave doubt down to the very end. 
 There was only one moment, if we thus survey that 
 'period, when it seems as if the final result might 
 have lost its inevitable character, and that was at 
 the time of the Trent affair. If Lincoln and Sew- 
 ard had wavered and yielded to the popular clamor, 
 and we had rushed into war with England and 
 France, it is doubtful if we could have crushed the 
 South with one hand, and beaten off the two great- 
 est powers of the civilized world with the other. 
 Lincoln, as the head of the administration, was 
 responsible for the action of the government, and 
 with all his good nature and easy ways he was too 
 great a man to be other than master in his cabinet. 
 Still, there can be no doubt that he leaned on Sew- 
 ard in this question. Seward of course wrote the 
 letter, which was entirely right both in law and 
 policy, and it was a production which bore all the 
 characteristics of its author. At the time, fierce 
 passions were aroused ; the people were justly in- 
 censed at the attitude of England ; and the young 
 men of the country, with arms in their hands, M^ere 
 eager to fight all comers. On Lincoln and Seward 
 fell the responsibility of the action, and history 
 
WILLIAM H. SEWARD 41 
 
 will record it as one of the wisest and greatest acts 
 of his and the President's life. But at the moment 
 it caused an increase of the feeling that Seward 
 was adroit and timid, and this mere prejudice be- 
 came so strong that it is only now that Seward is 
 beginning to receive the place which belongs to 
 him and the praise which he merits. 
 
 The diplomatic diary and correspondence, con- 
 tained in the fifth volume of the works, are ex- 
 tremely interesting, and enable us to form a just 
 estimate of their author's great services during the 
 war. Mr. Lincoln allowed him in large measure 
 to select his ministers to foreign courts, and this 
 momentous work was performed with great skiU. 
 The volume throws light only on the general course 
 of the war and on our relations with foreign na- 
 tions ; but nowhere else do we obtain such striking 
 evidence of the inevitable character of the result 
 of our struggle, to which allusion has already been 
 made. This arises from the fact that Seward took 
 a comprehensive view of the whole situation. Be- 
 hind the operation of armies, which he surveyed 
 on a large scale, he saw the other aspects of the 
 conflict. He perceived and understood the inher- 
 ent feebleness of the insurgent States, which was 
 lost to others in the din of arms and the smoke of 
 battle. He detected and rightly valued the innate 
 weaknesses of the Confederacy, arising from the 
 nature of their cause, the existence of human slav- 
 ery among them, their lack of resources, the ruin 
 caused by the blockade, and their financial un- 
 soundness. 
 
42 WILLIAM H. SEWARD 
 
 It was well for tlie Union that Seward was a 
 man able at once to see, appreciate, and express 
 all these things. Our representatives abroad, de- 
 pressed by the hostile influences about them, by 
 the seeming slowness of our military progress, and 
 by the constant disappointment of their hopes, 
 often lost heart. All their gloomy forebodings 
 were poured out upon the Secretary of State, to 
 whom they confided also aU their troubles and 
 anxieties. Nothing, of course, was more essential 
 than that the United States should have a confi- 
 dent and calm demeanor before Europe, and it 
 rested with Seward to see that our ministers did 
 not forget this aU-important fact. Fortunately for 
 us, no man could have been chosen who was better 
 prepared, by temperament and by training, for this 
 most trying and difficult task. By nature ex- 
 tremely sanguine, Seward had also a profound con- 
 fidence in his country and in the American people. 
 His dispatches have a clear ring in them, which 
 must have aroused even the most faint-hearted. 
 Gloom and despair might settle elsewhere, but at 
 no time were they permitted to rest upon the 
 department of State. Seward never boasted un- 
 duly, he never sought to disguise defeat, but he 
 always reviewed the whole situation so reasonably, 
 so vigorously, and in such a masterly way that his 
 correspondents caught his spirit, and believed with 
 him that the end could be nothing but victory. 
 No one can question that Seward himself had his 
 dark hours, but his self-control was never lost, and 
 to the European world, looking and longing with 
 
WILLIAM H. SEWARD 43 
 
 scarcely disguised eagerness for the destruction of 
 the republic, he bore himself with a proud and 
 assured confidence, which was of infinite value in 
 that time of stress and doubt. 
 
 There is the same tone in all that relates to the 
 perilous and difficult complications with foreign 
 powers produced by the war. At home the dis- 
 position was to consider Seward over-cautious. 
 Abroad, the reverse was the case. In reality Sew- 
 ard's policy was both bold and aggressive, and yet 
 was so tempered by prudence that it never degen- 
 erated into rashness. He convinced foreign pow- 
 ers of our readiness to fight, which was of inesti- 
 mable value, and which enabled us better than 
 anything else to keep clear of actual hostilities. 
 This comes out very strongly in the treatment of 
 the Mexican question, and in the determination 
 and tenacity with which the Alabama claims were 
 pressed. There is a great debt of gratitude due to 
 Seward for his wisdom and courage as minister of 
 foreign affairs at the most trying period of our 
 history. 
 
 When the war closed Seward sympathized fully 
 with the generous and magnanimous policy which 
 Lincoln marked out in his second inaugural. The 
 death of the President threw the country into the 
 hands of Johnson, and confusion followed. Sew- 
 ard believed that Johnson's intentions were honest, 
 and that he meant to f oUow the policy of Lincoln ; 
 but he also saw plainly the hopeless errors of the 
 President's manner and methods. He thought 
 that Congress, too, made mistakes, and yet pur- 
 
44 WILLIAM H. SEWARD 
 
 posed well. In short, he perceived that there was 
 good in both the contending parties, but he could 
 not allay the strife. So he contented himself with 
 pushing forward various negotiations which he had 
 much at heart, and referred in a speech at Auburn 
 to the conflict between the President and Congress 
 with the dry humor which had been a good deal 
 eclipsed during the days of battle. The truth was 
 that ordinary partisanship had become impossible 
 to Seward. It died within him when, standing 
 by the side of Lincoln, he had looked dovm into 
 the seething gulf of civil war and faced the awful 
 thought of a divided empire. The saying of Doug- 
 las, " Henceforth there can be only two parties, the 
 party of patriots and the party of traitors," had 
 entered deep into his soul. Like Andrew, " he 
 had stood as a high priest between the horns of the 
 altar, and poured out upon it the best blood of the 
 country ; " and he. could not be a mere partisan 
 after that. 
 
 His work, in truth, was done. At the close of 
 Johnson's administration he withdrew to private 
 life, and gratified his love of roaming by a trip to 
 Alaska, another to Mexico, and by a journey round 
 the world. Everywhere he was received with the 
 honor which was his due ; and when his travels 
 were over he returned to Auburn, and devoted 
 himself to writing an account of his wanderings 
 and the first chapters of his autobiography. In 
 these employments a few months were passed, and 
 then he died, quietly and peacefully, having just 
 entered his seventy-second year. 
 
WILLIAM H. SEWARD 45 
 
 Seward was a favorite of fortune. He was for- 
 tunate in his gifts, his surroundings, his successes, 
 his career, his temperament, his friendships. He 
 was peculiarly blessed in the last respect by hav- 
 ing as a lifelong friend Thurlow Weed, one of the 
 most astute and powerful politicians we have ever 
 produced, who relieved Seward of many of the bur- 
 dens of politics, apd left him free to work out the 
 principles they both had at heart. It was a rare 
 chance which gave Seward such a friend, and he 
 made the most of it, as he did of all his oppor- 
 tunities, after the fashion of successful people. 
 Very few men have made themselves count for 
 more than Seward, in proportion to their ability. 
 This arose from his wonderful capacity for dealing 
 with his fellow-men, from his robust common sense, 
 and from his cautious firmness. The qualities, 
 however, which made him great were his wisdom 
 and his courage, and on these his place in history 
 will rest. Apart from the military leaders, the 
 great figure of the civil war is that of Abraham 
 Lincoln. He will always stand preeminent, not 
 only by his wisdom and his moral greatness, but 
 by his hold upon the popular affection. He ap- 
 pealed to the hearts of the people both in his life 
 and in his death. They loved him, because in 
 him they saw a true and profoundly sympathetic 
 representative of all that was best in themselves, 
 and because he personified as no other man did the 
 infinite pathos of the war. But among the states- 
 men who followed and sustained Lincoln Seward 
 will occupy the foremost place. The memory of 
 
46 WILLIAM H. SEWARD 
 
 the adroit politician may perish, but that of the 
 broad-minded statesman will endure. The sub- 
 tleties of his arguments will fade, but his presenta^ 
 tion of great principles will ever grow brighter. 
 The champion of anti-masonry wiU be forgotten, 
 but the man who first appealed to the " higher 
 law " and who first described the " irrepressible 
 conflict " will always be honored and remembered. 
 We may read the epitaph which Seward chose for 
 himself in the simple inscription on the tomb at 
 Auburn, " He was faithful ; " and with this praise 
 he was content. But history will also record and 
 give high place to the calm wisdom, the loyal cour- 
 age, and the undaunted spirit with which he de- 
 fended the cause of freedom in a slave-holding 
 Senate, and stood by the side of Lincoln through 
 all the trials and perils of four years of civil war. 
 
JAMES MADISON. 
 
 A DEBT of gratitude is due to Mr. Gay for his 
 life of our fourth President.^ He has opened the 
 ponderous and marble jaws of the Rives biography, 
 where Madison has been quietly inurned, and has 
 thus permitted that distinguished statesman to re- 
 visit once more the glimpses of the moon. There 
 is hardly a life in the series to which this volume 
 belongs that so much needed to be written. Madi- 
 son was one of the most conspicuous figures of his 
 time. He held easily the second place in his 
 party, and though he cannot be ranked with Wash- 
 ington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Adams, or Marshall, 
 he was a statesman of a fine type, and followed 
 close upon these great leaders. His services were 
 important in themselves and lasting in their re- 
 sults. Yet with all this, and despite the many 
 great offices which he held, Madison is neither 
 familiar nor vivid to posterity. Hence the especial 
 value of such an excellent biography as that by 
 Mr. Gay. 
 
 That Madison, comparatively speaking, should 
 be ill understood and imperfectly appreciated is 
 not altogether due, by any means, to the fact that 
 he fell into the hands of Mr. Eives, and thus be- 
 
 ^ James Madison. By Sydney Howard Gay. American 
 Statesmen Series. Boston : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1SS4. 
 
48 JAMES MADISON 
 
 came the subject of one of the most solemn, 
 learned, and highly respectable biographies ever 
 penned by man. The real trouble is in Madison 
 himself. He is an extremely difficult subject, his- 
 torically speaking, as can be seen even in Mr. 
 Gay's interesting volume. Mr. Gay writes with 
 a skillful and practiced hand. There are very 
 few better chapters in our history than those in 
 which he has discussed the relations of parties 
 and the French question during Washington's ad- 
 ministration. But it is obvious that Mr. Gay has 
 a keen sense of both the humorous and the pictur- 
 esque ; and, although it may be but fancy, one 
 seems to detect a feeling of weariness in the author 
 just because he possesses this gift. The narrative 
 flows rapidly and closely, dealing more perhaps 
 with public questions than with Madison, until the 
 downfall of the Federalists. After that, although 
 the merit of the work does not diminish in the 
 least, the story goes forward with long strides, and 
 five chapters suffice to cover the administrations of 
 Jefferson and Madison and the twenty years of 
 quiet which followed the latter's retirement from 
 public life. 
 
 After aU it is hardly matter for surprise that 
 Mr. Gay should have become weary. It would 
 have been strange indeed if he had not, for Mad- 
 ison, however highly we may rank his abilities and 
 his services, is dry and serious to the last degree 
 as a historical character. This arises chiefly from 
 a defect which seems to have been common to the 
 men of that day, but which reached its highest 
 
JAMES MADISON 49 
 
 development in Madison. Nothing is more strik- 
 ing in studying the period of the Eevolution and of 
 the establishment of the government of the United 
 States than the absence of humor among the really 
 great men of that time. It is not that the mirth 
 of that age has lost its savor in ours. The humor 
 of Fielding and Smollett and the wit of Sheridan 
 appeal to us as keenly as to their contemporaries. 
 It is the same with our own great countryman, 
 Franklin, whose vein of strong, quiet humor has 
 delighted generations of readers. But among the 
 builders of the government of the United States 
 Gouverneur Morris appears to have been the soli- 
 tary possessor of a genuine sense of humor, and his 
 speeches, as a natural consequence, seem to gleam 
 on the printed pages of constitutional debates in 
 singular contrast to the gray sobriety of his fel- 
 lows. Fisher Ames had humor, but it was of a 
 melancholy and sardonic sort, while the savage wit 
 of John Randolph and the effective sarcasms of 
 Quincy belong to a later period. John Adams 
 and in a less degree Jefferson are in very different 
 ways often unconsciously amusing, but here the 
 list must end. Although Hamilton had evidently 
 a hearty love of fun, no humor appears in his let- 
 ters, yet he is vivid and picturesque by the force of 
 passion and the energy of a strong nature. This 
 is true, also, of such men as John Quincy Adams, 
 Timothy Pickering, and John Marshall. 
 
 Madison, however, had no such redeeming trait. 
 Mr. Rives cites as proof of Madison's humor a 
 letter written by Ellery and Madison jointly to 
 
50 JAMES MADISON 
 
 some fellow-members of Congress. This produc- 
 tion is, at best, harmless fun, a species of labored 
 grinning through a horse-collar, and is, moreover, 
 obviously the work of EUery from beginning to 
 end. There is no other testimony now in existence 
 on the strength of which Madison can be accused 
 of humor in any form. He was, in fact, utterly 
 destitute of that most valuable of human gifts, and 
 this lack was not at all supplied by high animal 
 spirits or by a strong and passionate temperament. 
 Madison, indeed, seems never to have had any 
 boyhood or youth. When he left college his health 
 was poor, he was very studious, very serious, and 
 very busy. He was only twenty-three when he 
 wrote to his friend Bradford, " Poetry, wit, criti- 
 cism, plays, etc., captivated me much, but I began 
 to discover that they deserve but a small portion of 
 a mortal's time, and that something more substan- 
 tial, more durable, and more profitable befits a 
 riper age." So this ripe young gentleman of 
 twenty-three freshened his mind by an extended 
 course of theological study, and' then plunged into 
 that public career in which he was to play such a 
 useful and distinguished part. A man so consti- 
 tuted was, of course, cold and calm. Mr. Gay 
 says, in speaking of Madison's letter announcing 
 the victory of Yorktown : " Neither is there a 
 word of sympathetic warmth and patriotic fervor 
 which at that moment made the heart of a whole 
 people beat quicker at the news of a great vic- 
 tory." The disappointment he met with in his 
 first love affair tells the whole story. Madison 
 
JAMES MADISON 51 
 
 was then young, good-looking, a gentleman of 
 refined and cultivated manners, a scholar, and 
 already a highly distinguished man. He offered 
 everything that could tempt a woman's ambition or 
 gratify her pride. Yet Miss Floyd broke her en- 
 gagement with him to marry an obscure clergy- 
 man. Madison did not interest her, and posterity 
 has felt a good deal like Miss Floyd. Many years 
 later Madison married very happily, winning his 
 bride, as Mr. Rives teUs us, by his "rare collo- 
 quial accomplishments," — a portentous sort of woo- 
 ing which explains perhaps Miss Floyd's feelings. 
 
 When, however, we pass from the qualities which 
 touch the heart or kindle the imagination Madison 
 appears very differently. He had some great and 
 many useful faculties. He was wonderfully indus- 
 trious and painstaking. He was not a versatile 
 man, and, except for an amateur fondness for nat- 
 ural history, he cared for nothing but politics and 
 the science of government, especially as applied to 
 the United States. With everything which could 
 by any possibility have the remotest bearing on 
 these topics he was thoroughly familiar, and his 
 familiarity was that of the scholar and not of the 
 man rapidly crammed for the occasion. The re- 
 sult was, that in his own field no one surpassed 
 him, and he still remains one of the best known 
 and most trusted expounders of our system of con- 
 stitutional law. 
 
 As in constitutions and government, so in the 
 current political questions of his day, Madison 
 touched a good many without adorning them, but 
 
52 JAMES MADISON 
 
 never without manifesting a thorough knowledge 
 and conveying much information to his hearers. 
 He was eminently reasonable and practical, and al- 
 though not a brilliant speaker, he was a convincing 
 and effective leader in debate. The chief causes of 
 his success, not only in Congress but elsewhere, 
 were the general soundness and moderation of his 
 views on all public questions. He rarely made 
 mistakes of judgment, except when from party 
 stress he acted on the opinions of other people. 
 This wisdom, accompanied by a certain amount of 
 shrewd foresight, was the source of the confidence 
 that he enjoyed, and of all the popular strength 
 he ever obtained. But he had other and nobler 
 qualities than these. He was candid, conscien- 
 tious, just, and, as a rule, high-minded. Nothing 
 impresses one more in studying Madison's corre- 
 spondence than the almost entire absence of per- 
 sonaHties either hostile or friendly. He seems 
 never to have undertaken to analyze character 
 either for his own benefit or for that of his friends. 
 He had no warm friendships apparently, except 
 with Jefferson and Monroe, and he was equally free 
 from bitter enmities. If not a good lover, he was 
 still less a good hater. The strongest hostility he 
 ever showed was toward Hamilton, whom he pur- 
 sued at one period with a cold dislike of a rather 
 active and ugly kind. Yet in his later years his 
 inborn sense of justice reasserted itself, and he 
 wrote of Hamilton : " That he possessed intellec- 
 tual powers of the first order and the moral quali- 
 fications of integrity and honor in a captivating 
 
JAMES MADISON 53 
 
 degree have been decreed to Mm by a suffrage 
 now universal. If his theory of government devi- 
 ated from the republican standard, he had the 
 candor to avow it, and the greater merit of co- 
 operating faithfully in maturing and supporting a 
 system which was not his choice." 
 
 The first public question that seems to have 
 drawn Madison's attention was in regard to reli- 
 gious freedom. The petty persecutions of the Es- 
 tablished Church in Virginia aroused his indigna- 
 tion, and he left his mark on the Virginian Bill of 
 Rights in the clause which secured religious liberty. 
 Toleration he resisted, as implying the right of 
 the state to meddle with men's consciences, and 
 he would accept nothing but absolute freedom. In 
 this matter he not only won a victory in the BiU 
 of Eights, but in later years he defeated finally 
 various attempts to establish certain religious priv- 
 ileges in favor of the dominant church. 
 
 Madison entered public life at an early age, but 
 it was a time when men developed rapidly, and he 
 was always mature. He passed rapidly from the 
 legislature to the council of Virginia, and thence 
 to Congress at the close of the war. The sound- 
 ness of his opinions and the ripeness of his wisdom 
 in these first years of public life were most re- 
 markable, and for all we can see now he was as 
 skilled a statesman then as when he laid down the 
 Presidency after forty years of public life. Not 
 only on the matter of religious freedom, but on 
 other public questions in regard to which popular 
 opinion fluctuated constantly, he was ever just, 
 
54 JAMES MADISON 
 
 steady, and true. In the councils of his own State 
 he fought against the curse of paper money, re- 
 vised and condensed the laws, strove to have the 
 treaty kept in regard to British debts, and labored 
 zealously for intelligent commercial legislation and 
 for all other useful reforms. In Congress he 
 worked day and night to overcome the hopeless 
 difficulties of the confederation. He grappled with 
 the debt and with the revenue, and sought to give 
 strength to the imbecile central government of 
 which he was a part. In regard to the Missis- 
 sippi he held right opinions and took enlarged 
 views at a time when there was a strong pressure 
 to sacrifice our interests in the great river for the 
 sake of peace with Spain. In that matter Madi- 
 son showed plenty of courage, as he usually did 
 when he felt sure he was right. This was conspicu- 
 ously the case also in regard to slavery. In 1785 
 he wrote : " Another of my wishes is to depend as 
 little as possible on the labor of slaves." The sys- 
 tem of human bondage was indeed odious to his 
 gentle and liberal nature, and he was courageous 
 in his treatment of it. He would have liked to 
 abolish the " peculiar institution," but there he 
 shrank back, probably because he saw that it was 
 a task beyond any man's strength. Still his in- 
 fluence was always against it, and when the aboli- 
 tion petitions appeared in the first Congress he 
 wished to have those petitions respectfully referred 
 and then rejected after a simple presentation of 
 the constitutional objections. This was advanced 
 ground to take at that day, and if the South had 
 
JAMES MADISON 55 
 
 followed Madison's advice they would have fared 
 mucli better than by trying to strangle the right 
 of petition and thus arousing a spirit which never 
 slumbered nor slept until the whole infamous sys- 
 tem went down in utter ruin. 
 
 Madison's chief title to fame and gratitude 
 comes, however, from his share in forming the 
 Constitution of the United States. No one did 
 more in this momentous work, and only two others 
 as much as he. From the time when they first 
 came together in Congress Hamilton and Madi- 
 son labored with equal zeal for the establishment 
 of a better government. They saw the fatal de- 
 fects in the fading system of the confederation. 
 They were imbued with the same ideas as to the 
 proper remedies. One at the North, the other at 
 the South, they reached out their hands to each 
 other, and backed by the quiet but masterful in- 
 fluence of Washington they finally succeeded, and 
 carried through one of the greatest triumphs of 
 modern statesmanship. To Madison in Virginia, 
 alert and attentive, came the first opportunity. 
 With great adroitness he seized the slender chance 
 held out by the conferences of Virginia and Mary- 
 land, and obtained the call for the Annapolis con- 
 vention. Hamilton responded in an instant. The 
 convention met. It was an unpromising begin- 
 ning, but it gave Hamilton and Madison the point 
 for the lever by which they could move their world. 
 They pried with all their might to raise the inert 
 mass of the States, and the result was the conven- 
 tion at Philadelphia. Side by side they fought for 
 
56 JAMES MADISON 
 
 the adoption of a strong and energetic government, 
 and when the Constitution was completed they to- 
 gether wrote "The Federalist," and in their re- 
 spective States fought two of the decisive and 
 most desperate battles of the whole struggle in 
 behalf of union and national existence. 
 
 The new government was established, the machin- 
 ery began to move, and then Madison and Hamilton 
 separated, never to meet again except as foes. This 
 was the turning point of Madison's life, and Mr. 
 Gay has analyzed the question which it raises with 
 both skill and justice. In his old age Madison 
 was much nettled by charges of inconsistency, and 
 passed a good deal of time in showing that he was 
 always perfectly consistent. Why he should have 
 been so sensitive on this point it is not easy to see. 
 He had never " ratted," nor had he ever sold him- 
 self or betrayed his party from mean motives. 
 But his change of front was certainly marked, and 
 the inconsistency between his natural opinions and 
 his public actions from 1790 to 1800 is strikingly 
 obvious. Madison was by nature and instinct a 
 " Federalist." Indeed, it was he who established, 
 if he did not coin, the word itself. He was a 
 cautious man, with no popular gifts or attractions, 
 a lover of a strong, well-ordered government, not 
 given to experiments or to new ideas, the very 
 reverse of sentimental, and not at all imbued with 
 the notions about humanity then swarming out of 
 France. Thus formed by nature, he acted all his 
 life as one of the leaders of the Democratic party, 
 became its second choice for the Presidency and a 
 
JAMES MADISON 57 
 
 recognized exponent of the Jeffersonian theories, 
 which then constituted Democracy in the party 
 sense. A very brief comparison of Madison's opin- 
 ions before 1789 with those which he advocated 
 afterwards shows the extent of the change which 
 he made in his course as a public man. 
 
 Madison believed in the first place that property 
 should be represented, and that manhood suffrage 
 ought to control one branch of the legislature and 
 property suffrage the other. This theory he advo- 
 cated both in youth and old age, and apparently 
 never changed his mind about it. All that can be 
 said on this point is that Madison's view was cer- 
 tainly not democratic. He believed in a strong cen- 
 tral government, and wrote and said over and over 
 again that he considered an absolute negative on 
 all State laws whatsoever essential to any effective 
 system. He proposed to give this vast power 
 either to Congress, the President, or the national 
 judiciary. Hamilton has been criticised always 
 for his proposition to give the appointments of 
 governors of States to the President, but this was 
 merely reaching the veto power in another way. 
 In details they differed, but Madison and Hamil- 
 ton agreed in the fundamental point, that the 
 central government must control absolutely the 
 legislation of the States. If a more centralizing 
 theory than this of Madison's existed it was not put 
 forward, and it reads oddly enough when placed 
 side by side with the Virginia resolutions of '98. 
 In regard to finance, the point on which every- 
 thing then hinged, Madison believed in the fullest 
 
58 JAMES MADISON 
 
 provision for the debt ; he was one of the earliest 
 supporters of a permanent revenue ; he favored 
 funding ; he opposed discrimination among holders 
 of the domestic debt, and in 1783 and 1785 he 
 argued strongly in favor of the principle of as- 
 sumption of the State debts. In 1787, when the 
 work of forming the Constitution fairly began, we 
 are able to trace his opinions very clearly. He 
 wrote to Randolph that the individual indepen- 
 dence of the States was incompatible with the idea 
 of an aggregate sovereignty ; he defended the nega- 
 tive on the States, and wished to extend national 
 supremacy to the courts. In another letter he de- 
 scribed the party adverse to the Constitution as 
 bent on the dissolution of the Union. A little 
 later he wrote that equality of votes among the 
 States must cease in order to secure a national 
 instead of a federal government, and he also de- 
 clared against the ratification of the new system by 
 the States, and wished to have it referred directly 
 to the people. 
 
 In the debates of the convention Madison's 
 national and centralizing principles come out even 
 more strongly and plainly. He urged three years 
 as the proper term for members of Congress, dwelt 
 on the instability of republics and the danger that 
 the House would overwhelm the Senate, and op- 
 posed the proposition to restrict the right of origi- 
 nating money bills to the popular branch. After 
 the introduction of the so-called New Jersej' plan 
 Hamilton made his great speech of June 18, one 
 principal object being to counteract the weakening 
 
JAMES MADISON 59 
 
 effect of the system outlined by Mr. Patterson. 
 The next day Madison followed Hamilton with a 
 strong speech in the same direction. A little later 
 he declared that there was no objection in prin- 
 ciple to one great republic, but merely consider- 
 ations of inconvenience and impracticability. He 
 was not in favor of forbidding members of Coii- 
 gress to hold other offices, and he advocated a 
 property qualification for electors of the Senators, 
 for whom he thought a term of nine years none too 
 long. In another speech he urged that the true 
 policy for the small States was in a system which 
 would reduce the States to the level of counties. 
 He believed in a strong executive, opposed zeal- 
 ously the equality of votes in the Senate, and on 
 the question of representation employed the lan- 
 guage of Hamilton in regard to large and small 
 States. Indeed, at a later day he went further 
 tnan Hamilton, arguing boldly that the freeholders 
 would be the safest depositaries of republican 
 liberty. He was also against giving the States any 
 power to control the election of congressmen ; he 
 favored placing the State militia in the power of 
 the general government ; and he believed in taxing 
 exports. 
 
 On these principles he continued to act after the 
 adjournment of the convention. He contributed 
 to " The Federalist," referring constantly to the 
 British Constitution as a standard, and then re- 
 turned to Virginia to lead the fight for the new 
 system. Defeated for the Senate through Henry's 
 exertions, he succeeded after a sharp contest with 
 
60 JAMES MADISON 
 
 Monroe in securing an election to the lower House. 
 In the new Congress he easily took the lead, and 
 there is no change apparent in his attitude through- 
 out the first session. Indeed, he continued to 
 write to Jefferson and his other friends that the 
 danger stUl to be apprehended was from the 
 strength of the States and the feebleness of the 
 general government. 
 
 Madison's change dates from the beginning of 
 the second session of the first Congress ; in other 
 words, from the appearance of the report on the 
 Public Credit. The turning about was complete 
 and decided. Madison did not go gradually into 
 opposition because he did not fancy the scheme of 
 policy developed by Hamilton. In his later years 
 he was fond of thinking that this was the case ; but 
 in reality he opposed it step by step, and from the 
 very outset. If it had devolved on Madison to 
 mark out a policy for the administration, there is 
 no reason to suppose that it would have differed in 
 principle from the one actually undertaken. Yet 
 the very instant Hamilton began to strike out the 
 bold and masterly policy which was to convert the 
 dry clauses of the Constitution into a strong and 
 living organism Madison began to resist. There 
 was no difference of opinion as to the foreign debt, 
 but on the domestic debt Madison took a position 
 in favor of discrimination, and produced a scheme 
 as impracticable as could well be conceived. The 
 sharpness of the change is best shown by the fact 
 that Hamilton in arguing against discrimination in 
 his report found his best support in quoting Madi- 
 
JAMES MADISON 61 
 
 son's own words on that subject sent forth to the 
 country some years before in the address to the 
 States. 
 
 It is easy to show the sudden and complete 
 change made by Madison. It is much more diffi- 
 cult to account for it. His action, as is usually the 
 case, was probably due to a variety of motives. In 
 the first place, there were two points on which he 
 was consistent throughout his life. Despite his 
 national views and his labors for the Constitution 
 he was always in the last resort a Virginian first, 
 a Southerner next, and an American last. In that 
 day and generation there was nothing either pecu- 
 liar or discreditable about this. With the excep- 
 tion of Washington, who by largeness of mind rose 
 above all local prejudices, and of Hamilton, who 
 was born without them and was too broad to 
 acquire them, all the men of that day were in a 
 greater or less degree sectional. It was human 
 nature, that was all. They loved their States, 
 which had always existed for them, and they had 
 only a theoretic and reasoned devotion to the 
 Union, which was a thing of yesterday. When 
 their party or their section was in power they were 
 strongly national ; when they were in the minority 
 the reverse was the case. Madison was as fervent 
 in his state feeling as it was possible for him to be 
 in anything. With his calm sense he saw clearly, 
 as few others did, that the real contest in the con- 
 vention was not between large and small States, 
 but between the North and South, between free- 
 dom and slavery. When the new government began 
 
62 JAMES MADISON 
 
 to move he saw the financial policy enriching the 
 North, and not the South ; and he saw, too, the rise 
 of the North to political power under Washington. 
 Here was one powerful reason for opposition. 
 
 The other point on which Madison never swerved 
 was in regard to France. He belonged to the 
 school which had a deep sentimental prejudice in 
 favor of that country. He showed this feeling 
 strongly in the debates of 1782-83, and he never 
 could get rid either of his prejudice or of the old 
 colonial habit of clinging to foreign politics for 
 guidance and inspiration. This was also the view 
 of Jefferson, and speedily became that of the party 
 which he and Madison formed and led. 
 
 On the other hand the Federalists, as Mr. Gay 
 points out, were the first American party. Their 
 policy was to avoid any connection mth any power 
 across the water, and to treat all alike, allowing 
 the dead past to bury its dead. Such an attitude 
 was odious to Madison. He and all the rest of his 
 friends undertook to say that they resisted the 
 Federalists because the Federalists wished to favor 
 England. In reality they resisted them because 
 the Federalists were not willing to enter into close 
 connection with France. In course of time, under 
 the stress of party warfare and with minds dis- 
 torted by hatred of the French Revolution, the 
 Federalists became as colonial in politics as their 
 opponents, and talked about England as Jefferson 
 used to talk about France. But this was in their 
 last and worst days, and while the Federalists 
 were led by Washington, Hamilton, and Adams 
 
JAMES MADISON 63 
 
 they were a purely national and American party. 
 His French prejudices before many years elapsed 
 drove Madison into the most eager partisanship of 
 which he was capable, but when he first changed 
 they did not, of course, play a very strong part. 
 
 Other influences, however, were at work in 1790. 
 Virginia, as Madison had reason to know, was, in 
 the main, anti-Federalist. Henry had defeated 
 him for the Senate, and then nearly snuffed out 
 his political light by making a district which would 
 not send him to Congress, thus anticipating by 
 twenty years the ingenious scheme which bears the 
 name of Elbridge Gerry. Madison loved public 
 life. He cared, indeed, for nothing else. He pre- 
 ferred, other things being equal, to be in sympathy 
 with his State, and that preference was sharpened 
 when lack of sympathy portended a serious check. 
 It was a case where sentiment fortified by interest 
 clashed with well-reasoned opinions, and the former 
 prevailed. 
 
 The final impulse which spurred Madison to 
 turn sharply a corner which he was surely and 
 steadily approaching was of a more personal kind. 
 He and Hamilton had fought the battle of the 
 Constitution side by side. Then the latter came 
 into power, and with bold and resolute hand drove 
 along a vigorous and far-reaching policy. Madi- 
 son was deeply ambitious in his calm, reticent way. 
 He had done more than any one except Washing- 
 ton and Hamilton to build up the Constitution. 
 That done he went to Congress because he felt 
 that there better than anywhere else he could make 
 
64 JAMES MADISON 
 
 the experiment a success. To his great surprise, 
 he found the task taken from his hands. The 
 guiding force of the new government came from 
 the administration, not from Congress. That he 
 should feel disappointed and nettled was natural 
 enough, and his irritation turned against the man 
 who seemed to be doing the work and reaping the 
 harvest of glory which belonged to himself. To 
 say that it was merely personal envy of another's 
 success which led Madison into opposition would 
 be unjust. Yet it is at least certain that from the 
 moment of the appearance of the first report on 
 the Public Credit Madison began to be hostile to 
 its author. His feelings strengthened fast, and he 
 soon showed toward Hamilton a cold jealousy and 
 a frigid but active hatred which led him into a 
 course of action foreign to his real nature and un- 
 worthy of his pure character and well-balanced 
 mind. Personal hostility urged him on, and his 
 admiration for Jefferson, the one strong friendship 
 of his life, impelled him in the same direction. 
 
 Thus, from a mixture of motives, Madison ar- 
 rayed himself in opposition to the men, the party, 
 and the measures with which he naturally sympa- 
 thized. Local associations, State pride, sectional 
 feeling, sentiment, interest, personal friendship, 
 and personal hostility all combined to the same 
 end. Once started he moved quickly enough. 
 Support of discrimination in the domestic debt 
 was followed by resistance to assumption. Not 
 long before, he had advanced and defended the 
 principle of assumption, and the motives at work 
 
JAMES MADISON 65 
 
 within him come out curiously in his new attitude 
 on this important question. In 1790 he writes 
 that he is not opposed to the principle of assump- 
 tion, but that it bears hard on Virginia. In all 
 his fierce resistance to this measure the fact that 
 it did not profit Virginia was the controlling influ- 
 ence. So in regard to the site of the Federal city, 
 in which he took an intense interest. He discussed 
 the situation of the capital as if the fate of the 
 nation hung upon it, and dilated continually upon 
 the infamous combinations of the Eastern and 
 Middle States to deprive the South of this advan- 
 tage and honor. He had a keen dislike of New 
 England, and this feeliug was concentrated in a 
 curious way upon John Adams, of whom he always 
 spoke in a bitter and contemptuous way for which 
 it is difficult to find adequate cause, except that he 
 regarded that sturdy fighter as peculiarly repre- 
 sentative of the North and East. 
 
 Madison was not fitted by nature for a partisan, 
 but unsuccessful opposition made him one, and for 
 years he opposed, without distinction, everything 
 emanating from the administration or its friends, 
 a course in which he was much aided by his devo- 
 tion to France, whose affairs soon came to play a 
 leading part in our politics. He easily adopted all 
 Jefferson's jargon about " Anglicans, monarchists, 
 and a corrupt squadron." He opposed the National 
 Bank as unconstitutional, and assailed Hamilton's 
 report on Manufactures as in every way wrong. 
 When Genet arrived he was at first delighted by 
 his pranks, and then he mourned over that gentle- 
 
66 JAMES MADISON 
 
 man's follies as serious misfortunes. He was op- 
 posed to the neutrality policy, and when Hamilton 
 defended it as " Pacificus " he replied as " Helvi- 
 dius " to those " who hate our Republican govern- 
 ment and the French Revolution." It is pleasant 
 to think how impossible it now would be to couple 
 the United States in that way with any foreign na- 
 tion. Yet Madison found no difficulty in doing it, 
 and Mr. Rives declares that these essays of " Hel- 
 vidius " crushed Hamilton. In view of this fact it 
 is not a little curious to note that when Hamilton 
 wrote " CamiUus " and Jefferson invited Madison 
 to again enter the lists that victorious gentleman 
 prudently declined. 
 
 The nature of the opposition to which Madison 
 committed himself comes out most strongly in cer- 
 tain personal matters. Jefferson has repelled with 
 indignation the idea that there was anything politi- 
 cal in Freneau's case. Madison is much franker. 
 He wanted an opposition newspaper, and while he 
 helped to get subscriptions he wished also to en- 
 courage the editor with a government office. For 
 this reason he was instrumental in bringing Fre- 
 neau to Philadelphia and to the State Department. 
 Mr. Rives, with Virginian grandiloquence, calls 
 Freneau a " rare genius," but Madison, one may 
 venture to think, considered him simply a useful 
 and clever journalist, and as such employed him. 
 
 Setting up an opposition newspaper was harm- 
 less enough, but the attempt to ruin Hamilton was 
 a contemptible business, which was well punished 
 by the ridiculous way in which it broke down. 
 
JAMES MADISON 67 
 
 Madison in fact never appeared to less advantage 
 than when drawing hostile resolutions and putting 
 forward a tool like Giles to make an ugly and 
 ruinous attack upon a man whom he acknowledged 
 in his old age to be of captivating integrity. AU 
 that can be said for him on this point is that Jef- 
 ferson, and not he, was the real originator of the 
 precious scheme. In the same vein, however, he 
 wrote of Hamilton, in 1795 : " It is pompously 
 announced in the newspapers that poverty drives 
 him back to the Bar for a livelihood." Whether 
 pompously announced or not, it was the truth, and 
 the sneer came with poor grace from a man who 
 could retire to a plantation and be supported by 
 the labor of a drove of slaves. The hatred of 
 opposition, however, reached a higher point even 
 than this, for in 1796 Madison rejoiced that the 
 House refused to adjourn for half an hour on Feb- 
 ruary 22d in order to pay their respects to Wash- 
 ington. At this same period, too, he adopted his 
 party's trick of sorrowing over Washington's weak- 
 ness and the manner in which that great man fell 
 a prey to designing persons, which was a kind of 
 contemptuous pity a thousand times more offensive 
 than any direct attack. 
 
 Thus it was that Madison, gentle and just by 
 nature, was carried on from point to point, and 
 was involved in deeper and deeper inconsistencies. 
 He assailed Hamilton's debt, but resisted all plans 
 to reduce it, especially when the taxes proposed 
 seemed likely to reach Virginia. He hated Eng- 
 land and wished to attack her; but when Sedg- 
 
68 JAMES MADISON 
 
 wick, leading the Federalists, proposed to arm he 
 resisted their measures and impugned their mo- 
 tives. He wanted a navy, but was opposed to 
 beginning to build one, and thought it best to buy 
 peace from the pirates of Algiers. He sneered at 
 the whiskey rebellion, and sought excuses for the 
 French in the disgraceful X. Y. Z. affair. It may 
 be said that all this was simply ordinary political 
 opposition, which is true enough. The trouble is 
 that it was not work for which Madison was fitted, 
 and that he did not rest here, but allowed his 
 opposition to culminate at last in an act which sat 
 heavy on his soul down to the day of his death. 
 In 1798 he wrote the famous Virginia resolutions, 
 and the next year reaffirmed their doctrine, in his 
 report on the replies from the other States. It 
 boots not to inquire whether Jefferson consulted 
 him as to the Kentucky resolutions. Madison 
 strenuously denied that the god of his political 
 idolatry had used the fatal words " nullify or nulli- 
 fication," but the tell-tale manuscript showed that 
 he was mistaken, and that Jefferson had the honor 
 of first using that famous expression. The word 
 was really of little consequence, although Madison 
 rested his own defense on the fact that he did not 
 employ it. His word was " interpose," and he saw 
 so vast a difference, so great a gulf fixed between 
 that and " nullification," that he fought upon this 
 theme against his South Carolina imitators of 1830 
 with all the vigor of his early days. It was vain 
 quibbling. The Hartford convention only wished 
 to " interpose," but Madison had no question as to 
 
JAMES MADISON 69 
 
 what the Hartford convention intended. Their 
 " interposition " meant to him nullification and im- 
 pending secession. His own resolution meant the 
 same thing, and with all his subtlety of distinction 
 he could not change the meaning. He urged " in- 
 terposing " the power and rights of the States to 
 check the general government, and, by whatever 
 fine name it might be called, the road he pointed 
 out was the highway of separatism and led straight 
 to secession. There was no distinction in princi- 
 ple between the Virginia resolutions and the South 
 Carolina movement as Madison contended, but 
 there was a wide difference between the Madison 
 of 1798 expounding other men's separatist views, 
 and the Madison of 1830 explaining his own na- 
 tional principles. Had he really believed in the 
 doctrines of '98 he never would have tried to ex- 
 cuse and explain them away. 
 
 These resolutions marked high water in the 
 change which began for Madison in 1790. With 
 the new century his party came into power. From 
 that time a contrary movement set in and Madison 
 moved back steadily to his former ground, until 
 in his old age he was again the statesman of the 
 constitutional convention. It is curious to mark 
 this reverse process. Madison never needed the 
 sobering influence which great responsibility brings 
 to all men, but power killed the party spirit which 
 with him was at best but a carefully cultivated 
 exotic. During JeflFerson's two terms Madison, 
 trusted and beloved as he was by his chief, played 
 a purely subordinate part. Jefferson was a polit- 
 
70 JAMES MADISON 
 
 ical autocrat, and his administration was wholly 
 his own. Madison did the work of his depart- 
 ment as he did all work, faithfully, conscientiously, 
 and well. His state papers are dignified and able, 
 and so is his elaborate pamphlet on the British 
 doctrine in regard to neutrals. But his letters are 
 colorless during this time, and the foreign policy 
 was that of Jefferson. 
 
 Madison, however, waited patiently to some 
 purpose. When Jefferson was ready to retire he 
 named as his successor his faithful friend and Sec- 
 retary of State, and the well-drilled party accepted 
 the edict without a murmur. It was the goal of 
 Madison's ambition, but even when he grasped the 
 glittering prize of the Presidency he must have 
 felt that it had its drawbacks. There was a 
 strange irony in fate's thrusting Madison into com- 
 mand when the ship of state was tossing on the 
 stormiest seas she has ever faced except in 1861. 
 Madison was preeminently a man of peace, and 
 here he was on the verge of war, England and 
 France snarling at him on one side, and a hot- 
 headed war party goading him on the other. He 
 kept on clutching at peace with desperate hands, 
 but all in vain. It would be useless and indeed 
 impossible to follow here the tedious twistiugs of 
 our foreign relations during Madison's first term. 
 All that concerns us is to note the way in which 
 he plunged on from one Federalist measure to an- 
 other, embracing once more the principles which 
 were really congenial to him, and which he had 
 passed ten years of his life in reviling. By 1811 
 
JAMES MADISON 71 
 
 he was ready to accept the hated bank, and a few 
 years later he signed the bill establishing a new 
 one, and wrote that the State banks ought to unite 
 with the National Bank in restoring health to the 
 currency. Obviously Hamilton had some method 
 in his madness on that point at least. 
 
 Then dangers of foreign hostilities began to 
 draw nearer, and the clamors of the war party 
 grew ever louder. Yet in the spring of 1812 we 
 find Madison sneering at Congress because they 
 talked of war and at the same time would neither 
 raise a sufficient army, nor build a navy, nor 
 strengthen the executive. This too smacked sadly 
 of Federalism. Madison, of course, wished and 
 hoped to avoid war, but he was compelled to choose 
 between that and political ruin. Whether Clay 
 and others went to him and threatened to deprive 
 him of the nomination or not is of no great conse- 
 quence. Madison did not need to be told that if 
 he could not lead the war party some one else 
 would. He fell in with the dominant element of 
 his party and went to war. He liked it about as 
 well as Bob Acres liked dueling, and once in he 
 worked night and day to get out. The Federalists 
 used to call it " Madison's war," and a grimmer 
 satire was never uttered. There was not a Feder- 
 alist to be found who hated the war half as much 
 as the unfortunate gentleman whose name it bore. 
 
 As might have been expected, Madison made a 
 very poor war President. His heart was not in 
 the thing in the first place, and, moreover, with all 
 his great abilities and fine qualities he was not a 
 
72 JAMES MADISON 
 
 fighting man. Still, lie struggled along as best he 
 could, and finally made peace, a wise peace no 
 doubt, but concluded on terms which made the Jay- 
 treaty and still more the Monroe treaty, so cava- 
 lierly rejected by Jefferson, seem the highest tri- 
 umphs of vigorous diplomacy. It is just possible 
 that there may have been moments when Madison 
 thought that after all Washington and Hamilton 
 were not so wholly weak and foolish as he had de- 
 clared them to be when they accepted the Jay 
 treaty and persuaded the country to do the same. 
 
 So the war closed, greatly to the relief of Madi- 
 son, who then proceeded to sign the Bank Bill, and 
 also the first avowedly protective tariff. One can- 
 not help wondering if he remembered, in perform- 
 ing the latter act, his observations upon a certain 
 report on Manufactures. Probably he did not, for 
 he was now acting in consonance with that national 
 policy which was natural to him. The Jefferso- 
 nian theory of a simple government, without armies 
 or navies, or loans, or anything else in particular, 
 had broken down under the stress of circumstances. 
 Madison, relieved from this theory, was now able to 
 proceed as he liked, and his administration, after 
 the Treaty of Ghent, was wise, moderate, and suc- 
 cessful. He had managed to get rid of a number 
 of annoying persons who had been bequeathed to 
 him by Jefferson, and his last years of office were 
 a time of well-earned peace. 
 
 When his second term ended he sought a digni- 
 fied retirement on his estate, and there, among his 
 friends and his books, he passed a happy, useful, 
 
JAMES MADISON 73 
 
 and honored old age. His keen love of political 
 and constitutional questions could only die with 
 him, and, in a quiet way, by means of letters, he 
 continued to take an important part in public af- 
 fairs. He threw the great weight of his name, and 
 all the force of his influence, in favor of the pro- 
 tective policy. Abstractly, he may have thought 
 that free trade was best. Practically, he believed 
 that protection was essential to the United States. 
 In a word, he did not differ in practice from 
 Hamilton on this great question, and if he could 
 have then renewed his youth he would have been 
 a stanch Whig. When the nullification of South 
 Carolina shook the country he came forward nobly 
 and strongly for the Union, and did aU in his 
 power to undo the teachings of the Virginia and 
 Kentucky resolutions. In the soft, clear sunset of 
 his life his sectional prejudices dropped away, and 
 he fixed his hopes and his affections upon the 
 Union. To love the Union was, indeed, his last 
 message to his countrymen. 
 
 Madison's political career is, in some ways, a 
 very curious one, but it can be summed up in few 
 words. By nature and reason he was a Federalist 
 and a nationalist. By circumstances he became a 
 Democrat, and at one time a separatist. He was 
 entirely faithful to the party which he espoused, 
 but he was not in full and entire sympathy with it. 
 The result was, that he founded no school and had 
 no personal following. The party which he led 
 honored and trusted him, and it is to their honor 
 and credit that they did so. But they neither 
 
74 JAMES MADISON 
 
 loved him nor sympathized wiT;h him. The party 
 with which he really sympathized opposed him 
 throughout his life. Politically speaking, he was 
 a lonely man, and that loneliness has continued 
 until to-day. No party has placed him among its 
 heroes for stated or occasional worship. He seems 
 to stand aloof in history as he did in life, respected 
 and honored by all, loved and followed by none. 
 With such a nature as Madison's it could not well 
 be otherwise, and his career was possible only to a 
 man as cold, as conscientious, and as liberal as he 
 was. He was a poor partisan, but a great and use- 
 ful statesman. He did some unworthy things, he 
 made mistakes, like the rest of humanity, but his 
 abilities and his character are an honor to his coun- 
 try and to his State. Statues may not rise to him 
 in the market-place, political parties may not en- 
 shrine him as a patron saint, but by his labors in 
 the establishment of the government and the Con- 
 stitution of the United States, and by a pure and 
 dignified character and career, he has built himself 
 a monument more enduring than any of brass or 
 marble. 
 
GOUVERNEUE MORRIS. 
 
 GouvEENEUR MoREis is by no means so well 
 known to the present generation as he ought to be.^ 
 Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he 
 has not been and is not justly appreciated. If, 
 however, we turn to M. Taine's great work on the 
 French Revolution, we find that he relies on Morris 
 as one of the best and most penetrating observers 
 of that terrible convulsion, and places him at the 
 head of a small group of men like Arthur Young, 
 Malouet, and Mallet du Pan, who alone were able 
 to record clear and dispassionate judgments in that 
 
 1 This article first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly for 
 April, 1886. At that time Mr. Sparks's three volumes of 
 memoirs, letters, and fragments of the diary were all that 
 we had to tell us about Gouverneur Morris. Since then Miss 
 Morris has published a new edition of her grandfather's 
 diary. Much more attractive in form than the Sparks edi- 
 tion and somewhat fuller, the diary in its last form is still 
 incomplete, and adds but little to our knowledge of the 
 writer. Since 1886 also Mr. Roosevelt's admirable biogra- 
 phy of Morris has appeared, and given for the fli'st time an 
 adequate picture of the man and his services. In the pres- 
 ence of these publications the first sentence of this sketch 
 becomes very inexact. It was quite true, however, when it 
 was written, and so I let it stand. I reprint the essay itself, 
 because Gouverneur Morris, both as statesman and man, has 
 not thus far at least been written about or discussed beyond 
 his deserts, and even this imperfect sketch may help toward 
 a juster estimate of an important and picturesque figure in 
 the history of the United States. 
 
76 GOUVEUNEUR MORRIS 
 
 dizzy time, for the benefit of posterity. The com- 
 ments of Mr. Morris, thus rescued from his biog- 
 raphy and brought before a wide public by M. 
 Taine, already have attracted attention elsewhere, 
 and a recent article in " Macmillan's Magazine " 
 show how striking his criticisms and narratives 
 really are. Such a prophet should never be with- 
 out honor in his own country, and now that he is 
 winning admiration in England and France, per- 
 haps it would not be amiss to refresh our own 
 memories in regard to him. 
 
 It is not to be wondered at that M. Taine and 
 others find so much that is admirable in Gouverneur 
 Morris, for in him many high qualities met in a 
 rare combination. A man of the world and of 
 society, a wit, philosopher, and fine gentleman, he 
 was also a bold and ardent patriot, an able and 
 most practical statesman, a distinguished lawyer, 
 and a successful manager of large business affairs. 
 He played a conspicuous part among the many 
 eminent men of his day and country, but in one 
 respect he differs from them all. He had a sharp 
 wit, a strong sense of humor, and a capacity for 
 amusing satire which are to be found in all his 
 writings. If we except Franklin, who was of an 
 earlier generation, Gouverneur Morris holds in this 
 respect a lonely preeminence among his friends and 
 contemporaries. The leaders of our revolutionary 
 and constitutional period were, it must be con- 
 fessed, judging from their letters and journals, 
 somewhat ponderous. Now and then we find a 
 moment when we can la\igh at them, but Morris is 
 almost the only one with whom we laugh or smile 
 
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 77 
 
 in sympathy. This is enough of itself to make us 
 hold him in remembrance, but at the same time he 
 was far more than merely an amusing companion 
 or a writer of clever letters. 
 
 He was born in 1752, a cadet in a family which 
 had been distinguished for two or three generations 
 in the colonies, not only for public service and high 
 office, but for certain quaint eccentricities and for 
 unusual acuteness in discussion and power in argu- 
 ment. A bright boy at college, fond of Shake- 
 speare, and a maker of rhymes and verses, he grad- 
 uated with honor, and delivered a Commencement 
 oration on "Wit and Beauty. A little later, on tak- 
 ing his degree of A. M., he pronounced a discourse 
 on Love, and both these boyish productions dis- 
 played, despite their florid style, a command of 
 language and a vigorous imagination which were 
 destined to stand their author in good stead in the 
 years to come. His patrimony was small, only 
 some i£2,000, and he had his way to make in the 
 world ; but his was not a nature to be discouraged, 
 and he faced the future cheerfully and boldly. He 
 often said in after life that in his intercourse with 
 other men he had never experienced the sensation 
 of fear, inferiority, or awkwardness. Armed with 
 this easy self-confidence, he applied himself fear- 
 lessly to the task of winning success. He studied 
 law, wrote at the age of eighteen against the popu- 
 lar plan of issuing bills of credit (an early evidence 
 of his financial talents) and in 1771 was duly ad- 
 mitted to the bar. He was soon in active practice, 
 and as the times grew more stirring solemnly de- 
 
78 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 
 
 clared that he disliked politics. His natural humor 
 made him laugh at both parties, and his Tory con- 
 nections, soon to become a thorn in his side, led 
 him to favor a union with England and the conces- 
 sion to Parliament of the right to regulate trade. 
 
 But with all his sense of the ridiculous and his 
 tendency to find food for satire in his fellow-men, 
 Morris was no Gallio. The ministerial side was 
 impossible to a young, generous, ardent spirit, and 
 in 1776 he was a member of the Provincial Con- 
 gress of New York, where he at once took a lead- 
 ing part in organizing resistance and preparing for 
 war. He advocated a continental currency, and 
 his report on that subject was sent to Congress. 
 He served on all the leading committees, and in 
 1776 made a speech for independent government 
 which was replete with sarcasm and fuU of ability. 
 From a letter of that time we learn how strongly 
 he felt then, and how completely the early careless- 
 ness and merriment had vanished in the face of 
 stern events. He wrote to his mother : — 
 
 " What may be the event of the present war it is 
 not in man to determine. Great revolutions of em- 
 pire are seldom achieved without much human ca- 
 lamity ; but the worst which can happen is to fall 
 on the last bleak mountain of America, and he who 
 dies there, in defense of the injured rights of man- 
 kind, is happier than his conqueror, more beloved 
 by mankind, more applauded by his own heart." 
 
 The spirit of the man was equal to his words. 
 He took a leading part in framing the constitution 
 I of New York, and even then, in the din of war, 
 
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 79 
 
 strove to insert a clause abolishing slavery. He 
 served on the Council of Safety, which held control 
 until the new government was set in motion, and 
 his energy, zeal, and organizing power were felt in 
 aU directions. No one was more active than he in 
 sustaining the army and doing all in his power to 
 assist our generals, especially Schuyler, who seemed 
 to Morris, as to many others, both then and since, 
 to be the victim of injustice. He strongly be- 
 lieved, in fact, that a campaign of obstruction was 
 best for us, and he felt from the outset that in this 
 way the English expedition from Canada could be 
 most surely ruined. Even on so grave a subject, 
 however, his humor crops out, and while he is sol- 
 emnly arguing as to the campaign against Burgoyne 
 he wrote : — 
 
 " I am also told that the Indians are determined 
 to take up the hatchet for us. If this be true, it 
 would be infinitely better to wear away the enemy's 
 army by a scrupulous and polite attention, than to 
 violate the rules of decorum and the laws of hospi- 
 tality by making an attack upon strangers in our 
 own country." 
 
 In 1778 he was promoted to a seat in the Conti- 
 nental Congress, and although only twenty-six years 
 old he came forward there with the same ease as on 
 the smaller stage of New York. This was chiefly 
 due, of course, to his ability, but also in part to his 
 really remarkable capacity for rapid and effective 
 work. He was on the committee to visit Washing- 
 ton at VaUey Forge ; he urged the plan of provision 
 for the officers of the army ; he drew reports on the 
 
80 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 
 
 condition of the Union, on a plan for a treasury 
 board and for a medical department. In the course 
 of this work he became intimate with Greene, and 
 formed a warm friendship with Washington, which 
 continued unabated through life. In the miserable 
 cabals against the general, Morris made determined 
 war upon the schemers, and his indignation breaks 
 out sharply in a letter to Washington : — 
 
 " You have enemies. It is happy for you that 
 you have. A man of sentiment has not so much 
 honor, as the vulgar suppose, in resigning life and 
 fortune for the service of his country. He does 
 not value them as highly as the vulgar do. Would 
 he give the highest evidence, let him sacrifice his 
 feelings. In the history of last winter, posterity 
 will do you justice." 
 
 Political and personal conflicts, however, did not 
 turn him from his labors. From his busy pen came 
 the report on Lord North's conciliatory bills, an ad- 
 dress on the treaties with France, a sketch of the 
 negotiations with the commissioners, a draft of in- 
 structions for Franklin, a pamphlet on our finances 
 to be presented to the French court, and finally, in 
 1779, a draft of instructions as to making peace. 
 These manifold and eminent services did not, 
 apparently, satisfy his constituents. Unjust pre- 
 judices and suspicions on account of his Tory rela- 
 tives, so strong that he did not dare even to .visit 
 his mother when she was critically ill, together with 
 charges that he neglected the local interests of New 
 York, especially in regard to Vermont, prevailed 
 against him, and he was not reelected when his 
 term expired. 
 
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 81 
 
 He thereupon moved to Philadelphia, to practice 
 his profession, write upon finance, and attack the 
 dangerous and futile legal -tender and maximum 
 laws. Just after his retirement from Congress, 
 he was thrown from his phaeton and severely in- 
 jured. By the rash advice of his surgeon his leg 
 was amputated, a severe trial to an active, energetic 
 man ; but he bore his misfortune with the cheer- 
 ful philosophy which was always his most marked 
 characteristic, and jested about it even in the 
 midst of his suffering. He was visited by one of 
 those consoling friends of the kind familiar to 
 every one, who held forth about the good effects of 
 such a dispensation, and the check which it would 
 be to dangerous pleasures and dissipations. When 
 he had concluded Mr. Morris said, " My good sir, 
 you argue the matter so handsomely, and point out 
 so clearly the advantages of being without legs, 
 that I am almost tempted to part with another." 
 To another sympathizer he said, " Oh, sir, the loss 
 is much less than you imagine; I shall doubtless be 
 a steadier man with one leg than with two." The 
 plain wooden leg with which he supplied his griev- 
 ous and painful loss, if tradition may be believed, 
 was once used to good purpose by his ready wit. 
 In the stormy time in Paris, when Terror ruled, 
 and not even a foreign minister was safe, Morris's 
 chariot was one day stopped by an angry mob, and 
 immediate violence was threatened. Morris thrust 
 out his wooden leg, and cried, " I am an Ameri- 
 can ! See what I suffered in the war for liberty 
 and independence ! " The mob was converted by 
 
82 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 
 
 such ocular demonstration of patriotic suffering, 
 and drew their intended victim home in triumph 
 instead of hanging him to a lamp-post. 
 
 Great as the misfortune was, however, it did 
 not even at the moment diminish Morris's energy 
 or depress his spirits. When his friend Robert 
 Morris was appointed to the charge of our disor- 
 dered finances, he took the position of assistant 
 secretary, and contributed largely to the work 
 which did so much to save the American cause. 
 He also, in addition to his heavy public duties, 
 carried on a large law practice, both in the courts 
 and before the legislature, where he made one of 
 his most brilliant and in its day famous speeches, 
 concluding with an apostrophe to William Penn, 
 which moved his hearers to tears, — a feat that 
 seems hardly compatible with the theme. During 
 all this period, too, he wrote much for the press, 
 and took an active part in politics. He drew a re- 
 port on coinage, and published a pamphlet on our 
 trade with the French West Indies. He urged 
 an opposition to the congressional instructions to 
 follow blindly the wishes of France, and in season 
 and out of season advocated the claims of the 
 army. Like all friends of the soldiers at that 
 time, he was accused of being a monarchist, — a 
 singularly unjust charge against a man whose first 
 maxim was that government must conform to the 
 habits and character of the people, and who greatly 
 feared an attempt to introduce monarchy, "be- 
 cause it did not consist with our taste and temper." 
 At the same time, like all the ablest and strongest 
 
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 83 
 
 men in that period of feebleness and solution, he 
 worked ardently for a better and stronger union. 
 In 1784 he wrote to Jay : — 
 
 "A national spirit is the natural result of na- 
 tional existence ; and although some of the present 
 generation may feel colonial opposition of opin- 
 ion, yet this generation will die away and give 
 place to a race of Americans." 
 
 In the same spirit, and in almost his first speech 
 in the constitutional convention to which he was 
 chosen as a delegate from Pennsylvania, and in 
 which be played a most conspicuous part, he de- 
 clared : — 
 
 "I come here as a representative of America. 
 I flatter myself that I come here in some degree as 
 a representative of the whole human race ; for the 
 whole human race wUl be affected by the proceed- 
 ings of this convention. I wish gentlemen to extend 
 their views beyond the present moment of time, — 
 beyond the narrow limits of place from which they 
 derive their political origin." Again he said, with 
 " something like prophetic strain," " This country 
 must be united. If persuasion does not unite it, 
 the sword will." 
 
 No man did better work in the great task of 
 forming the Constitution than Morris, and from 
 his hand came the final draft, rounded and polished, 
 which embodied the principles forged slowly in 
 weeks of debate. He of course belonged to the 
 party which favored a vigorous central government. 
 He opposed bitterly equality of votes in the Seii-\^ 
 ate, and sought to weaken the rights of the States. - 
 
84 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 
 
 He wished a President for life, elected by the 
 people, and also a Senate with a life tenure. Prop- 
 erty, he believed, shovdd be represented, and the suf- 
 frage conferred only on freeholders ; maintaining, 
 also, that persons of foreign birth should be ineli- 
 gible to office. What few others then perceived 
 his keen mind detected, that the South was deter- 
 mined to secure a majority and rule at all hazards, 
 and he fought fiercely against slave representation. 
 Slavery, however, aroused his enmity on much 
 broader grounds than those of political power. He 
 had already striven for abolition in the New York 
 convention, and he renewed the struggle on the 
 national field. On moving to insert the word 
 " free " before " inhabitants " he made a speech of 
 great force and eloquence, beginning : — 
 
 "Much will depend on this point. I will never 
 concur in upholding domestic slavery. It is a 
 nefarious institution. It is the curse of heaven on 
 the States wbere it prevails." Nothing shows the 
 breadth of view, the far-reaching vision, and the 
 generous spirit of the man better than his relentless 
 and outspoken resistance to the malignant system 
 which was destined to bring the country so near to 
 utter ruin and dissolution. 
 
 After all was over he expressed in a letter to a 
 friend in France his opinion of the great work on 
 which he had been engaged, and it would be diffi- 
 cult to find a juster estimate in the year 1788 of 
 the Constitution, then struggling for an opportu- 
 nity to live, than this of Morris, with its character- 
 istic touch of satire. He wrote : — 
 
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 85 
 
 " You will long ere this have seen the Constitu- 
 tion proposed for the United States. This paper 
 has been the subject of infinite investigation, dis- 
 putation, and declamation. While some have 
 boasted it as a work from Heaven, others have 
 given it a less righteous origin. I have many rea- 
 sons to believe that it was the work of plain, hon- 
 est men, and such I think it will appear. Faulty 
 it must be, for what is perfect ? But if adopted, 
 experience will, I believe, show that its faults are 
 just the reverse of what they are supposed to be." __ 
 
 Soon after these lines were written he sailed for 
 Europe to attend to certain business interests, little 
 dreaming of the long absence from home that was 
 before him, or of the great events in which he was 
 to be an actor and which he was to describe so 
 vividly in the diary then begun. 
 
 He arrived in Paris on the 3d of February, 1789, 
 and the first two persons he visited were Jefferson 
 and Lafayette. Of the latter, of whom he was very 
 fond, he curtly says, " Lafayette is full of politics ; 
 he appears to be too republican for the genius of 
 his country." At the very outset he had doubts 
 and suspicions as to the soundness and wisdom of 
 the revolutionary party, and these feelings and 
 opinions strengthened constantly during his long 
 residence in the country. A day or two after his 
 arrival he dined with Lafayette, who showed him 
 a draft of the famous declaration of rights. " I 
 gave him my opinions," Mr. Morris wrote in his 
 diary, "and suggested several amendments tend- 
 ing to soften the high-colored expressions of free- 
 
86 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 
 
 dom. It is not by sounding words that revolutions 
 are produced." A few weeks later we find him 
 writing to Washington in the same strain, his 
 sense of humor thoroughly aroused by the queer 
 antics of the enthusiastic amateurs in government- 
 making who then swarmed and talked everywhere 
 in Paris. " Everything," he says, " is a V Anglais, 
 and a desire to imitate the English prevails alike in 
 the cut of a coat and the form of a constitution." 
 
 Before a month had expired Mr. Morris had 
 become a social success, thanks to his wit, ability, 
 and engaging manners. Every day brought an 
 invitation to the salon of some fashionable woman, 
 or to the dinner table of some statesman or philoso- 
 pher. Full accounts, apparently, are given in the 
 diary of all these entertainments, but Mr. Sparks 
 seems to have thought them below the dignity of 
 history, for he has favored us with only one or two 
 extracts, and as a rule has confined his selections 
 to politics.^ The observations on public affairs 
 are penetrating and valuable in the highest degree, 
 but the descriptions of the social life, of men and 
 women of the world, of the more private side of 
 daily life, are most ^harming and interesting. The 
 characteristic vein of subdued satire, the keenness 
 of observation, the effective style of these pas- 
 sages, are extremely attractive, and they cannot 
 but cause the greatest regret that we should not 
 have them entire. There is no other journal, diary, 
 or correspondence of that period left by any of 
 
 ^ This has been largely remedied in the edition of the 
 diary published by Miss Morris. 
 
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 87 
 
 our public men which at all compares with this in 
 its amusing, light, and humorous touch. From the 
 slender selections of Mr. Sparks let us take this : — 
 
 " March 3d. Monsieur le Comte de Nenni does 
 me the honor of a visit, and detains me till three 
 o'clock. I then set o£E in great haste to dine with 
 the Comtesse de B., on an invitation of a week's 
 standing. Arrive at about a quarter past three, 
 and find in the drawing-room some dirty linen and 
 no fire. While a waiting-woman takes away one, 
 a valet lights up the other. Three small sticks in 
 a deep bed of ashes give no great expectation of 
 heat. By the smoke, however, all doubts are re- 
 moved respecting the existence of fire. To expel 
 the smoke a window is opened, and, the day being 
 cold, I have the benefit of as fresh air as can rea- 
 sonably be expected in so large a city. 
 
 "Towards four o'clock the guests begin to as- 
 semble, and I begin to expect that, as Madame is 
 a poetess, I shall have the honor to dine with that 
 exalted part of the species who devote themselves 
 to the Muses. In effect, the gentlemen begin to 
 compliment their respective works, and as regular 
 hours cannot be expected in a house where the 
 mistress is occupied more with the intellectual than 
 the material world, I have a delightful prospect of 
 a continuance of the scene. Towards five Madame 
 steps in to announce dinner, and the hungry poets 
 advance to the charge. As they bring good ap- 
 petites they have certainly reason to praise the 
 feast, and I console myself in the persuasion that 
 for this day, at least, I shall escape an indigestion. 
 
88 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 
 
 A very narrow escape, too, for some rancid butter, 
 of which the cook had been liberal, puts me in 
 bodily fear. If the repast is not abundant, we 
 have at least the consolation that there is no lack 
 of conversation. Not being perfectly master of the 
 language, most of the jests escaped me. As for 
 the rest of the company, each being employed 
 either in saying a good thing or in studying one 
 to say, it is no wonder if he cannot find time to 
 applaud that of his neighbor. They all agree that 
 we live in an age alike deficient in justice and in 
 taste. Each finds in the fate of his own works 
 numerous instances to justify this assertion. They 
 tell me, to my great surprise, that the public now 
 condemn theatrical compositions before they have 
 heard the first recital. And to remove my doubts 
 the Countess is so kind as to assure me that this 
 rash decision has been made on one of her own 
 pieces. In pitying modern degeneracy we rise 
 from the table." 
 
 The statement as to the condemnation of theatri- 
 cal works smacks of the soil. In the words " to 
 my great surprise " we catch the peculiar vein of 
 American humor which delights in a solemn ap- 
 pearance of ignorant and innocent belief in some 
 preposterous assertion. It is close kin to the 
 broader form exemplified by Mark Twain weeping 
 at the grave of Adam, which the "Saturday Re- 
 view " declared was a ridiculous affectation of sen- 
 timent. 
 
 March 25th Mr. Morris was at the house of his 
 old and true friend of the Revolution, Madame de 
 
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 89 
 
 Chastellux. There he met the Duchess of Orleans, 
 and formed a friendship which was to prove very 
 warm, very faithful, and of great service to the 
 Duchess and her son, the citizen king of the future. 
 Two days later he went to dine with the Neckers in 
 company with his friend the Marechal de Castries. 
 Here too he began a lifelong friendship with both 
 his host and the daughter of the house, Madame de 
 Stael, which was kept up with real affection on all 
 sides until death ended it. His first impressions 
 of M. Necker are worth quoting for their shrewd 
 correctness: "A little before dinner. Monsieur 
 enters. He has the look and manner of the count- 
 ing-house, and, being dressed in embroidered vel- 
 vet, he contrasts strongly with his habiliments. 
 His bow, his address, say, ' I am the man.' Our 
 company is one half Academicians. The Duchess 
 of Biron, formerly Lauzun, is one. I observe that 
 M. Necker seems occupied by ideas which rather 
 distress him. He cannot, I think, stay in office 
 half an hour unless the nation insist on keeping 
 him there. He is now much harassed, and Madame 
 receives continally memoires from diiferent people ; 
 so that she seems as much occupied as he is. If 
 he is really a very great man I am deceived ; and 
 yet this is a rash judgment. If he is not a labori- 
 ous man I am also deceived." 
 
 While he was thus watching and weighing the 
 men and women whose brilliant society he so much 
 enjoyed, he was also studying with deep attention 
 the momentous political development going on 
 about him. May 4th, the day before the opening 
 
90 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 
 
 of the States-General, he witnessed the procession 
 at Versailles. The Queen was received with hos- 
 tile silence, and Mr. Morris wrote most characteris- 
 tically, "I cannot help feeling the mortification 
 which the poor Queen meets with, for I see only 
 the woman, and it seems unmanly to treat a woman 
 with imkindness." He was present at the opening 
 of the States-General, and has left a very striking 
 and picturesque description of that great event, un- 
 fortunately too long for quotation. He followed 
 the operations of that famous body with close scru- 
 tiny, and found little in their doings to encourage 
 him as to the prospects of France. We catch a 
 glimpse here of another famous American, who was 
 equally interested in the fortunes of the French 
 people, but who looked upon the advancing revolu- 
 tion with feelings and opinions very different from 
 those of Mr. Morris. 
 
 " June 3d. Go to Mr. Jefferson's. Some politi- 
 cal conversation. He seems to be out of hope of 
 anything being done to purpose by the States-Gen- 
 eral. This comes from having sanguine expecta- 
 tions of a downright republican form of govern- 
 ment. The literary people here, observing the 
 abuses of their monarchical form, imagine that 
 everything must go better in proportion as it re- 
 cedes from the present establishments, and in their 
 closets they make men exactly suited to their sys- 
 tems ; but unluckily they are such men as exist no- 
 where else, and least of all in France." 
 
 He had still other occupations, as appears by the 
 next entry, with its jest at his own expense : — 
 
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 91 
 
 " June 5th. Go to M. Houdon's. He has been 
 waiting for me a long time. I stand for his statue 
 of General Washington, being the humble employ- 
 ment of a manikin. ■ This is literally taking the 
 advice of St. Paul to be all things to all men." 
 
 June 6th, he supped with Madame Flahaut, where 
 he met a certain very celebrated person, whom he 
 gauged with his usual penetrating accuracy : " The 
 Bishop of Autun, who is one of our company, and 
 an intimate friend of Madame Flahaut, appears 
 to me a sly, cool, cunning, ambitious, and malicious 
 man. I know not why conclusions so disadvanta- 
 geous to him are formed in my mind ; but so it is, 
 and I cannot help it." This quick judgment which 
 Mr. Morris here sets down when Talleyrand was 
 still comparatively unknown does not differ very 
 widely from that of posterity half a century after 
 the death of that eminent statesman and divine. 
 It is one of many instances of a foresight and in- 
 sight amounting almost to a gift of prophecy which 
 made Mr. Morris's political predictions so wonder- 
 ful in their correctness. 
 
 Let us take a few more extracts from the 
 diary : — 
 
 " June 23d. At dinner I sit next to M. de La- 
 fayette, who tells me that I injure the cause, for 
 that my sentiments are continually quoted against 
 the good party. I seize this opportunity to tell 
 him that I am opposed to the democracy from re- 
 gard to liberty ; that I see they are going headlong 
 to destruction, and would fain stop them if I could ; 
 that their views respecting this nation are totally 
 
92 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 
 
 inconsistent with the materials of which it is com- 
 posed ; and that the worst thing which could hap- 
 pen would be to grant their wishes. He tells me 
 that he is sensible that his party are mad, and tells 
 them so, but is not the less determined to die with 
 them. I tell him that I think it would be quite as 
 well to bring them to their senses and live with 
 them." 
 
 It is plain that he concealed nothing from La- 
 fayette, no matter how distasteful his advice might 
 prove. He wrote in the same way to Washington, 
 ten days later : — 
 
 " Our American example has done them good, 
 but, like all novelties, liberty runs away with their 
 discretion, if they have any. They want an Amer- 
 ican constitution, with the exception of a King in- 
 stead of a President, without reflecting that they 
 have not American citizens to support that consti- 
 tution." When he penned this sentence the first 
 storm was just about to burst. July 14th, the day 
 of the taking of the Bastile, after describing that 
 event and the manner in which he heard of it, Mr. 
 Morris writes, with a turn at the end which is very 
 characteristic, " Yesterday it was the fashion at 
 Versailles not to believe that there were any dis- 
 turbances at Paris. I presume that this day's 
 transaction will induce a conviction that all is not 
 perfectly quiet." After the fall of the . Bastile 
 there was a lull, and the attempts at constitution- 
 making and reform went on again after a fashion. 
 
 September 26th, Mr. Morris was at the National 
 Assembly, whither, indeed, he went frequently, and 
 
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 93 
 
 after listening to the report of the Minister of 
 Finance he remarked, " At the close, however, of 
 the report there is a feebleness which they are not, 
 perhaps, fully aware of, or perhaps it was unavoid- 
 able. They appeal to patriotism for aid ; but they 
 should in money matters apply only to interest. 
 They should never acknowledge such want of re- 
 source as to render the aid of patriotism neces- 
 sary." So annoyed and troubled was he by the 
 errors which he saw committed that, as events hur- 
 ried rapidly forward, he strove, of course in vain, 
 to mend matters by appealing to his intimate 
 friends in behalf of wiser measures. 
 
 October 16th, he wrote to Lafayette an admira- 
 ble letter of counsel and advice. He said that the 
 constitution would not work, and that the National 
 Assembly would soon fall into contempt. Under 
 these circumstances, the only thing to be done was 
 to strengthen the executive, and he urged Lafayette 
 to see that good and able men go into the council, 
 but advised Lafayette himself to remain outside. 
 The reasons for this advice are then set forth with 
 great vigor and shrewdness. One cannot help 
 thinking, as one reads these wise but futile words, 
 what a pity it was that among the French states- 
 men there were not a few like Morris. Much 
 might have been saved if there had been, but no- 
 thing is so empty as the " ifs " of history. There 
 were no such men in France, for there had been 
 no chance for centuries to breed them, or even to 
 make them possible. 
 
 Mr. Morris was now called away by public du- 
 
94 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 
 
 ties of Ms own. He was requested by Wasliington 
 to go to England as a secret agent of our govern- 
 ment, and endeavor to reopen diplomatic relations 
 and settle various outstanding and threatening dif- 
 ferences with that country. To London he accord- 
 ingly went in February, 1790, and there he spent 
 seven or eight months in fruitless conversations 
 with the Duke of Leeds and Mr. Pitt about west- 
 ern posts, the fulfillment of treaties, the compensa- 
 tion for negroes, British debts, and impressment. 
 On the last subject he said, with a concise wit 
 which ought to have made the saying more famous 
 than it is, " I believe, my lord, that this is the only 
 instance in which we are not treated as aliens." 
 Whether this keen-edged remark penetrated the 
 heavy mind of the noble duke to whom it was 
 addressed does not appear. At all events, the mis- 
 sion was a failure. English ministers, with that 
 sagacity which has characterized them in dealing 
 with the United States, were determined to injure 
 us so far as they could, and to make us enemies 
 instead of friends, if it were possible to do so, — a 
 policy which has borne lasting fruit, and which 
 England does not now delight in quite so much as 
 of yore. 
 
 It is pretty obvious that Mr. Morris was not to 
 their taste, despite his wit and good manners. He 
 was a man of perfect courage and patriotism, and 
 could be neither bullied nor cajoled. His brother, 
 Staats Long Morris, was a general in the British 
 army and the husband of the Duchess of Gordon, 
 — a fact which implied respectability to the Eng- 
 
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 95 
 
 lish mind, and made it difficult for them to snub a 
 person who, according to their notions, was so well 
 connected. Worst of all, he was a man of great 
 ability and wide information, intellectually superior 
 to any minister he met, except Mr. Pitt, and there- 
 fore he was an awkward person to trample on. 
 Stories were set afloat to injure him, and were so 
 far successful that they gave him much trouble at 
 home. He was charged with consorting with Fox 
 and the opposition, which was not true, and with 
 revealing his purposes to Luzerne, the French 
 minister, which was true, and sprang from Mr. 
 Morris's sentiment of gratitude to France, iU re- 
 warded, and in great measure cured, by Luzerne's 
 betrayal of his confidence. He found time, how- 
 ever, in the midst of his vain efforts, to observe his 
 English friends, and the following extract from a 
 letter to Washington shows that the ludicrous side 
 in the lives of the various distinguished personages 
 whom he met did not escape him. 
 
 On September 18, 1790, he wrote of Pitt : " Ob- 
 serve that he is rather the Queen's man than the 
 King's, and that since his majesty's illness she has 
 been of great consequence. This depends in part 
 on a medical reason. To prevent the relapse of 
 persons who have been mad they must be kept in 
 constant awe of somebody ; and it is said that the 
 physician of the King gave the matter in charge 
 to his royal consort, who performs that, like every 
 other part of her conjugal duty, with singular zeal 
 and perseverance." 
 
 Fruitless wranglings and disobliging treatment. 
 
96 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 
 
 although they could not disturb his good-humor, 
 nevertheless tired him sadly, and he turned his 
 eyes ever more wistfully to the exciting scenes in 
 France. He showed this in a letter to a friend in 
 Paris, in which, too, he made one of his many cor- 
 rect predictions, and also revealed his knowledge 
 of his own failing in the direction of a dangerous 
 frankness. 
 
 " A cautious man," he says, " should therefore 
 give only sibylline predictions, if indeed he should 
 hazard any. But I am not a cautious man. I 
 therefore give it as my opinion that they will issue 
 the paper currency, and substitute thereby depre- 
 ciation in the place of bankruptcy, or, rather, sus- 
 pension." 
 
 Soon after he departed for the Continent, made 
 a brief tour in Germany, and in November reached 
 Paris again. He went at once to one of his old 
 haunts, the club, and there met his friend De 
 Moustier, who was engaged in making a consti- 
 tution, and was, " as usual, on the high ropes of 
 royal prerogative." He soon saw that things were 
 going to pieces very rapidly, and after several 
 visits finally got an opportunity to tell Lafayette 
 so, and to renew his former advice to rally about 
 the throne and try to gain some stability ; express- 
 ing at the same time unbounded contempt for " the 
 thing called a constitution." He also urged the 
 restoration of the nobility, at which poor Lafayette 
 flinched, and said he would like two chambers, as 
 in America. " I tell him that an American consti- 
 tution will not do for this country ; that every 
 
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 97 
 
 country must have a constitution suited to its cir- 
 cumstances, and the state of France requires a 
 higher-toned government than that of England." 
 All this was very true but very unpalatable, espe- 
 cially to Lafayette, and the result was that he be- 
 came rather cool to his frank adviser. Yet the old 
 friendship really remained as warm as ever, and 
 when Lafayette became a prisoner no one worked 
 harder for his liberation than Mr. Morris. 
 
 Although the tremendous events in the midst of 
 which he was now plunged absorbed his thoughts, 
 we still get here and there glimpses of the gay 
 society in which he found himself, and which was 
 soon to be extinguished in the dark torrent of 
 revolution. 
 
 January 19, 1791, he wrote : " Visit Madame de 
 Chasteliux, and go with her to dine with the Duch- 
 ess of Orleans. Her royal highness is ruined ; 
 that is, she is reduced from 450,000 to 200,000 
 livres per annum. She tells me that she cannot 
 give any good dinners ; but if I will come and fast 
 with her, she will be glad to see me." 
 
 January 25th, he dined with Madame de Stael, 
 and heard the Abbe Sieyes " descant with much 
 self-sufficiency on government." Four days later 
 he went out to Choisy with Madame de Chasteliux 
 and dined with Marmontel, who seemed to his 
 guest "to think soundly," a compliment paid by 
 Mr. Morris to but few of his French friends. 
 There is something very striking and most interest- 
 ing in these little pictures of daily existence, which 
 went on much as usual, although the roar of revo- 
 
98 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 
 
 lution was sounding in men's ears. Philosophers 
 speculated and fine ladies jested, even if the world 
 was in convulsion ; and so they continued to do 
 until it was all drowned in the Terror, from which 
 arose, after brief interval, another society, as light- 
 hearted and brilliant, if not so well born, as its 
 predecessor. 
 
 We can mark, however, the tremendous changes 
 in progress around him in the extracts from the 
 diary. The social pictures grow fewer, the tone 
 is graver, there are more interviews with states- 
 men and fewer chats with ladies of rank, while the 
 reflections concern the welfare of state and na- 
 tion rather than the foibles or graces of men and 
 women. April 4th came the funeral of Mirabeau, 
 with some observations in the diary which are elo- 
 quent and striking ; and there were other and still 
 weightier matters then pressing upon his mind. 
 August 26th he noted in his diary, " Dine with 
 Madame de Stael, who requests me to show her 
 the m^moire I have prepared for the King." The 
 next day he wrote, " Dine with M. de Montmorin. 
 After dinner retire into his closet and read to him 
 the plan I have prepared of a discourse for the 
 King. He is startled at it. Says it is too forci- 
 ble ; that the temper of the people will not bear 
 it." Mr. Morris's talents and the force of his argu- 
 ments on the state of public affairs had attracted 
 general attention, and in their agony of doubt 
 court and ministry turned to him for aid. The 
 result was the draft for a royal speech, which the 
 King liked but was prevented by his ministers from 
 
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 99 
 
 using, a m^moire on the state of France, notes for 
 a constitution, and some other similar papers which 
 are given by Mr. Sparks. These documents are 
 very able and bold. Whether Mr. Morris's policy, 
 if pursued, would have had any effect may weU be 
 doubted, but there can be no question that it was 
 the sanest, most vigorous, and best defined of the 
 multitude offered to poor, hesitating Louis, and its 
 adoption could certainly have done no harm. In 
 the midst of these disinterested and somewhat per- 
 ilous pursuits we find him writing to Kobert Mor- 
 ris (October 10, 1791), and describing a scene at 
 the theatre when the people cheered the King and 
 Queen. 
 
 " Now, my dear friend," he adds, " this is the 
 very same people who, when the King was brought 
 back from his excursion, whipped a democratioal 
 duchess of my acquaintance because they heard 
 only the last part of what she said, which was, ' II 
 ne faut pas dire, Vive le Roi.' She had the good 
 sense to desire the gentleman who was with her to 
 leave her. Whipping is, you know, an operation 
 which a lady would rather undergo among stran- 
 gers than before her acquaintance." 
 
 Mr. Morris's sympathy for the King and Queen 
 led him on further than he anticipated. Indeed, 
 his attitude as an adviser of the ministry caused 
 outbreaks against him on the part of the opposition. 
 De AVarville said in his newspaper that Morris, on 
 one of his periodical visits to England upon busi- 
 ness, was sent to thwart Talleyrand, — an accusation 
 which Mr. Morris met with a public denial. His 
 
100 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 
 
 doings, however, were not fortunate, in view of the 
 responsibility about to be placed upon him ; for 
 while he was away on this very visit to England, in 
 the early months of 1792, he received the news of 
 his appointment as minister to France. 
 
 Morris was not without enemies. At home, his 
 contempt^and dislike for the methods of the French 
 Revolution were only too well known, and his con- 
 firmation was strongly opposed in the Senate. His 
 good friend the President with much delicacy ex- 
 plained to him the ground of the opposition, and in 
 this way pointed out to Morris the failings which 
 threatened his success. The idea of your political 
 adversaries, Washington said, is " that the prompti- 
 tude with which your lively and brilliant imagina- 
 tion displays itself allows too little time for delib- 
 eration and correction, and is the primary cause 
 of those sallies which too often offend, and of that 
 I'idicule of character which begets enmity not easy 
 to be forgotten, but which might easily be avoided 
 if it were under the control of more caution and 
 prudence." If it had been known in America just 
 how deeply Mr. Morris had plunged into French 
 politics, it may be doubted whether Washington 
 even would have nominated him as minister. As 
 it turned out, no better choice could have been 
 made, yet at the moment Mr. Morris was involved 
 in affairs which no foreign minister ought even to 
 have known. He probably felt that his efforts to 
 save order and government by means of the monar- 
 chy were hopeless, but they had drawn him on into 
 the much more dangerous path of personal sympa- 
 
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 101 
 
 thy for the King and Queen, and thence into at- 
 tempts to, at least, preserve their lives. The King 
 was unable to adopt Mr. Morris's views in his pub- 
 lic utterances, but on his advice confided in M. de 
 Monciel, one of his ministers, and this gentleman 
 and Mr. Morris arranged an elaborate yet practica- 
 ble scheme for the escape of the royal family. After 
 a short time the King sent Mr. Morris 547,000 
 livres to carry out the plan, and wished also to make 
 him the depositary of his papers. Mr. Morris ac- 
 cepted the first trust, and declined the latter. The 
 large sum of money seems to indicate the King's 
 preference for the plan of Mr. Morris, in whom he 
 had great confidence, yet there were half a dozen 
 other schemes on foot at the same time. De MoUe- 
 ville had one ; Mr. Crawford, sent over by the Brit- 
 ish government, had another ; Marie Antoinette's 
 Swedish friend, Count Fersen, had a third ; and 
 there were probably many more. One plan inter- 
 fered with another. That of Morris and Monciel 
 was ripe for execution, and stiU the King doubted 
 and delayed. While he was hesitating, the 10th 
 of August came, the Swiss guard was massacred, 
 and all was over. 
 
 An American gentleman was present at the Tui- 
 leries on that memorable day, and went thence to 
 the house of the minister of the United States. On 
 entering he found Mr. Morris surrounded by the 
 old Count d'Estaing and many other persons of 
 distinction, who had fought side by side with us 
 in our war for independence. Silence reigned, 
 interrupted only by the weeping of the women 
 
102 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 
 
 and children. As the visitor was about to retire, 
 Mr. Morris took him aside, and said, " I have no 
 doubt, sir, but there are persons on the watch, who 
 would find fault with my conduct as minister in 
 receiving and protecting these people ; but I call 
 on you to witness the declaration which I now make, 
 and that is, that they were not invited to my house, 
 but came of their own accord. Whether my house 
 ■will be a protection to them, or to me, God only 
 knows, but I will not turn them out of it, let what 
 wiU happen to me. You see, sir, they are all per- 
 sons to whom our country is more or less indebted, 
 and it would be inhuman to force them into the 
 hands of these assassins, had they no such claim 
 upon me." Whatever the faults of Mr. Morris, Or 
 whatever criticism may be made upon him, no 
 American even now can read these words, uttered 
 at such a moment, without feeling his pulse beat 
 quicker, and without rejoicing that a man of such 
 high and generous spirit so fitly represented his 
 country in an hour of trial and peril. 
 
 To suppose, however, because Mr. Morris had the 
 sympathy of a gallant man for the King and Queen 
 in their danger and distress, and also profound dis- 
 trust and contempt as an able and practical states- 
 man for the follies and madness of those who were 
 trying to carry on the French Revolution, that he 
 therefore was a lover of royalty and aristocracy and 
 titles would be a great injustice. How far removed 
 he really was from such weak prejudices is shown 
 by an incident many years later. At Vienna, where 
 he had a discussion with some of the SmigrSs and 
 
OOUVERNEUR MORRIS 103 
 
 with some scions of Austrian nobility in regard to 
 Lafayette, these precious individuals abused the 
 fallen and imprisoned leader ferociously, and Mr. 
 Morris of course came to his defense. His com- 
 mentary shows how much he despised the people 
 who might have saved France, and failed. " In- 
 deed, the conversation of these gentlemen, who 
 have thfe virtue and good fortune of their grand- 
 fathers to recommend them, leads me almost to for- 
 get the crimes of the French Revolution ; and often 
 the unforgiving temper and sanguinary wishes 
 which they exhibit make me almost believe that the 
 a.ssertion of their enemies is true, namely, that it is 
 success alone which has determined on whose side 
 should be crimes and on whose the misery." 
 
 In the same vein and about the same time he 
 said of the illustrious personage who afterwards 
 became Louis XYIII. that " in his opinion he had 
 nothing to do but to try to get shot, thereby re- 
 deeming by valor the foregone follies of his con- 
 duct." He was sorry for the King and Queen, he 
 disliked and distrusted utterly the methods of the 
 Revolution, but he despised the French royalty 
 and nobility, for " they turned like cravens, and 
 fled." 
 
 The two years which followed his appointment 
 as minister make one of the most brilliant chapters 
 in the diplomatic history of the United States. On 
 the day he left Paris, after having turned every- 
 thing over to his successor, Mr. Monroe, Mr. Morris 
 wrote in his diary (October 12, 1794), " I have the 
 consolation to have made no sacrifice either of per- 
 
104 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 
 
 sonal or national dignity, and I believe I should 
 have obtained everything if the American govern- 
 ment had refused to recall me." ^ 
 
 This brief statement is as true as it is moderate. 
 No foreign minister ever faced such difficulties and 
 dangers as Mr. Morris did at this time, for the sim- 
 ple reason that there has been in modern times but 
 one Reign of Terror, and Mr. Morris was tlie only 
 representative of a foreign government who did not 
 ask for his passports and withdraw. He not only 
 remained at his post, but he handled the affair of 
 our debt most admirably, doing aU that either law 
 or honor demanded to accelerate our payments, but 
 firmly declining to go farther, or to be imposed 
 upon in any way. He carried on a continual bat- 
 tle with the decrees militating against our com- 
 merce, met every difficulty that arose at the thresh- 
 old, protested against every outrage on our rights, 
 and was on the point of getting reparation when 
 the French government obtained his recall. If 
 these duties had been performed in ordinary times 
 they would have been sufficiently difficult, but to 
 deal with any diplomatic questions in the hurly- 
 burly of the French Revolution seems an almost 
 impossible feat. Mr. Morris, on account of his 
 well-known views, was not liked by the successive 
 ministries or committees, each of whom was more 
 extreme and violent than its predecessor. To 
 oppose them was about as safe as playing with a 
 
 ^ Our government had demanded the recall of Genet, and 
 the French rulers took advantage of this to ask in turn for 
 the recall of Morris, vrhom they both feared and disliked. 
 
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 105 
 
 hungry tiger, but our minister never flinched by a 
 hair's breadth. His house was searched more than 
 once, he was arrested in the street because he did 
 not have his card of citizenship, and his death or 
 murder was at one time currently reported in Eu- 
 rope and America. His life was, in truth, in con- 
 stant danger. When all other foreign ministers 
 departed he stayed, an example worthily followed 
 by another American minister when France was 
 last beset with " malice domestic and foreign levy." 
 When subjected to these various outrages he never 
 failed to take a high tone, demand his passport, 
 and obtain a more or less surly apology. So he 
 held out, doing his duty and protecting his coun- 
 trymen and his country's interests. He was, in 
 fact, just the man for the place and time. A sym- 
 pathizer like Monroe at that period would have 
 been ensnared and made a tool of, and would have 
 thus involved us in aU the network of French com- 
 plications, as indeed he afterwards succeeded in 
 doing to a certain extent. Almost any other man 
 of Morris's own party would have been driven 
 from the country by holding a too rigid and defiant 
 attitude. Morris, however, while too strongly op- 
 posed to the Eevolution to be beguiled, by his utter 
 fearlessness and ready wit, combined with a certain 
 dash and gallantry, was carried through trium- 
 phantly. The diary became too dangerous, and 
 was stopped for the time ; but before this occurred 
 there are a few entries and some extracts from let- 
 ters which must be quoted, to show how wonder- 
 fully he penetrated the conditions of the struggle, 
 
106 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 
 
 and how clearly he understood its true character. 
 On May 14, 1792, he wrote to Washington : — 
 
 " You know that I do, from the bottom of my 
 heart, wish well to this country, and will therefore 
 easily judge what I have felt in seeing them long 
 since in the high road to despotism." 
 
 And again, in June, he wrote : — 
 
 " It is notorious that the great mass of the 
 French nation is less solicitous to preserve the 
 present order of things than to prevent the return 
 of the ancient oppressions, and of course would 
 more readily submit to a pure despotism than to 
 that kind of monarchy whose only limits were 
 found in those noble legal and clerical corps by 
 which the people were alternately oppressed and 
 insulted." 
 
 Here is the true view of the French Revolu- 
 tion : that it was a struggle not for political the- 
 ories, but for equality before the law, for the 
 abolition of privileges, and for good government. 
 Morris was almost if not quite alone, at that time, 
 in this opinion, and it has been reserved to the 
 most recent modern investigation to bring out and 
 insist upon this all-important truth. 
 
 July 2d he wrote in his diary, " Monciel and 
 Bremond call on me. The French, says Monciel, 
 are, I am afraid, too rotten for a free government. 
 I tell him that the experiment may, nevertheless, 
 be tried, and despotism still remain as a last re- 
 sort." 
 
 August 22d he wrote to Jefferson of Lafayette's 
 flight : " Thus his circle is completed. He has 
 
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 107 
 
 spent his fortune on a revolution, and is now 
 crushed by the wheel which he put in motion. He 
 lasted longer than I expected." 
 
 October 18, 1793, he wrote to Washington: 
 " But whatever may be the lot of France in remote 
 futurity, and putting aside the military events, it 
 seems evident that she must soon be governed by a 
 single despot. Whether she will pass to that point 
 through the medium of a triumvirate or other small 
 body of men seems as yet undetermined. I think 
 it most probable that she will." 
 
 If we consider that the Directory did not come 
 until two years later, the consulate or triumvi- 
 rate four years after that, and then in the process 
 of evolution the Empire and the single despot 
 in 1804, it must be admitted that this is an ex- 
 traordinary example of political foresight. Morris 
 saw that a despotism existed ; in common with 
 many others he perceived that it would probably 
 be concentrated in a single individual ; but who 
 else in 1793 announced that the single despot 
 would come in the precise manner in which it 
 actually happened? He made many other pre- 
 dictions, and was rarely wrong. Indeed, his saga- 
 city in this way was quite noted among his friends, 
 but there is space to mention only one other in- 
 stance. Many years afterward, when watching 
 from across the Atlantic with intense interest the 
 Russian campaign, he predicted that Napoleon 
 would begin his retreat from Moscow on October 
 21st. On October 19th the retreat actually began. 
 These things were of course not due to mere 
 
108 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 
 
 chance ; and to M. Necker (May 22, 1798), who 
 had recalled one of his predictions since become 
 true, Mr. Morris gives undoubtedly the secret of 
 his remarkable foresight. "It is not," he says, 
 " difficult to prophesy in such a case. If we are 
 to judge of bhe conduct of a man in a given situa^ 
 tion, it would be hazardous to pronounce upon it, 
 since the character of each individual is governed 
 by the peculiarity of his mind and the impression 
 made upon him by the circumstances in which he 
 is placed. But where the mass is concerned we 
 have but to observe the instinct of the animal, 
 and we shall not be deceived." In addition to this 
 wise doctrine he was also governed by a theory 
 which guided him through all his public life, and 
 largely explains his success. He said in a letter 
 to Carmichael : — 
 
 " The true object of a great statesman is to give 
 to any particular nation the kind of laws which is 
 suitable to them, and the best constitution which 
 they are capable of." No better rule was ever 
 laid down, and if it were more observed men would 
 make fewer disastrous failures in government and 
 constitutions. 
 
 After leaving France, Mr. Morris traveled for 
 six years on the Continent and in England, study- 
 ing men and manners, enjoying society, and making 
 everywhere firm friends among the most distin- 
 guished men and women of the time. At last in 
 1799 he returned to America, and as he supposed 
 to private life and the practice of his profession. 
 He was elected, however, almost at once Senator 
 
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 109 
 
 from New York, and reentered public life just as 
 the Federalist party, to which he belonged, was 
 driven from power, never to return. 
 
 In the dangerous crisis which arose from the 
 equality of votes received by Jefferson and Burr 
 Mr. Morris took the only sound view, that it was 
 right to have Jefferson chosen. He said in his 
 driest way : — 
 
 " Not meaning to enter into intrigues, I have 
 merely expressed the opinion that, since it was evi- 
 dently the intention of our fellow-citizens to make 
 Mr. Jefferson their President, it seems proper to 
 fulfill that intention." 
 
 A little later he wrote to Hamilton : " I have 
 more at the request of others than from my own 
 mere motion suggested certain considerations not 
 quite unworthy of attention ; but it is dangerous 
 to be impartial in politics. You who are temperate 
 in drinking have perhaps noticed the awkward 
 situation of a man who continues sober after the 
 company are drunk." 
 
 Again he wrote to Livingston : " I greatly dis- 
 approved, and openly disapproved, the attempt to 
 choose Mr. Burr. Many of my friends thought 
 differently. I saw they would be disappointed, and 
 therefore looked on with perfect composure. In- 
 deed, my dear friend, this farce of life contains 
 nothing which should put us out of humor." 
 
 Despite his philosophy, however, he made a 
 most eloquent and desperate resistance to the re- 
 peal of the judiciary act, which he always consid- 
 ered little less than a death-blow to the Constitu- 
 
110 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 
 
 tion. He could be impartial at times, and be sup- 
 ported the acquisition of Louisiana, but at heart 
 he was a strong partisan. We can see this in what 
 he said of Jefferson. 
 
 " It is the fashion," he wrote in 1803, " with 
 those discontented creatui-es called Federalists, to 
 say that our President is not a Christian ; yet they 
 must acknowledge that, in true Christian meekness, 
 when smitten on one cheek he turns the other, and 
 by his late appointment of Monroe has taken espe- 
 cial care that a stone which the builders rejected 
 should become the first of the corner. These are 
 his works ; and for his faith, it is not as a grain 
 of mustard, but the full size of a pumpkin, so that 
 while men of mustard -seed faith can only move 
 mountains, he finds no difficulty in swallowing 
 them. He believes, for instance, in the perfecti- 
 bility of man, the wisdom of mobs, and moderar 
 tion of Jacobins. He believes in payment of debts 
 by diminution of revenue, in defense of territory by 
 reduction of armies, and in vindication of rights by 
 the appointment of ambassadors." 
 
 Again he wrote to Dayton : " That our adminis- 
 tration is too feeble is, I believe, too true. What 
 you say of their chief is curious. When he told 
 you we have the choice of enemies, he stated a 
 fact applicable at all times to all countries, since 
 any blundering blockhead can make a war; but 
 when he acknowledged that we have not a choice of 
 friends, he pronounced the surest satire on himself, 
 since this misfortune can only be attributed to a 
 series of false and foolish measures." 
 
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 111 
 
 Strong and even extreme as he was in his Feder- 
 alism, he nevertheless was not despondent, like 
 so many of his party friends, and declined to de- 
 spair of the future. "There is always," he said in a 
 letter written in 1803, " a counter-current in human 
 affairs, which opposes alike both good and evil. 
 Thus the good we hope is seldom obtained, and 
 the evil we fear is rarely realized. . . . Like the 
 forked, featherless bipeds which have preceded 
 them, our posterity will be shaken into the politi- 
 cal form which shall be most suitable to their physi- 
 cal and moral state. They will be born, procreate, 
 and die, like the rest of creation, while here and 
 there some accomplished scoundrels, rari nantes 
 in gurgite vasto, will give their names to periods 
 of history." 
 
 He seems to have sighed but little for the de- 
 lights of Europe, where he had passed so many 
 years. To his friend Parish, who urged him to 
 come to England, he wrote in 1807 : — 
 
 " EecoUect that a tedious morning, a great din- 
 ner, a boozy afternoon, and dull evening make the 
 sum total of English life. It is admirable for the 
 young men who shoot, hunt, drink ; but for us ! 
 How are we to dispose of ourselves ? No. Were 
 I to give you a rendezvous in Europe, it should 
 be on the Continent." 
 
 He traveled extensively, however, in his own 
 country, and not content with the exercise of his 
 profession, gave his best thought and work to 
 schemes of public improvement. As early as 1777 
 Mr. Morris had set forth the idea of connectina 
 
112 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 
 
 the great lakes with the Hudson. This project he 
 never forgot, and after his return he renewed his 
 efforts, and devoted the last years of his life and 
 all his eloquence before the legislature to its pro- 
 motion. 
 
 Thus engaged, his life flowed peacefully along. 
 He married in 1809, most happily, and not long 
 afterwards, in a letter to his friend Madame de 
 Damas, he gives us a glimpse of himself and his 
 home life that displays admirably the happy disposi- 
 tion, cheerful philosophy, and keen intellect which 
 made their possessor so successful and so contented. 
 " My health," he wrote, " is excellent, saving a 
 little of the gout which at this moment annoys me. 
 I can walk three leagues, if the weather be pleasant 
 and the road not rough. My employment is to 
 labor for myself a little, for others more ; to receive 
 much company, and forget half those who come. 
 I think of public affairs a little, play a little, read 
 a little, and sleep a good deal. With good air, a 
 good cook, fine water and wine, a good constitution 
 and a clear conscience, I descend towards the grave 
 full of gratitude to the Giver of all good." 
 
 There is nothing to add but the inevitable state- 
 ment of the end. He died after a brief illness, in 
 1816, without suffering and cheerful to the last. 
 
 The man who made the final draft of the Consti- 
 tution of the United States, and who first suggested 
 the Erie Canal, needs no other monuments. But 
 his brilliant intellect and long and distinguished 
 public career deserve to be well known. We 
 have but to read his diaries and letters to appre- 
 
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 113 
 
 ciate him at his true value both as statesman and 
 writer. There is only one other word to be said. 
 Among many fine qualities of heart and mind, 
 nothing does him more honor than his strong, un- 
 swerving patriotism and ardent belief in his coun- 
 try. This sketch cannot end more fitly than with 
 another prediction, made in 1801, which has not 
 only been fulfilled, but which shows the spirit 
 which animated its author throughout his life : — 
 " The proudest empire in Europe is but a bauble 
 compared to what America will be, must be, in the 
 course of two centuries, perhaps of one I If, with 
 a calm retrospect to the progress made within 
 forty years, we stand on the firm ground of calcu- 
 lation, warranted by experience, and look forward 
 to the end of a similar period, imagination shrinks 
 from the magnitude of rational deduction." 
 
WHY PATRONAGE IN OFFICES IS UN- 
 AMERICAN.i 
 
 Civil Service Reform has had a stormy exist- 
 ence of twenty-three years. It has moved along 
 amid the abuse of foes, who have sneered at its 
 advocates, and the loud praise of friends, who have 
 showered much indiscriminate invective on all its 
 enemies, real and supposed. Like other causes at 
 bottom righteous it has marched forward, slowly 
 and painfully, yet still forward. Nevertheless in 
 all the noise and dust and shouting the precise 
 thing wanted occasionally becomes dim, the line of 
 march is Sometimes lost, and the results reached 
 are often hidden from sight. Any one who watches 
 the course of a reform like this and sees it strug- 
 gling among confusions born of much violent ar- 
 gument and talking hither and thither, for and 
 against, is strongly tempted to cry out with Car- 
 lyle : " O shrieking beloved brother blockheads of 
 mankind ! let us close those wide mouths of ours ; 
 let us cease shrieking and begin considering." In 
 the language of the shop, let us stop and take 
 stock, that we may know the real state of the case, 
 what we have got, what we want, and how we are 
 to get that which is still lacking. As Mr. Webster 
 said on a celebrated occasion, after tossing on the 
 ^ Reprinted from The Century for October, 1890. 
 
PATRONAGE IN OFFICES 115 
 
 waves of debate it is well to take our latitude and 
 see liow far we have been driven from the true 
 course. 
 
 This is especially desirable in this instance, for 
 no movement has ever suffered more through need- 
 less misstatement at the hands of both friends and 
 foes than this effort to obtain better methods of 
 administration in the public service. The very 
 name itself is misleading, for the real intent of the 
 movement is not to reform the civil service, but to 
 change the mode by which its places are filled. The 
 true purpose of civil service reform is to take the 
 routine offices of the government which are not 
 political out of politics, where they ought never to 
 have been, and to substitute for personal patron- 
 age in appointments some system which shall be 
 impersonal and disinterested. The improvement of 
 the service itself is a secondary object, for the civil 
 service of the United States has been as a rule very 
 good, and a movement therefore, which by its title 
 demanded only a reform of the service, and which 
 at the outset was chiefly urged on that ground, 
 started on false premises. This misfortune in 
 naming is undoubtedly the chief reason that the 
 movement for so long a time appealed so little to 
 the American people, who are extremely pi-actical, 
 and who are inclined to resent anything which 
 seems to them merely a fanciful effort to redress an 
 unreal or trivial grievance. It is possible that no 
 better name could have been devised. It is quite 
 certain that it will not now be changed, and it is 
 also certain that its real meaning is coming to be 
 rightly understood. 
 
116 PATRONAGE IN OFFICES 
 
 The name, however, is the least of the difficul- 
 ties. Both friend and foe seem to have conspired 
 to pile up confusions about the movement in the 
 form of argument and description. To begin with, 
 there seems to be an absolute determination to mis- 
 state the case historically. The especial advocates 
 of the reform have, as a rule, seen fit to take an 
 arbitrary point in our history and declare that 
 there and then wliat they call the spoils system 
 was born. This theory coincides pleasantly with 
 the belief not uncommon in certain circles that 
 things political are much worse than they used to 
 be once upon a time, and that we have fallen away 
 sadly from the high standards of the fathers and 
 founders of the Republic. These admirers of the 
 past apparently consider that the only statesmen 
 are dead statesmen, and that living public men are 
 mere " politicians " — a word which has come to 
 be, like the " spoils system," a term of art. In 
 the good old days — exact date not given — the 
 evils of modern public life, according to this doc- 
 trine, did not exist. Everybody who held office 
 then was good and able, and was chosen or ap- 
 pointed solely from merit, while selfish politicians 
 and mercenary lobbyists were unknown. In short, 
 human nature then was something very different 
 from what it is to-day. 
 
 This is not the place to deal with this particular 
 nonsense, which springs either from ignorance or 
 from falsification of the facts, not only of our own 
 history, but of all history. The only thing that 
 concerns us here is its application to the civil ser- 
 
PATRONAGE IN OFFICES 117 
 
 vice question. It appears to have passed into a 
 dogma that political patronage began with Andrew 
 Jackson, and that the proposed reform is simply 
 an effort to bring the civil service back to the pure 
 system of the early days of the Republic. The 
 exact truth is very different. The modern method 
 of selecting civil servants by examinations open to 
 all comers was as unknown in the early days of 
 the United States as the telegraph or the tele- 
 phone. When the government of the United 
 States was formed the only theory in regard to 
 appointments to ofSee was the one then in vogue 
 everywhere, to the effect that they were matters 
 within the personal gift of the Chief Executive or 
 his representatives. Acting on this theory Wash- 
 ington appointed the officers of the government ac- 
 cording t(»his good pleasure. That he was guided 
 by the highest and most disinterested motives, and 
 enlightened by the best information he could obtain 
 in making his selections, cannot be doubted. But 
 it is equally certain that he distributed the offices 
 solely as a matter of personal patronage ; that at 
 the start, with few exceptions, he appointed only 
 friends of the Constitution ; and that after the de- 
 velopment of parties he appointed only Federalists, 
 laying down plainly in more than one letter the 
 doctrine that none but those who were friendly 
 to the government ought to receive the offices. 
 John Adams pursued the same general policy, and 
 his " midnight appointments " were as marked an 
 example of partisanship in filling offices as our 
 history can show. 
 
118 PATRONAGE IN OFFICES 
 
 Jefferson, after some delays and a few fine phrases, 
 distributed a large percentage of the offices among 
 his party adherents. No plainer statement of the 
 spoils system was ever made than that laid down 
 by Jefferson in the following letter to the New 
 Haven remonstrants, — "If a due participation of 
 office is a matter of right, how are vacancies to be 
 obtained ? Those by death are few ; by resignation, 
 none. Can any other mode than that of removal 
 be proposed? This is a painful office, and I meet 
 it as such." The rest of the letter, too long for 
 quotation, is an argument on this theme, that 
 offices are to be distributed according to politics, 
 and removals made in order to get them. As 
 Mr. Adams says with quiet sarcasm, in his " His- 
 tory of the United States," Jefferson did not go so 
 "far as to assert that to the victors Jpelong the 
 spoils ; he contented himself with claiming that to 
 the victors belonged half the spoils." The restric- 
 tion was characteristic of the man, and less honest 
 than Jackson's bold and frank determination to 
 have everything ; but the principle in both cases 
 was precisely the same. Moreover at this very 
 time in some of the States, notably in New York and 
 Pennsylvania, political patronage in government 
 offices was carried out with a ferocious thorough- 
 ness unknown at the present day. 
 
 In the interval between Jefferson and Jackson 
 political patronage subsided. Madison, long before 
 his coming to the Presidency, had declared himself 
 against removals without cause, which was also 
 the view of the younger Adams, and probably of 
 
PATRONAGE IN OFFICES 119 
 
 Monroe as well. The real cause, however, of the 
 small number of changes during this period lay 
 deeper than the personal views and characters of 
 the Presidents. The long continuance of one party 
 in power, followed by the disappearance of the 
 Federalists and the merging of all parties — nomi- 
 nally at least — in one, was the efficient and ob- 
 vious reason for the small number of official 
 changes under Madison, Monroe, and Adams. The 
 system, however, remained at .bottom entirely un- 
 changed, and when Jackson came into power with 
 a new set of followers and a new set of ideas, he 
 merely put into active operation a practice which 
 had slumbered for twenty years, but which had 
 been the same from the beginning. Under Jack- 
 son the distribution of the offices for political pur- 
 poses was extended and systematized, and the the- 
 ory upon which it was done was thrown . by Marcy 
 into the now famous formula, " to the victors be- 
 long the spoils." Dating the spoils system from 
 Jackson's time, therefore, is dating it from the 
 declaration of the formula, which has no real con- 
 nection with either its origin or its practice. Since 
 Jackson's day, as the Government has grown, 
 political patronage has grown, and spread, too, 
 until it has assumed the enormous proportions with 
 whi«h the present generation is familiar. The 
 effort to do away with it by an impersonal and 
 disinterested machinery of appointment is a wholly 
 modern idea, and is not in any sense a reversion to 
 the early practice of the Republic. 
 
 The historical view of the ardent reformer, that 
 
120 PATRONAGE IN OFFICES 
 
 patronage in offices sprang full fledged from tlie 
 brain of Andrew Jackson, seems purposeless iu its 
 inaccuracy except so far as it fits in with an a 
 priori theory of modern political decadence. This 
 cannot be said of the historical view of the enemy 
 of the reform. Superficially more exact than that 
 of the reformer, it is in reality even falser, and at 
 the same time it is anything but purposeless, for 
 its object is to discredit the reform in the eyes of 
 the people. The first historical proposition of the 
 opponent of the reform is that the patronage sys- 
 tem has always existed in this country, and that 
 the reformers seek to put something wholly new in 
 its place. So far the opponent is perfectly correct ; 
 and he becomes misleading only when he advances 
 to his second proposition, which is, that patronage 
 has not only always been the system of dealing with 
 the offices, bnt that it is the American system of 
 civil service, and that any other scheme is open to 
 the fatal objection of being un-American. This 
 second proposition is wildly false. Patronage in 
 office is no more a peculiarly American institution 
 than the common law or the English language. 
 We brought the patronage system with us from 
 the Old World, as we brought many things, good 
 and bad. Some of these importations were in their 
 nature suited to us and our new conditions,- and 
 were therefore American. Others were wholly 
 alien to our theory and practice in government, 
 and therefore were un-American. To the latter 
 class the patronage system peculiarly belongs. 
 After the fall of the feudal system, and the rise, 
 
PATRONAGE IN OFFICES 121 
 
 establishment, and consolidation of the monarchies 
 of Europe the doctrine that the king was the foun- 
 tain of honor received a great extension. It was 
 perceived readily that as the king possessed the 
 appointing power he had a vast opportunity in the 
 public service and the public revenue for reward 
 and punishment, for corruption and profit. In 
 offices and sinecures, in pensions and contracts, the 
 king could provide for his bastards and his favor- 
 ites, his relations and his supporters. In the mon- 
 archies of Europe this was what patronage in offices 
 meant, and it was dispensed with a profligacy which 
 sowed seeds of revolution destined to bear a terrible 
 harvest. In England patronage took another turn, 
 as was to have been expected from her limited royal 
 power and greater popular liberty. English states- 
 men soon discovered that public offices were the 
 best and surest means to strengthen and maintain 
 their political power, and that they had in them 
 an almost unlimited fund for bribery. Sir Robert 
 Walpole developed this system with his wonted 
 ability, and made it one of the bulwarks of the 
 unquestioned sway which he held so long. For 
 more than a century after his time patronage pre- 
 vailed everywhere in England. With a limited 
 suffrage, rotten boroughs, and an aristocratic gov- 
 ernment it was a most powerful engine, and the 
 personal and political corruption which it en- 
 gendered is one of the commonplaces of history. 
 When England had cast off the rotten boroughs 
 and had enlarged her suffrage, when her govern- 
 ment became democratic instead of- aristocratic, 
 
122 PATRONAGE IN OFFICES 
 
 the royal and aristocratic system of patronage 
 broke down, and a system which, accorded with 
 modern civilization took its place. 
 
 In this country prior to the Revolution we had 
 the patronage system of Sir Robert Walpole, own 
 cousin to the foul and corrupt abuses of Louis 
 XIV. and of the other monarchs of Europe. When 
 the government of the United States was formed 
 the wise men who framed the Constitution saw and 
 rooted out one of the evUs of patronage, although 
 not perhaps the worst. They perceived very 
 clearly that Parliament was controlled and cor- 
 rupted in large measure by the bestowal of appoint- 
 ive offices upon its members, and in order to pre- 
 serve the legislature of the United States from this 
 danger they put a clause in the Constitution which 
 made it impossible for the Executive to corrupt 
 Congress by the appointment of its members to 
 office. This makes it plain that the framers of the 
 Constitution saw nothing sacredly American in 
 official patronage. On the contrary, they detected 
 in it in one direction a great peril, and in that 
 direction they cut it up by the roots. They went 
 no further, not from any particular faith in the 
 system, but because they then knew no other way 
 of filling offices than by the will and pleasure 
 of the appointing power, and because the minor 
 offices were so few that no man except an inspired 
 prophet could have seen in them any danger. At 
 all events the system thus modified endured un- 
 changed and unassailed until within the last twenty 
 years, when its rottenness becapie apparent from the 
 
PATRONAGE IN OFFICES 123 
 
 vast increase of offices and consequent growth of 
 patronage. 
 
 The system of patronage in offices, then, we have 
 always had, but it is none the less a system born 
 of despotisms and aristocracies, and it is the merest 
 cant to call it American. It is a system of favorit- 
 ism and nepotism, of political influence and per- 
 sonal intrigue. In a word it is as un-American as 
 anything could well be, for a system by which 
 Louis XIV. and his successors drained the life 
 blood of the French people, and by which Sir Rob- 
 ert Walpole and his successor corrupted the Brit- 
 ish Parliament, has no proper place on American 
 soil, and is utterly abhorrent to the ideas upon 
 which the democratic government of the United 
 States has been founded and built up. Whatever 
 may be said for or against the substitute which is 
 now in part established, it is at least grounded on 
 the American idea of a fair field and no favor, and 
 this of itself is sufficient to prove it superior to a 
 system which is all favor and no field at all. 
 
 So much for the historical side of the question. 
 Let us look now for a moment very briefly at the 
 arguments for and against the reform. 
 
 In favor of the reform it is urged that by a me- 
 chanical system of examination, combined with per- 
 manency of tenure, a better quality of service will 
 be secured. There can be no doubt that there is 
 force in this argument. The chances are that you 
 will get a better stenographer if you examine him 
 on his ability to write short-hand rather than on his 
 own political belief or that of his friends; and 
 
124 PATRONAGE IN OFFICES 
 
 the same holds true of all branches of the govern- 
 ment service. But the improvement to be ob- 
 tained in this way is neither great enough nor 
 sufficiently obvious to make it a controlling motive 
 in the adoption of the reform. It is a sound but 
 an altogether subsidiary argument. 
 
 A far stronger proposition in support of the re- 
 form is, that to stake on each presidential election 
 the livelihood of all the thousands of people who 
 hold government offices, and support themselves 
 and their families by government work is to sub- 
 ject our institutions every four years to a grave 
 and increasing peril, and to create a class of office- 
 holders and mercenaries constantly increasing in 
 numbers and seeking with the keen instinct of self- 
 preservation to control the government. Such an 
 enormous stake, involving the fortunes of so many 
 people, bids fair to convert an election from a 
 political contest into a struggle for existence on 
 the part of large numbers of people, and such a 
 struggle renders men desperate and ready for des- 
 perate acts. This argument of itself is enough to 
 demonstrate the necessity of taking the civil service 
 out of politics, and thus preventing the growth of 
 a large class of people who regard politics not as 
 a question between conflicting political principles, 
 but as a mere battle for life and for money to live 
 upon. The reality of this danger is great, and 
 gives a force to the argument which no thoughtful 
 man can question. 
 
 The last and most immediately practical argu- 
 ment in favor of the reform is that patronage places 
 
PATRONAGE IN OFFICES 125 
 
 upon Senators and Eepresentatives, as well as upon 
 the chief executive officers, a burden which they 
 were never intended to sustain. The immediate 
 result of this is that public interests are subordi- 
 nated to the private interests of the office-seekers. 
 Legislation suffers because those who ought to 
 legislate have their time occupied, their attention 
 distracted, and their minds fatigued by the in- 
 cessant demands of persons who seek places under 
 the government. If the favorite theory of those 
 who oppose the reform, that the executive officers 
 in the various departments and bureaus are the 
 proper persons to select their own subordinates, 
 were carried into operation there would be little 
 need of the reform. Department officers as a rule 
 desire to make successful administrations, and could 
 be trusted to select their subordinates wisely ; but 
 the fact is that the executive officers of the gov- 
 ernment do not, and under the patronage system 
 cannot, select their own subordinates with a view 
 solely to good administration. As a matter of 
 fact their subordinates are selected for them by 
 Senators and Representatives, who are entirely ir- 
 responsible in regard to matters of administration, 
 and who are necessarily governed more or less by 
 personal and political interests which have no bear- 
 ing on the execution of the public business. 
 
 It is perfectly true that a business man does not 
 select his clerks by a hard and fast competitive ex- 
 amination such as is applied now to a portion of 
 the government offices ; but on the other hand, a 
 business man who appointed his clerks on account 
 
126 PATRONAGE IN OFFICES 
 
 of their politics, or because some politician recom- 
 mended them, would soon find his way into bank- 
 ruptcy. The selection of subordinates in a pri- 
 vate business is made practically by a competitive 
 examination of the severest kind, managed by a 
 watchful self-interest. The men who carry on the 
 government and who recommend appointments have 
 not the enlightened selfishness which business suc- 
 cess demands to guide them. On the contrary, en- 
 lightened selfishness in their case makes personal 
 advancement of the first importance, and the suc- 
 cess of the business a very secondary matter. It 
 is necessary, therefore, in dealing with the public 
 service that we should substitute for the severe 
 competitive examinations which are enforced by the 
 conditions of business and commercial life some 
 mechanical system which shall approach them as 
 nearly as possible. The selection of clerks by 
 competitive examination is a system which is no 
 doubt imperfect, but it is infinitely better than that 
 which it replaces. It has the cardinal merit of 
 taking from the hands of Senators and Representa- 
 tives a task for which they are not fitted and with 
 which they should not be burdened, and of making 
 the selection of subordinate officers disinterested 
 and impersonal. Competitive examinations are not 
 infallible, but they are better tests of fitness than 
 the prejudices, friendships, and personal and politi- 
 cal interests of men in public life. The exercise 
 of patronage, moreover, is a source of weakness to 
 every party and to every man who touches it, and 
 it lowers the tone of public life, to the great injury 
 
PATRONAGE IN OFFICES 127 
 
 of legislation and the public welfare. Yet until 
 it is destroyed by law every public man must deal 
 with it whether he wishes to or not, and if he re- 
 fuses, his refusal is a mere shirking of duty. 
 
 Such are the principal, and, as it seems to me, 
 conclusive, arguments in favor of maintaining and 
 extending the reform of the civil service and the 
 abolition of patronage. The arguments against it 
 are for the most part mere appeals to prejudice. 
 Such, for instance, is the reiterated statement that 
 civil service reform is un-American, to which I have 
 already referred and which is simply untrue. Pat- 
 ronage is un-American, and an impersonal system 
 which offers a fair field and no favor is as dis- 
 tinctly democratic and American as anything well 
 can be. 
 
 Another cry is that civil service reform is a 
 foreign importation, — of Chinese origin, according 
 to some authorities ; of English birth, according 
 to others. Even were there meaning or truth in 
 this, the answer would be easy. There is only 
 one thing more contemptible than a feeble imita- 
 tion of other people, and that is an equally feeble 
 refusal to adopt something intrinsically good be- 
 cause somebody else has tried something like it 
 and found it beneficial. We are hardly likely to 
 abandon gunpowder or printing because the Chi- 
 nese are said to have been the first inventors of 
 both. Still less would it be a mark of high intelli- 
 gence to revert to the Indian tongues because the 
 language of the United States is that of England 
 also. 
 
128 PATRONAGE IN OFFICES 
 
 Another objectiou of the opponents of the reform 
 which enjoys the lonely preeminence of deserving to 
 be called an argument, is that a permanent service 
 win lead to a civil pension list. If the one were in- 
 separable from the other this would be a very grave 
 objection, but a moment's reflection shows that 
 there is nothing in it. Men and women who enter 
 the government service are perfectly aware that 
 there is no retiring pension to be looked forward 
 to, and that if they decide to remain in the service 
 they must trust to their own exertions and their 
 own frugality, or to the formation with their asso- 
 ciates of an insurance fund, to make provision for 
 their old age, exactly as they would do if engaged 
 in any private business. If they are not willing to 
 do this the remedy is very simple, — they need not 
 enter the service. 
 
 The most common form of attack on civil service 
 reform, however, is to denounce it as a sham, and 
 by applying to it various contemptuous names to 
 make it ridiculous, and thus drive it out of exis- 
 tence. There is nothing easier in the world than 
 to sneer, and it is particularly easy to sneer at any 
 one who is trying to make things better. But the 
 sham in the civil service business does not lie with 
 those who are trying to make it a practical working 
 system, but with those who put it in their platforms, 
 who vote for it in their conventions and in Con- 
 gress, and then go about assailing it as a hypocrit- 
 ical humbug. It is an inspiring sight to observe 
 the manly indignation expressed against civil ser- 
 vice reform by its opponents on the ground that it 
 
PATRONAGE IN OFFICES 129 
 
 is a sham. To statesmen, politicians, and men in 
 public life generally, nothing is so repulsive as hum- 
 bug, for it is well known that they never indulge in 
 it themselves, always voting and speech-making and 
 resolving in exact accord with the hard, cold facts 
 and never for effect. They would not object to 
 civil service reform so much, they say, these hardy 
 lovers of exact truth, were it not that it is a hum- 
 bug. It is that feature which depresses and angers 
 them. " The idea of discussing how clerks shall be 
 appointed," says one, " when there are matters of 
 real importance, great questions, before us ! What 
 can be more contemptible ? " It does not seem to 
 occur to them that it really is a mean thing to have 
 appointments to office made grave political issues 
 in every district and every State, and that they 
 are so because they are kept in politics by patron- 
 age, which civil service reform aims to destroy. 
 " Merit forsooth I " says another. " Clerks to be 
 selected by merit ! Bah ! What a piece of pre- 
 tentious humbug ! " etc. This argument has the 
 advantage of requiring no intellectual effort. Any 
 one can make it by assuming a contemptuous tone 
 and a sarcastic expression. At the same time it 
 will be noted that merit governs these same people 
 in selections for their own service. It is only in 
 the service of the Government that they are so lib- 
 eral to the unfortunate and the unworthy and so 
 severe towards merit. 
 
 Yet another inquiry of the same type is that 
 which asks with a sneer how men are ever to be 
 encouraged to take part in politics if they are not 
 
130 PATRONAGE IN OFFICES 
 
 to share in the rewards. It is wonderful that men 
 should be found in the light of history to put for- 
 ward such a staring absurdity as the proposition 
 that in this day and generation you can carry on 
 parties and win party victories by offices. Impor- 
 tant elections turn on issues that affect the great 
 mass of the people, not on the selfish interests of 
 the few. In some large cities where a great mass of 
 patronage, municipal, state, and national, is concen- 
 trated, tbe caucus or the convention, and sometimes 
 the election, is decided by a compact body of office- 
 holders, but with these exceptions offices are utterly 
 ineffective. On the other hand, if patronage is of 
 doubtful political advantage under the most propi- 
 tious conditions, its disadvantages are glaring. To 
 a party at large, as to an individual, it is, as an 
 almost invariable rule, a source of weakness. The 
 distribution of patronage is simply a distribution of 
 factious quarrels throughout a State or a district, 
 and no party and no man in the long run ever 
 benefits by it. 
 
 I believe that I have now enumerated all the 
 objections brought forward against the reform. It 
 is rather a pitiful array, hardly to be dignified by 
 the name of arguments ; but after a somewhat pro-j 
 tracted research and much patient listening I can 
 find nothing else. 
 
 So far as the existing system of competitive ex- 
 aminations under the civil service goes, its oppo- 
 nents are more fertile in objections, but when these 
 criticisms are fairly hunted down they generally 
 turn out to be either without foundation or else ex- 
 
PATRONAGE IN OFFICES 131 
 
 tremely weak. In the first place, admitting all tlie 
 imperfections that are charged, the opponents have 
 nothing to offer in place of that which they propose 
 to destroy, and they do not dare now to argue openly 
 that a return to the system of patronage would be 
 beneficial. They are fond of declaring that the 
 examinations are scholastic and impracticable, but 
 it is never possible to pin them down to a specific 
 case. The commonest trick is to mix up the exam- 
 inations, those for instance of assistant astronomers 
 with those of clerks or letter carriers, and this con- 
 fusion is the closest approach in my experience to a 
 demonstration that the examinations are not practi- 
 cal. There was at the outset more force probably 
 in this objection, but under the present commission 
 such mistakes as there were in the character of 
 the examinations have been largely if not entirely 
 remedied. 
 
 Another point of criticism relates to the accumu- 
 lation of names upon the eligible list, and a great 
 deal of sympathy is poured out over the- poor peo- 
 ple whose names get on the lists, but who have no 
 hope of being certified for appointment. The 
 crowding of the eligible list could of course be 
 avoided by simply raising the standard of exami- 
 nation ; but let us try it by the real test of a com- 
 parison with the old system. Out of every three 
 eligibles on an average only one is appointed. 
 Before the railway mall service went under the 
 civil service law, in May, 1889, I had over sixty 
 applicants for clerkships in that service. It was 
 only possible for me or for any congressman in my 
 
132 PATRONAGE IN OFFICES 
 
 place to secure appointments for five. With few 
 exceptions, so far as I could judge from my own 
 inquiries, the applicants were all fairly eligible, and 
 therefore it appears that under the patronage sys- 
 tem in this instance only one name in twelve reached 
 an appointment, instead of one in three as under 
 the reformed system. A wider and more conclu- 
 sive example can be found in the diplomatic and 
 consular service. There are in that service, assum- 
 ing that all are changed, between two and three 
 hundred places. As a matter of fact many are not 
 changed, and others are too trifling to excite com- 
 petition. Since the 4th of March, 1889, there have 
 been, as I am informed, 5,300 applications for posi- 
 tions in this service, and these applications are 
 practically confined to 119 places. In other words, 
 assuming that all the 119 are changed, one appli- 
 cant in fifty gets a place. It is not difficult to 
 imagine all the disappointment and heart-burning, 
 all the wear}"- waiting and sickness from hope de- 
 ferred, caused by a system as monstrous as this, 
 which tempts and urges fifty men to seek an office, 
 with loss of time, money, and self-respect, only to 
 reject beyond recall forty-nine of them. It is easy 
 also to imagine the frightful waste of time caused 
 to the department officers, to the detriment of the 
 public business. The late Mr. Walker Blaine, of 
 the State Department, was reported in an interview 
 as declaring that a permanent consular service was 
 imperatively needed, and such is, I believe, the 
 opinion of all good judges. 
 
 I have no doubt that what happened in my own 
 
PATRONAGE IN OFFICES 133 
 
 experience, as well as in the ease of the consular 
 service, holds true as a general rule, and the ex- 
 planation lies in the fact that patronage increases 
 applications because it makes it seem as if it must 
 be easy to get a place when it goes by favor and 
 costs the giver nothing. The office-seekers forget 
 that securing a place depends not on the method of 
 selection, but on the number of places in proportion 
 to the number of applications. 
 
 I have tried to state fairly the principal objec- 
 tions brought against the system now in actual 
 operation. There are no others in my opinion 
 worth consideration, and the recent attack upon the 
 civil service commissioners, which was made because 
 they enforced the law and not because they failed 
 to do so, has not only signally vindicated Commis- 
 sioners Roosevelt and Thompson and their policy, 
 but has shown in a general way how remarkably 
 well the new system is working. 
 
 There remains to be considered, however, one 
 point in which both friends and foes of civil service 
 reform are equally guilty, and which has tended 
 more than anything else to obscure the real object 
 of the reform and to retard its extension. This is 
 the confusion of the patronage offices with those 
 under the civil service law. With each succeeding 
 Administration there is a loud' cry raised that the 
 spirit of the reform is not respected in regard to 
 those offices which are confessedly filled by patron- 
 ao'e. To remove without cause officers of a fixed 
 tenure before the expiration of their term may be de- 
 scribed as a violation of the true civil service prin- 
 
134 PATRONAGE IN OFFICES 
 
 ciple, but this is all that can be said with regard to 
 offices of the patronage class. Offices not in the 
 classified service will be emptied and filled by any 
 President, of any party, for personal or political mo- 
 tives, and whether it is done in one year or in four 
 is wholly unimportant. If the appointing officer 
 selects bad men he is justly censurable ; but for the 
 mere fact of thus emptying and filling offices he 
 is not censurable, nor can any man administer a 
 patronage system in any other way. Civil service 
 reform is concerned with only two things, — the 
 administration of the civil service law, and its ex- 
 tension. If we go beyond this with talk about the 
 " spirit " of reform and applying the reform princi- 
 ple to offices not within the law, great confusion is 
 caused and an impression of insincerity is created, 
 which does aud has done more to hinder the advance 
 of the genuine reform than anything else. In this 
 connection it may be said that it is much to be wished 
 that the charge of hypocrisy and pharisaism made 
 by the opponents of the reform had no foundation. 
 The reform itself in intent and in methods is honest, 
 simple, and devoid of sham, but there has been a 
 great deal of insincerity, as well as of the " better 
 than thou " tone, among those who have assumed a 
 particular guardianship over it. For example, to 
 pass over in dead silence the removal on political 
 grounds of a collector or a postmaster before his 
 time by the President of one party, and then to cry 
 out and get into a white heat with the President of 
 the opposite party for doing the same thing, is dis- 
 honest humbug of the worst kind. This attitude 
 
PATRONAGE IN OFFICES 135 
 
 has been common, and lias done infinite harm 
 to the reform, because it has made the people 
 confuse some of the reformers with the reform it- 
 self, and believe that inasmuch as the former were 
 partisan and insincere the latter was a pretense and 
 a sham. 
 
 What, then, has actually been obtained, despite 
 attack and confusion, despite the mistakes of friends 
 and the assaults of foes ? We have to-day over 
 thirty thousand of the most important and best paid 
 of&ces fairly out of politics and under the civil ser- 
 vice law.^ The system is so firmly established that 
 
 * Since this article was written President Harrison has ex- 
 tended the law to some seven hundred places in the Indian 
 service, where the change was sorely needed, and also to some 
 hundred and twenty places in the service of the Fish Com- 
 mission. During the same period, also, Secretary Tracy has 
 put all the mechanics and laborers in the Navy Yards, some 
 six thousand five hundred men, under a purely civil service 
 system, based on that adopted in Boston for the city laborers. 
 Patronage has thus been entirely eliminated from the Navy 
 Yards, where for years it has been productive of the greatest 
 abuses. This is the greatest advance and extension of the 
 reform made since the passage of the law. The system is 
 rigidly competitive, and all that the most ardent civil service 
 reformer could desire. Unfortunately it rests only on a 
 department order, and an unfriendly Secretary could revoke 
 or evade it. The order should without delay be put into the 
 form of law, but although bills for that purpose have been 
 introduced, no action has thus far been taken. This change 
 in the employment of labor at the yards now has the support 
 of the labor organizations as fairer and better for the work- 
 ingmen than the old system, while the letter carriers are 
 petitioning for the extension of the civil service law to all 
 free delivery offices. These two facts show conclusively that 
 
136 PATRONAGE IN OFFICES 
 
 I believe its repeal is no longer among the possibil- 
 ities, and the great body of the American people 
 are coming to understand and value it. In the re- 
 cent debate in the House the attempt to cut off the 
 appropriations not only failed, but increased appro- 
 priations were carried, which was the greatest vic- 
 tory for the reform that could have been won, and 
 the highest assurance of the permanency of the sys- 
 tem that could have been obtained. Public opinion, 
 too, has progressed enormously, as is shown by the 
 fact that even the worst opponents eagerly assert 
 that they believe in real reform, but object only to 
 this particular kind. All this represents a great 
 advance, and is a much greater achievement than 
 most people realize. 
 
 What remains to be done ? In the first place, it 
 is necessary to demonstrate to the people the prac- 
 ticability and the fairness of the reform methods, 
 for therein rest its maintenance and extension. In 
 the second place, every effort should be made from 
 year to year to obtain appropriations sufficient to 
 enable the commission to carry on their work suc- 
 cessfully. In the third place, we must seek the 
 extension of the system by executive act, which can 
 reach almost every branch that it is desirable to 
 bring within the law, and strive also by some prac- 
 tical scheme to take the fourth-class postmasters out 
 of politics. It is utterly impossible to apply to 
 fourth-class postmasters, even if it were desirable, 
 
 people generally are more than ready to sustain civil service 
 reform as soon as they understand its practical working, and 
 that opposition to it comes largely from an interested class. 
 
PATRONAGE IN OFFICES 137 
 
 the system of competitive examinations ; but it is 
 quite possible to take them out of politics, and 
 to that end every effort now should be directed, 
 for with the removal of the fifty-seven thousand^ 
 fourth-class post-offices from politics the old system 
 of patronage will be practically at an end. Lastly, 
 and by way of general suggestion to those most 
 ardent in the cause, in judging public men in this 
 matter the same standards should be applied to all, 
 and patronage offices should not be confused with 
 those of the classified service. Do not make haste 
 to criticise, in the hope of partisan gain, the man- 
 ner in which patronage is distributed, but make 
 every effort to destroy patronage by law ; for by 
 law alone can the evil and degrading system of 
 political patronage in the distribution of public 
 offices be rooted out and an American system of 
 fair play and business-like methods put in its place. 
 
 ^ There are now over sixty thousand fourth - class post- 
 masters. 
 
THE DISTRIBUTION OF ABILITY IN 
 THE UNITED STATES.^ 
 
 Some time ago there appeared in "The Nine- 
 teenth Century" an article entitled "The Distri- 
 bution of Ability in England." The writer had 
 taken a dictionary of contemporary biography and 
 had classified all the Englishmen therein mentioned 
 according to the occupation in which they had at- 
 tained distinction, and then by the counties in 
 which they were born. In this way he was able 
 to show in what proportion the counties of Eng- 
 land had produced men of distinction and in what 
 department these men had gained eminence- This 
 article suggested to me the idea of writing one of 
 a similar character showing the distribution of 
 ability in the United States by States, and also by 
 race-extraction, which I felt sure would have an 
 even greater interest than the classification made 
 by the English writer, because it was possible here 
 to cover the entire history of a rapidly growing 
 country, and because American States are neces- 
 sarily far more distinct and important social and 
 political divisions than counties could possibly 
 be. I therefore took Appleton's "Encyclopaedia of 
 American Biography," in six volumes, one of the 
 largest and most recent works upon the subject, 
 
 1 Reprinted from The Century, for September, 1891. 
 
ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 139 
 
 and classified the persons mentioned therein who 
 were citizens of the United States according to 
 occupation, birthplace, and race-extraction. 
 
 I began this work, which proved much larger 
 and more laborious than I anticipated, with a feel- 
 ing of curiosity. But when I had obtained my 
 results I found that they went much farther than 
 the satisfaction of a merely curious inquiry. I am 
 satisfied, and I think any one who will examine 
 dispassionately the tables which follow will be 
 equally satisfied, that the results obtained have a 
 great deal of historical value. The number of 
 names classifijd and tabulated reaches 14,243, not 
 including the immigrant table, and a number so 
 large includes virtually all the men and women 
 who by their ability have raised themselves even 
 slightly above the general level. The method of 
 classification which I have adopted shows what 
 communities have produced the men who have gov- 
 erned the country and fought its battles, who have 
 educated it and influenced its thought, who have 
 produced its literature, art, and science, and who 
 have made the inventions which in some instances 
 have affected the history of the United States and 
 of mankind. 
 
 The classification according to birthplace is as 
 absolutely accurate as is possible in tallying such a 
 large number of names. There are a few instances 
 in which the birthplace was unknown, and these 
 have of necessity been omitted. There are many 
 cases in which the birthplace may be said to have 
 been accidental, and where the person in question 
 
140 ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 had no real connection either by parentage, ances- 
 try, or subsequent career with the State in which he 
 was born. I found it impossible to fix any rule in 
 regard to these cases if I once departed from the 
 actual place of birth as a test. I determined, there- 
 fore, to exercise no discretion in the matter, but to 
 credit to each State every one who was born within 
 its borders, no matter whether their parentage and 
 subsequent career connected them with that State 
 or not, and as I am satisfied that these cases in a 
 large degree balance each other I do not think 
 the accuracy of the general result is affected. 
 To this general rule I have made but a single 
 exception. Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, 
 but it would have been such a manifest absurdity 
 to credit him to Massachusetts that I have given 
 him to Maryland, to which State he of course 
 really belonged. 
 
 While it was possible to be absolutely accurate 
 in regard to the place of birth, and practically so 
 in regard to the occupation or profession, it was 
 not possible to be more than approximately correct 
 on the question of race-extraction. In the first 
 place it was necessary to make the race classifica^ 
 tion according to the paternal line alone, which is 
 of course partial and, if the French saying that 
 " les races se feminisent " be true, is also a mis- 
 leading arrangement. At the same time, as will 
 be readily seen, it is the only method possible, and 
 moreover the errors arising in this way in large 
 measure balance one another. Taking, therefore, 
 the paternal line as the one to fix race origin, it is 
 
ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 141 
 
 less difficult thau might be supposed to determine 
 what the race origin is. In a large number of 
 cases, especially where the extraction is not Eng- 
 lish, the race stock is given in the dictionary. In 
 a still larger number of instances the name and 
 the place of birth furnish unmistakable evidence as 
 to race. That error should be avoided in this class- 
 ification is not to be expected, but I am perfectly 
 satisfied that the race distribution is in the main 
 correct. Such errors as exist tend, I think, here 
 as elsewhere in these statistics to balance one an- 
 other, and the net result is, I believe, so substan- 
 tially accurate as to have very real value, and to 
 throw a great deal of light on what we owe in the 
 way of ability to each of the various races which 
 settled the United States. 
 
 The classification which I have described thus 
 far shows only the quantity, and has no bearing 
 upon the quality of ability. The arrangement of 
 the dictionary, however, furnished me with methods 
 of approximately estimating and distributing abil- 
 ity by quality as well as quantity. A small por- 
 trait inserted in the text is given of each person 
 who attained in the opinion of the editors more 
 than ordinary distinction, and my examination sat- 
 isfies me that these portraits have been in the 
 main so judiciously allotted as to enable us to use 
 them as a test of quality and as constituting a 
 class. To the persons having a small portrait I 
 have given a single star, and in the following 
 tables there will be found a classification of these 
 names under that head. A further but much less 
 
142 ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 valuable classification of the same sort I have 
 given of those to whom were awarded full-page 
 steel engravings. This, I say, is less valuable 
 from the fact that these large portraits do not ap- 
 pear to have been distributed simply on the ground 
 of ability and eminence. For example, an arrange- 
 ment which gives a place to William Gilmore 
 Simms and shuts out Hawthorne, Poe, and Lowell 
 in the field of literature is manifestly of little 
 weight. In the same way a classification which of 
 necessity includes Tyler, Pierce, and Fillmore, and 
 which omits Jay, Taney, and Chase because they 
 did not happen to be Presidents, is quite mislead- 
 ing as an index of the quality of ability repre- 
 sented. At the same time there is something to 
 be learned from the distribution of these large 
 portraits, especially as their race classification is 
 perfectly accurate, and I have therefore given the 
 persons who have them a double star, and have 
 made a table in which they are classified by State 
 and race. 
 
 I have also classified by race and occupation all 
 persons of foreign birth who have gained distinc- 
 tion in this country. I have treated as immigrants 
 all persons who came to the United States after 
 the adoption of the Constitution. It was necessary 
 to draw the line dividing the immigrant from the 
 original settler at some definite point, and for this 
 purpose I took 1789 as the most convenient date. 
 This table, to which I have appended one covering 
 all negroes mentioned in the dictionary is, of course, 
 accurate as to race and birthplace, and will, I think, 
 
ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 143 
 
 be found to have an especial value as showing the 
 countries to which we are indebted for ability 
 among our immigrants, and also in what directions 
 that ability has been displayed. 
 
 The total number of names classified, apart from 
 the table last described, is, as I have said, 14,243, 
 and these are divided among the States as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 TABLE A. 
 
 TOTALS BY STATES. 
 
 Massachusetts 2,686 
 
 New York 2,605 
 
 Pennsylvania ...... 1,827 
 
 Connecticut ...... 1,196 
 
 Virginia ....... 1,038 
 
 Maryland 512 
 
 New Hampshire ...... 510 
 
 New Jersey 474 
 
 Maine 414 
 
 South Carolina 398 
 
 Ohio 364 
 
 Vermont ....... 359 
 
 Kentucky 320 
 
 North Carolina 300 
 
 Rhode Island 291 
 
 Georgia 202 
 
 Tennessee 136 
 
 Delaware ....... 115 
 
 Indiana ........ 113 
 
 District of Columbia ..... 75 
 
 Louisiana ....... 68 
 
 Illinois ....... 69 
 
 Michigan 44 
 
 Amount carried forward . . . 14,106 
 
144 ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 Amount brought forward 
 Missouri . 
 Alabama 
 Mississippi 
 Florida 
 "Wisconsin 
 California . 
 Iowa 
 Arkansas 
 Texas 
 
 14,106 
 
 39 
 
 . 34 
 
 26 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 14,243 
 
 TOTALS BY GROUPS.' 
 
 New England States 6,456 
 
 Massachusetts 2,686 
 
 Connecticut ...... 1,196 
 
 New Hampshire 610 
 
 Maine 414 
 
 Vermont 359 
 
 Rhode Island 291 
 
 5,456 
 
 Middle States 6,021 
 
 New York 2,605 
 
 Pennsylvania ...... 1,827 
 
 New Jersey 474 
 
 Delaware ....... 115 
 
 5,021 
 
 ' I have here, and throughout this article, included in the 
 Middle States New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and 
 Delaware, giving Maryland to the Southern group, to which 
 it properly belongs by settlement, history, popiilatiou, and, 
 in the main, occupations. For the same reason I have given 
 Kentucky to the Southern, and Missouri to the Western 
 group. 
 
ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 145 
 
 Southern States 3,125 
 
 "Virginia 1,038 
 
 Maryland 612 
 
 J South Carolina 398 
 
 Kentucky 320 
 
 North Carolina 300 
 
 Georgia 202 
 
 Tennessee 136 
 
 District of Columbia 75 
 
 Louisiana 68 
 
 Alabama 34 
 
 Mississippi ...... 26 
 
 Florida 12 
 
 Arkansas 3 
 
 Texas 1 
 
 3,125 
 
 Western States 641 
 
 Ohio 364 
 
 Indiana 113 
 
 Illinois ....... 59 
 
 Michigan 44 
 
 Missouri 39 
 
 Wisconsin . 12 
 
 California 5 
 
 Iowa ........ 5 
 
 641 
 
 The foregoing table needs no comment, but the 
 next, which distributes the totals according to race, 
 requires, perhaps, a few words of explanation. The 
 term Scotch- Irish is well understood in this country, 
 and I have therefore used it, but it is so far from 
 accurate as an ethnic description that it is almost 
 a misnomer. The English phrase of " Ulstermen" 
 is unfortunately no better. The people called 
 
146 ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 Scotch-Irish in the United States are descendants of 
 the Scotch and English who settled in the North of 
 Ireland, and who made themselves famous by their 
 defense of Londonderry. In some instances there 
 was an infusion of Irish blood, but for the most 
 part these people were of pure Scotch (both low- 
 land and highland) and English stock, and were 
 ardent Protestants. Their heaviest emigration to 
 America began about 1729 and continued with 
 fluctuating numbers until 1774. They have played 
 a great part in the United States, as will be seen 
 by the detailed tables presently to be given. 
 
 The Huguenots cover of course the Protestant 
 French who came here during the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries, either direct from France, or 
 by way of England and Holland, where they had 
 first taken refuge. They are quite distinct from 
 those classified simply as French, who are descended 
 as a rule from the original settlers of Louisiana, 
 Missouri, and Illinois, from soldiers who came with 
 Rochambeau, or from refugees who fled here from 
 San Domingo in 1792. 
 
 The Welsh enumeration is undoubtedly imper- 
 fect. I have included all described as of Welsh 
 origin, and all others where the Welsh extraction 
 was obvious, but there are certainly many Welsh- 
 men whom it was impossible to distinguish either 
 by name, or place of birth, and who are therefore 
 counted among the English. 
 
 The persons of pure Irish extraction may seem 
 surprisingly few, but as there was virtually no Irish 
 immigration during the colonial period, and indeed 
 
ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 147 
 
 none of consequence until the present century was 
 well advanced, no other result could have been 
 looked for. 
 
 .^ All the other race divisions are, I feel satisfied, 
 substantially accurate, except, perhaps, for a slight 
 margin of error in each case in favor of the Eng- 
 lish. It is possible that the Scotch-Irisli have bene- 
 fited at the expense of the Scotch pure and simple, 
 owing to identity of name, but the two classes in- 
 clude virtually all persons of Scotch descent given 
 in the dictionary. The division of the total number 
 by race is as follows : 
 
 TABLE B. 
 
 TOTALS BY RACE. 
 
 English 10,376 
 
 Scotch-Irish 1,439 
 
 German 659 
 
 Huguenot 689 
 
 Scotch 436 
 
 Dutch 336 
 
 Welsh 159 
 
 Irish 109 
 
 French 85 
 
 Scandinavian 31 
 
 Spanish 7 
 
 Italian 7 
 
 Swiss 5 
 
 Greek 3 
 
 Russian ....... 1 
 
 Polish 1 
 
 14,243 
 
148 ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 The next two tables, C and D, give the state and 
 race divisions, with the distribution in each case ac- 
 cording to professions or occupations, showing in 
 what directions the ability of the States and races 
 has been manifested. A few words only are needed 
 to explain the classification. " Statesmen" include 
 not only persons who have held public office, but 
 all who as reformers, agitators, or in any other capa- 
 city have distinguished themselves in public affairs. 
 "Clergy" covers not only ordained ministers and 
 missionaries, but all who have been conspicuous in 
 any religious movements, and many of those in- 
 cluded under this head, it may be added, have at- 
 tained distinction in other fields, chiefly as writers. 
 " Literature " covers all who have distinguished 
 themselves as writers, and includes journalists. 
 " Musicians " includes singers, players, and com- 
 posers. All the other titles are, I think, self-ex- 
 planatory. 
 
ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 149 
 
 
 
 coenni»-o>Qou^tSt«t«to£cn«s~'A89cocS3o^S^Sc^>^ 
 
 StJSggSgSfefeSS^Bsiil 
 
 Clergy. 
 
 I )->tOCn4k><kUO0W 
 
 :sl&£^u 
 
 Lawyers. 
 
 I Ml OitSJ (MiaVt-A^it-CO~At9'X>\ 
 
 S«oajcs>^«oom^S90^ 
 
 Physicians. 
 
 "-'<nt«cDOi»isn'< 
 
 »Stiscio-iwxHoeo 
 
 jOMbocota I H-ooi ^i^o-^osocno: 
 
 MMMCooonUAoacocnoaK 
 
 -(oooSSiooeSStooOT 
 
 _ib->39i-'CnfOCi30DtoooeDeni-<0)Ooto-^3o2oloMaots 
 
 !ati«;ffe»5fflS?Ea 
 
 Navy. 
 
 -'i-'to I fcoco^i«p-'CT)4'*.i-'ooo)4».tD.»-r; OtticSa 
 
 ooo I ucncoM4^Qccc>^C'Ct j^p-i- 
 
 Philanthropy. 
 
 !0Ol I I h-itO I OOCOMU 
 
 ■SMCnCoCnScn — I- 
 
 Pioneers and 
 Explorers. 
 
 -"M"--^! Oi!ai-iMMXl«033 
 
 ->C«&3:otCCn I 4'«OUQni»-' 
 
 t!acn£tj 
 
 Engineers. 
 
 I I u I M-4Cn03 
 
 I CO ta >-• i& ba M I I OooocnS 
 
 I I I r I "--to I (-I I ^h-3K 
 
 
150 ABILITY IN THE UNITED 
 
 
 n^t-fc-usWi-Hi 
 
 STATES 
 
 -■ I S8 
 
 UiTOCOW^ I I I CO I •-" 
 
 •BQBptBnH gNXi-*-* 
 
 -B53311H3JV K^ 
 
 ■siaauiSua Si^S*^"' 
 
 CU3-4<kOe0fl4O1 I I C4 
 
 
 ■iCdOllUUBIT^J ^' 
 
 -.•<fQCC(Db-.i-l^eQi- 
 
 •jCabjj 
 
 ■BJojuDnpa SpSSSS"' 
 
 ■saasiog 3;c: 
 
 Mh~oit~cococi: 
 
 15 — ■ C -f OC !C M l-eQ« r- 
 
 •3JnaBJ31l1 ge; 
 
 •BUBWIfljfqd ^S^TOK 
 
 gjg — i5-f;;ect*N«ceo 1 I i-h 
 
 •BlSiilL.B'J SS!§I5!??SS'* 
 
 '^3^313 §s|S^i-- 
 
 SOT If CI? b- US ift ■ 
 
 oOTf I I CO I 
 
 
 
ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 151 
 
 TABLE E. 
 
 SINGLE STABS — BY STATES. 
 
 New York 245 
 
 Massachusetts 213 
 
 Pennsylvania .... ... 113 
 
 Connecticut ....... 112 
 
 Virginia 94 
 
 New Jersey . 66 
 
 Maryland 50 
 
 New Hampshire 35 
 
 Maine 34 
 
 South Carolina 34 
 
 Ohio 32 
 
 Kentucky 29 
 
 Georgia ........ 25 
 
 Vermont 24 
 
 North Carolina 20 
 
 Rhode Island 20 
 
 Delaware 15 
 
 Tennessee 11 
 
 District of Columbia 9 
 
 Illinois 6 
 
 Indiana 6 
 
 Louisiana • 6 
 
 Michigan 6 
 
 Missouri 
 
 Florida 
 
 California 
 
 Alabama 
 
 Wisconsin 
 
 Total 1,200 
 
152 ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 BY GROUPS. 
 
 Massachnsetts 213 
 
 Maine 34 
 
 New Hampshire 35 
 
 Vermont 24 
 
 Rhode Island 20 
 
 Connecticut 112 
 
 Six New England States 438 
 
 New York 245 
 
 New Jersey . 56 
 
 Pennsylvania . . . . . . .113 
 
 Delaware 15 
 
 Four Middle States 429 
 
 Maryland SO 
 
 Virginia 94 
 
 South Carolina 34 
 
 Kentucky 29 
 
 Georgia 25 
 
 North Carolina 20 
 
 Tennessee ....... 11 
 
 District of Columbia 9 
 
 Louisiana ....... 6 
 
 Florida 1 
 
 Alabama 1 
 
 Ten Southern States and District of Colnmbia . 280 
 
 Ohio 32 
 
 Illinois 6 
 
 Indiana ....... 6 
 
 Michigan 6 
 
 Missouri ....... 1 
 
 California 1 
 
 Wisconsin ....... 1 
 
 Seven Western States 53 
 
ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 153 
 TABLE F. 
 
 SINGLE STARS BY RACES. 
 
 English 856 
 
 Scotch-Irish 129 
 
 Hugiienot 57 
 
 Scotch 45 
 
 Dutch 39 
 
 German 37 
 
 Welsh 15 
 
 Irish 13 
 
 French 6 
 
 Scandinavian ...... 1 
 
 Spanish 1 
 
 Swiss 1 
 
 Total 1,200 
 
 TABLE G. 
 
 DOUBLE STARS — BY STATES. 
 
 Virginia 12 
 
 Massachusetts 11 
 
 New York ..... . . 7 
 
 Pennsylvania ...... 5 
 
 Ohio 5 
 
 New Hampshire 4 
 
 North Carolina 4 
 
 South Carolina 2 
 
 Connecticut 2 
 
 Vermont ....... 1 
 
 New Jersey 1 
 
 Maine 1 
 
 Rhode Island 1 
 
 Tennessee 1 
 
 Kentucky ... ... 1 
 
 Total 58 
 
154 ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 BY GROUPS. 
 
 New England 20 
 
 Middle States 13 
 
 Southern States . . . . . .18 
 
 Western States 7 
 
 Total 68 
 
 BY PROFESSION AND RACE EXTRACTION. 
 
 Virginia Welsh 1 Statesman, 1 Soldier, 
 
 English 6 Statesmen, 2 Soldiers, 
 
 1 Lawyer, 
 Scotch 1 Soldier 12 
 
 Mass English 5 Statesmen, 4 Writers, 
 
 1 Inventor, 1 Philanthropist 11 
 
 New York. . .English 2 Statesmen, 1 Writer, 
 
 Dutch 1 Statesman, 
 
 Scotch 1 Statesman, 1 Writer, 
 
 Irish 1 Soldier 7 
 
 Penn English 1 Soldier, 1 Naval Officer, 
 
 Sc. Irish 1 Inventor, 1 Statesman, 
 
 Scotch 1 Soldier 5 
 
 Ohio English 3 Statesmen, 2 Soldiers . . 5 
 
 N. H English 3 Statesmen, 
 
 Sc. Irish 1 Statesman 4 
 
 N. C English 1 Statesman, 
 
 Sc. Irish 3 Statesmen 4 
 
 S. C English 1 Writer, 
 
 Sc. Irish 1 Statesman 2 
 
 Amount carried forward 50 
 
ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 155 
 
 Amonnt brought forward 
 
 Conn English 1 Lawyer, 1 Writer 
 
 Vermont So. Irish 1 Statesman 
 
 K. J. English 1 Statesman 
 
 Maine English 1 Writer . . . 
 
 R. I English 1 Soldier . . 
 
 Tenn Spanish 1 Naval Officer 
 
 Kentucky. . . .English 1 Statesman 
 
 50 
 2 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 
 Total 
 
 58 
 
 TOTALS BY RACE EXTRACTION. 
 
 English 41 
 
 Scotch-Irish ....... 8 
 
 Scotch 4 
 
 Welsh 2 
 
 Dutch 1 
 
 Spanish 1 
 
 Irish 1 
 
156 ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 ■880133^ |^i-I^C0,r-^i-liO| I 
 
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 *e89itSnt}Joj 
 
 'qsiireds 
 
 •DBissn'a 
 
 •3l88jr) 
 
 •snBTX^fJI 
 
 '8acu«jjiin£[ 
 
 l;^ 
 
 ■B9I0J 
 
 12 
 
 •qo^na 
 
 1-H I CNW 
 
 •SBIMg 
 
 -emiBxds 
 
 I CTJ 
 
 IS 
 
 •qsi'M 
 
 - IS 
 
 o'eu.caipa'Bog 
 
 I \'ii 
 
 •esouiAOjj 
 
 C0OCC"Tl1(NOC0'^-*C0'^ 
 
 i-( I i-l<M O 
 
 (Mt-COtNCOOCO-^l 
 
 ■qsuj-qo^ODg 
 
 J l-N 1— I I 
 
 
 ■H i-l I 00 
 
 •qo^oog 
 
 t-^COQOOTjiOiO(M iCOtHt-I it-TH ti-l 
 Ot r-t CO r-i 1-1 ^-^ ' T~t ' ' 
 
 •qSLii 
 
 'acuij9f) 
 
 •qBijaaa 
 
 00 1:- ^ J^- »Ci -^ CO CN (M Sq ^ 05 Cq CO (M J:- 05 CD lO 
 O r-( CO Tp (M T-( tH t-( lO "* 
 
 
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 2 3 § 
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 f»>.S 
 
 •a-i 
 
 H-5 
 
 a<i 
 
ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 157 
 
 French 
 
 TABLE I. 
 
 IMMIGRANTS — SINGLE STARS. 
 
 . . Clergy . 
 
 Irish 
 
 German . 
 
 English 
 
 Scotch 
 
 Actor 
 Statesman 
 
 Clergy 
 
 Literature 
 
 Business 
 
 Lawyer . 
 
 Soldier 
 
 Navy 
 
 Clergy 
 
 Science 
 
 Literature , 
 
 Lawyer 
 
 Statesman 
 
 Artist . 
 
 Engineer 
 
 Musicians 
 
 Soldiers 
 
 Clergy . 
 Actors 
 Literature 
 Soldiers 
 Artist . 
 Musician . 
 Philanthropist 
 Business 
 Lawyer . 
 
 Literature 
 Business 
 Educator 
 Clergy . 
 Science 
 
 . 2 
 
 1 
 
 . 1 
 
 — 4 
 6 
 
 . 1 
 
 1 
 . 1 
 
 1 
 . 1 
 
 — 11 
 2 
 
 , 1 
 
 1 
 . 1 
 
 1 
 , 1 
 
 1 
 . 2 
 
 4 
 
 — 14 
 . 3 
 
 3 
 . 2 
 
 2 
 , 1 
 
 1 
 . 1 
 
 1 
 , 1 
 
 — 15 
 2 
 
 . 2 
 
 1 
 . 1 
 
 1 
 
 — 7 
 
158 ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 Swiss Science . . ■ • -4 
 
 Clergy .... 2 
 
 Scotch-Irish . . . Literature . . . 2 
 Clergy .... 1 
 Business .... 1 
 Actor .... 1 
 Soldier . . . . .1 
 Artist .... 1 
 Navy 1 
 
 — 8 
 W. I. and Prov. . . Clergy 1 
 
 Science .... 1 
 Engineer .... 1 
 
 — 3 
 Scandinavian . . . Engineer .... 1 
 
 Belgian Clergy .... 1 
 
 Poles Soldier 1 
 
 Total —71 
 
 It is not my intention to analyze the foregoing 
 tables in detail. Indeed, it is not necessary to do 
 so even if space permitted, for the figures tell their 
 own story plainly enough. There are, however, a 
 few general results to which it may be well to call 
 attention. I wiU take the last table, that relating 
 to immigrants, first. "It wUl be noted that the Irish, 
 who in the general tables contribute a very small 
 number of names, stand third in this table of im- 
 migrants, showing in this way that their small num- 
 bers in the first table were owing to the fact that 
 they did not come here in the colonial times, and not 
 to any race deficiency. It will be observed, too, in 
 the immigration table that the Irish have contrib- 
 uted more largely to the soldiers than any others, the 
 Germans and Scotch-Irish coming next, and the 
 
ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 159 
 
 EngKsh and Scotch being remarkably small in this 
 field. It is also very interesting to note in this con- 
 nection, especially with regard to some statements 
 that used to be made about the persons of foreign 
 birth in the armies of the United States, that of the 
 men who gained distinction as soldiers, in fighting 
 the battles of the country, 1,892 were native-born, 
 and only 80 were immigrants ; while in the navy 
 the disproportion was quite as glaring, 482 being 
 native-born, and only 14 being contributed by im- 
 migrants. The largest total amount of ability in 
 the immigration table is shown by the English, and 
 if we add to them the Irish, Scotch, Scotch-Irish, 
 and Welsh, as well as those from the British prov- 
 inces, we find that the immigp-ation from Great 
 Britain has contributed three-fourths of the ability 
 furnished from outside sources. Germany comes 
 next to England in the total amount of immigrants 
 who have attained distinction, but the largest num- 
 ber in proportion to its immigration is undoubtedly 
 given by France, which furnishes 63 names to the 
 table. Immigration has contributed most largely 
 to the clergy, to literature, and to art, the propor- 
 tion in the latter case being astonishingly high, 112 
 immigrants to 147 native-born. On the other hand 
 the immigrants have contributed as little to the 
 statesmanship of the country as they have done to 
 its army and navy. 
 
 By the table showing the distribution according 
 to States (Table C) it will be seen, as might be 
 expected, that the oldest communities with the 
 largest white population have been most prolific in 
 
160 ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 ability of all kinds. At the same time, this rule is 
 by no means absolute in its application. In Vir- 
 ginia, Massachusetts, and Connecticut the percent- 
 age of ability in proportion to the total white popu- 
 lation is higher than in the two other leading States, 
 New York and Pennsylvania. In proportion to its 
 population, Connecticut leads every other State in 
 the total amount of ability. In the matter of groups, 
 not only the absolute amouut of ability but the 
 percentage in proportion to population is higher 
 in the New England and Middle States than in 
 those of the South and West outside Maryland and 
 Virginia. 
 
 Even more interesting than the percentages 
 shown by the totals is the distribution by occupa- 
 tion. There are eighteen departments enumerated 
 in which distinction has been achieved. New York 
 leads in eight : soldiers, lawyers, artists, navy, busi- 
 ness, engineers, architects, and actors. Massachu- 
 setts leads in eight also : clergy, physicians, litera- 
 ture, science, educators, philanthropy, inventors, 
 and musicians ; while Virginia leads in the remain- 
 ing two : statesmen and pioneers. 
 
 This table also shows that the production of abil- 
 ity has been remarkably concentrated, and has 
 been confined, on the whole, to comparatively few 
 States. A few comparisons will prove this. Two 
 States, Massachusetts and New York, have fur- 
 nished more than a third of the ability of the 
 entire country. Three, Massachusetts, New York, 
 and Pennsylvania, have supplied almost exactly one- 
 half, and five, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsyl- 
 
ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 161 
 
 vania, Connecticut, and Virginia, have produced 
 two thirds of the total amount. In the arrangement 
 by groups, we find that the New England group 
 and that formed of the four Middle States must 
 each be credited with more than a third of aU the 
 ability produced. The six New England and the 
 four Middle States furnish together almost exactly 
 three quarters of the ability of the country. If Vir- 
 ginia be omitted, it also appears that Massachusetts 
 alone has furnished a little more and New York 
 alone a trifle less ability than all the Southern and 
 Western States together, — that is, than twenty 
 States and the District of Columbia. In the 
 Western States the wide difference which exists is 
 owing, of course, in large measure to their very re- 
 cent settlement, for which proper allowance must 
 be made in drawing any deductions from the figures 
 given in the tables. 
 
 Among the new States settled and admitted to 
 the Union since the adoption of the Constitution, 
 some interesting results may also be obtained. I 
 do not include Maine in this division, because 
 Maine, although a new State, is one of the oldest 
 settlements. Excluding Maine, then, we find that 
 Ohio has a long lead over all the other new States, 
 including Kentucky, which was settled about the 
 same time, and Louisiana, which was settled many 
 years before. This striking fact in regard to Ohio 
 can be due only to the character of the original 
 settlement. 
 
 If we turn now from the distribution by totals 
 and examine that by professions we find that while 
 
162 ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 the Southern and Southwestern States, including 
 Virginia and Maryland, are comparatively strong 
 in statesmen, soldiers, and pioneers, and in a less 
 degree in lawyers, they are weak in all other 
 classes. The ability of the South, less in amount 
 than that of the New England and Middle States, 
 was confined to three or four departments. In 
 other words, there was in the South but little vari- 
 ety of intellectual activity. In the Middle States 
 and New England ability sought every channel for 
 expression, and was displayed in various ways. All 
 the States, in not very widely varying proportions, 
 produced statesmen, soldiers, lawyers, pioneers, and 
 clergymen, and the seaboard States naval officers. 
 But almost all the literature, art, science, business, 
 philanthropy, and music ; almost aU the physi- 
 cians, educators, inventors, engineers, architects, 
 and actors were produced by the Middle and New 
 England States. This is a most significant fact. 
 It shows a wide difference between the two civili- 
 zations, that of the New England and Middle 
 States on the one side and that of the Southern 
 States on the other ; for the surest tests of civiliza- 
 tion- in any community are the amount of ability 
 produced and the variety of directions in which that 
 ability has been displayed. The thirteen original 
 States were with one or two exceptions settled, and 
 they were all controlled, by men of the same race- 
 stocks and of like traditions. The cause of the 
 wide difference in amount and variety of ability 
 shown by these tables is a fresh proof, if proof were 
 needed, of the pernicious results of slavery upon even 
 
ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 163 
 
 the finest races. There never was a more complete 
 or a worse delusion than the one once so sedu- 
 lously cultivated, that in this age of the world aris- 
 tocracy in the best and truest sense and a high 
 civilization could be compatible with slavery. No 
 finer people ever existed than those who settled and 
 built up our Southern States, but when slavery be- 
 came, in the course of the world's progress, and in 
 a free country, nothing less than a hideous anomaly, 
 it warped the community in which it flourished, lim- 
 ited the range of intellectual activity, dwarfed abil- 
 ity, and retarded terribly the advance of civiliza- 
 tion. It is wonderful that the people who labored 
 beneath the burden of a slave system achieved as 
 much as they did, and the mass of ability which 
 they produced under such adverse conditions is a 
 striking proof of the strength of the race. The 
 effects of slavery are painfully apparent in these 
 tables, and only time will enable the people who 
 suffered by the evil system to recover from them. 
 
 If we narrow the examination of the tables to 
 special professions we can get in that direction, also, 
 many interesting results. It is possible to point 
 out only a few of them here. In literature Massa- 
 chusetts has a long lead over any other State, and 
 together with New York and Pennsylvania has fur- 
 nished more than half of all the writers produced 
 in the United States. New York, as might be ex- 
 pected from her large population, is ahead in sol- 
 diers and, what was less to be anticipated, in naval 
 officers also. Of the total of 1,892 soldiers New 
 York, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Pennsylvania 
 
164 ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 furnished the country with 1,047. Ohio, however, 
 in proportion to the total amount of ability, shows 
 among the larger States one of the highest percent- 
 ages in soldiers, and is far ahead of all those near- 
 est it in total numbers. Virginia leads slightly 
 in statesmen, and with Massachusetts, New York, 
 Pennsylvania, and Connecticut supplies more than 
 half of all produced. New York is far ahead in art, 
 which has come almost wholly from that State and 
 from New England and Pennsylvania. Massachu- 
 setts has a similar lead in music, of which New 
 England rather unexpectedly furnishes nearly two 
 thirds. Invention has come chiefly from Massa- 
 chusetts, New York, and Connecticut, and educa- 
 tors are most numerous in the same group. New 
 York leads in business, Massachusetts in philan- 
 thropy, while Virginia is ahead in pioneers and ex- 
 plorers, with Massachusetts a close second. 
 
 If we turn now from the table of States to that 
 of races we find that in statesmen and soldiers the 
 Scotch - Irish, Scotch, Huguenots, and Dutch all 
 have a slightly higher percentage in proportion to 
 their totals than the English, while in other direc- 
 tions these four race divisions fall behind the lead- 
 ing race. Other percentages of this kind can read- 
 ily be made from the tables, but the most interesting 
 question in this direction arises in regard to the 
 proportion of ability to the total numbers of each 
 race. Unluckily, only a rough estimate can be 
 made, for there is absolutely no means of knowing 
 exactly tlie total amount of immigration in any 
 case. I believe that in proportion to their num- 
 
ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 165 
 
 bers the Huguenots have produced more and the 
 Germans fewer men of ability than any other races 
 in the United States, I think there can be no 
 doubt as to the Germans, for their immigration was 
 larger than any other in the colonial period except 
 that of the English and possibly of the Scotch-Irish. 
 Their comparatively small numbers in total amounts 
 are emphasized by their further decline in the table 
 of single stars. The explanation is, I think, obvi- 
 ous. The Germans settled chiefly in two or three 
 States, and by retaining their language for at least 
 a century kept themselves more or less separated 
 from the rest of the community. In other words, 
 they did not quickly become Americans. The re- 
 sult was less ability produced and less influence 
 exerted upon the country in proportion to their 
 numbers and natural ability than that of a much 
 less numerous stock like the Huguenots who at 
 once merged themselves in the body of the people 
 and became thoroughgoing Americans. Indeed, if 
 we add the French and the French Huguenots 
 together, we find that the people of French blood 
 exceed absolutely, in the ability produced, all the 
 other races represented except the English and 
 Scotch-Irish, and show a percentage in proportion 
 to their total original immigration much higher 
 than that of any other race. The Dutch suffered 
 slightly, I have no doubt, in the same way and 
 from the same causes as the Germans, while the 
 other immigrants, from Scotland, Ireland, and 
 Wales, did not suffer at aU and had no barriers 
 of language to overcome. 
 
166 ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 The race table, speaking absolutely and not rela- 
 tively, shows the enormous predominance of the 
 English in the upbuilding of the United States, 
 and if we add to the English the people who 
 came from other parts of Great Britain and from 
 Ireland that predominance becomes overwhelming. 
 The same table shows also what I think is the most 
 important result of the whole inquiry, that the peo- 
 ple who have succeeded in the United States and 
 have produced the ability of the country are those 
 who became most quickly and most thoroughly 
 Americans. This is a moral of wide application, 
 and carries a lesson which should never be forgot- 
 ten, and which, whenever we meet it, should be laid 
 to heart. 
 
 Note. — This article on the Distribution of 
 Ability has been far more widely noticed and 
 quoted than I had anticipated. It has even at- 
 tained to the honor of a Japanese translation. 
 It has also excited abundant criticism, and given 
 apparently, in some quarters, much offense. This 
 was not wholly unexpected, for only one race and 
 one State could be first, and there is no pride more 
 sensitive than that of race and locality. I am sorry 
 that I could not arrange the figures to suit every- 
 body's sensibilities, but, unfortunately, it was im- 
 possible. I did not create the figures. I merely 
 collected and tabulated them. If, as some of my 
 critics seem to suppose, I had arranged the figures 
 to suit myself, I should not have made Connecticut, 
 among the States, and the French - Huguenots, 
 
ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 167 
 
 among the races, show the highest percentage of 
 ability. I had no idea what the results would be 
 when I began, and the statistics are as honest and 
 accurate as they could be made. The chief objec- 
 tion of the critics whose spirit is moved by local 
 pride is that Appleton's " Encyclopaedia of Biogra- 
 phy " was edited by a New Yorker and a New Eng- 
 lander, and that they favored their own localities. 
 This criticism seems almost incredible, and yet it 
 has been made and repeated with all seriousness. 
 It is easily answered. In the first j)lace, the edi- 
 tors of the "Encyclopaedia" could hardly have 
 prepared that great work with a view to statistics 
 which no one at that time had suggested. In the 
 second place, Mr. Wilson and Mr. John Fiske are 
 incapable of perverting or suppressing historical 
 material for any purpose. In the third place, a 
 distinguished American, who does not find a place 
 in a dictionary of 15,000 names, can hardly have 
 been very eminent, and accidental omissions of per- 
 sons who ought to have been included are, as I 
 know by examination, very few. Lastly, these sta- 
 tistics can be confirmed by others of similar char- 
 acter. Their results are emphasized in proportion 
 as the list is narrowed to the most highly distin- 
 guished persons, as I have shown in a note to the 
 " Century " for July, 1892. 
 
 The race critics are confined to those who think 
 my figures are unjust to the Irish. I had no pre- 
 judice whatever in the matter, and if I had, it 
 would have made no difference, for I gave the fig- 
 ures exactly as I found them. The pure Irish did 
 
168 ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 not come to this country in any considerable num- 
 bers until nearly the middle of the present cen- 
 tury. They therefore show a small total in the 
 tables based upon race extraction. It could not 
 have been otherwise, for no race could be expected 
 to perform the impossible feat of producing ability 
 in a country where they did not exist except in 
 very small numbers. In the immigrant.table, which 
 covered the period of their emigration, the Irish, as 
 I have pointed out in the article, stand very high. 
 
 I classified the people from Ireland as Irish and 
 Scotch-Irish. The latter term is familiar in the 
 United States, and covers those North of Ireland 
 Protestants who are chiefly of Scotch and English 
 origin, who came to this country in large numbers 
 during the last century, and who rank very high 
 in the table of race extraction. I believe this clas- 
 sification to be both historically and scientifically 
 correct. If any one differs with me, he has but to 
 add the Scotch-Irish and Irish together, and call 
 them all Irish if he so prefers. But to combine 
 the two classes, and then accuse me of misrepresen- 
 tation of the figures because I have divided them 
 and used avowedly a different classification is, of 
 course, unfair and absurd. Such criticism, with 
 much else of a still lower and more ignorant kind 
 which has been joined with it, is of course not to 
 be taken seriously, and still less is it worthy of reply. 
 
PARLIAMENTAEY OBSTRUCTION IN 
 THE UNITED STATES.i 
 
 Government by voting and debate through a 
 representative assembly has been peculiarly the 
 work of the English-speaking people. They devised 
 and perfected it, and have carried it from the mother 
 country into all parts of the world. Essentially a 
 governing race, nothing has shown their political 
 capacity more than the success with which they have 
 iised this system to secure freedom and to promote 
 civilization. Other nations have since adopted it, 
 and despite many shortcomings it has always man- 
 aged to live and generally to flourish even in the 
 most alien soil. The theory of government by 
 voting and debate is, first, that the representatives 
 of the people shall legislate and, second, that they 
 shall legislate after debate. If it fails in these pur- 
 poses it cannot last, for no political system can 
 endure which does not march. In other words, if a 
 legislative body does not legislate, it has no excuse 
 for meeting and no reason for existence, because 
 mere debating societies can be obtained in other and 
 more simple ways, and without expense or weariness 
 to the public. 
 
 Of late there has been a growing belief that 
 government by debate is in serious danger of ceas- 
 ing to march and of doing nothing more than mark 
 1 From The Nineteenth Century for March, 1891. 
 
170 PARLIAMENTARY OBSTRUCTION 
 
 time, thus falling into a state of inanition, to the 
 general contempt of mankind. In the December 
 number of " The Nineteenth Century " Mr. Cham- 
 berlain, in a very able article, has discussed this 
 danger and the best means of averting it. His arti- 
 cle is especially interesting to Americans, because it 
 not only deals with their efforts to overcome exist- 
 ing difficulties in Congress, but shows also in a very 
 pointed fashion that similar difficulties confront the 
 House of Commons. Mr. Chamberlain, speaking 
 with the authority of long experience, makes very 
 clear, what is indeed well known, that in the two 
 great divisions of the English-speaking people, 
 Parliamentary government has come at the same 
 time in both cases to a very critical point, and is 
 in grave peril from abuses of a like nature. This 
 proves, if proof were needed, that these abuses are 
 neither sporadic nor accidental, that they are not 
 due to any particular political question nor to the 
 presence of any given faction or set of men in the 
 representative body. The appearance of similar 
 evils in Parliamentary government both in Eng- 
 land and the United States shows that the trouble 
 is neither local nor a matter of chance, but that it 
 is deeply rooted in the system itself, and has been 
 produced by new and changed conditions to which 
 the system must be adapted if it is to continue to 
 work successfully. These new conditions which 
 have produced such grave results are the vastly 
 increased mass of business thrown upon these great 
 governing bodies, and the existence of rules and 
 systems of procedure which are no longer suited 
 
PARLIAMENTARY OBSTRUCTION 171 
 
 to the demands of modern legislation. The evil to 
 which these conditions have given birth is obstruc- 
 tion, as it is commonly called, or more definitely the 
 stopping of legislative movement by a minority of 
 the representatives taking improper but strictly 
 legal advantage of rules and customs originally 
 formed to regulate and facilitate the transaction of 
 business. 
 
 In the Congress of the United States the 
 methods used by a minority to prevent action by 
 the majority may be roughly divided into three 
 classes : the refusal of a quorum, dilatory motions, 
 and time-killing debate. From the first of these 
 modes of obstruction Parliament is entirely free, 
 because the small quorum of forty required by the 
 House of Commons makes it practically impossible 
 for the minority to avail themselves of this method 
 of resistance, while the method of voting by divi- 
 sion instead of roll-call renders a technical absence 
 by refusing to answer to one's name impossible. 
 In the United States the Constitution fixes the 
 quorum at a majority of the members of the House, 
 thus requiring at the present time the presence of 
 167 members in order to do business, and it is fur- 
 ther provided that on demand of one fifth of the 
 members present the vote shall be taken by yeas 
 and nays. If political parties are at all evenly di- 
 vided it is almost impossible for the majority party 
 to produce a quorum from its own ranks, and it is 
 always extremely difficult under auy circumstances 
 to get an absolutely full attendance of members. 
 The refusal of a quorum has been therefore at once 
 
172 PARLIAMENTARY OBSTRUCTION 
 
 the simplest and most effective method of stopping 
 the passage, or even the consideration, of any mea- 
 sure distasteful to the minority. The practice has 
 been to make some formal motion, the yeas and 
 nays would be ordered, the minority would refuse 
 to vote, and then the point of no quorum would be 
 made and all business would be at a standstill. 
 
 When the Republican party came into power 
 in the elections of 1888, they were pledged to 
 such a revision of the rules as would permit 
 the transaction of public business, but they could 
 not even adopt new rules if the minority refused 
 a quorum, for with a majority of only eight votes 
 it was almost impossible to get a quorum of Re- 
 publicans alone. Speaker Reed met this difficulty 
 by counting those members present and refusing 
 to vote as part of a quorum. The Constitution 
 says that a minority may compel the attendance 
 of members, but says nothing about voting as 
 an evidence of such attendance. Mr. Reed took 
 the ground, commended alike by common sense 
 and by the language of the Constitution, that all 
 the Constitution required in order to form a 
 quorum was attendance, and that members present, 
 whether they voted or not, constituted a quorum. 
 He was sustained in this view that silence and pres- 
 ence constituted acquiescence by the decisions of 
 the courts in regard to corporations and municipal 
 bodies, and by the rulings of many of the state 
 legislatures.^ The effect of his action was to cripple 
 
 ^ Siuce this article was written, the Supreme Court of the 
 United States in a test case has decided unanimously, and in 
 
PARLIAMENTARY OBSTRUCTION 173 
 
 the most efficient form of obstruction and to make 
 it practically useless, for the refusal of a quorum by 
 actually leaving the House, although it has been at- 
 tempted, is too violent and difficult to be of much 
 real value. This counting a quorum was the 
 method employed to overcome the worst kind of 
 obstruction or " filibustering " in Congress. It is 
 not necessary to dwell upon it here, because, as I 
 have said, the House of Commons is fortunately 
 free from the difficulties produced by the require- 
 ment of a majority quorum. 
 
 The second mode of obstruction in Congress has 
 been by means of dilatory motions. The rules of 
 the House in the process of time were gradually 
 developed and elaborated until they became highly 
 technical and were thoroughly understood by only 
 a few of the older members. Formed in theory to 
 facilitate the orderly transaction of business, the 
 rules had not only ceased to serve the end for which 
 they were created, but had grown to be simply a 
 complicated system to prevent legislative action. 
 It would not be profitable, even if space permitted, 
 to enter into a discussion of the various motions 
 which could be used under the rules of the House 
 
 a very able opinion, written by Mr. Justice Brewer, that 
 counting a quorum was entirely constitutional. Mr. Reed 
 was fully sustained by the court, and this decision of the 
 highest tribunal in the country settles the constitutional ques- 
 tion finally and without appeal. It is now only a question of 
 a very short time when the practice of counting a quorum 
 will be adopted permanently by the House, and in this way 
 we shall be freed from the worst features of this mode of 
 obstruction. ** 
 
174 PARLIAMENTARY OBSTRUCTION 
 
 to stop business. It will suffice to mention as ex- 
 amples the worst and most effective. Under the 
 old rules a motion to take a recess and to adjourn 
 to a certain time, were, like the motion to adjourn, 
 always in order. If it was desired to arrest legis- 
 lative action, a member of the minority would move 
 to take a recess, or to adjourn, until seven o'clock ; 
 another would move to amend to half-past seven, 
 and another would offer an amendment to the amend- 
 ment to make it eight o'clock. Thus an indefinite 
 series of amendments and votes would begin and all 
 business would cease. Under the new rules, priv- 
 ilege has been taken from these two motions and 
 they are no longer made. There were others less 
 effective, but of a similar character, which were like- 
 wise effaced, and then in addition the Speaker was 
 given the power to declare any motion dilatory, and 
 to decline to put it. These reforms in the rules 
 brought great and immediate relief, and checked 
 some of the worst abuses in the way of filibustering.^ 
 
 1 The present house (Fifty-Second Congress), from par- 
 tisan feeling purely, returned to the old rules, and has suf- 
 fered accordingly. But it nevertheless provided that when 
 the Committee on Rules brought in a rule or order, the 
 Speaker should have the povrer to declare any motion dila- 
 tory. This, although limited to a special case, is a fall ac- 
 ceptance of Mr. Reed's principle of giving power to the 
 Speaker to shut off dilatory motion. Thus the two prin- 
 ciples of Mr. Reed's great reform, the counting a quorum 
 and the refusal to put dilatory motions, have been fully es- 
 tablished ; one by the decision of the Supreme Courts, the 
 other by the acceptance of its opponents. It is not often that 
 a far-reaching reforu^ triumphs so sgpn ^nd so cqmpletely. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY OBSTRUCTION 175 
 
 The last method of obstruction is that which has 
 become unfortunately common in all legislative 
 bodies : the consumption of time by useless debate, 
 engaged in solely to produce delay. The efforts 
 in the House of Representatives to deal with this 
 evil have been going on for many years. What is 
 called closure, or cloture, in England and Europe, 
 is known in Congress as the previous question. In 
 the Congress of the Confederation the previous 
 question was the same motion that it still is in the 
 House of Commons. When the new Congress was 
 organized under the Constitution in 1789, it adopted 
 the previous question in its rules, as it had been 
 used in the Congress of the Confederation, and it 
 was not until 1811 that the House decided, on an 
 appeal from the decision of the chair, that the pre- 
 vious question cut off debate, and brought an im- 
 mediate vote on the main question, thus reversing 
 the original purpose of the motion, and giving to 
 it the effect which it has had ever since. This 
 change gave a majority power to stop debate. In 
 its altered form the previous question has been 
 fiercely assailed as a gag law and as stifling debate, 
 but, nevertheless, without it all legislation would 
 be impossible. It has never been abandoned in 
 America, and nearly all legislative bodies have 
 to-day some motion of similar import. 
 
 Stringent as the previous question seems, how- 
 ever, it has had only a partial effect in preventing 
 obstruction. It has never been applied in commit- 
 tee of the whole, and experience has shown that it 
 is there that the most serious delay occurs both in 
 
176 PARLIAMENTARY OBSTRUCTION 
 
 Parliament and in Congress. Under the rules of the 
 House of Representatives all bills to raise revenue, 
 or which make a charge upon the treasury, but no 
 others, must be considered in committee of the 
 whole. On such bills in committee there is first 
 general debate, for which the time is commonly 
 limited by agreement, and then the bill is read by 
 paragraphs for amendment. During the reading by 
 paragraphs the " five minute rule," which is of long 
 standing in Congress, applies. Under it no one 
 can speak on any single amendment more than five 
 minutes. This rule improves debate, but does not 
 seriously limit it, for amendments, both formal and 
 substantial, can be multiplied indefinitely. Under 
 the old rules the committee was obliged to rise and 
 go back to the House in order to limit debate on a 
 paragraph. Under Mr. Reed's rules this can be 
 done in committee, and the quorum required in 
 committee has been reduced to a hundred, which 
 proved a very wise change. Yet, despite all these 
 limitations, the opportunity for delay in commit- 
 tee of the whole is still almost boundless. Mr. 
 Chamberlain proposes to deal with this evil, if I 
 understand him correctly, by practically abolish- 
 ing the committee of the whole : a radical reform, 
 indeed, but one which is both wise and necessary, 
 unless the committee of the whole, which is now an 
 almost meaningless survival, is to be allowed to con- 
 tinue with all its temptations and opportunities for 
 fatal obstruction. 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain refers in his article to what are 
 known as " special orders," reported from the com- 
 
PARLIAMENTARY OBSTRUCTION 177 
 
 mittee on rules to limit debate, and fix a time for 
 taking a vote on any given measure, as severe con- 
 trivances for stopping obstruction. I think Mr. 
 Chamberlain slightly misapprehends the meaning 
 and effect of these special rules or orders. The 
 only peculiar feature about them is, that they give 
 the majority a convenient mode of settling the or- 
 der of business. Otherwise, they are merely one 
 way of ordering the previous question, or of limit- 
 ing debate in committee. It really makes no dif- 
 ference in principle, whether the committee in 
 charge of a measure give notice when they call a 
 measure up that, at a given time, the previous ques- 
 tion will be moved, or whether the same notice is 
 given by the adoption of a special rule. In either 
 case it is simply the exercise of the power of the 
 majority to close debate, and without the use of 
 this power in some form legislation under modern 
 conditions is well-nigh impossible. 
 
 It would be wholly out of place for me to dis- 
 cuss the question of obstruction, or the best means 
 of dealing with it in Parliament. To an outsider it 
 seems as if the opportunities for obstruction in the 
 House of Commons were as yet very imperfectly 
 understood, and as if, despite all that has happened 
 there in that respect, the resources of a factious 
 minority were still largely undeveloped, and would 
 before long demand more effective cheeks than now 
 exist. It also seems to an American as if the diffi- 
 culties in Parliament were much less than in Con- 
 gress, and that whenever they became formidable, 
 there was great readiness in applying a vigorous 
 
178 PARLIAMENTARY OBSTRUCTION 
 
 remedy, as was done on sound general principles by 
 Sir Henry Brand in 1881, when he took action 
 which appears to us far more arbitrary than any 
 ever indulged in by an American Speaker. 
 
 But, whatever the case may be as to obstruction 
 in the House of Commons, there can be no doubt 
 as to the magnitude of the evil in Congress. In 
 the Fiftieth Congress, elected in 1886, obstruction 
 culminated. It then became apparent to every one 
 that, under existing rules and customs, no measure 
 could pass which did not practically have unani- 
 mous consent. This is not a fanciful statement. I 
 have seen the House held fast for neaily a week, and 
 all movement stopped by the determined action of 
 one energetic man, through the adroit use of dila- 
 tory motions and points of order. Such a condition 
 of things is a travesty of representative govern- 
 ment. Where it exists the majority cannot rule, 
 while the minority in the nature of things is unable 
 to govern. It is, in fact, the absolute overthrow of 
 majority rule on which popular government rests. 
 Worst of all, it destroys responsibility, for by it the 
 majority is enabled to go to the country, and to de- 
 clare that it has done nothing because the minority 
 would not permit it to act. This system was broken 
 down in the Fifty-first Congress by Speaker Reed, 
 supported by the Republican majority. The whole- 
 sale waste of time was stopped, although even after 
 the reforms it was still wasted pettily and in de- 
 tail. Whether subsequent Congresses revert to 
 the old rules or not, no political party can ever 
 again go before the American people and make the 
 
PARLIAMENTARY OBSTRUCTION 179 
 
 miserable excuse tbat they have failed to do the 
 public business because the minority would not let 
 them act. Mr. Reed has demonstrated that a ma- 
 jority in Congress can act if it chooses to do so, 
 and no public man has rendered such an important 
 service as this to the people of the United States 
 for many years. 
 
 The primary duty of a legislative body is to act. 
 Debate, even when most valuable, is subsidiary. 
 We ought to have always both debate and action, 
 but, if we must choose between them, action must 
 have the preference, for endless debate without 
 action would soon bring any government into con- 
 tempt. Moreover, the surest way to-day to get 
 intelligent debate is to make it impossible for the 
 minority to stop legislation by obstruction. It has 
 been said that " the business of an opposition is to 
 oppose," and if an opposition can oppose by delay 
 and obstruction they certainly will do so. Take 
 from them this power, and they will then be forced 
 to content themselves with reasonable discussion, 
 which will be of value to the country and the 
 House, and of which they can never be deprived, 
 because enlightened public opinion is sure always 
 to insist upon it. One thing is certain, that, unless 
 parliamentary obstruction can be rigidly restrained, 
 parliamentary government will come into serious 
 peril, for no intelligent people will long bear with a 
 system which is vocal but motionless, which marks 
 time but does not march. 
 
PARLIAMENTAEY MINORITIES.i 
 
 The question of the rights and position of mi- 
 norities in representative legislative bodies really 
 involves at the present time the entire subject of 
 modern parliamentary prpcedure. Yet the extent 
 of the question and its importance are even now 
 but little understood, if we may judge from the crit- 
 icisms upon the parliamentary struggles of the Fif- 
 ty-first Congress. Even the nature of the conflict 
 there was the subject of misapprehension. The 
 view universally taken by the Democratic party 
 and its editors appeared to be that not only Mr. 
 Reed's policy, but the problems with which he was 
 trying to deal, were local and sporadic, and owed 
 their existence purely to the lawless efforts of the 
 party in control to get a dangerous and revolution- 
 ary power of action. The Democrats and their 
 allies could not see, apparently, that, whatever the 
 merits of the case might be, the question was 
 neither accidental nor temporary. 
 
 As a matter of fact and of history, the conflict 
 in the Fifty-first Congress was but one among 
 many which, in varying forms but always with the 
 same principle at stake, had taken or were taking 
 place in almost every country equipped with repre- 
 sentative government. We have only to turn to 
 ' From the New York Tribune, Deceml)er 26, 1891. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY MINORITIES 181 
 
 our kin across the sea to find at once a striking 
 example of the diffusion of this question. The 
 matter of obstruction by the minority in the House 
 of Commons and the best way to deal with it have 
 been for some time siibjects of grave discussion in 
 England, both in the Reviews and in Parliament, 
 where some very drastic remedies were applied to 
 overcome it. Yet, in the face of these notorious 
 facts, one would have supposed, from the outcry 
 raised here two years ago, that attempts to clear the 
 way for legislative action were unheard of until 
 Mr. Reed led the movement for it in the Fifty-first 
 Congress. That portion of the newspaper press 
 which calls itself " independent " was particularly 
 violent on this point, and they and some of their 
 contributors furnished many fresh and interesting 
 proofs that educated ignorance, when it exists, is 
 the densest possible. This is not a paradox, but a 
 principle. No darkness is so sensible as that which 
 follows the sudden extinction of a bright light, and 
 in the same way the ignorance of the educated man 
 when he steps outside the limits of his education 
 seems always more impenetrable than any other. 
 
 The question of parliamentary obstruction at the 
 present time is, in truth, almost coextensive with 
 the existence of parliamentary government. In the 
 discussion which has arisen over Mr. Reed's rul- 
 ings, this fact has been pointed out and explained, 
 but it has received fresh emphasis and most per- 
 fect illustration in the last number of " The North 
 American Review." ^ Nothing that Mr. Reed did 
 
 1 December, 1891. 
 
182 PARLIAMENTARY MINORITIES 
 
 was received, both In and out of the House, with so 
 much indignation and surprise as his counting a 
 quorum. In the first burst of excitement we were 
 given to understand that such a thing as counting a 
 quorum was absolutely unheard of, and the infer- 
 ence was plainly drawn that such an act was a device 
 of that personage to whom inventions are sometimes 
 ascribed, but to whom patents are never issued. 
 Presently the cries lulled, the first dust subsided, 
 and then it appeared that, after all, counting a 
 quorum was not entirely new in this country. Pre- 
 cedents, in fact, were found in several State legis- 
 latures, and in many municipal bodies. It was 
 discovered next that the courts in England and in 
 the United States, in the case of corporations and 
 of municipal governments, had held that presence 
 and silence when a vote was taken constituted 
 acquiescence. This was a distinct falling away 
 from the first idea of complete novelty, but con- 
 solation was still found in the theory that, after 
 all, counting a quorum in a legislative body was 
 a partisan expedient, the product of American 
 politics. 
 
 To those persops who draw their thoughts and 
 information from sources outside their own country, 
 this last idea was very soothing, but even this poor 
 solace has gone now. Mr. Theodore Stanton, in the 
 December number of " The North American Re- 
 view," has brought together a number of letters 
 and interviews on the subject of a quorum from 
 leading statesmen and parliamentarians of Europe. 
 By these it appears that the doctrine of presence 
 
PARLIAMENTARY MINORITIES 183 
 
 constituting a quorum is well known in Europe, 
 and that Mr. Reed's position is generally sustained 
 by foreign practice. On the authority of M. Gr^vy 
 and others of equal repute, we learn that in the 
 French Assembly presence and not the vote is the 
 test of a quorum. The same principle is held in 
 Switzerland. The president of the Belgian cham- 
 ber says the measure adopted in the United States 
 is practiced iu Belgium. In Denmark presence is 
 held to constitute a quorum. Presence and voting 
 are compelled in Norway by heavy fines. The 
 president of the German Reichstag says that a 
 member not responding to his name would undoubt- 
 edly be counted if noticed by the functionaries. 
 In Sweden no quorum is required. In Portugal 
 and Great Britain the number required to consti- 
 tute a quorum is so low that the question does not 
 arise in practice, while in Italy and Holland the 
 question has not arisen at all. 
 
 Nothing could show more completely than these 
 facts that, where obstruction takes the form of re- 
 fusing a quorum, it has been met in other countries 
 in the common-sense way in which Mr. Reed met 
 it.^ They show also, what indeed needs no addi- 
 tional proof, that, as has already been said, the 
 question of parliamentary obstruction in some form 
 is world-wide at the present time, and that methods 
 of overcoming it have engaged the attention of 
 statesmen everywhere. Instead of its being a nov- 
 
 ^ Since this was written, Mr. Reed's position as to a quorum 
 has been completely sustained by the unanimous decision of 
 the Supreme Court of the United States. See note, p. 172. 
 
184 PARLIAMENTARY MINORITIES 
 
 elty, we are rather behind the rest of the world in 
 taking it up. From the appearance, moreover, of 
 the same difficulty in so many countries, it follows 
 that the trouble must be due to general causes, and 
 these causes are so obvious that they do not need 
 very elaborate statement. 
 
 The evils of obstruction and the need of their re- 
 moval are due in the first place to the enormous 
 growth of modern legislative business, and in the 
 second to the increased number of members in par- 
 liaments and congresses. When parliamentary 
 bodies were small and the total amount of legisla- 
 tion was not large, it was perfectly possible to deal 
 with everything before the body, and to give each 
 member an opportunity to speak upon all subjects, 
 if he desired, without arresting or even unduly de- 
 laying the public business. Rules were framed, 
 therefore, to facilitate the transaction of business 
 under these conditions, but they were not adapted 
 to the new demands, and thus became either hin- 
 drances or plainly inadequate when the mass of 
 business was so vastly increased. In Congress, for 
 example, at the present time, only about four per 
 cent, of the business presented is completed. The 
 struggle to be included in that fortunate four per 
 cent, is intense, and the inevitable results are une- 
 qualed opportunities and temptations for obstruc- 
 tion in order to either coerce or delay the majority. 
 Under these circumstances it is clear that, if rules 
 are not framed so as to give the majority the power 
 to act, the transaction of the public business even 
 on the most limited scale is at an end. If, for ex- 
 
PARLIAMENTARY MINORITIES 185 
 
 ample, unlimited debate is to be allowed, then a 
 minority has an absolute veto on all action. Lungs 
 and language are all that are needed under this 
 system to enable a handful of men to control the 
 legislation of a great nation. It seems hardly 
 necessary to point out the utter absurdity of such 
 a position, and every other abuse of rules and of 
 parliamentary procedure is equally bad. 
 
 The theory of parliamentary government and of 
 all government, in the United States, is that the 
 majority shall rule. If the minority has the power 
 to prevent action on the part of the majority the 
 majority no longer rules, and as the minority ex 
 vi termini is unable to govern, representative gov- 
 ernment as we understand it becomes a dismal 
 farce. 
 
 The first point, then, in the problem is, as to the 
 rights and the position of minorities. A great deal 
 was said about the rights of minorities at the time 
 of the Fifty-first Congress, and from some of the 
 arguments then advanced one might have inferred 
 that while minorities had rights which might be 
 greater or less, majorities had none. As a matter 
 of fundamental law, the reverse is much nearer the 
 truth. Under the Constitution of the United States 
 the only right actually secured to the minority in 
 Congress is the right to call the yeas and nays and 
 have them recorded. In other words, the Constitu- 
 tion contemplates only government by a majority, 
 and secures to the minority simply the right to 
 make the votes of their opponents a matter of pub- 
 lic record. Such other rights as minorities have in 
 
186 PARLIAMENTARY MINORITIES 
 
 practice are those whicli have been conferred upon 
 them by the rules of the House, which are them- 
 selves the work of a majority. In other words, 
 apart from the single constitutional right of calling 
 for the yeas and nays, a minority has only the 
 rights which a majority chooses to give them, and 
 those rights are the result of custom and public 
 opinion. As a matter of justice, of common assent 
 and of long practice among English-speaking peo- 
 ple, a parliamentary minority is entitled to fair play 
 and to an opportunity for reasonable debate, that 
 is, to the opportunity to discuss any measure before 
 the House, and sufficient time to call public atten- 
 tion to it. 
 
 It is difficult to see why any minority should be 
 entitled to more than this : fair recognition in dis- 
 cussion, fair treatment in committees, and reasonable 
 opportunities for debate. Yet, on this foundation, 
 and thanks to the intricate fabric of rules which 
 had been gradually and unsystematically built up, 
 minorities in the House of Representatives finally 
 reached a point where they were able to arrest all 
 public business, and completely stop action on the 
 part of the majority. The evil at last became so 
 great that a minority of one, by an ingenious use of 
 the rules, could stop all legislative movement. It 
 seems incredible that anybody should have seriously 
 opposed a movement to break down a system so 
 wrong and so dangerous as this. Yet the reform 
 of the rules of the House, which, in their develop- 
 ment and in the presence of the vast growth of 
 business, had reduced the body to a condition of 
 
PARLIAMENTARY MINORITIES 187 
 
 legislative inanity, was bitterly resisted at the time, 
 and its scope and meaning are not well understood 
 even now. 
 
 It is worth while to restate the simple and fun- 
 damental propositions on which that reform rested. 
 The first duty of a legislative body is to legislate. 
 Debate is purely secondary. Our political system 
 has been called government by debate ; but if you 
 permit debate to stop legislative action, you have 
 all debate and no government. Debate is highly 
 important, but if either debate or legislation must 
 be sacrificed, the public interest demands that the 
 laws should be enacted even if the talk about them 
 has to stop. There is not, however, the slightest 
 need for extreme measures. All that is necessary 
 is to bring debate within suitable limits, and to do 
 away with obsolete or inefficient rules which serve 
 no purpose but that of obstruction. 
 
 The first test of any successful government is 
 that it should march. If a minority of the parlia^- 
 mentary body can prevent all movement, that par- 
 ticular kind of government has ceased to march. 
 The object of Mr. Reed's reform in the House rules 
 was to enable the government to move. The argu- 
 ment is simple, but it seems complete. 
 
 Obstruction is, however, not the only evil that has 
 arisen from the overgrown power of the minority. 
 A minority, which is able under the existing rules 
 and conditions of business to stop legislative action 
 by the majority, destroys in so doing responsible 
 government, and no popular government can be 
 safe and sound where official responsibility is lost 
 
188 PARLIAMENTARY MINORITIES 
 
 or even obscured. In the last few years we have had 
 a good deal of discussion about responsible govern- 
 ment in the United States. It is a good thing to 
 have our own methods of government discussed 
 in any way, for the time is not so very far behind 
 us when the most highly educated people appeared 
 to think that the institutions and constitutional 
 government of the United States were hardly 
 worth serious consideration. In this recent dis- 
 cussion most of the writers belong to the sahool 
 which prepares itself by a consideration of Eng- 
 lish political and constitutional methods, and which, 
 having formed a standard or a system in this way, 
 then proceeds to apply it to the United States. 
 
 They start with the sound proposition that re- 
 sponsible government is all-important, and that 
 we need more of it than we have. They then 
 proceed to find their remedy in schemes to graft - 
 portions of the English system upon ours. This 
 mode of treatment not only shows a deplorable 
 lack of originality, but is thoroughly unsound both 
 historically and scientifically. There is no need 
 to enter into a comparison of our constitutional 
 system with that of Great Britain. The end and 
 object of both is government by the people, but 
 the methods adopted to reach that end and to carry 
 on the government are widely different. Whether 
 our system is better than that of England is not to 
 tlie purpose. We think it is ; but the point here . 
 is that it is different. Like all stable and success- 
 ful political systems, that of the United States has 
 grown gradually, and in conformity with the oon- 
 
PARLIAMENTARY MINORITIES 189 
 
 ditions and the desires of the people. No one ques- 
 tions that improvements can be made. As a matter 
 of fact, our constitutional system has grown and 
 broadened and improved from the beginning. But 
 reforms and improvements must be made in our 
 own way, and in conformity with the laws of our 
 own growth and being. 
 
 The suggestion that we should better our sys- 
 tem by borrowing something from the English, is 
 the product of the merely imitative mind which is 
 unable to see that such borrowing at this stage 
 is impossible, and would be also both impractica- 
 ble and undesirable even if it were possible. For 
 example, there are some most excellent people who 
 think that our political salvation is bound up in 
 having cabinet officers or representatives of the 
 executive on the floor of Congress. They utterly 
 fail to see that in order to do that in any way 
 worth doing we must abandon the American sys- 
 tem of three coordinate and distinct departments, 
 and place in the hands of Congress in addition to 
 the legislative power the executive power also, to 
 be exercised by a select committee or ministry. It 
 makes no difference whether this is a better system 
 than our own or not. The American people re- 
 jected it at the outset, do not believe in it now, 
 and are not going to change the Constitution of the 
 United States in that direction. The immediate 
 inquiry, when this statement of fact is made, is, 
 *' Will you, then, do nothing to get a better and 
 clearer responsibility in CongresV,? " The answer 
 is, "Certainly we would, but that responsibility 
 
190 PARLIAMENTARY MINORITIES 
 
 can be obtained and increased along the lines of 
 our own development, but in no other way. 
 
 Another school of writers, of whom the best 
 known are Professor Hart, of Cambridge, and 
 Mr. Lawrence Lowell, have discussed these ques- 
 tions from a different point of view, and have 
 shown that the needed reforms and changes can 
 come, and in due time generally do come, but al- 
 ways in the natural processes of growth, and not 
 by borrowing. This doctrine is not only sound 
 historically, but practically as well. Nevertheless 
 it seems impossible to get it even understood by 
 persons who are unable to imagine any improve- 
 ments in modes of government in this country 
 except by the adoption of English methods. 
 
 Take, for example, the development of the Speak- 
 ership. The Speakers of the American House of 
 Representatives are constantly being criticised for 
 their exercise of arbitrary power, and nine tenths 
 of this criticism comes from the fact that the 
 minds of those who discuss the question are filled 
 with the conception of the Speaker of the British 
 House of Commons, an officer who differs widely 
 from his prototype on this side of the Atlantic. 
 They do not know what their own Speakership is 
 or has come to be, and they judge it by a standard 
 to which it has no relation. The English Speaker, 
 roughly speaking, is simply a moderator or presiding 
 officer, who lays aside all party ties when he enters 
 on his office, and who has only to perform certain 
 judicial functions in preserving order and carrying 
 forward the business of Parliament. The Speaker 
 
PARLIAMENTARY MINORITIES 191 
 
 of the American House is all that the English 
 Speaker is, and is the party chief besides. His 
 duties as moderator are but a small part of the 
 work he is cliosen to do. He is expected, of 
 course, to preserve order and decide parliamen- 
 tary questions ; but he is also the leader of his 
 party, chosen to make up committees who shall 
 carry out the policy of the party in control. He 
 is to take a principal part in directing the'policy 
 of his party, and in seeing that the measures agreed 
 upon by the party are brought to discussion and 
 decision. In the matter of ordinary recognitions, 
 of preserving order, and of ruling on technical 
 points, he is expected to act judicially, and Speak- 
 ers of all parties have done so. But the Ameri- 
 can Speaker is also expected, and rightfully ex- 
 pected, to lead his party in the conduct of great 
 political 'measures upon which parties are divided, 
 and, so far as the conduct of the House business 
 is concerned, he combines the power and the func- 
 tions of the English Speaker and the English 
 Prime Minister as well. The development of the 
 Speakership in this way has brought a personal 
 responsibility, which, in a body where a Ministry 
 does not and cannot sit, is of great importance. 
 Yet the advantage of a clear responsibility which 
 thus has been gained is generally overlooked, and 
 Tthe minds of many persons, and of the chief friends 
 of official responsibility in particular, are absorbed 
 by a gloomy hostility to the Speaker's great power. 
 Of all the criticism and discussion upon this 
 subject, nothing indeed has been more inept than 
 
192 PARLIAMENTARY MINORITIES 
 
 the talk about the despotism of the Speaker. The 
 Speaker, in the first place, is the representative, 
 the voice, and the leader of the majority. They 
 can create and they destroy. He must carry out 
 the will of the House, as expressed by its majority, 
 or he will cease to exist. This state of things is 
 not in itself the usual underlying condition of a 
 successful despotism. Then, again, the Speaker's 
 powers were not exercised, nor even arbitrarily ex- 
 ercised, for the first time in the winter of 1889-90. 
 They existed before ; they have been growing for 
 a long time ; and they have been vigorously exerted 
 by Speakers of all parties. 
 
 One example will show better than anything else 
 the quality and character of the modern Speaker- 
 ship, and dispose of uninformed criticism more 
 quickly than can be doue in any other way. The 
 greatest power of the Speaker is the power of 
 recognition. He can bar a member from the floor 
 throughout a Congress simply by never seeing him. 
 He can give another member the floor every day 
 by always seeing him. This vast power is inherent 
 in the office. No rules created it and no rules can 
 limit it. Its exercise must remain wholly within 
 the discretion of the Speaker himself. Mr. Car- 
 lisle once used this power in a manner which, in 
 arbitrary decision, went far beyond any act of his 
 successor. In the Forty-ninth Congress, near the 
 close of the session, Mr. Eandall, of Pennsylvania, 
 desired to get the floor to offer a bill relating to 
 revenue, which he believed would pass by a com- 
 bination of Eepublicans and a small minority of 
 
PARLIAMENTARY MINORITIES 193 
 
 Democrats. The bill was hostile to the declared 
 
 • 
 
 policy of the majority of the Democrats in the 
 House. The condition of business and the parlia- 
 mentary situation were such that the bill could only 
 be brought up at a particular time, and everything 
 depended on the Speaker's recognition. Mr. Car- 
 lisle refused to recognize Mr. Kandall for the pur- 
 pose of calling up that bill. He took the ground 
 that it was contrary to the policy of the party he 
 represented, and that as the head of that party he 
 would not allow it to come up by a recognition 
 which he was not bound to give by the rules. In 
 all the ordinary business of Congress, both public 
 and private, and on all parliamentary questions, 
 such a position would have been an outrage, and 
 no Speaker would have taken it. But this was 
 one of the great measures of public policy which 
 are few in number, and upon which parties divide. 
 On this Mr. Carlisle took the position openly of 
 the party chief and shut out the bill, as a British 
 Minister would have done. The power and the re- 
 sponsibility went together, and, if he had not done 
 so, his own and his party's responsibility would 
 have been at an end. He took the responsibility 
 and exercised the power, and the official responsi- 
 bility was thereby concentrated, instead of being 
 lost in a mist of factional combinations. 
 
 Mr. Carlisle, in his conception of his position 
 and its power, was correct. He none the less 
 openly took stronger ground and exercised his 
 power more arbitrarily than Mr. Reed, yet he was 
 respectfully treated by his opponents, while Mr. 
 
194 PARLIAMENTARY MINORITIES 
 
 Reed was made the target of fierce personal abuse 
 for adhering to the same policy. The difference 
 was typical of the difference between the parties. 
 The important point, however, is that the central 
 and governing principle is the same always. That 
 principle is this : Without responsibility, popular 
 approval or disapproval cannot be had, and th6re 
 is no redress for a wrong or support for the light. 
 With responsibility we have both. If Mr. Carlisle 
 was acting wrongly the remedy was simple. The 
 people would take control from him and his party 
 and give it to Mr. Randall, and then Mr. Randall's 
 bill would come up. With a biennial return to 
 the people, the danger of a Speaker's despotism is 
 not serious, except, perhaps, in the minds of those 
 who edit partisan comic journals. 
 
 Side by side with this development of the Speak- 
 ership has come that of the Connnittee on Rules. 
 The last Congress, when it made a rule giving the 
 Committee on Rules power to bring in special 
 orders for the transaction of particular business, 
 simply formulated what had long been practiced. 
 In the outcry of the time, the idea was given out 
 that the Committee on Rules in the Fifty-first Con- 
 gress were grasping great and unheard-of powers. 
 As a matter of fact they were only exercising pow- 
 ers which had long been used, but they exercised 
 them under the defiirite and legal authority of a 
 rule instead of that of a mere custom. The power 
 to bring in special riiles and orders is simply the 
 power to determine the order of business, and it 
 ought to rest with the majqrity party. The Speaker 
 
PARLIAMENTARY MINORITIES 195 
 
 is the head of the Committee on Rules, and with 
 that committee, acting for his party, he has the 
 power to say what measures shall be placed in the 
 four or five per cent, which reach completion. If 
 there is no authority anywhere to select the mea^- 
 sures to be passed, legislation in its present crowded 
 state becomes a mere jumble, and nobody is re- 
 sponsible for the failure or success of any measure. 
 Force of circumstances has developed the Committee 
 on Rules into the body which shall select the busi- 
 ness to be acted upon, and take the responsibility 
 for that selection, exactly as is done by the English 
 Ministry. This fact has been already pointed out 
 by Professor Hart in a very admirable article. It 
 is a most valuable advance in the direction of getting 
 true* responsibility, as it is a native growth along 
 our own lines, but it has met with no favor at the 
 hands of those who care less for official responsi- 
 bility than for the way in which it is obtained.^ 
 
 But the question of responsibility is much broader 
 and deeper than either the development of the 
 powers of the Speaker or of the Committee on 
 Rules, important as they are. If the minority in a 
 legislative body is to have the power, by any system 
 of rules or through any condition of business, of 
 
 ^ The present House (Fifty-second Congress), controlled by 
 the Democrats, has still further enlarged the power of the 
 Committee on Rules. It has given the Speaker power, when 
 a rule or special order is reported, to declare any motion dila- 
 tory and refuse to entertain it. This is a recognition of the 
 position of the Committee on Rules, and also of Mr. Reed's 
 second great principle, the power of the Speaker to shut out 
 dilatory motions. See note, p. 174. 
 
196 PARLIAMENTARY MINORITIES 
 
 stopping all legislative action, all political respon- 
 sibility comes to an end. The majority go to the 
 country and say the minority would not let them 
 legislate, and so they are not responsible for what 
 has been done or left undone ; while the minority, 
 of course, have merely to say that they were a mi- 
 nority, and therefore, in the nature of things, could 
 not legislate. To put it in another way. Congress 
 adjourns, goes to the country, and nobody is respon- 
 sible for anything. The school of writers to whom 
 I have already referred like to explain this by say- 
 ing that it is due to our system of committees, and 
 because Cabinet officers are not on the floor of the 
 House. They utterly fail to see that these things 
 are superficial details, and that the real difficulty 
 has been that there was no organized body in the 
 House, either majority or minority, which could be 
 held responsible for the action of the House as a 
 whole. < The reform, made by the Fifty-first Con- 
 gress and put in force by Mr. Reed, did something 
 more important than clear the path for majority 
 action at the time, great as that service was. Mr. 
 Keed, and those who sustained him, restored power, 
 and with power responsibility, to the majority in 
 the American House of Representatives. For what 
 was done in that Congress the majority was held 
 to strict account, and no future majority can ever 
 go to the people and escape responsibility for their 
 action or their inaction by saying that the minority 
 would not permit them to legislate. 
 
 Whether the present Congress has rejected the 
 changes made by Mr. Reed, in whole or in part. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY MINORITIES 197 
 
 makes absolutely no difference, so far as this point 
 of party responsibility is concerned. It has been 
 demonstrated plainly that a majority in the House 
 of Representatives can legislate if they choose to. 
 In other words, Mr. Reed and his party, as has been 
 said, restored responsibility to the majority, and 
 yet many of the people who have been clamoring 
 most loudly for the need of increased responsibility 
 were the first to find fault. This was due partly to 
 the fact that they did not understand what had 
 been done, partly to intense party spirit, but, most 
 of all, to their inability to grasp the idea that 
 American constitutional development must be along 
 its own lines, and cannot be advanced by foreign 
 g;rafts. Some of them appear to care more for 
 the shadow than the substance, for the name than 
 the thing. If they cannot get responsibility in the 
 English fashion, they seem to prefer that no ad- 
 vance at all should be made. But this narrow crit- 
 icism and fault-finding does not alter the great fact 
 that majority responsibility has been clearly estab- 
 lished in the House of Representatives, and that the 
 rights of the minority have been better defined. It 
 is known now of all men that the minority can no 
 longer arrest legislation unless the majority chooses 
 to permit them to do so. 
 
PAETY ALLEGIANCE.! 
 
 I HAVE been asked to speak to you to-night 
 about political parties, but I do not understand that 
 I am expected to make a party speech. If I were 
 a professional independent I might take advantage 
 of the occasion to urge you to vote for one of our 
 existing parties ; but as it is, I shall make a non- 
 political speech, with as little reference as possible 
 to existing parties, or to the political questions of 
 to-day. 
 
 It has been the fashion of late years in certain 
 places, of which this neighborhood is one, to decry 
 party organizations, and to take up the attitude that 
 it is a fine thing to condemn all party machinery 
 and organization as inherently bad. My purpose 
 to-night is to consider whether this attitude has any 
 sound justification, either historically or practically, 
 for its existence. 
 
 Let us first see how the case stands historically, 
 and as modern parliamentary government con- 
 ducted through the medium of political pai'ties is 
 peculiarly the work of the English-speaking people, 
 I shall not go outside the history of that people in 
 this branch of the discussion. The first practical 
 
 1 An Address delivered before the students of Harvard 
 University, March 8, 1892. 
 
PARTY ALLEGIANCE 199 
 
 attempt to carry on party government, as we under- 
 stand it to-day, was made by a Dutch prince, the 
 heir of a great name and the fit representative of a 
 great people. When William of Orange first came 
 to the English throne he undertook to carry on his 
 administration by having members of both the 
 great political parties in his councils. His motives 
 were the highest, and his desire was to unite Eng- 
 lishmen of all shades of political feeling in support 
 of the principles and the policies which he believed 
 to be for the best interests of the country. The re- 
 sult was not satisfactory. In a few years William 
 found himself with a Parliament broken into fac- 
 tions, and with his policy thwarted by personal jeal- 
 ousies and temporary coalitions. Under the pres- 
 sure of circumstances he then called about him men 
 who all belonged to the Whig party, because, what- 
 ever their shortcomings, they were at least united 
 on the point of sustaining him in the war which 
 he was waging to curb the power of France, defend 
 the Protestant religion, and maintain the liberties 
 of England. 
 
 The attempt was entirely successful for the pur- 
 pose for which it was made, but it was an experi- 
 ment and an example, rather than the foundation 
 of a permanent system. Government by parties 
 did not go on uninterruptedly in England from the 
 time of William III. The full scope and meaning 
 of the system, in fact, were not even understood for 
 many years, and in the succeeding reign govern- 
 ment was carried on, at intervals, by combinations 
 of different groups, who were not necessarily mem- 
 
200 PARTY ALLEGIANCE 
 
 bers of the same party. Nevertheless, after it had 
 been once begun by William, the constant tendency 
 was toward party government, and when Sir Robert 
 Walpole, one of the greatest Prime Ministers Eng- 
 land has ever had, came to his long tenure of power 
 he gave to the party system a great impetus and 
 development. Even after his time, however, there 
 were still relapses to the old practices of combina- 
 tions between groups and factions, and I think it 
 may be said that practically it was not until the 
 time of the younger Pitt that party government, 
 as we now understand it, was fuUy established as 
 a permanent system in England. 
 
 In this country we inherited the political habits 
 of Great Britain, and the party system was so far 
 developed there when our national government was 
 founded that it may be fairly said that we have 
 never known any other. When Washington as- 
 sumed the Presidency his attitude was not unlike 
 that of William of Orange. He knew that the 
 country had just passed through a period of great 
 and perilous disorder. He regarded the Constitu- 
 tion which had been adopted, and the government 
 which had been founded under It, as the only means 
 of making the United States a great and powerful 
 nation. It seemed to him, with his far-reaching 
 views, and with the lofty patriotism which always 
 characterized him, that all right-thinking men ought 
 to unite in the support of measures designed to es- 
 tablish and confirm the new government. Acting on 
 this theory he took into his Cabinet men who rep- 
 resented different political opinions and sympathies. 
 
PARTY ALLEGIANCE 201 
 
 The result was, that party divisions in the United 
 States began in Washington's Cabinet, and before 
 his first term was finished he was perfectly satisfied 
 that he could only carry on his administration suc- 
 cessfully by having men of like political opinions 
 about him. Much as he deplored the perils and 
 excesses of party spirit, under the severe discipline 
 of political opposition he became himself a strong 
 party man. 
 
 For more than a hundred years, therefore, the 
 two great branches of the English-speaking race 
 have carried on their parliamentary government 
 by means of political parties. The English Re- 
 form Bill of 1832, which was a peaceful revolu- 
 tion, and the maintenance of the Union together 
 with the abolition of slavery, which brought an 
 armed revolution, were, politically speaking, the 
 work of parties. What is true of the greatest 
 measures is equally true of those of less impor- 
 tance. Therefore it may be said that our history 
 has been made, and our great advances have been 
 secured, through party organizations. 
 
 Lord Macaulay treats William's experiment at 
 party government as one of the great achieve- 
 ments of that great man. It may be urged that 
 Macaulay, writing fifty years ago, did not have 
 the benefit of those views as to the pernicious 
 character of parties which have been lately preva- 
 lent in certain parts of the United States ; but no 
 such excuse can be made for Mr. John Morley, 
 who, within a year or two, has given large credit 
 to Sir Robert Walpole for the work he did in 
 
202 PARTY ALLEGIANCE 
 
 developing the English party system. We have 
 like testimony from a widely different standpoint. 
 The Due de Noailles, in a book upon the United 
 States, has lamented that France was without the 
 developed party system, and the same view has 
 been taken by the distinguished publicist, M. 
 Emile de Laveleye. I quote Lord Macaulay and 
 Mr. Morley merely as examples of eminent his- 
 torians who have considered the party system, 
 with all its defects, — and they are many and se- 
 rious, — as on the whole a great benefit to the 
 English people, and an essential help to good 
 government. I think it must be admitted that a 
 system which has achieved so much for mankind, 
 which has earned the praise of such high authori- 
 ties, both English and European, and which con- 
 vinced William of Orange and George Washington 
 of its necessity in carrying on representative gov- 
 ernment, cannot be lightly dismissed in deference 
 to anybody's criticism. The question is one that 
 deserves the careful and intelligent consideration of 
 every man who takes an interest, as all men ought 
 to do in this country, in public affairs. 
 
 What, then, are the real and solid foundations on 
 which the party system rests ? In the first place, 
 there is an inborn division of opinion in human 
 nature itself. Some men are naturally conserva- 
 tive, others progressive. Some men desire to keep 
 things as they are, others insist that they shall 
 change and advance. This is the fundamental 
 distinction which underlies all party divisions. If 
 one side prevailed constantly we should stagnate. 
 
PARTY ALLEGIANCE 203 
 
 If the other prevailed constantly we should have 
 no stability. It is the collision between these 
 opposing forces which has produced what we call, 
 for lack of better names, human progress and the 
 advance of civilization. These, I say, are the 
 fundamental divisions, but like all things human 
 they are subject to infinite variation. Even in the 
 same man there may be both progressive and con- 
 servative tendencies, and this truth is of much 
 wider application in any large group of men. If 
 no broad and general organizations are made in 
 politics, the tendency is for these variations to give 
 birth to an infinite number of groups and factions, 
 each of which agrees within* itself on only one 
 thing. The result of such a condition is a con- 
 stant shifting and changing of men and policies, 
 accompanied by temporary trades, bargains, and 
 coalitions, so that advance is impossible and insta- 
 bility the rule ; while at the same time personal 
 feelings hold sway over public principles, examples 
 of which may be seen in France and the South 
 American republics. 
 
 Hence it has been found that, in order to secure 
 practical results, it is necessary to combine a great 
 many groups into one large body or party which 
 will agree on certain general principles, and devote 
 itself to putting those principles into action. Thus 
 was originated the political party running, roughly 
 speaking, along the line of division which separates 
 the conservative from the liberal. If you want an 
 illustration in your own history of the practical 
 value of parties, turn to what is known as the era 
 
204 PARTY ALLEGIANCE 
 
 of good feeling, and learn what their absence im- 
 plies. When that period arrived, the old parties 
 formed at the beginning of our government had 
 settled the issues on which they had originally 
 divided. All men were merged in one party, or 
 rather, for the moment, parties in the broad sense 
 did not exist. The result was, that faction flour- 
 ished, and there has never been a period in our his- 
 tory when personal politics, which are the meanest 
 of all politics, were so prevalent, or when public 
 measures counted for so little and personal ambi- 
 tion and intrigue for so much. English history is 
 full of like instances, and parties were the natural 
 resource to which men turned in order that they 
 might rid themselves of the imbecility of faction. 
 
 It was found also, as modern representative gov- 
 ernment developed, not only that government by 
 party meant movement as well as stability, but 
 that it also meant responsibility. Political respon- 
 sibility is the great safeguard of popular represen- 
 tative government, but in order to have it effective 
 it must be made simple. No people, in these mod- 
 ern days at least, can go through the long list of 
 those who are intrusted with their government 
 and pick out each individual whom they think 
 should be retained in office. They cannot do this 
 even with factions. It is necessary to have some- 
 thing that is simpler, broader, and more readily 
 understood. This simplicity is obtained through 
 the party system, which concentrates responsibility 
 upon a single great and accessible organization. 
 
 Stability, orderly movement, and responsibility 
 
PARTY ALLEGIANCE 205 
 
 in political matters are therefore, I think, the foun- 
 dations and causes of the existence of the party 
 system in England and the United States. This 
 system, like free institutions, has not been the 
 result of accident, but of growth, and the first 
 question to be asked of those who rail indiscrimi- 
 nately at the party system is, " With what do you 
 intend to replace it ? " Its value has been proved 
 by experience, and the work it does must be done. 
 If you destroy parties you must have something 
 ready to fill their place and do their work. Criti- 
 cism is cheap and plentiful, but I have not yet 
 seen that essential something in the way of a sub- 
 stitute for parties suggested by it. 
 
 Do not understand me as saying that the party 
 system is perfect. Far from it. Perfection in hu- 
 man affairs, and especially in affairs political, exists 
 only in the schemes of persons who have never 
 had any practical experience in dealing with men. 
 The party system has grave defects, and has caused 
 serious errors and much wrong -doing. For in- 
 stance, the responsibility which we get through 
 parties is of a very rough kind. Many excellent 
 men are punished because their party is punished, 
 and many unworthy men prosper because their 
 party is rewarded. But, admitting all this, it is 
 none the less true that if you abolish parties, and 
 allow politics to become a struggle of individuals 
 and factions, you have no responsibility at all. 
 Thus it has come about that, in order to get their 
 political work done in some fashion, the English- 
 speaking part of mankind, which is fortunately 
 
206 PARTY ALLEGIANCE 
 
 more concerned with results than with theories, has 
 formed political parties. 
 
 As a rule there are but two, the conservative 
 and the progressive, the party which marks time 
 and the party which marches, the party of con- 
 structive statesmanship and the party which can 
 only either resist or destroy. The men who com- 
 pose these two parties, which comprise the great 
 mass of the people of the country, are both bad and 
 good, and the party character is that of its average. 
 Political parties are no more perfect in their com- 
 position than the party system is in its results. 
 This is unfortunate, but in the present condition 
 of man, I fear, inevitable. I have seen a great 
 many proposals for the foundation of parties to 
 be composed exclusively of virtuous persons, but 
 I have never yet met with such a party, small or 
 large, either in my own small experience or in the 
 great field of history. The wholly virtuous party 
 exists thus far, I think, only in the imagination of 
 persons who have a profound and intimate con- 
 viction of their own superiority to the mass of their 
 fellow-men who are so unlucky as to differ with 
 them'in opinion. 
 
 As I understand it, a man supports a party be- 
 cause he believes that on the whole the principles 
 of that party are right, and that its success in the 
 long run is for the best interests of his country. 
 It does not follow that a party man approves of 
 every party measure, still less that he approves of 
 all the menibers of his party. Humanly speaking, 
 this is a comparative and not an absolute world. 
 
PARTY ALLEGIANCE 207 
 
 and in political affairs as in many others our object 
 perforce must be to get the best thing attainable. 
 By combination and organization with other men 
 with whom, in a general way, you are in agree- 
 ment, you can at least obtain some results, when 
 by yourself you would be simply beating your head 
 against the wall and not getting atiy results at all. 
 This last performance may be an agreeable process 
 to some minds, but it is not of much obvious value 
 to yourself or to humanity. 
 
 Such, then, are parties and their purposes as I 
 understand them, and such, also, is the main line 
 of division. It only remains to consider the ele- 
 ments which are ranged outside of parties, and 
 which always include a certain portion of the 
 community. If no man ever changed his politics, 
 and if every one always kept to those he inher- 
 ited, one party would always be in a majority, 
 and the other always in a minority. In other 
 words, as we know that party power shifts fre- 
 quently, we are also certain that there is always a 
 body of voters who are ready to change sides. 
 Sometimes a great issue comes along which vio- 
 lently shatters existing parties, and a complete 
 shifting of political power is the consequence. 
 Such changes as these, however, are abnormal and 
 occur but seldom. Parties, as a rule, run along on 
 the great dividing line, and power shifts from one 
 to the other without a political convulsion. 
 
 The element which changes the possession of 
 political power under normal conditions is variously 
 composed. In the first place, although polities are 
 
208 PARTY ALLEGIANCE 
 
 largely inherited, there is always a certain number 
 of new voters who make their own choice in voting 
 for the first time, and who thus introduce an ele- 
 ment of uncertainty which is invariably present. 
 Then there are the timid people who are afraid of 
 any changes, and are disposed to vote for the party 
 in power, without much regard to what that party is. 
 This is a small and not very important element, 
 but it is felt at times, especially in our great cities. 
 Finally, there is the independent voter, the man 
 who owns no party allegiance. On this let me be 
 clearly understood. I am speaking now of the real 
 and not of the professional independent. The real 
 independent voter is a man who feels that he per- 
 forms his highest political duty by voting for one 
 party or the other, according as the success of one 
 party or the other seems to him at the moment for 
 the best interests of the country. He tries both 
 parties by the same standard, be it right or wrong, 
 and he is a good deal influenced by the personality 
 of the candidates. The real independent is essen- 
 tially solitary and individual, for an " independent 
 party " is a fatuous contradiction in terms. The 
 moment a man enters into combination with other 
 men for political purposes, technically speaking he 
 ceases in so far to be independent, and becomes 
 part of an organization which, to attain a given ob- 
 ject, subordinates lesser interests to greater. But 
 the real independent, although solitary in his 
 habits, is one of a numerous class. He does not 
 go to conventions or caucuses or reform clubs, but 
 watches the course of public affairs, and exercises 
 
PARTY ALLEGIANCE 209 
 
 his influence solely by his vote. It has been the 
 fashion lately to talk a great deal about indepen- 
 dence in politics, but so far as my observation has 
 gone, the independence in politics of which we have 
 heard so much of late years is the independence of 
 professionals who think the name valuable, and has 
 usually consisted in voting one ticket all the time 
 and in trying the two political parties by widely 
 different standards. Call it by what fair-sounding 
 name you choose, this is partisanship, and unattrac- 
 tive partisanship, because it masquerades. Real in- 
 dependence, using the word in its technical political 
 sense, does not consist in voting any party ticket all 
 the time, nor is its existence proved by vociferation. 
 Independence is a fact and may exist under any 
 conditions, just as the name independence may be 
 claimed and used without any relation to the actual 
 truth. I have seen greater courage and indepen- 
 dence shown by men of both parties who were strict 
 party men, and always voted their party ticket, than 
 by any one else, and, at the same time, the most 
 ferocious partisanship I have ever witnessed I have 
 seen exhibited by those who proclaimed their inde- 
 pendence most loudly to the ears of a somewhat 
 wearied world. 
 
 I said at the outset that when I made a non-poli- 
 tical speech, it was not my habit to try to advise or 
 persuade any one to vote for the party to which I 
 belong. But, speaking to you who are just about 
 to enter upon your life work, not merely as men, 
 but as American citizens, I will venture to urge 
 upon your consideration two or three ideas in which 
 
210 PARTY ALLEGIANCE 
 
 I very profoundly believe, and which are suggested 
 by what I have been saying. Being twenty years 
 out of college is a sufficient misfortune to entitle a 
 man to the privilege of venturing to give advice 
 to his successors here, even at the risk of seeming 
 didactic. 
 
 First, then, I would say to you, believe in your 
 country, — -be Americans. In the second place, 
 give what you can of your time and thought to 
 your country's service. Give as much as you can, 
 but in any event take an interest in public affairs 
 and do something. I believe you can be most effec- 
 tive in politics by joining a party, that party which 
 by its character and its principles you think can do 
 most for the country. If you are not ready, or if 
 you are so constituted that you cannot become a 
 part of a great organization and subordinate your 
 own wishes to general results, remain an indepen- 
 dent in politics. But be a real independent, not a 
 sham one. It is a perfectly honorable thing to be 
 a party man. It is likewise a perfectly honorable 
 thing to be a genuine independent, and to have 
 nothing to do with political organizations of any 
 kind, although I do not think it is so useful. But 
 it is a very mean and dishonest thing to be a party 
 man and call yourself an independent, or to be an 
 independent and call yourself a party man. If you 
 are a member of a party, be true to it. If you are 
 an independent, be true to your independence. But 
 be the slave of neither. Sometimes it is a man's 
 highest duty to separate, either temporarily or 
 finally, from the party to which he is bound by every 
 
PARTY ALLEGIANCE 211 
 
 tie of association and sympathy. Sometimes it is 
 his duty to subordinate himself and his own wishes 
 and preferences to the attainment of some great 
 object, and to go with a party for that end. 
 
 Political independence is a valuable thing and 
 a much abused word. To think differently from 
 others, or from a party or a majority, is not neces- 
 sarily to think independently. Thinking for your- 
 self is the only real independence, and that may 
 lead you into a majority as well as a minority, into 
 a party as well as out of it. It is, after all, largely 
 a matter of seeing things just as they are, and not 
 mistaking names for things. Dr. Johnson, dis- 
 gusted with the self-styled political " patriots " of 
 his day, defined patriotism as the last refuge of a 
 scoundrel, and in our own time some one has said 
 that, when Dr. Johnson gave that definition, he 
 did not know the infinite possibilities of the word 
 " reform." Both gibes speak the revolt of the 
 healthy human mind against humbug and pre- 
 tense. Reform is a good, patriotism a noble thing, 
 but those who proclaim themselves most loudly to 
 be their possessors are not necessarily the sole or 
 only proprietors. It is well to be liberal toward 
 other men, for it does not follow because a man 
 differs from you in political opinion that he is 
 therefore less virtuous or less patriotic than your- 
 self. And in this connection let me add that it is 
 well to avoid the superior virtue habit. It is as 
 subtle, as weakening, and as injurious in its way 
 as the alcohol or the morphine habit. A man is 
 most useful who looks upon the world with open 
 
212 PARTY ALLEGIANCE 
 
 eyes, who makes no political fetich of any man, 
 who does not shut his ears to all voices but those 
 which speak the jargon of the parish or the sect, 
 but who strives as best he may to make things 
 better, and to advance enduring principles in such 
 manner as seems to him best, most honest, and most 
 fruitful. 
 
 Above all, let me repeat, whether partisan or in- 
 dependent, strive to be just, and to see things as 
 they are. The men who are doing the work of the 
 world are not perfect, and their work is not per- 
 fect, but it is under their impulse that the world 
 moves. Take part in the work of the world, and 
 do not fall into the miserable habit of being mere 
 critics of those who are toiling and struggling. 
 Live the life of your time, and take your share in 
 its battles. You will be made thereby not only 
 more e£fective, but more manly and more generous'. 
 You will make mistakes, but, as Mr. Phelps has 
 wisely and wittily said, the man who never makes 
 mistakes never makes anything. It is easy to 
 criticise ; it is a much higher and nobler thing to 
 go down into the dust and heat and do something, 
 even if you stumble and fall and rise again be- 
 grimed and scarred from the doing. The virtue 
 which is never tested is but a poor virtue, after 
 all. 
 
 Let me commend to you the noble words of Mil- 
 ton : " I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered vir- 
 tue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies 
 out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the 
 race where that immortal garland is to be run for, 
 
PARTY ALLEGIANCE 213 
 
 notwithstanding dust and heat. Assuredly we 
 bring not innocence into the world, we bring im- 
 purity much rather ; that which purifies us is trial, 
 and trial is by what is contrary. The virtue, there- 
 fore, which is but a youngling in the contemplation 
 of evil, and knows not the utmost that vice promises 
 to her followers, and rejects it, is but a blank vir- 
 tue, not a pure." 
 
Books on Government and 
 Political History. 
 
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