^ 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
I 
 
 c 
 
 ASKET 
 
 OF 
 
 REMINISCENCES, 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY S. FOOTE, 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C: 
 
 CHRONICLE PUBLISHING COMPANY. 
 1874. 
 
 i 
 
 
60799 
 
 £1 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The author of the Reminiscences contained in this volume has lit- 
 tle to say in regard to them by way of proem. They were written to 
 amuse a few hours of the summer and autumn of the present year, and 
 appeared almost daily in the columns of the Washington Chron- 
 icle precisely as they were originally thrown oil* from his pen. 
 Though very sensible of their deficiencies in point of literary finish, 
 he has not judged it expedient to modify them in any essential par- 
 ticular ; and he will, indeed, be highly gratified if they shall now 
 be read by those into whose hands they may chance to fall with as 
 much interest as they seemed originally to awaken. 
 
 He has no apology to make for certain rather unkind strictures in- 
 dulged in regard to several individuals upon whose character and con- 
 duct lie has undertaken to remark. He has chosen to speak the uuvar 
 nished truth, both as to men and things; and he is quite well satisfied 
 that, sooner or later, all considerate and impartial men will come to the 
 conclusion that in doing so he is not justly subject to censure. Should 
 there be those who shall choose to join issue with him as to facts herein 
 narrated they will now have it in their power to do so under circum- 
 stances altogether convenient, to them. 
 
Casket of Reminiscences 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. I. 
 
 JAMES MONROE — JOHN QUINCY ADAMS — CHIEF JUSTICE MAR- 
 SHALL — HENRY CLAY— ROBERT J. WALKER — MR. WEBSTER- 
 JENNY LIND. 
 
 Aii opinion has long prevailed that such as have been 
 blessed with more than ordinary multiplicity of years, and 
 whose opportunities of observing the course of public 
 affairs have been at all favorable — so long, at least, as the 
 mens shim in sano cofpore shall be vouchsafed to them — 
 may he reasonably presumed to hold in the storehouse of 
 memory many facts, the accurate and impartial recital of 
 which ^Pght he expected to prove more or less instructive 
 and entertaining to persons of a more limited experience. 
 It is doubtless upon some such notion as this, whether 
 well or ill founded, that I have been persuaded to enter 
 a held already in part occupied by others, whose diverse 
 merits I have no wish to call in question. Not purposing 
 to write either history or biography in a regular manner, 
 I shall probably not be subjected to anything like acri- 
 monious criticism if I shall in a great measure disregard 
 mere order of time, and describe such scenes as may 
 casually suggest themselves to my recollection, in a very 
 desultory manner, and with something of the unaffected 
 simplicity of oral narrative. 
 
2 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 It chanced that I was in the city of Washington during 
 the latter part of the winter of 1824-'5, having been at- 
 tracted thither, as many thousands besides had been, by 
 the interesting scenes of one kind or another known to be 
 there enacting. The Electoral Colleges in the States having 
 
 o o o 
 
 failed to give to either of the four Presidential candidates 
 a majority of votes, upon the House of Representatives in 
 Congress was devolved the duty of selecting a President 
 from the three candidates who had been the recipients 
 of the largest number of electoral votes. After an in- 
 tensely interesting struggle Mr. John Quincy Adams was 
 chosen, and preparations were made for his inauguration. 
 This took place in the hall of the House of Representa- 
 tives, and I had the honor to witness this ceremony, which 
 to me at the time was full of novelty and interest. Mi-. 
 Adams seemed to me to be then quite a robust man, and 
 of a far more animated and hopeful aspect than he was in 
 after years. When he advanced across the floor of the 
 hall and received the volume containing the oath of office 
 from the hands of the venerable Chief-Justice Marshall, 
 his step was firm, and 1/% manner ^vas marked with a 
 placid dignity very imposing indeed. He e^J^ciated 
 the oath in a clear audjJisjChcHf tone, and ascended the 
 Speaker's chair for the purpose of delivering therefrom 
 his inaugural address. Then it was that he seemed to me 
 to evince some embarrassment, and the [taper from which 
 he read rattled in his tremulous hands to such an extent 
 that the noise from it was distinctly heard by auditors in 
 the gallery of the House, where I was myself located. 
 
 When the address was brought to a close, most of those 
 present proceeded to the White House in order to take 
 leave of Mr. Monroe, who was about to set off for his private 
 residence in Virginia. Curiosity led me thither. I was 
 much struck with the very healthy and vigorous appear- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 6 
 
 ance of this venerable man. Though I had seen him often 
 before, I had never approached him so nearly as on this 
 occasion. His appearance and manners were full of life 
 and cordiality. His face wore a kindly and genial smile, 
 and he was evidently rejoicing inwardly at being relieved 
 at last from the toils and cares of office. I saw Mr. Adams 
 also in the throng of those who were eagerly pressing 
 forward to shake hands with his predecessor. He seemed 
 to be wholly unnoticed, and to be in a gravely meditative 
 mood. I was anxious to see him more distinctly, and I 
 urged my way to his whereabouts perhaps a little indeli- ________ 
 
 cately. When I beheld him nearly I found that he was (xJUw 
 actually weeping. The tear-drops, which were constantly ^J o^ 
 distilling from his eyelids, he ever and anon wiped away £&^w. 
 with a white linen handkerchief. The spectacle which I ^ tur 
 beheld reminded me very forcibly of what I had read °f ik^^v 
 the laughing and the weeping philosopher of the olden ^^ „ 
 time. Here I saw a President of the United States de- ^ (jLx 
 parting from office to all appearance replete with hilarity c^Jhy^ 
 and joyousness, while he who was presently to till his place UaM*+ > ' 
 seemed smitten with unappeasable anguish and melan- < W ar ^ > & 
 choly. I did not then know what I soon after learned, ^_^f ^ 
 that the tear-shedding which had so painfully attracted 'f^Li 
 my attention was with Mr. Adams but an "ordinary in- ^ 
 undation," and the result of an optical distemper of very ____, 
 
 long standing. 
 
 So soon as the leave-taking was over at the White 
 House, a very numerous body of citizens flocked to Mr. 
 Adams' private residence, in order to partake of a sumpt- 
 uous banquet which had been prepared for their enjoy- 
 ment. Now, in connection with this same banquet, which 
 I did not attend, there has been buzzing about my cranium 
 ever since a not unpleasant reminiscence. When the 
 banqueters returned from Mr. Adams' house, several of 
 
4 CASKET OF REMIXieCEXCES. 
 
 them mentioned to me, in very kind terms, the hospitable 
 attentions of which they had. been recipients, and, among 
 other things, spoke in language of warm commendation 
 of the two sons of Mr. Adams, who had superintended the 
 distribution of creature comforts to the numerous quests 
 assembled around the table, which was literally groaning 
 with all the choicest viands which the Washington market 
 could supply. These young gentlemen were described as 
 each of them holding in his dexter hand a bright silver 
 ladle, with which he lavishly apportioned to the eager 
 visitants the most delicious oyster soup, dipped out of a 
 splendid china bowl of most gigantic proportions, which 
 sat smoking before them. The elder of these scions of a 
 noble stock I had incidentally met at the Bedford Springs, 
 in Pennsylvania, the summer before. I regretted to see 
 his untimely decease reported in the newspapers a few 
 years later. To his younger brother, Charles Francis 
 Adams, now so creditably known on botli sides of the At- 
 lantic, I had the honor of being casually introduced one 
 night at the theater in Washington. I saw him again, 
 in company with his brother John, at the inaugural ball, 
 which took place upon the evening of the 4th of March. 
 Our slight personal acquaintance has never been sub- 
 sequently renewed, nor do I suppose that he now remem- 
 bers that wc ever met, I have been, though, for many 
 years, a diligent observer of his course, and while I have 
 not always been aide to concur with him upon the public 
 questions which have been from time to time agitated, 
 his intellectual powers have ever commanded my respect, 
 and I have never at all distrusted either his integrity or 
 his patriotism. 
 
 It is well known to all the readers of our national his- 
 tory that the administration of Mr. Adams had to en- 
 counter much and tierce opposition in various quarters. 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. O 
 
 He and all the prominent members of his Cabinet were 
 objects of unsparing denunciation, and even sometimes 
 also of ridicule. All sorts of accusations were preferred 
 against himself and Mr. Clay in particular, and they were 
 freely denounced as the upholders of corruption and the 
 enemies of freedom. Nearly a half century has now passed 
 away since that Administration was brought to a close. 
 The prejudices and passions connected with the period in 
 which it had its course are almost absolutely extinct, and 
 now "returning Justice, lifting aloft her scale," attests to 
 all the generations of the future that the Republic has 
 never known a time in which public men of greater vir- 
 tue and wisdom occupied the high places of civil trust, or 
 when all the concerns of the Government were more suc- 
 cessfully and economically administered, than between the 
 4th of March, 1825, and the 4th of March, 1829. 
 
 Of Mr. Clay I shall have a good deal to say hereafter. 
 Mr Adams I never knew intimately. I saw him for the 
 last time at his own house, in Washington, on the 1st day 
 of January, 1848, and had a short conversation with him. 
 He was then very pale and thin, and I left him with the 
 impression that he could not long survive. When lie fell 
 suddenly in the House of Representatives, a few weeks 
 later, while in the act of delivering an eloquent and 
 powerful speech upon a question which involved his feel- 
 ings very deeply, there was probably not a member of Con- 
 gress of any party who did not feel the most poignant dis- 
 tress and chagrin. 
 
 Mr. Adams Avas, upon the whole, one of the most re- 
 markable men that our country has produced. Bonest 3 
 warm-hearted, and fearless, he disdained to conceal his 
 opinions upon any subject involving the welfare of his 
 country or the happiness of his kind. His mind was by 
 nature active, vigorous, and capable of the highest cul- 
 
(3 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 ture. His early education, under the direction of his ven- 
 erable father, had been most judicious and complete, and 
 he had devoted almost his whole life to the acquisition of 
 knowledge of every kind, both theoretic and practical. 
 He was a ripe scholar, and was thoroughly versed in eveiy 
 department of modern literature. His pen, as a political 
 controversial writer, was one oi the most potential that 
 the country has known. He does not seem to have 
 gained much reputation as a speaker in the earlier stages 
 of his public career. When in the national Senate, before 
 he had yet attained middle age, he is not known to 
 have dis jguished himself as a debater on any noted oc- 
 casion. But on his becoming a member of the House of 
 Representatives, several years subsequent to his defeat for 
 re-election to the Presidency, he discovered powers of dis- 
 cussion for which no one had ever before that period given 
 him credit. I very much doubt whether a more accom- 
 plished and effective speaker was ever heard in that bodj r . 
 His command of language was unlimited ; his knowledge 
 of public affairs was such as perhaps no other American 
 statesman has ever possessed, which gave him a great ad- 
 vantage over those with whom he had from time to time 
 to conflict; his memory of past transactions was never at 
 fault ; and when he felt himself to be in the right, he 
 feared not the weapons of any adversary. His powers of 
 sarcasm and denunciation were positively terrific, and no 
 man ever dared to awakeii'Jiis ire whom he did not speed- 
 ily compel to regret his temerity. His superiority to all 
 the flimsy and tinseled declaimers of the period, who, with 
 a vain and silly ambition, sought to draw him into con- 
 flict, was so conspicuous that even those who disliked him 
 most were constrained to recognize him as a victor in every 
 such conflict. Mr. Adams seemed to belong to a class 
 of persons of whom only a few have made their appear- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. I 
 
 ance either in ancient or modern times, in whom imagi- 
 nation, conjoined with retentive memory and fervid sen- 
 sibilities, grew more and more vigorous and luxuriant up 
 even to the end of their mortal career. Thus was it with 
 the venerable author of the Apocalypse, with Plato, with 
 Sophocles, and with Edmund Burke. On the day of Mr: 
 Adams' lamented decease, I do not at all doubt that he 
 was the most splendid and picturesque rhetorician then 
 living ; and he is known to have often indulged in poeti- 
 cal effusions, both of a grave and sportive character, which 
 would have done credit to an Ovid or a Tibullus. A day 
 or so before his death he wrote a beautiful little sonnet 
 to a charming young lady of his acquaintance, which 
 was shown to me by Caleb Lyon, of Lyondale— a copy 
 of it having been given to him by Mr. Adams himself- 
 with the sweetness and beauty of which I was much 
 impressed. 
 
 Robert J. Walker told me more than once that Mr. 
 Adams, several years anterior to 1844, predicted in his 
 hearing and in a manner exceedingly solemn and earnest, 
 that in less than twenty years African slavery would be 
 extinguished in the United States— adding that he ex- 
 pected himself to witness its overthrow. 
 
 A few days subsequent to the decease of Mr. Adams, 
 on a convivial occasion, when all present were lamenting 
 that event, and commending his social and domestic vir- 
 tues, as well as his extraordinary ability, I recollect Mr. 
 Webster to have said: "Well, gentlemen, all you say is 
 doubtless true; Mr. Adams was a very remarkable 
 man; no one can doubt his talents or his moral worth; 
 but you will permit me to say that I do not recol- 
 lect that tins gentleman ever gave utterance to a truly 
 national sentiment after he took his seat in the House of 
 Representatives/' 'This was almost the only time that I 
 
8 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 ever knew this liberal-spirited and wonderfully gifted 
 man to express himself, in private converse, in terms of 
 decided decrial of any cotemporary statesman dead or 
 living. 
 
 The incidental mention of Mr. Webster's name brings 
 up in my memory a rather curious and interesting scene 
 which I witnessed in the summer of 1850. The Compro- 
 mise struggle, which had been in progress for some months, 
 had just terminated. The dangers which were supposed 
 to menace the destruction of the Federal Union estab- 
 lished by our. lathers, it was hoped, had been effectually 
 obviated by a wise and salutary " plan of adjustment,*' 
 as I remember George M. Dallas to have called it, and 
 the extremists of either section, it was believed, had been 
 defeated in their respective schemes of mischief. All 
 Washington was rejoicing over this noble result, and pa- 
 triotic men of all parties were reveling in a sort of frater- 
 nizing jubilee. Next to Mr. Clay himself, Mr. Webster 
 was supposed to have signalized himself in this ever- 
 memorable conflict, and from, the day when he had de- 
 livered his celebrated 7th of March speech he had been 
 receiving every hour, in one form or another, the tokens 
 of public gratitude. This was perhaps the most happy 
 moment of his life. He had efficiently contributed to 
 save the Union from ruin and his native land from blood- 
 sbed and devastation, by aiding in the bringing of men 
 of genuine national sentiment into manly and heroic com- 
 bination for the overthrow of sectional factionists, alike 
 of the South and of the "North. He had risked his own 
 beloved popularity in that contest, perhaps more seriously 
 than any other man ; but the Republic was safe, and his 
 own great soul was full of gladness and gratitude. Just 
 about this time the Russian Minister of that period, the 
 well-known Mr. Bodisco, summoned the august Secretary 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 9 
 
 of State under President Fillmore and the members of the 
 two Committees on Foreign Affairs of Congress to a din- 
 ner at his mansion in Georgetown, to do appropriate 
 honor to the birthday of the Emperor Nicholas, which 
 was then at hand. Several of the new Cabinet of Mr. 
 Fillmore I recollect also to have been present on this oc_ 
 casion, and, among others, Mr. Stuart, of Virginia, then 
 Secretary of the Interior. Seldom has a more splendid 
 banquet been spread, and greatly was it enjoyed by all 
 who had been invited to partake of it. Mr. Webster of- 
 fered the toast in honor of his Imperial Majesty, and ac- 
 companied it with one of the most dignified, conciliatory, 
 and truly statesmanlike speeches I ever listened to. 
 Neither Pericles nor Tacitus, in their most inspired mo- 
 ments, could have given a more noble and felicitous ex- 
 pression to stately and elevated thoughts and sentiments 
 concerning the happiness and true glory of governments 
 and of peoples. V hen the dinner was over, Mr. Web- 
 ster, in his most bland and courteous manner, approach- 
 ing Mr. Stuart and myself, invited us to accompany him 
 in his carriage back to Washington, suggesting that he 
 would he pleased if we Would go with him also to the 
 opera, where 'Jenny Lind was to regale, for the last time, 
 a Washington audience with her charming; minstrelsy. 
 There was, of course, no refusing such an invitation, so 
 we hurried forward with glowing anticipations of enjoy- 
 ment to the appointed scene of entertainment. On arriv- 
 ing at the door of the opera-house Mr. Webster entered 
 in his grandest manner, and slowly ]>;issed down the cen- 
 tral aisle of the building. It chanced that Jenny Lind 
 was then on the platform, and was about to commence 
 singing our inspiring national anthem, "The Star-Spangled 
 Banner." So soon as Mr. Webster's approach was per- 
 ceived the assemblage spontaneously broke forth with 
 
10 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES 
 
 tempestuous applause, evidently recognizing it as a re- 
 markable coincidence that the renowned defender of the 
 Constitution should have happened to come in at the very 
 moment that the sacred emblem of the nation's liberty 
 and union was on the eve of being rapturously apostro- 
 phized in song. So soon as the audience settled down 
 into quietude the inspiring tones of Jenny Lind's mar- 
 velous voice were heard. Never, either before or since, 
 have I been made so overwhelmingly sensible as I was on 
 that occasion of the commingled power of music and sen- 
 timent. The whole concourse really appeared to be elec- 
 trified. Mr. Webster was so transported with delight 
 that lie actually seemed almost to become unconscious of 
 the presence of others, and hummed very distinctly in 
 unison with the varying tones of the songstress. All the 
 enthusiasm of his soul had evidently been kindled into 
 flame; all his patriotic pride had been awakened, and his 
 whole moral nature appeared to have been "touched and 
 inspired" by the seraphic sounds to which he was an 
 enraptured listener. When the song was over, Mr. Web- 
 ster — as if impelled by a sense of official duty to offer, in 
 the name of the great nation which he felt himself enti- 
 tled in some degree to represent on this occasion, the 
 formal tribute of its respect — rose from his seat, and, step- 
 ping forward to a central position between the audience 
 and the platform upon which Jenny Lind was standing, 
 made her one of the most honoring and majestic bows 
 I ever beheld. The amiable and accomplished recipient 
 of a homage as unexpected as it must have been gratify- 
 ing, manifested something of a g'racefnl and blushing 
 embarrassment, but conrtesied notwithstanding most pro- 
 foundly in response, upon which the assembled multitude 
 gave vent to their delight in most vociferous applause. 
 A second bow was administered, with precisely similar 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 11 
 
 accompaniments. A third one was tendered, when the 
 charming "Swedish Nightingale," as she was called, in- 
 continently took wing and became invisible to our fond 
 and admiring eyes, perchance forever! The newspapers 
 next morning duly noted this interesting incident, and, 
 much to their credit be it spoken, made none but the, 
 kindest comments thereupon. Certainly, all who had the 
 happiness to be present that night withdrew to their 
 homes both loving and honoring more highly than they 
 had ever done before the high-souled and grandly-endowed 
 statesman of Massachusetts, after this wondrous politico- 
 histrionic performance of his. 
 
12 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. II. 
 
 MR. BERRIEN — FRANCES S. KEY CHARLES J. INGERSOLL MR. 
 
 WIRT MRS. LEE GENERAL LEE WILLIAM H. FITZHUGH — ■ 
 
 GENERAL GRANT. 
 
 I do not remember to have at any time witnessed a 
 more interesting forensic discussion than one to which I 
 had the pleasure of listening in the chamher of the Su- 
 preme Court of the United States in the beginning of the 
 month of March, 1825. A vessel engaged in the African 
 slave trade had been a month or two before seized by a 
 revenue cutter of the Government upon the coast of 
 Florida, and had been regularly libeled for confiscation 
 under the act of Congress declaring this species of traffic 
 to be piracy. .This case involved pecuniary interests of 
 much magnitude, and certain moral considerations, also? 
 of much delicacy and dignity. The argument attracted 
 a large assemblage of refined and intelligent persons of 
 either sex. The discussion was opened by the celebrated 
 Francis S. Key, so honorably known then and now as the 
 author of "The Star-Spangled Banner." Mr. Key had 
 been employed to aid the Attorney General, (Mr. Wirt,) 
 while Charles J. Ingersoll, of Philadelphia, and John M. 
 Berrien, of Georgia, were enlisted in the defense. I was 
 very much entertained with the whole argument, but I 
 was particularly charmed with the speech of Mr. Key and 
 that of Mr. Berrien, both of which I now propose to 
 notice very briefly. Mr. Key was tall, erect, and of ad- 
 mirable physical proportions. There dwelt usually upon 
 his handsome and winning features a soft and touching 
 pensiveness of expression almost bordering on sadness, but 
 which, in moments of special excitement, or when any- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 13 
 
 thins; occurred to awaken the dormant heroism of his 
 nature, or to call into action the higher powers of his 
 vigorous and well-cultivated intellect, gave place to a 
 bright ethereality of aspect and a noble audacity of tone 
 and gesture which pleased while it dazzled the beholder- 
 His voice was capable of being in the highest degree 
 touching and persuasive. His whole gesticulation was 
 natural, graceful, and impressive, and he was as completely 
 free from every thing like affectation or rhetorical grimace 
 as any public speaker I have known. He had a singular 
 flow of choice and pointed phraseology, such as could not 
 fail to be pleasing to persons of taste and discernment ; 
 and I am sure that no orfe ever heard him exhibit his 
 extraordinary powers of discussion, to whom the ideas to 
 which he essayed to give expression seemed at all cloudy 
 or perplexed, or his elocution clogged and torpid, even lor 
 the shortest possible period of time. On this occasion, he 
 greatly surpassed the expectations of his most admiring 
 friends. The subject was particularly suited to his habits 
 of thought, and was one which had long enlisted, in a 
 special manner, the generous sensibilities of his soul. It 
 seemed to me that he said all that the case demanded, 
 and yet no more than was needful to be said ; and he 
 closeWith a thrilling and even electrifying picture of the 
 horrors connected with the African slave trade, which 
 would have done honor either to a Pitt or a Wilberforce 
 in their palmiest days. 
 
 Mr. Berrien (with whom I afterward had the honor of 
 enjoying much familiar intercourse) was now making his 
 first public appearance in Washington. His fame, both as 
 a jurist and advocate, had preceded him. His early affili- 
 ation with the Federal party had heretofore operated as 
 an insuperable impediment to his political advancement 
 in Georgia, but being now in full unison with the politi- 
 
14 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 cal sentiment then prevailing, the Legislature of that 
 State had recently elected him to a seat in the national 
 Senate, a special session of which body was expected to 
 commence on the 4th of March. 
 
 The advent of Mr. Berrien had naturally awakened 
 much curiosity, and when he rose to address the court he 
 found himself encircled by a vast and eager assemblage. 
 From the beginning of his grave and impressive exordium, 
 up even to the close of his splendid peroration, he was 
 listened to with unbroken attention, and never was speech 
 more deserving of this quiet but expressive homage. Mr. 
 Berrien appeared to be at this time about forty-five years 
 of age, but it was whispered in certain circles that he was 
 at least ten years older. He was of a medium height? 
 exceedingly compact in his frame, agile in all his move- 
 ments, of a fresh and healthy complexion, neat and even 
 elegant in his attire, and as stately and dignified in his 
 general demeanor as would at all have comported with 
 that cordial courtesy and flowing affability for which he 
 was ever distinguished. His visage betokened much of 
 intellectual power. His forehead, though not unusually 
 high, was broad and well developed ; his eyes large, lus- 
 trous, and penetrating; his voice, which I suspect to have 
 been assidulously cultivated, was deficient neither in 
 compass nor melody ; it was distinct, sonorous, and im- 
 pressive. He evinced on this occasion the most complete 
 self-possession, and seemed to hold under easy and effective 
 control all the faculties of his mind and all the passions of 
 his soul. He wandered not for a moment from the main 
 points in controversy ; he indulged in no extravagant 
 flights of fancy ; dwelt not over long upon any of the 
 topics discussed by him; attempted no tinseled rhetoric; 
 essayed no pompous declamation ; put in use no trivial 
 strokes of humor: uttered no florid panegyric, and ful- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 15 
 
 minated no tempestuous, overstrained denunciation. The 
 clear and copious stream of his methodical and well- 
 digested logic flowed on in steady and unruffled grandeur 
 like some smooth, majestic river, fed by exhaustless foi 
 tains, ever moving forward evenly within its banks, never 
 spreading out its waters in unnavigable shallows, nor 
 breaking forth beyond its assigned boundaries and carry- 
 ing desolation and terror to regions far remote. This first 
 speech of Mr. Berrien in Washington was perhaps as bril- 
 liant a debut as this country has yet known ; and I would 
 willingly travel many miles to hear one at all approach- 
 ing to it in felicity of conception or effectiveness of de- 
 livery. 
 
 When it was brought to. a close, I looked round upon 
 that quiet and refined assemblage, and saw unmistakable 
 tokens of approval upon all faces. A goodly number of 
 those present were then known to me. Among the audi 
 tors I well remember a bevy of fair ladies and handsome, 
 well-dressed gentlemen, who occupied a sofa to the left of 
 the bench upon which the judges sat. I will mention one 
 or two of them, beginning with William H. Fitzhugh, of 
 Kavensworth, in Virginia. This gentleman possessed a 
 noble and prepossessing exterior. His face was marked 
 alike with benevolenee and intellect. He was reputed to 
 be wealthy, and doubtless was so. He was generally 
 looked upon as decidedly the most rising young states, 
 man in the Old Dominion, now that Armistead C. Mason 
 was in the grave. He had for some years honorably occu- 
 pied a seat in the Senate of Virginia, and stood high both 
 as a speaker and as a sound, practical legislator. He was 
 born and reared to manhood, as I have learned, in a noble 
 mansion, yet standing upon the bank of the Rappahan- 
 nock, just opposite Fredericksburg, and in sight of the 
 neat and comely dwelling in which the childhood and 
 
 > 
 
16 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 youth of the great Washington received that training 
 and nurture which fitted him for the glorious part he was 
 to take in his country's history. Mr. Fitzhughwas him- 
 self possessed of as much of the true Washingtonian spirit 
 as any man then living. He died very suddenly a year 
 or two after the scene which I have been describing, leav- 
 ing behind him a wife, who, T rejoice to learn, is still liv- 
 ing. This lady was also present during the speech of Mr. 
 Berrien, as was also Mrs. Custis, the wife of George 
 Washington Parke Custis, formerly so well known in 
 Washington, and so much beloved and venerated. 
 
 Seated near these ladies was one whom I am tempted 
 more particularly to describe. I allude to the only 
 daughter of Mrs. Custis, the present Mrs. Lee.~ :: ' She was 
 then about sixteen years of age, and was indeed " the ob- 
 served of all observers." Her personal charms were such as 
 must inevitably have commanded admiration and sympa- 
 thy, independent of the adsc i titious advantages which so 
 richly clustered about her. Ko one, I am confident, has 
 ever beheld a more placid and winning face than that 
 which was now presented to my gaze. She was richly 
 but plainly attired, as was her mother, and there was a 
 modest and reserved dignity about both of them that sig- 
 niticantly bespoke their rank and bringing up. Miss 
 Custis was described to me by those who knew her best 
 as a young lady of sound and vigorous intellect, in which 
 judgment and discrimination decidedly predominated. 
 Her education had been in all respects such as was best 
 calculated to make heralike happy herself and the source 
 of abundant utility and happiness to others. Those who 
 had beheld her venerated ancestress, the wife of Wash- 
 ington, often pointed out the striking resemblance which 
 they supposed themselves to have discerned between this 
 
 *This amiable and accomplished lady died a month or two after this notice of her. 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 17 
 
 noblest of American women and the youthful representa- 
 tive of her virtues and her blood. Miss Custis was the 
 heiress expectant of two of the largest estates that Vir- 
 ginia could then boast, and it is rather a curious and 
 interesting fact that her uncle, William H. Fitzhugh, 
 already spoken of, was one of the first large owners of 
 slaves in Virginia who provided for their emancipation 
 by will, and provided liberally also for their future educa- 
 tion and support. 
 
 I had not the honor of forming Mrs. Lee's personal 
 acquaintance in 1825, and the various accidents of a vexed 
 and tumultuous life withheld me from the enjoyment of 
 a blessing which I should always have so highly prized 
 until the lapse of thirty-seven years had proven to both of 
 us how " time steals on us and steals from us ; snatching 
 fire from the mind and vigor from the limb." When I 
 met her by accident in Richmond one morning in the 
 year 1862 I found her pale, attenuated, and hobbling on 
 crutches. She was then the mother of a numerous and 
 worthy offspring, and the' dutiful and loving wife of one 
 of the most renowned military commanders of the age. 
 How my heart sorrowed over the troubles and sufferings 
 which I was told she had been compelled to endure as 
 the result of a most calamitous and wasting war, in the 
 bringing on of which, perhaps, no two persons on this 
 broad continent had less participancy than her noble hus- 
 band and herself. I was able to see but little of this 
 excellent lady afterward ; but I rejoice to learn from the 
 lips of many who held familiar intercourse with her that, 
 though daily and hourly enduring discomforts and priva- 
 tions such as war alone can inflict — though suffering 
 under the tortures of a malady than which not one can be 
 mentioned more painful and humiliating — though agon- 
 ized with sights of desolation and anguish which it is not 
 2r 
 
18 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 in the power of human language to describe, she yet 
 ever maintained a cheerful serenity of temper; was never 
 heard to utter the language of complaint or of decrial; 
 occupied herself night and day in deeds of charity and 
 love, and up even to the end of that unhappy conflict so 
 demeaned herself as to show that in all things she was 
 just such a matron as either Greece or Rome would have 
 been proud to recognize, and as all America might well 
 admire and Jove. 
 
 Surely the day will come, and I must hope it is not 
 now far distant, when all the virtues which adorn our 
 noble countrymen and lend luster to American woman- 
 hood will be everywhere estimated at their true value ; 
 when all of heroism or of wisdom which belongs to the 
 North, to the South, to the East, or to the West, in any 
 part of our wide-extended empire, will be recognized as 
 part and parcel of the " moral treasures of the country, 
 and of the whole country ;" when the sage and good of 
 all the States into which our Republic is divided shall 
 meet again as friends and brethren, as compatriots and 
 co-inheritors of civil institutions so grand in their original 
 structure and so happily amplified and ameliorated by 
 the lessons of a sage experience as justly to command the 
 homage and elicit the imitation of all the lovers of free- 
 dom to be found anywhere upon the planet which we 
 occupy. 
 
 There are two remarkable facts in our recent history as 
 a people, the consideration of which (in connection with 
 the generous act of amnesty granted by Congress at the 
 last session of that body, and the general amity and con- 
 fraternity of feeling engendered thereby) has given me 
 much of gratification and of encouragement as to the 
 future of our country. 
 
 General Grant was called upon six years ago, in a man- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 19 
 
 ner and under circumstances difficult to be resisted by 
 any ordinary man, to cause Generals Lee and Joe John- 
 ston to be arrested and tried for treason, despite the solemn 
 parol which had been accorded to them, and in shameful 
 disregard of the fidelity with which its conditions had 
 been complied with. There were not a few then in whose 
 bosoms revenge was rankling, and some even in high 
 places were hearft to cry aloud that the "time had come 
 to make treason odious." What was the conduct of this 
 great captain when thus called upon to do a deed of 
 shame? He indignantly refused to be used as an instru- 
 ment for the perpetration of such injustice and tyranny ; 
 and, with something of the stern and lofty virtue of an 
 Aristides or a Cato, nobly risked his own official position 
 upon the result ; thereby, in my judgment, acquiring more 
 of true glory than ever he had previously done in all the 
 successful battles which he had fought in defense of the 
 "Constitution and the Union! Who has yet dared openly 
 to censure General Grant for acting this noble part '! 
 
 It is said that General Lee, only a few weeks before his 
 lamented decease, was accosted by a maimed and tattered 
 soldier near his own gate, who had fought on the side of 
 the Government in the late unhappy war. The soldier 
 was poor, diseased, and apparently friendless. The re- 
 nowned Confederate commander heard the tale of suffer- 
 ings of that unfortunate soldier with fixed attention, burst 
 into tears, poured the sweet words of consolation and 
 encouragement into his ears, and emptied the contents of 
 his purse into his weak and trembling hands. Had all 
 America been witness of this touching and impressive 
 scene, where is the monster that would have presumed 
 still to insist that discord should continue in the land of 
 Washington, and that the rancors produced by this dire 
 conflict should be yet prolonged by deeds of reciprocal 
 unkindness? 
 
20 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. III. 
 
 MR. CLAY — MR. POLK — MR. RITCHIE — GENERAL BAYLEY — BAR- 
 GAIN, INTRIGUE, AND MANAGEMENT CHARGES — COMPROMISE 
 MEASURES OF 1850 — LYNN BOYD — GOVERNOR PRATT — MR. 
 DICKINSON — MR. DAWSON. 
 
 Dr. Samuel Johnson, in one of the most striking num- 
 bers of the JRambler, insists that it is by no means so im- 
 portant that mankind should be the constant recipients of 
 instruction absolutely new touching the manifold duties 
 of life as it is that they should be from time to time 
 reminded of moral obligations of which they may for 
 some cause have become temporarily oblivious. Whether 
 this renovation of early impressions shall be brought 
 about by a bold and emphatic restatement of first prin- 
 ciples in the abstract, or, in lieu thereof, the value of 
 these first principles and the beneficial effects of faith- 
 fully observing them shall be made manifest by the season- 
 able citation of opposite examples, as well as by a state- 
 ment of the deleterious consequences certain to flow from 
 altogether disregarding or ignoring them, is, perhaps, a 
 question which a mere Reminiscent of past occurrences is 
 not in any way called upon to decide. 
 
 To proceed, then : I had frequently seen Mr. Clay, both 
 before he became Secretary of State, in 1825, and after- 
 ward, but I had formed no particular personal acquain- 
 tance with him. I had never doubted his abilities, nor 
 had I failed to give him credit for many high moral and 
 intellectual qualities; but I had long regarded him as the 
 most efficient champion and advocate of political opinions 
 altogether repugnant to the creed of what was known as 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 21 
 
 the Democratic party, and I had, on that account, cher- 
 ished strong prejudices toward him, and become deeply 
 distrustful of his motives and purposes. How many thou- 
 sands of our countrymen, under similar influences, have, 
 in every stage of our history as a people, been uncon- 
 sciously guilty of similar injustice! How often has the 
 cause of free institutions suffered on this continent from 
 the domination of extreme party zeal, in a thousand ways, 
 since the days of the first inauguration of Washington ! 
 How ungenerously did the blind and infuriated zealots of 
 faction accuse even the Father of his Country of being 
 desirous of establishing an imperial despotism! How, in 
 a similar manner, and with equal injustice, was Jackson 
 arraigned by some of those who preferred the interests of 
 party to the repose and well-being of the Republic ! 
 
 Mr. Clay visited Washington city in the winter of 
 1847-'48. He stopped here for a few days only, on his 
 way to Philadelphia. The Mexican war had been in pro- 
 gress for a year or two. Our armies had been signally 
 successful, and General Scott was already in possession of 
 Mexico. Our noble soldiers were dying by thousands 
 upon a foreign soil. The public morals were obviously 
 undergoing much deterioration, as the natural effect of a 
 war of conquest. Other evils were at the moment plainly 
 in view; evils which every sagacious mind saw must be 
 speedily realized unless peace could be in some honorable 
 manner restored. A treaty had just been made with the 
 Mexican Government, and a copy of it had been received 
 in Washington. Its various provisions were not precisely 
 known at the time, and there was much speculation afloat 
 in regard thereto. Mr. Polk's Cabinet were said to be at 
 a stand upon the question whether or not this patriotic 
 and excellent personage should send the treaty into the 
 Senate for ratification. It was under these circumstances 
 
22 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 that Mr. Clay, on the evening of his setting out for Phila- 
 delphia, visited the White House and asked an interview 
 with Mr. Polk. It chanced that a company of gentlemen 
 had been invited to dine with the President on that very 
 evening. I had the honor to be of the party. When we 
 were ushered into the reception room Mr. Clay was just 
 taking his leave. So soon as he had made his exit Mr. 
 Polk turned to us, with a bright smile of satisfaction upon 
 his face, and said: 
 
 "Gentlemen, Mi-. Clay has just surprised and gratified me very 
 highly, and has proved to me that lie is one of the most magnanimous 
 and patriotic men living-. He told me, in the interview that has this 
 moment terminated, that he had been informed that a treaty with 
 Mexico was in the Department of State, awaiting ratification, and that 
 it was doubtful whether it would be sent to the Senate ; that, from 
 what he could learn of its provisions, he could not doubt that it was 
 entitled to favorable consideration; that he was aware that in the 
 present condition of parties there was some reason to dread that my 
 administration would be bitterly assailed in several quarters, no matter 
 what course I might pursue ; but that he felt bound to $ny to me, ere 
 he left Washington, that, should I conclude to give the country peace 
 on the basis of the treaty, all the influence which he might possess 
 would be openly and earnestly put in exercise in my behalf, and he 
 was certain that his Whig friends, in Congress and out of it, would 
 cheerfully act in this matter on his advice." 
 
 Mr. Polk, more than once on this occasion, strongly 
 commended Air. Clay's generous and manly conduct ; and 
 there is reason to believe that this unexpected guarantee 
 of support had much influence in causing the treaty to be 
 dispatched to the Senate for its approval, as in point of 
 fact it was almost immediately after. 
 
 A year or two subsequent to this proceeding the coun- 
 try became fearfully convulsed by questions growing out 
 of this same treaty. Two sectional parties, for the first 
 time in the history of the Republic, were fiercely arrayed 
 against each other, and no reasonable man could doubt 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 23 
 
 that civil war was imminent. iN"ow it was that Mr. Clay 
 left his own home, and resolved, though at the time in 
 exceedingly feeble health, to risk his life in an effort to 
 avert the dire consequences then menaced. The crisis 
 which had arisen was indeed full of peril and difficulty. 
 There were many conscientious men on both sides who 
 felt bound to keep up the warfare then in progress. There 
 were numerous local demagogues, also, on either side, 
 resolved to keep up agitation for their own individual 
 benefit. There was no man in either house of Congress 
 who was prepared to take the lead in bringing forward a 
 plan of national pacification, and who, at the same time, 
 could be considered to possess sufficient weight and influ- 
 ence in all sections of the Union to secure general acqui- 
 escence in it. Mr. Clay was yet reverenced by the "Whig 
 masses all over the land. He was a considerable slave- 
 holder, but yet had been known for several years to be in 
 favor of a system of gradual emancipation. He had had 
 no hand in bringing on the war with Mexico, but after it 
 had been declared he had been an earnest and efficient 
 supporter of it, and had lost a favorite son in one of the 
 battles which had occurred in the course of its prosecu- 
 tion. He was fearless, sagacious, and eloquent, and was 
 known to be endowed in an eminent degree with all the 
 qualities necessary to, successful political leadership at 
 such a moment as had then been reached. The result of 
 his wondrous exertions has been long known to the world, 
 but there are some particulars connected with the history 
 of this trying period which may not now be distinctly 
 remembered by all, and liberal minded men will, I am 
 sure, excuse me if I dwell somewhat longer than I should 
 otherwise do upon the merits of a man who has of late 
 been assailed in a wanton and unpardonable manner by 
 more than one of those who will certainly not be regarded 
 
21 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 by an unbiased posterity as even worthy to tie the shoe- 
 latchets of the great and good man whom they have 
 dared to calumniate so cruelly after his consignment to 
 the tomb. 
 
 There are two or three anecdotes connected with this 
 period of Mr. Clay's history which I will here recite. It 
 is known that in the columns of the Richmond Enquirer — 
 a paper of great and deserved influence, and which was 
 edited for many years by the celebrated Thomas Ritchie — 
 much prominence had been given to the memorable " Bar- 
 gain and Intrigue " scandal, which had been hatched into 
 existence during the winter ofj.825, and which in its day 
 had been exceedingly potential in separating good citizens 
 from each other, as well as in bringing undeserved oppro- 
 brium upon some of the brightest public names in Amer- 
 ica. Mr. Ritchie's own high character, both as a gentle- 
 man and journalist, had lent much dignity to accusations 
 which, perhaps, but for his support of them, would have 
 become extinct almost in the very moment of their first 
 promulgation. Mr. Clay and Mr. Ritchie had played 
 together in boyhood, and had maintained relations of 
 close amity and kindness for many years of their early 
 manhood. I have repeatedly heard from Mr. Clay's own 
 lips that the circumstance of their former friendship had 
 rendered Mr. Ritchie's decrial of him peculiarly galling. 
 The two ancient friends had now become bitter and ap- 
 parently irreconcilable enemies. 
 
 The condition of public affairs in 1850 was such as to 
 bring these pure-minded and disinterested patriots natu- 
 rally into the same train of thought and sentiment. Both 
 of them intensely loved the American Union. Neither of 
 them had ever given even temporary sanction to the 
 absurd and perilous dogmas of nullification and secession. 
 The questions which had so long arrayed them against 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 25 
 
 each other as prominent members of two opposing politi- 
 cal parties had been for the most part disposed of. The 
 Whig party, one of the most enlightened, patriotic, and 
 truly conservative organizations ever known in this coun- 
 try, was evidently preparing to retire gracefully from the 
 field, having performed its particular mission, and having 
 no such insane love of official patronage as could prompt 
 it to keep up a useless and mischievous struggle Jin which 
 the real peace and welfare of the Republic could not be s 
 at all involved. The conflict between the two bodies of 
 sectional extremists already referred to was at its height. 
 The Republic was, in truth, tottering upon the founda- 
 tions which the sage and incorruptible statesmen of a 
 former generation had established. It was not for such 
 men as Henry Clay and Thomas Ritchie to think of secur- 
 ing party ascendency or individual advancement whilst 
 demagogues of varied stamp and complexion were, under 
 plausible pretexts, plotting the ruin of the sacred edifice 
 of liberty itself. It was under such circumstances as 
 these that Mr. Ritchie came to me one morning, a few ' 
 weeks after Mr. Clay had reached Washington, in com- 
 pany with General Bayley, of Virginia, and urged that 
 we two should call upon Mr. Clay and ask him to offer a * 
 resolution in the Senate for the raising; of a committee of v 
 thirteen, through the instrumentality of which he thought 
 that the great and alarming; differences then existing; 
 might be reconciled, and general national brotherhood be 
 re-established. Mr. Ritchie went further in this confer- 
 ence, and declared the opinion, which he entertained, that 
 no man in the Republic could as successfully take the 
 lead in the needed work of pacification as Mr. Clay. In 
 the most touching and impressive manner he gave utter- 
 ance to the regret which he felt that facts connected with 
 contests for party ascendency in former days should so far 
 
26 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 have estranged Mr. Clay and himself from each other that 
 he could not take the liberty of calling upon him in per- 
 son and conferring with him in regard to the means of 
 averting the catastrophe obviously menaced. Mr. Ritchie, 
 in addition, authorized us to give in his name to Mr. Clay 
 a most explicit pledge that, should he conclude to adopt 
 the course thus indicated, he would support him to the 
 utmost in the widely-circulated newspaper he was then 
 editing. General Bayley and myself called that very 
 evening upon Mr. Clay in his parlor at the National Hotel. 
 He met us in the most gracious and cordial manner, and 
 received with evident pleasure the communication with 
 which we had been intrusted by Mr. Ritchie. He declared 
 his warm approval of the plan of operation suggested by 
 that gentleman, but stated that, for various reasons of a 
 very peculiar and delicate character, he would prefer that 
 the resolution proposing the committee of thirteen should 
 be brought forward in the Senate by some other individ- 
 ual. I afterward agreed to otter it, on the express condi- 
 tion that I should not be made one of its members, and 
 that Mr. Clay himself should consent to preside over its 
 deliberations. No one will be surprised to learn that, in 
 a day or two after, Mr. Clay and Mr. Ritchie met, became 
 cordially reconciled to each other, and consulted together 
 often in the most fraternal manner at every stage of the 
 great struggle which at last resulted in the adoption of 
 the Compromise enactments of 1850. Before this con- 
 summation had crowned the efforts of Mr. Clay and his 
 Union friends, on a very warm day in midsummer, a very 
 large party of Congressional gentlemen was convened at 
 the hospitable mansion of Mr. Sullivan, of this city, a man 
 universally beloved and esteemed, for the purpose of enjoy- 
 ing a dinner good enough, indeed, to be set before princes 
 and nobles. Mr. Clay was one of the invited guests, as 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 27 
 
 was also Mr. Ritchie.. They sat upon opposite sides of 
 the table. Mr. Clay was in his happiest conversational 
 mood, and poured forth many a choice anecdote concern- 
 ing the scenes of public life through which he had passed. 
 It was but natural that all present should wish to hear 
 him say something touching the Compromise struggle 
 then going on, and the chances of accomplishing the object 
 which all of us had so much at heart ; and an effort, there- 
 fore, was made to call him out thereupon. He talked 
 upon this subject for some time, with even more than his 
 accustomed eloquence, when suddenly his mercurial and 
 impulsive friend of "Auld Lang Syne " rose from his seat 
 and exclaimed : " Look here, Mr. Clay, if you will really 
 save the Union, we will all forgive you for having had 
 Adams elected in 1825 by ^bargain, intrigue, and manage- 
 ment.'' '" "Shut your mouth!" exclaimed Mr. Clay, in 
 response ; shut your mouth, Tom Ritchie ; you know 
 perfectly well that there never was a word of truth in that 
 charge." "Very well, very well,' smilingly responded 
 Mr. Ritchie ; " I say to you now, in hearing of this goodly 
 company, that if you succeed in rescuing the Republic 
 from ruin, and I should survive you, Tom Ritchie will 
 plant a sprig of laurel upon your grave." 
 
 I should not omit to mention here that Mr. Clay, a few 
 minutes after this pleasant badinage between himself and 
 Mr. Ritchie, in a very solemn and formal manner, ad- 
 dressed the company substantially as follows : " Gentle- 
 men, I feel it to be due to such an occasion as the present 
 one to make a frank confession. Though I have never 
 doubted the propriety of my own conduct, in voting for 
 Mr. Adams myself in 1825 and advising my friends to 
 vote for him, yet, were I to livo this part of my public 
 life over again, I should not deem it judicious to accept 
 at his hands the Secretaryship of State. By doing so I 
 
28 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 injured both him and myself; I placed myself in a false 
 position before the country, and often have I painfully 
 felt that I had seriousfy impaired my own capacity for 
 public usefulness." 
 
 Another incident, having much affinity with the one 
 just recited, I shall now recount. Lynn Boyd, of Ken- 
 tucky, is well known to thousands to have been a re- 
 spectable and efficient Representative in Congress from 
 the State of Kentucky. He was a zealous Democratic 
 partisan, and had commenced his long public career 
 as an ardent supporter of General Jackson. Mr. Boyd 
 was a thoroughgoing party man at that period of his life, 
 but he was, notwithstanding, an upright and manly gen- 
 tleman. He was an active and efficient supporter of the 
 "Bargain, Intrigue, and Management" accusation, and 
 his great popularity in the district which he so long repre- 
 sented in Congress was said to be greatly owing to his 
 pursuing this course. He had brought himself in process 
 of time to distrust Mr. Clay very deeply, and even to 
 entertain feelings for him of a most unfriendly character. 
 It happened that Bo} T d had always been a great devotee 
 to the Union cause, and had no more sympathy with seces- 
 sionists and milliners than Jackson himself had. He had 
 been a diligent observer of Mr. Clay's manly and states- 
 manlike course in 1850, and had learned to honor and to 
 love him. One morning he came into my room at the 
 boarding-house where we were both sojourning, and com- 
 missioned me to go in his behalf to Mr. Clay, and say that 
 he heartily regretted that he had ever called his integrity 
 or patriotism in question, and hoped that he would grant 
 him an early interview, for he wished to confer with him 
 freely upon the momentous questions then pending. I 
 undertook this honorable mission with more than pleas- 
 ure. I was authorized by Mr. Clay to invite Colonel 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 29 
 
 Boyd to his room, as I did, and soon had the satis- 
 faction of witnessing a meeting between them entirely 
 creditable to both parties. One or two years thereafter 
 Mr. Boyd was a candidate for re-election to Congress in 
 his old district, and some of those opposed to his election 
 endeavored to defeat him by reminding the friends and 
 admirers of Mr. Clay of Boyd's former hostility to him. 
 This gentleman addressed me a letter at the time, asking 
 my testimony touching the facts above stated. This was 
 of course most cheerfully given, and I had the gratifica- 
 tion of afterward learning that Boyd's success in the con- 
 test was in part owing to the letter which I had written 
 to him on this subject, and which had been published and 
 circulated very freely in the district. 
 
 It was during this same eventful summer that my friend 
 and early schoolmate, Senator Pratt, of Maryland, invited 
 Mr. Clay and several other gentlemen to visit him at An- 
 napolis and spend a day or two with him and his charm- 
 ing family at their hospitable mansion. £Tot one of those 
 who had been thus summoned refused the proffered honor, 
 and I well remember the delightful scenes through which 
 we there passed, and in which Mr. Clay talked more freely 
 than I ever knew him to do, displaying colloquial powers 
 such as to me were, I confess, alike surprising and capti- 
 vating. One morning he was invited to visit the Capitol, 
 at Annapolis, where the old Congress were sitting at the 
 time that General Washington surrendered his sword to 
 that body, and returned to private life. The invitation 
 was, of course, accepted, and he set off on foot for that 
 venerable hall, accompanied by his friends, including, as 
 I recollect, Mr. Dickinson, of New York ; Mr. Dawson, of 
 Georgia, and others. When we reached our place of des- 
 tination we found ourselves quickly surrounded by a con- 
 siderable concourse of citizens. Mr. Clay, on getting 
 
30 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 within that room where the Revolutionary Congress held 
 its immortal deliberations, asked that some one would 
 point out to him the precise spot where Washington stood 
 when the scene just referred to had its progress. "When 
 this was done he walked to it, and, gazing toward the 
 chair of the presiding officer of that bod}*, he raised his 
 right Land, obviously in imitation of the Father of his 
 Country when giving this last and crowning proof of his 
 fidelity to the cause of which he had been for so many 
 years the honored champion and defender. Mr. Clay was 
 evidently conscious of a peculiar inspiration at that inter- 
 esting moment. His face was radiant with pure and lofty 
 emotion. His eyes blazed with excitement. His noble 
 form seemed absolutely to swell beyond its natural dimen- 
 sions. The crowd was overwhelmingly impressed, and 
 vociferously exclaimed, "A speech ! A speech ! " Thus 
 called upon, Mr. Clay proceeded to address those assem- 
 bled, for a few moments, and in his most happy manner. 
 He rapidly reviewed the existing condition of the coun- 
 try, pointed out the evils of sectional jealousy and extreme 
 party prejudice, spoke of the value of the Constitution 
 and the Union, referred to the noble example of Wash- 
 ington and his compeers of the Revolutionary era, and 
 concluded in these words : 
 
 •'However others may act, I am firmly resolved henceforward to 
 hold no political fellowsh p with any man or set of men who do not 
 love their country more than party, and who are not willing to make 
 any sacrifice and incur any hazard for the maintenance of the Union 
 of these States and the institutions of freedom established by our fore- 
 fathers." 
 
 I have only to acid that had there been one Such man 
 in the Congress of the United States as Henry Clay in 
 1860-'61 there would, I feel sure, have been no civil war. 
 Had Mr. Clay himself been then living, the same high 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 31 
 
 toned patriotism and consummate statesmanship which 
 had been so efficiently instrumental in 1819, in 1832, and 
 in 1850, in preserving the Republic from the horrors of 
 civil butchery, and from the yet greater evils sure to re- 
 sult from disunion, whenever that shall be effected, would 
 have been seen to achieve a still grander triumph of prin- 
 ciple over the embodied factionists of that period, from 
 whose ill counsels such unmeasured evils have been seen 
 to flow. 
 
32 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. IV. 
 
 GENERAL HAYNE — MR. WEBSTER — GENERAL JACKSON — MICA- 
 JAH TARVER — WILEY CONNER. 
 
 It chanced that the once famous General Hayne, of 
 South Carolina, visited the State of Mississippi in the 
 winter of 1838 and 1839. He came to the Southwest on 
 a most important expedition. He wished to call public 
 attention to the scheme, which had been a short time 
 before projected, of connecting the city of Memphis with 
 Charleston by railway — about twelve years before the 
 very first railway ever constructed west of the Alleghany 
 was commenced. This was to extend from the head to 
 the foot of the Muscle shoals of the Tennessee river. The 
 first meeting held for the consideration of this project 
 took place in my professional office, in the town of Tus- 
 cumbia, where I then resided, and the well-known and 
 truly meritorious Micajah Tarver presided on the occa- 
 sion. A large subscription for stock was immediately 
 taken up, and I had the honor of being appointed to draw 
 up a petition to the Alabama Legislature for a charter of 
 the company about to be formed, as well as to frame the 
 charter itself, which double task I performed with more 
 than ordinary pleasure. A very enterprising and worthy 
 man, Colonel David Deshler, then a merchant of Tuscam- 
 bia,T recollect, brought on from New York, a short time 
 before, a wooden railway model, which he exhibited to 
 the meeting above alluded to, and made a most masterly 
 explanation -of the modus operandi of this new vehicle of 
 commerce and travel. Colonel Deshler was father to the 
 General Deshler who distinguished himself so much in the 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 33 
 
 recent unhappy civil war. The Colonel died about two 
 years since in Tuscumbia, leaving behind him, as I un- 
 derstand, a very large estate. The railway from the head 
 to the foot of the Muscle shoals proved decidedly a losing 
 concern. Many of the original stockholders were sub- 
 jected to great pecuniary losses thereby, and but for the 
 purchase of this railway afterward by the Memphis and 
 Charleston Company, afterward established, it would 
 doubtless long since have been abandoned. General Hayne 
 had visited Nashville and several other places of note before 
 he reached Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, and had 
 everywhere upon his route awakened much interest in the 
 great undertaking of which he was such an eloquent and 
 effective champion. The Legislature ot Mississippi was 
 in session when he arrived, and a committee of three was 
 appointed by that body to call upon him at liis lodgings 
 and invite him to address the Senate and House of Rep- 
 resentatives then in joint session. This committee, of 
 which I had the honor to be a member, lost no time in the 
 performance ol the honorable duty assigned them, and, 
 having escorted this distinguished personage to the cap- 
 itol, General Hayne proceeded to address the large con. 
 course assembled in a manner so impressive and captivat- 
 ing that I am sure no one who was then present has ever 
 ceased since to look back to that occasion with feelings of 
 unqualified satisfaction and delight. 
 
 General Hayne was of medium stature, well shaped, 
 and of a singularly animated and mercurial aspect. His 
 eyes were very bright and dazzling, and of a light hazel 
 color. I Lis countenance wore a very mild and benignant 
 expression. His face was cleanly shaven, and he was ele- 
 gantly but unostentatiously attired. His manners were 
 marked with a graceful and winning affability which I 
 have never seen surpassed When he mounted the stand 
 
 3 R 
 
34 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 to address the audience, and for a moment stood quietly 
 surveying the ladies and gentlemen assembled s he seemed 
 at once to awaken a sympathy in all hearts, and to en- 
 kindle a lively curiosity, also, to hear all he had to say. 
 I had myself feared that the topics which he had to dis- 
 cuss, being chiefly those of mere economic detail, his 
 powers as an orator would find no sufficient scope for 
 their display, and that he might occasionally prove dry 
 and uninteresting in the presentation of some of the mat- 
 ters to which he was seeking to attract public regard. 
 But never did I make a greater mistake. The address, 
 though of considerable length, was accompanied with such 
 extraordinary charm fulness of delivery that no one could 
 possibly have grown tired of listening to it, and I am con- 
 fident that all who drank in his soft, mellifluous tones, 
 and beheld his manly and impressive gesticulation, would 
 have felt grateful to him had he continued his discourse* 
 for full two hours longer. I had heard a great deal be- 
 fore thus meeting General Hayne of the attractiveness of 
 his voice and manner, but no description which I had be- 
 fore received of him at all came up to the splendid reality 
 of which I was now a delighted witness. When the com- 
 mittee escorted him back to his room, I took the liberty 
 of asking him to tell me how he had been able to acquire 
 such wondrous facility of expression, and such remark- 
 able capacit}' for keeping alive the interest of his audience. 
 He answered my queries without any false modesty, and 
 without a particle of vulgar egotism, very nearly in these 
 words : 
 
 " You give me credit for much facility of expression, and for having 
 successfully cultivated to some extent the graces of rhetorical display. 
 I shall surprise you, I do not doubt, when I tell you that at sixteen 
 years of age [ was an awkward stammering boy. I desired to become 
 a lawyer, and was even then assiduously preparing myself for the 
 legal profession. A youth more ambitious of oratorical distinction 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 35 
 
 than I was I am sure has never lived. But my friends and relatives all 
 joined in urging- me to give up the hope of future renown as a speaker 
 and to devote myself to some other calling better adapted to the slen- 
 derness of my faculties. They told me that it was absurd and ridicu- 
 lous in one who stuttered so abomiiiabl}^ to think of becoming even a 
 tolerable pleader of causes. This mortified me much, but I did not 
 desist from the struggle in which I had so zealously enlisted. I thought 
 much of the difficulties of a similar kind which Demosthenes was re- 
 ported to have encountered, and of the successful efforts made by him 
 to overcome them. I diligently studied the tones of my own voice. I 
 essayed to find out all the mysteries which belonged to our complex 
 vocal organ. I labored from hour to hour, and from minute to minute, 
 to ascertain the precise nature of those particular impediments to a 
 clear and easy articulation under which I was suffering. I pondered 
 this subject by day, and it was with me the prompter of many a pain- 
 ful and of many a pleasing dream. At length the light broke in upon 
 me. I found that I had never before learned to talk ; that I had been 
 suffered all my life to jabber confused and unintelligible sounds. I 
 learned at last that to speak, in the true sense of the word, was to ar- 
 ticulate distinct vocables ; that the ardor of my temperament was such, 
 as well as my ambition, to communicate ideas to the minds of others, 
 that I had heretofore unduly hurried my syllables upon each other, or 
 rather tried to do so, so that the vocal sounds became inextricably in- 
 termingled and hopelessly indistinct, and that every fresh effort had 
 involved me in greater and greater embarrassments. I came at last to 
 the conclusion that the first step I had to take in order to acquire the 
 complete control of my voice was to put my own* feelings under the 
 strictest discipline, to habituate myself to sober thought, and to learn 
 tin' indispensable art of keeping the fervent sensibilities with which I 
 was endowed under thorough command, and that after I had done 
 these things in an effectual manner it would then be indispensable that 
 I should strive to enunciate each syllable that I had to utter clearly 
 and emphatically before attempting toemita succeeding one, and soon 
 until the whole sentence, whether long or short, should have passed forth 
 from my lips. By pursuing this course rigidly for a considerable period 
 of time, I hoped that at last I might accomplish the great object which 
 I was seeking to attain, and that I should become able to speak fluently 
 and without pain either to myself or to others. 1 practiced constantly 
 upon these ideas, and if I now speak with ease, as you seem to think, I 
 am indebted for my power in this respect to the labors which I have just 
 described. This is so certainly the case that I assure you were I even 
 now to attempt to express myself in the rapid manner which has lie- 
 
36 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 come so common of late among young men of fiery temperament and 
 of nnchastened moral organism, I should inevitably stutter just as dis- 
 gustingly as I did forty years ago." 
 
 After this interesting recital had closed I ventured to 
 refer to the great oratorical contest between himself and 
 Mr. Webster, in the National Senate, now nearly a half 
 century ago, and asked him what he thought of Mr. Web- 
 ster's powers as a speaker. He at once answered that he 
 supposed him, upon the whole, to be the most consum- 
 mate orator of either ancient or modern times ; that his 
 ability as a reasoner, he was confident, had never been 
 exceeded ; that his imagination was as fertile and vigor- 
 ous as that of Milton or Homer ; that his humor was both 
 exquisite and abundant ; that his knowledge was unlim- 
 ited ; that he had the most happy command of his temper 
 at all times, and that on certain great occasions he had ex- 
 celled all the speakers that had ever lived, not excepting 
 either Demosthenes or Cicero. I then asked him what he 
 thought of Mr. Webster's manner. He replied that it was 
 always grand and impressive ; that he had never heard 
 him utter a word in a careless or vulgar style ; that he 
 seemed never to forget his own dignity, or to be unmind- 
 ful of the character and feelings of others ; and that when 
 thoroughly excited the sublime grandeur of his thoughts 
 and language derived great additional potency from his 
 noble and soul-moving enunciation and his few but im- 
 pressive gestures. I then said to him: ''But, General 
 Hayne, every one in the South admired your speeches on 
 the occasion to which you have been referring more than 
 they did those of Mr. Webster, and it is said that General 
 Jackson was so much delighted with the first of your 
 speeches in the Senate that he had it printed on satin for 
 distribution among his friends at a distance. Was this 
 so?" To which he replied: U I believe this to have been 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 3 t 
 
 true ; the people of the South generally approved my 
 speech because they believed that I had been defending in 
 it their own local interests and honor. General Jackson 
 admired it because he thought I had successfully vindi- 
 cated the Democratic cause, to the support of which his 
 own life had been devoted. But you know that in. a few 
 months thereafter, when our nullification experiment had 
 developed its gigantic proportions, and after the memora- 
 ble contest had occurred in the Senate between Mr. Cal- 
 houn and my ancient antagonist Mr. Webster, General 
 Jackson became so great an admirer of the Senator from 
 Massachusetts that he thought seriously of making him 
 Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States 
 upon the decease of the venerated Marshall. Be assured, 
 sir," he continued, "I never for one moment have thought 
 of comparing that oration of mine, made in direct assail- 
 ment of Mr. Webster and the Federal party of old, and to 
 the defense of which I had thought proper to challenge 
 him, to his great and unequaled speech in reply thereto ; 
 though it is certain that, for a day or two, it seemed to 
 many that I had come off victor in the contest." 
 
 While General Hayne thus generously expressed him 
 self, I could not help recurring to the celebrated contest 
 between Demosthenes and Eschines, so familiar to all, the 
 latter of whom, when driven into banishment by the su- 
 perior eloquence of his great rival, is reported to have 
 established a school of rhetoric at Rhodes, where, on one 
 occasion, when he had been declaiming in the hearing of 
 his pupils that very speech of Demosthenes which had 
 consigned himself to exile, upon their expressing to him 
 their warm admiration of it as a specimen of oratorical 
 power, he magnanimously exclaimed : " If you are pleased 
 with this speech when only hearing it recited by me, how 
 much more warmly you would have approved it had you 
 heard it thundered forth by Demosthenes himself!" 
 
38 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Having referred to the railway between the head and 
 foot of the Muscle shoals of the Tennessee river, and hav- 
 ing incidentally mentioned that its construction brought 
 serious pecuniary losses upon many of those who had par- 
 ticipated therein, I am tempted to relate an anecdote or 
 two somewhat germain to the matters already discussed, 
 and which may a little compensate for the dullness of 
 much of that which has been already here written. 
 
 At the time that this same railway was projected there 
 was a newspaper then published in the town of Oourtland, 
 in Xorth Alabama, by a good and worthy citizen called 
 Wiley Conner. This paper was called the Gourtland 
 Herald, and below these words every day came forth, in 
 freshly printed characters, a well-known couplet from 
 Cowpers u Task," descriptive of the English postboy : 
 
 " Here comes the herald of a noisy world, 
 News from all nations lumbering at his back." 
 
 I deemed it expedient to get Conner to publish a series 
 of articles in his paper in support of the railway project, 
 and as he had not made himself well acquainted with the 
 subject I wrote most of the first articles published my- 
 self. He then kept up the fire very handsomely, indeed, 
 for some time, and did, I do not doubt, a good deal, in one 
 way or other, to further the cause he had so much at 
 heart. I well recollect that in one of the numbers of his 
 remarkable gazette he went far toward demonstrating 
 that the wood of the cedar tree, so well adapted to rail- 
 way purposes, was far more lasting than copper. 
 
 Removing from Alabama a year or two after, I had no 
 occasion to visit Courtland again until the year 183(J. I 
 then found the village in a greatly dilapidated condition. 
 It did not seem to me altogether proper that I should 
 leave town without calling to inquire after my ancient 
 friend, so I went in the direction of the house within 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 30 
 
 which the Courtland Herald luicl been printed in former 
 days ; but what was my surprise, on entering the portals 
 of that edifice, to find scattered about the floor of the 
 ante-room large masses of type, and on penetrating the 
 room where I had held so many grave consultations of 
 yore upon questions of almost all grades and complexions, 
 lo ! I beheld an aged gentleman, with spectacles on nose, 
 in a broiling summer's day, sitting up, with his feet stuck 
 under his posteriors, apparently sewing for his life, while 
 the perspiration was pouring from his brows in the most 
 copious streams. So soon as I could get myself recognized, 
 I exclaimed : " Good heavens ! Mr. Conner, what are you 
 doing? and what has become of the Courtland Herald?" 
 To which he responded, in most lugubrious tones : 
 
 "Oh, iny dear friend, you have ruined me ! You persuaded me, 
 nine years ago, to devote my columns to the establishment of the rail- 
 way that runs through this now wasted and depopulated village. As 
 soon as the accursed railway got into operation, it drew off all the trad* 1 
 from Courtland to other more commercial points, destroyed the value 
 of my little property here, and, as it was quite as convenient for my 
 neighbors in Courtland to subscribe for newpapers printed elsewhere, 
 and of larger dimensions, and to print their advertisements therein 
 also, whj r , you see, they all abandoned me, left the poor Courtland 
 HercUd high and dry, and drove me back to my original vocation, in 
 which you now see me engaged." 
 
 I was really distressed in mind at seeing the condition 
 of this public-spirited editor, and after offering him what 
 consolation I could, I invited him to remove, bag and' 
 baggage, to the State of Mississippi ; which, on doing, he 
 soon became restored to his former comfortable and pros- 
 perous circumstances. 
 
 Wiley Conner was in some particulars certainly quite a 
 remarkable man. He was in person about five feet two 
 inches in height, of a fresh and rubicund countenance ; 
 had what Shakspearc calls " a fair, round belly," which 
 
40 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 was doubtless, too, often " with good capon lined ;" with 
 legs ludicrously short in proportion to the longitude of 
 his body ; and having a long and fine suit of curling hair, 
 plaited up carefully, and attached to the apex of his bul- 
 let-shaped cranium with a large horn comb. Having no 
 beard on his face, and having never married, these cir- 
 cumstances, together with that of his ringlets being kept 
 in place by means of the pectinal appendage already men- 
 tioned, induced some of his cotemporary brothers of the 
 quill, when he did anything which gave them special- 
 offense, to dub him " Madame Conner," by which appella- 
 tion he was, in fact, generally distinguished, save by those 
 who chose, from a consideration of the peculiar manner in 
 which he was accustomed to waddle about the streets, to 
 call him the "yam potato.'' 
 
 Though Conner was no statesman, and did not pretend 
 to see very deeply into futurity in regard to the rise and 
 fall of political parties, yet he was, perhaps, one of the 
 most faithful chroniclers of the weather that the Tennes- 
 see valley has ever boasted, for never did a huge snow tall 
 that he did not instantly record the fact in his immortal 
 columns; if the weather was very cold he did not fail to 
 note that important occurrence; if it was very hot he did 
 the self-same thing; if a deluging rain caused Big Xauce 
 (the creek that held the village of Courtland in its watery 
 embrace) to overflow and sweep away the neighboring 
 fences, he was all in a pucker of dissatisfaction ; and 
 whenever the exsiccating rays of a summer's sun threat- 
 ened to dry up the precious streamlet he did not fail to 
 write article after article intended to prompt his sluggish 
 neighbors to stop as soon as possible the subterraneous 
 outlet which he asserted was constantly draining off the 
 waters of this second Scamander into the bed of the Ten- 
 nessee river. 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 41 
 
 Never did this once-famed editorial monitor suffer a 
 marriage to take place or a noted death to occur without 
 saying something in the Herald thereupon, either wise or 
 witty, commendatory or humorous. He proposed to make 
 the Evening /Star, of New York, his model, and often have 
 I seen him weep with ecstasy over articles written, as he 
 said, "in the Mordecai Noah style, 1 ' and which it hugely 
 delighted him to read aloud whenever he could get around 
 him a company of willing listeners. His last exploit in 
 this line which I now recollect was as follows : A most ven- 
 erable citizen, by the name of Harper, told Conner, on a 
 certain Friday morning, that he was about to be married 
 to a most charming widow in a neighboring village. The 
 marriage was to come oft' that very evening. Conner an- 
 nounced the marriage in his paper next morning in a very 
 flourishing and imposing manner. The expected groom 
 attended a great muster on Saturday, when his acquaint- 
 ances all came forward to congratulate him upon the for- 
 tunate connubial alliance he had just effected. Now, un- 
 fortunately, this same marriage had not taken place as 
 expected, some terms of settlement being insisted upon 
 by the friends of the lady, to which the aged candidate 
 for matrimony could not be induced to accede. Harper, 
 in order to save himself from further congratulation over 
 an incident of good fortune which, in point of fact, had 
 not been realized, flew to Conner and required a contra- 
 diction to be made of his former publication. This Con- 
 ner could not injustice refuse to do, but being a veritable 
 wit, and somewhat of a wag with all, he accompanied the 
 correction with a number of over-savory Scotch anecdotes 
 of a strictly illustrative character, and made the desired 
 publication under the significant caption of " A Flash in 
 the Pan I" Upon this the friends of the lady grew 
 furious, and justly so; and one of them, a gentleman of 
 
42 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 ■ 
 
 much refinement and chivalry, who was, by-the-by, very 
 well known to me personally, dashed up to the town of 
 Courtland for the purpose of bringing Conner to immedi- 
 ate responsibility. Conner, hearing of his arrival at the 
 hotel, and divining his intention, plunged into the somber 
 depths of his cellar, where he remained safely esconced 
 until informed, as he was in a few days, that the coast 
 was clear. He got out just in time to announce the mar- 
 riage of Harper to another lady of much more suitable 
 age, of which he made due notification in the Herald, 
 under the very appropriate heading, " No Flash this 
 Time !" 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 43 
 
 REMINISCENCE V. 
 
 GENERAL JAMES HAMILTON — MR. CALHOUN — GOVERNOR QUIT- 
 MAN — JEFF. DAVIS — GENERAL LAMAR— PRESIDENT EUR- 
 NETT — NICHOLAS BIDDLE — COLONEL WHITE. 
 
 I have heretofore made mention of a distinguished chief 
 
 of the extreme States school of South Carolina, General 
 Robert Y. Ilayne. I shall now briefly notice another 
 gentleman of the same political class, General James 
 Hamilton. This latter gentleman I knew well, and with 
 him had much familiar intercourse for. more than twenty 
 years. General Hamilton is known to have sprung from 
 a family of great respectability, and very early in life to 
 have established a high reputation for courage, generosity, 
 and all the more heroic virtues. He was for several years 
 during the days of his young and lusty manhood in the 
 United States army. He resigned his military commis- 
 sion, as I have understood, a short time subsequent to his 
 marriage, and retired to the large estate acquired with 
 his wife, where, for some years, he gave evidence of many 
 high qualities, both of head and heart, and was afterward 
 elected to a seat in the popular branch of Congress, where 
 he ultimately attained considerable distinction. He de- 
 livered in that body a number of brilliant and effective 
 speeches, which attracted at the time much public notice. 
 He took a very conspicuous position in the nullification 
 struggle of 1832, and if war between the General Govern- 
 ment and South. Carolina had then occurred, it is well 
 understood that the extremists of South Carolina would 
 greatly have relied for their defense, against an invading 
 Federal force, upon the military experience of General 
 
44 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Hamilton, his indomitable fearlessness, and bis remarka- 
 ble capacity for managing and controlling men. It is for- 
 tunate for the people of South Carolina, and for the fame 
 of their honored executive chief at that trying moment, 
 that the menaced collision was averted, and that the 
 shedding of American blood upon American soil, by the 
 fratricidal hands of armed American soldiers, was post- 
 poned for nearly thirty years. General Hamilton is 
 known by others as well as by myself to have afterward 
 become far more conservative in his opinions and senti- 
 ments, and in the crisis of 1850 he both wrote and coun- 
 seled zealously and efficiently in the interests of peace and 
 concord. I had myself a long and formal interview with 
 him, in 1850, on Capitol Hill, in this city, some weeks 
 subsequent to Mr. Calhoun's lamented decease, and I can 
 say with truth that from no man did I receive higher evi- 
 dences of sympathy in the attitude which I then occu- 
 pied, and that from the lips of no man did I obtain wiser 
 and more wholesome admonition. I well remember that 
 General Hamilton, in the autumn of that very year, pub- 
 lished a letter in which he emphatically asserted that Mr. 
 Calhoun, if he had lived long enough to behold the peril- 
 ous crisis of 1851, would not have been found supporting 
 the reckless and dangerous policy of Mr. Davis and Mr. 
 Quitman in Mississippi, and that of Mr. Me Donald and 
 others in Georgia, all of whom were then struggling to 
 unite all the States of the South in the co-operative move- 
 ment, as it was called, which had been boldly initiated in 
 South Carolina, and which looked directly to disunion, in 
 case the compromise measures of that period should be 
 persevered in by the Government of the Union. 
 
 I was first introduced to General Hamilton in the spring 
 of 1839, in the city of Houston, which was then the Tex- 
 an capital, whither I had gone on a mingled trip of pleas- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 45 
 
 ure and business. The affairs of Texas were then in a 
 feeble and tottering condition. To be sure, the battle of 
 San Jacinto had been fought, and immortal glory had 
 been acquired by the seven or eight hundred gallant 
 men who there defeated Santa Anna and his numerous 
 army of disciplined Mexican troops ; but Texas was still 
 menaced with invasion by Mexico. She was yet exceed- 
 ingly deficient in moneyed resources, and the established 
 governments of the earth seemed reluctant to give her 
 recognition as a sovereign and independent Power. Gen- 
 eral Sam Houston had now been succeeded in the office of 
 President by General Mirabeau B. Lamar, who had called 
 around him a safe and trustworthy Cabinet, all of whom 
 were personally known to me, and greatly respected. 
 Judge Burnett was Secretary of State, General Johnson 
 was Secretary of War, General Richard G. Dunlap was 
 Secretary of the Treasury, and General Memucan Hunt 
 was Secretary of the Navy. A day or two after my ar- 
 rival at the Texan capital, General Hamilton reached 
 that place, also, in company with ex-Governor Butler, of 
 South Carolina, and Colonel White, late of Florida, but 
 then a resident of New Orleans. General Hamilton had 
 been employed by the Texan government to conduct cer- 
 tain fiscal negotiations in its behalf, in which it was un- 
 derstood that he had been eminently successful. He was in- 
 vited to a noble banquet immediately on his arrival, which 
 was served up to a numerous concourse of congenial and 
 accomplished guests in the lower rooms of the large build- 
 ing in Houston then used as a State-house. A merrier or 
 more agreeable party I never witnessed. General Hamil- 
 ton, on being toasted, delivered a most interesting and en- 
 couraging address, and other gentlemen spoke also, who 
 were, apparently, listened to with much attention and 
 pleasure. Several other dinners were afterward given to 
 
46 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 General Hamilton and the friends who had accompanied 
 him to Texas, at which I had the honor to be present, 
 and where I met many gentlemen not unknown to fame, 
 among whom I can not refrain from mentioning specially 
 here, General Thomas J. Rusk, afterward so prominent and 
 useful as a member of the national Senate. I hope not to in- 
 cur the charge of egotism by mentioning that while sojourn- 
 ing there for a few days at the Texan capitol, I had the 
 honor to be invited, by President Lamar and his Cabi- 
 net, to write the history of the Texan struggle for independ- 
 ence, the materials for which work T collected within the 
 next_six months^ and the volumes containing which I 
 
 completed in about six months more. The subject was, 
 indeed, one of deep interest; the materials supplied me 
 by public spirited citizens of Texas were both rich and 
 abundant ; but the book itself, written in great haste, and 
 amicl numerous other absorbing and perplexing avocations, 
 I have long recognized in point of literary execution as 
 exceedingly imperfect. The chief honor heretofore con- 
 ferred upon my poor volumes consists in the fact that 
 " Texas and the Texans ; or, The Advance of the Anglo- 
 Americans to the far Southwest," had the fortune to be 
 freely cited a few years after its appearance by Judge 
 Woodbury, and other members of the American Senate, 
 as unquestionable historic authority during the discus- 
 sion of the grave and deeply interesting question, whether 
 the " Single-Starred Republic " should be admitted into 
 the Federal Union. 
 
 I may as well 'observe here that while I was remaining 
 in Philadelphia, during the winter of 1840-'41, for the 
 purpose of superintending the publication of this work, I 
 met with many excellent and accomplished gentlemen, 
 who have been ever since retained by me in respectful 
 and affectionate memory, among whom I should not omit 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 47 
 
 to mention specially G-eorge M. Dallas, Charles J. and 
 Joseph R. Ingersoll, Mr. Rush, the former Secretary of the 
 Treasury under Mr. Adams, and afterward Minister Pleni- 
 potentiary to England; the celebrated Dr. Chapman, a 
 native of my own native county of Virginia; Dr. Dungli- 
 son, Dr. Mitchell, John Paul Brown, Commodore Biddle, 
 Mr. Edward A. Ingraham, and Nicholas Biddle. In ref- 
 erence to the latter gentleman I will here offer a few brief 
 remarks. I saw him now for the first time, and under 
 decidedly unfavorable circumstances. His bank, or rather 
 the United States Bank of Pennsylvania, had just failed ; 
 in fact, it suspended payment on the day of my arrival in 
 Philadelphia. Popular excitement against him and his 
 bank was running very high, and his life was even said 
 to be in danger. Still he walked about the streets of the 
 Quaker City calm and composed, and did not seem in the 
 least degree to quail before the tempest which was raging 
 round him. He attended the Wistar parties regularly, 
 and "his face belied him if his soul was sad." He visited 
 me cordially at the boarding-house where I was staying, 
 and I saw him repeatedly at his own hospitable mansion 
 and elsewhere. He was certainly a man of very intellec- 
 tual appearance and of the utmost refinement of manners. 
 His conversational powers were very extraordinary, and 
 he uniformly talked with me in a frank, unreserved, and 
 entertaining manner. He was aware that I had written 
 the volumes then emanating from the press chiefly with a 
 view of expediting, as far as I could, the admission of 
 Texas, of which measure he was an ardent advocate. In 
 the appendix to "Texas and the Texans " will be found a 
 valuable and instructive correspondence between Mr. Bid- 
 dle and Mr. Jaudon, his fiscal agent abroad, in which the 
 question of Texan admission is discussed most ably. This 
 correspondence was politely handed to me by Mr. Biddle 
 for publication. 
 
48 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Nicholas Biddle was truly a man of most liberal and 
 enlightened views. He did not at all doubt that in com- 
 ing time, and perhaps in a very few years, all the North 
 American continent, including the islands which bespan- 
 gle the surface of the Mexican gulf, would be brought 
 under the wise and beneficent protection of the " Stars 
 and Stripes." He advocated most earnestly the immedi- 
 ate admission of Texas, and contended, as I thought at 
 the time and still think, with irresistible cogency, that 
 the fabric of the Union would stow stronger and stronger 
 
 o o o 
 
 in proportion as the local governmental props placed un- 
 der it for its support should be multiplied. He freely 
 ridiculed the idea that Texas was too distant from Wash- 
 ington to be conveniently controlled and regulated by the 
 central department of our governmental system, maintain- 
 ing that the most remote position of this delightful region 
 was, for all practical purposes, as near to Washington 
 then, by reason of the improved facilities for travel, as 
 Massachusetts had been to Philadelphia in the days of his 
 own boyhood. In illustration of this view of the matter 
 he related a short but striking anecdote. He said that he 
 remembered that John Adams, then either President or 
 Vice President, reached his father's house in Philadelphia 
 just before the commencement of the session of Congress, 
 and that he remarked pleasantly to his host that lie sup- 
 posed that he had himself just made the journey from 
 Quincy, in the neighborhood of Boston, to Philadelphia 
 in less time than any public man had ever before done ; 
 "for," said he, "I have performed this trip in seventeen 
 days, all the while traveling in nry sulky." Mr. Biddle 
 seemed much grieved and astonished that any one should 
 doubt the expediency of our acquiring as early as we 
 honorably and safely could Cuba, San Domingo, Jamaica, 
 Porto Rico, and all the adjacent isles, alleging, as 1 
 thought, with great force, that until the Mexican gnlt 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 49 
 
 should be made our Mare clausum all the commerce of the 
 Western States and Territories, floating down the Missis- 
 sippi and its tributaries, would be constantly exposed to 
 foreign molestation. 
 
 I do not doubt that from these interviews with Mr. 
 Biddle I derived certain views expressed by me in the na- 
 tional Senate, in the winter of 1847-'48, when I contended 
 that, having at that time made a complete conquest of 
 Mexico — holding even her capital then in our hands — in- 
 stead of aiming to make a treaty with any of the disorderly 
 and lawless factions then warring on Mexican soil for as- 
 cendency, we should at once proceed to proclaim the fact 
 that the Republic of Mexico had drawn to an end, and 
 then go on without delay to Americanize the whole of 
 this fair and inviting region by permeating it in eveiy 
 direction with railways, establishing post offices and post 
 roads over its whole surface, and opening it, on the most 
 liberal and inviting terms, to enterprising settlers from 
 our own country. 
 
 We left General Hamilton, Colonel White, and others 
 at the Texan capital. There they only staid a few days 
 more, when some fifteen or twenty of us set sail from the 
 port of Galveston to New Orleans. We traveled in a 
 steamship which had been recently purchased by General 
 Hamilton for the Texan Government, and in which he 
 had just before navigated the stormy waves of the bay 
 rolling between Galveston and the mouth of the Missis- 
 sippi river. This vessel had been called the Charleston. 
 General Hamilton, whilst we were returning on it, one 
 day at dinner, over several bottles of excellent Madeira, 
 christened it anew by the name of the Zavallo, in honor 
 of a Mexican chief of that name very favorably known 
 as a friend of Texas in her late struggle for independence. 
 Some fifteen years after this General Hamilton was 
 5 R 
 
50 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 wrecked on board a steamship bound from Galveston to 
 Berwick's bay, and thus ended the varied and romantic 
 career of a warm-hearted, enterprising, and truly chival- 
 rous Southern gentlemen. 
 
 There is one other particular which I should here notice 
 in connection with this same trip to Texas. I found on 
 my arrival there a French count, by the name of Saligny, 
 or De Saligny. He was a guest of my friend General 
 Hunt during my own stay at his house, and was a very 
 handsome little fellow; indeed, he was thought by some 
 to resemble the portraits of the first Napoleon. An on 
 (lit, too, prevailed that he had distinguished himself a 
 good deal during those fierce conflicts which raised Louis 
 Philippe to the French throne. He had been secretary 
 of legation en attendant to M.' Sartiges at "Washington, 
 and had been sent to Texas, as he said, by the French 
 Government to inspect the condition of that young Re- 
 public. The Texan President, whilst I was at Houston? 
 was examining into the expediency of sending Colonel 
 White as an accredited minister of Texas to France ; and 
 this appointment Colonel White would certainly have re- 
 ceived but for the sudden and somewhat abrupt interpo- 
 sition of the Count de Saligny, who represented that the 
 gentleman named would not be acceptable as Envoy to his 
 royal master. The vivacious French count traveled to 
 New Orleans in company with Colonel White, General 
 Hamilton, and others, including myself, and he and I had 
 the honor, the day after our arrival in the Crescent City, 
 of taking dinner together at the house of that high-bred 
 and noble-hearted gentleman, whose hopes of diplomatic 
 honor he had so cruelly nipped in the bud, and of enjoy- 
 ing at the same time his own most learned and instruc- 
 tive conversation whilst receiving the bland and courtly 
 attentions of his most beauteous and accomplished lady. 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES 51 
 
 Colonel White was a native of Orange county, Virginia, 
 had represented Florida in the House of Representatives 
 in the years 182G and 1827, and perhaps for several sessions 
 thereafter. He was a ripe scholar, a profound lawyer, and 
 an accomplished man of the world. I first saw him and 
 his famed helpmate at the Saratoga Springs in the sum- 
 mer of 1825. He was then buoyant and full of hope, and 
 seemed to imagine that he had a long life of usefulness 
 and felicity before him. I recollect that he was then just 
 from Boston, where he had listened with rapture to Mr. 
 Webster's first monument speech, and had attended the 
 grand fete given the night after at the house of New Eng- 
 land's sagest statesman to the Marquis de Lafayette, then 
 on his travels in this country. White stated to me that 
 he had seen James Barbour, of Virginia, at this same 
 Websterian party, standing in a corner of the room, en- 
 circled by the Boston wits and savants, all listening with 
 evident amusement and admiration to his rich and varied 
 conversation, and to his choice and well-told anecdotes. 
 I have seen James Barbour often ; a nobler and more ma- 
 jestic looking person I never expect to behold. He was tall, 
 straight, and of the most symmetrical proportions. He 
 had a high and expanded forehead, large and lustrous 
 eyes; his eyebrows, black and bushy, were most proudly 
 and imperiously arched ; his nose was aquiline, and as 
 expressive as could have been that of Julius Cresar him- 
 self. His erudition was limited, for his early opportuni- 
 ties had been slender. He always talked, though, with 
 animation and earnestness ; he ever looked the complete 
 and polished gentleman; had a clear, resounding voice in 
 debate, and was always listened to with respectful atten- 
 tion. He had less of party rancor about him than most 
 public men of his time ; never indulged in coarse and Bil- 
 lingsgate denunciation ; and when he died I am sine he 
 
OZ CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 had as few personal enemies as any man on the American 
 continent. He commenced his political career as a zeal- 
 ous supporter of the Virginia resolutions of lT98-'99, 
 afterward accepted Mr. Madison's gall-extracting solution 
 of them, and ended his political life as a sturdy and im- 
 movable Whig of the Clay and Webster stamp. 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 53 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. VI. 
 
 MR. VAN BUREN — MR. TYLER — GEN. HARRISON CESARISM. 
 
 The nomination of Martin Van Buren to the Presi- 
 dency, in 1836, seemed to call for uncommon efforts to 
 secure his election. The popularity of this gentleman 
 outside the State of New York had not yet been subjec- 
 ted to any decisive test, and he had been so virulently 
 and persistently assailed by some of the leading Whig 
 statesmen, as well as by numerous editors of political 
 newpapers of the Whig persuasion in different parts of 
 the Union, that it was conjectured by some of his warm- 
 est friends and admirers that his elevation to the Presi- 
 dency was an event by no means certain to occur. To be 
 sure, he was openly and powerfully sustained by General 
 Jackson, whose influence was now at its height, and who 
 did not attempt to conceal the conviction which rested 
 upon his mind that the great political reforms which he 
 had been zealously conducting for the eight years of his 
 memorable administration would depend for their con- 
 summation mainly upon the triumph of the Democratic 
 party in the pending Presidential contest. It should be 
 here mentioned that the opponents of Mr. Van Buren 
 had unwittingly enhanced his popularity very much by 
 an over-rancorous and unsparing assailmcnt of him ; a 
 result which may be always confidently anticipated as the 
 effect of such a course of proceeding so long as the pop- 
 ular masses of our country shall themselves remain pure 
 and uncorrupted and capable of discriminating justly be- 
 tween the bold and needful arraignment of great public 
 malefactors, and the attempts, so often witnessed in all 
 
54' CASKET OF UEMINISCENCES. 
 
 republics, to undermine and dishonor men of genuine 
 merit and of eminent public services by mean and illib- 
 eral charges of delinquencies not capable of being satis- 
 factorily established in proof. The fatuity manifested 
 often by the shallow zealots of faction in their endeavors 
 to crush men of known probity and ability by the prefer- 
 ring of accusations of a manifestly frivolous and un- 
 founded character, alone with a view to the cherished 
 purposes of faction, is to me one of the most wonderful 
 moral phenomenons of the present age ; and, inasmuch as 
 such paltry and ill-judged attacks never fail to recoil 
 sooner or later upon those who employ them, it may be 
 regarded as a manifest proof both of intellectual weakness 
 and a want of elevated self-respect to exhibit the least 
 chagrin or irritation under such commendatory denuncia- 
 tion. Such, I am sure, were the views entertained by 
 Van Buren touching this matter, as I know not only from 
 his own repeated declarations, but from a very close ob- 
 servance of his demeanor and language in public life. 
 His career as an active and leading politician had been 
 already somewhat prolonged; he had been a conspicuous 
 member of the Legislature of Xew York, Governor of the 
 State, a United States Senator, Secretary of State under 
 General Jackson, and a minister abroad, in all of which 
 positions he had shown much ability; yet to very many 
 of the people of the Southwestern States he was not very 
 familiarly known, and among them he had been cruelly 
 traduced by the celebrated George Poindexter and others 
 of his class, who were accustomed to speak of him as '.'the 
 Political Iago," "the Little Magician of Ivinderhook," 
 and in the use of like appellatives. It was judged in 
 Mississippi to be expedient that some one should be de- 
 puted to Albany — where Mr. Van Buren was then tem- 
 porarily sojourning — for the purpose of obtaining some 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 55 
 
 explanation from his own lips elucidatory of certain dis- 
 puted points in his history. Being solicited to go upon 
 this mission, I cheerfully undertook it, and proceeded to 
 New York without any delay save that which was neces- 
 sarily incident to my passing through Virginia on the 
 way, Avhere I wished to spend a day or two with several 
 dear relatives and friends. 
 
 On reaching the city of Norfolk, I took passage on a 
 comfortable steamer bound to Richmond. I found upon 
 the boat a number of well-dressed gentlemen and ladies, 
 all of whom were wholly unknown to me. In the course 
 of an hour or two I chanced to get into a conversation 
 with two gentlemen who reported themselves to be elec- 
 tors on the Harrison Presidential ticket, and what was at 
 first a calm and courteous colloquy between us upon the 
 politics of the time became very soon, as in such cases is 
 usual, a boisterous and excited controversial dispute, not 
 possible, indeed, to be in the least degree profitable to any 
 human being. So soon as this scene had drawn to an end, 
 I was again accosted by one of the gentlemen with whom 
 I had been disputing, and asked by him whether I was 
 acquainted with John Tyler. On my responding in the 
 negative, he pointed out to me a gentleman, apparently 
 a little past the meridian of life, very plainly dressed, who 
 was at the time in an animated conversation with a line 
 looking and elegantly appareled lady. I surveyed this 
 scene for a moment or two, when my civil compagn.on du 
 voyage inquired of me whether I had any objections to 
 being introduced to John Tyler. "None in the world," 
 I responded. "I have long admired his character very 
 highly and shall feel it to be quite an honor to be presented 
 to him." This accordingly took place at once, and I 
 found myself in a minute or two more engaged in one of 
 the most agreeable conversations I had ever enjoyed. Mr. 
 
56 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Tyler met me in an exceedingly bland and cordial man- 
 ner, and at once opened himself to me in the frankest and 
 most unreserved style upon many of the most attractive 
 topics of the time, and very soon entered upon a calm and 
 dignified discussion of several of the most contested points 
 of political controversy then occupying the public mind; 
 and, without demanding directly the expression of my 
 own opinions thereupon, he gave me an opportunity of 
 dissenting from him should I choose to do so. Being 
 really very anxious to hear him talk, and being altogether 
 unwilling to change the tone of our conversation by dis- 
 puting the propositions so pleasantly enunciated by him, 
 I cautiously avoided making any issue with him what- 
 ever ; but, on the contrary, every now and then took oc- 
 casion, as far as I could do so without seeming adulation, 
 to refer, in a kind and complaisant manner, to certain of 
 his own political acts which I had sincerely approved, and 
 especially to his then recent manly resignation of the seat 
 which he had held in the National Senate when he found 
 himself unable to comply with the Legislative instruc- 
 tions which had been sent to him from Richmond, with- 
 out a violation of his own sense of propriety. After tins 
 interchange of ideas had proceeded for nearly an hour, 
 Mr. Tyler suddenly rose up and, assuming a most genial 
 smile, invited the company to join him in a glass of wine. 
 While we were in the act of enjoying the inspiring liquid 
 supplied to us from the bar, Mr. Tyler waggishly turned 
 to me and said : " I have a little joke which I must tell you 
 upon these two electoral friends of ours. Just before you 
 were introduced to me these two gentlemen came to me 
 and said: 'Mr. Tyler, we have just encountered one of 
 the fiercest Van Buren men we ever saw. He has said 
 many things which were not a little annoying to us, and 
 we have to ask of you to take him in hand and relieve 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 57 
 
 his mind from some of the strange delusions under which 
 it is now laboring.' So, at their instance, I sought to 
 draw you into discussion, and I feel .gratified that in this 
 way I have had the pleasure of making your acquaint- 
 ance." An hour or two after this, Mr. Tyler called me 
 to him, on the right hand side of the boat, and said, point- 
 ing to a fine old building near the bank of the river: 
 "There lived and died Benjamin Harrison, so much dis- 
 tinguished in the early history of the Ancient Dominion, 
 who, you know, was probably a descendant of the Har- 
 rison, who was one of the associates of Cromwell. He 
 was the largest man in the old Congress of the Confeder- 
 ation, and when John Hancock was elected President of 
 that body he bore him to the chair in his arms. In that 
 house, too, was born William Henry Harrison, one of the 
 three candidates for the Presidency now in the field. I 
 had the honor to be born in the same little county in 
 which that venerable mansion is situated. Now, would 
 it not be rather a curious coincidence were General Har- 
 rison to be elected President, as I really believe he will be, 
 and I should be elected Vice President, upon the White 
 ticket, an event which I hold not to be. at all improbable, 
 both of us being thus natives of this small county in 
 Virginia?" Though the coincidence suggested did not 
 arise in 1836, yet four years after, as all remember, Gen- 
 eral William Henry Harrison and John Tyler were chosen 
 to the Presidency and Vice Presidency of the Republic 
 upon the same ticket ! 
 
 I must say of Mr. Tyler that both in our intercourse 
 upon the steamer and in that which took place afterward 
 between us on our arrival at Richmond, he evinced as 
 much of good nature and of high-bred politeness as of in- 
 tellectual resources. He was really one of the most genial 
 and captivating men I ever encountered ; there was not a 
 
58 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 particle of hauteur or assumption in his aspect or de- 
 meanor ; he seemed to be eminently frank and uncon- 
 strained in his conversation ; had a clear and ringing 
 voice, possessed a ready and insinuating smile, and, in 
 fact, few could hold converse with him for ten or fifteen 
 minutes even without feeling strongly impressed with his 
 many high qualities, nor without feeling more or less in- 
 clined to sympathize with.his fortunes. When we reached 
 the hotel in Richmond Mr. Tyler proposed to me to go 
 with him to call upon the venerable Thomas Ritchie, ot 
 the Richmond Enquirer, ami John Hampden Pleasants, of 
 the Richmond Whig. Finding neither of these gentle- 
 men at home we proceeded to the Capitol of the State, 
 and thence to the Governor's house. On reaching the 
 latter he said: " Here is the house in which I undertook 
 to play Governor in Virginia a few years ago. I was 
 very reluctant to hold the office, but my political frjends 
 would compel me to do so, though I told them I was too 
 poor to become Governor, mj private fortune not being 
 sufficient to defray the expenses incident to this high sta- 
 tion, and the Governor's salary amounting to but an incon- 
 siderable sum. On my inauguration as Governor I in- 
 vited the members of the Legislature of both parties to 
 partake of a banquet which I had caused to be prepared 
 for them. They came and found a plentiful supply of Old 
 Virginia ham upon the table, accompanied with a huge 
 mass of well-baked corn-bread, together with a copious 
 supply of Monongahela whisky ; to all which I gave 
 them a cordial welcome, hoping in this way to convey to 
 them a significant hint that if they expected their Gov- 
 ernor to live like a gentleman, and in a manner compati- 
 ble with the dignity of our noble old State, they must 
 provide for him liberally in the matter of salary." 
 
 When I reached Albany I found Mr. Van Buren in ex- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. -V.' 
 
 cellent health and spirits, lie mot mo very cordially ^ 
 
 took mc to several interesting places in the city, and in- 
 vited me to dine with him at 5 o'clock that day, having 
 meanwhile conversed with me freely in regard to the ob- 
 jects of my trip. At dinner I met several gentlemen of 
 eminence, all of whom are now numbered with the dead, 
 including our delightful host himself; these were Gov- 
 ernor Marcy, Senator Tallmadge, Chancellor Walworth, 
 and John Van Buren. A more agreeable repast I have 
 never enjoyed. Mr. Van Buren was, perhaps, as polished 
 and captivating a person in the social circle as America 
 has ever known, and on this occasion he was as agreeable as 
 I ever knew him to be in after life, when I met him often 
 and heard him converse without reserve upon all the 
 questions which then occupied the public mind. I have 
 long been of opinion that Mr. Van Buren possessed abili- 
 ties far superior to the estimation formed ot him by most 
 of his cotemporaries. His mind was at once vigorous 
 and comprehensive; his judgment upon the public ques- 
 tions with which he had to deal was singularly accurate 
 and discriminating; his knowledge of men was most pro- 
 found; he often evinced a most sagacious and penetrating 
 foresight as to the future, and was a man of the most 
 imperturbable spirit I have ever known. No one, I am 
 certain, has ever exhibited greater refinement of manners, 
 and his personal integrity was far beyond suspicion. 
 When he was, at different times, a member of legislative 
 bodies, he seldom spoke at great length, and never in a 
 declamatory style. He expressed to me, when in Albany, 
 in 1836, his decided aversion to this style of speaking in 
 the National Senate, in which body he thought that the 
 conversational tone and manner ought to prevail almost 
 exclusively. It is wonderful to what a degree he had dis- 
 ciplined his own sensibilities, so as to make them almost 
 
60 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 impervious to attacks made upon his feelings or character, 
 even in his own presence. I recollect of once asking 
 him if it could be indeed true that he had sat in the 
 President's chair of the Senate perfectly t-unmoved, (as had 
 been represented,) and with a serene smile upon his visage, 
 when Mr. Clay was delivering one of the most powerful 
 of his philippics, and in which he had been more than 
 once himsell referred to with the most terrible severity; 
 when he answered: "Eloquent as certainly was that speech 
 to which you refer, all-potential as were Mr. Clay's voice 
 and manner, bitter as was his denunciation, and caustic 
 as was his ridicule, I am not aware that the listening to 
 his electrical utterances had any disturbing effect upon 
 my feelings, and I suppose that my appearance at the 
 time must have been in harmony with my emotions. 
 While Mr. Clay was thundering forth that magnificent 
 address — which certainly seemed to have much effect upon 
 most of those in hearing of it — the idea was passing 
 through my mind that this speech would be of much ad- 
 vantage to me; that it would tend greatly to strengthen 
 the attachment of my political friends; would warm up 
 their sympathies in my behalf, and concentrate their re- 
 gard; while even the more generous of my opponents, in- 
 cluding, perchance, Mr. Clay himself in a cooler and less 
 excited moment, would feel that I had been greatly 
 wronged by such wholesale and spiteful denunciation. I 
 do not know whether or not I smiled on that occasion, as 
 you have been told that I did, and as it would have been 
 quite natural that I should have done with the particular 
 view which I took of the matter; but it is certain that 
 when I descended from the chair on the adjournment of 
 the Senate, and met Mr. Clay, I spoke to him with my 
 accustomed civility and kindnes, and without harboring 
 a sentiment of hostility toward him." 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 61 
 
 After the decease of Mr. Van Buren a volume emanated 
 from the press of New York which I read with great in- 
 terest and instruction. This book contains the views 
 which its distinguished author entertained upon govern- 
 ment and the history of political parties in the United 
 States from the earliest period of our annals as a nation. 
 It is to be deeply regretted that Mr. Van Buren did not 
 live to complete this remarkable work, as indeed that 
 portion of it which seems to have received the finishing 
 touches of his pen must inevitably claim for him hereafter 
 a very high place among the public writers of our coun- 
 try. I was particularly struck with what he says so im- 
 pressively in regard to the wholesome and conservative 
 influence of the agricultural class of our population in the 
 maintenance of republican institutions, and in keeping 
 up among our people simplicity of manners and freedom 
 from social contamination. I am persuaded that no one 
 can read with due attention this noble contribution to 
 our national literature without finding his love of a ra- 
 tional and orderly freedom renovated and strengthened, 
 and his hopes of the perpetuity of our noble institutions 
 vivified and confirmed. If those who distrusted Mr. 
 Van Buren's motives while living, and charged him with 
 the worst designs against our republican system of gov- 
 ernment, will do themselves the justice to examine this 
 last solemn revelation of his thoughts and wishes, I am 
 sure that they will feel bound to accord to him a very 
 lofty position on the roll of American statesmen and 
 patriots. 
 
 And yet a distinguished gentleman of the South, at 
 one time much admired and loved by certain political ex- 
 tremists of that region, some twenty-five or thirty years 
 ago, wrote a political novel, the significant title of which 
 was, I believe, " The Partisan Leader," in which Mr. Van 
 
62 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Buren is delineated as a monster capable of planning the 
 destruction of our valued republican institutions, and as- 
 pirin; to establish on American soil a monarchical des- 
 potism. 
 
 I do not feel willing to close my notice of this wise and 
 pure-minded man and his valuable posthumous volume 
 without stating my full concurrence in the opinion ex- 
 pressed therein by him, that so long as we shall continue 
 to hold within our frontiers a numerous, wide extended, 
 and enlightened agricultural class, duly mindful of their 
 rights, and ever prepared to maintain them, there can be 
 no great danger that an imperial despotism will ever be 
 seen to cast its dark shadow over this continent, or that 
 any considerable number of our people will be anywhere 
 found enunciating a desire for the overthrow of our re- 
 publican fabric of government. I feel bound, after having 
 gone thus far, to go yet further, and declare the convic- 
 tion which I feel, after the fullest consideration of the 
 subject and the most scrutinizing examination of all the 
 signs of the times, that no man has yet been born on 
 American soil so stupid and so unprincipled as to harbor 
 the insane and monstrous idea that to him has been con- 
 signed by Destiny the task of building up an imperial 
 dynasty, like that either of the first and second of the 
 Csesars of the olden time, or that of Napoleon the Great 
 and Napoleon the Little of our own age. It is a gross 
 insult to the American people to suppose them capable of 
 submitting to such degradation as this ; and it is still a 
 grosser insult, if possible, to the principles of deceney and 
 justice to charge any living American patriot with such 
 ineffable treachery and baseness. 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. G3 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. VII. 
 
 GENERAL JACKSON— WILLIAM C. PRESTON— ROBERT J. WALKER- 
 LOUIS LEVIN — COLONEL WHARTON — MARQUIS OF MOSCATI. 
 
 The last days of the Congress which closed its session 
 on the 4th of March, 1837, were in part occupied with 
 the discussion of the Texas question. President Jackson 
 had, some months previous, sent to Texas a special gov- 
 ernmental agent, to examine carefully into the condition 
 of affairs in that region, with a view to enabling our own 
 Government to decide in a safe and judicious manner the 
 interesting question wdiether it would be proper to recog- 
 nize the Texan Republic, which had then been recently 
 established, as an independent power. The report of the 
 agent deputed thither had been some days previous laid 
 before Congress by the President, and many influential 
 members, both of the Senate and the House of Represen- 
 tatives, had come to the conclusion that an act of formal 
 recognition should at once take place, while others opposed 
 this under the reasonable apprehension that such a course 
 of proceeding might involve our country in a troublesome 
 and unprofitable war with the Mexican Republic. I have 
 seldom been more entertained than I was with the debates 
 which took place in Congress during the latter part of the 
 month of Februaiw and the beonnnino; of the succeeding 
 month upon this subject. In the Senate, William C. Pres_ 
 ton, of South Carolina, and Robert J. Walker, of Missis. 
 sippi, w r ere the most active and zealous advocates of re- 
 cognition, but a number of other Senators took a very 
 prominent part in support of this movement. Great ex- 
 citement prevailed in regard to this matter, and it was 
 
64 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 finally decided to be best to go no further in the affair for 
 the present than to co-operate with the President in send- 
 ing a Charge d' 'Affaires to the capital of Texas ; and, with 
 a view to saving the incoming administration from what 
 was deemed a delicate and grave responsibility, it was 
 judged most prudent that General Jackson should him- 
 self make the nomination. He accordingly sent in the 
 name of Mr. Labranchc, of Louisiana, who, after a rather 
 excited debate upon his merits and qualifications, was at 
 last confirmed. 
 
 A day or two after this the two Texas plenipotentiaries 
 then in Washington, whose official character had not been 
 at all recognized by our Government, gave a grand dinner 
 at their rooms, to which some forty or fifty of the leading 
 friends of the cause which they represented were invited. 
 I remember that there were present at this dinner John C. 
 Calhoun, William C. Preston, Robert J. Walker, John J. 
 Crittenden, John Bell, AVaddy Thompson, General Ed- 
 mond P. Gaines, and many others of great worth and 
 respectability. There was a most delightful interchange 
 of sentiment on the occasion, and several very brilliant 
 oratorical effusions were elicited. A few days after I set 
 out for my own distant home in the Southwest, in com- 
 pany with a number of gentlemen whose society along 
 the journey helped much to beguile the difficulties and 
 annoyances at that time necessarily consequent upon a 
 trip which had to be performed in a great degree by stages, 
 the Baltimore and Ohio railroad having then been com- 
 pleted only as far as Fredericktown, Maryland. Several 
 of our company, including the two Texan Ministers, Gen- 
 eral Memucan Hunt and Colonel William H. Wharton, 
 General Thomas J. Green, of Texas, Amos Kendall, then 
 Postmaster General, and myself, had the pleasure of sup- 
 ping at the house of Colonel Skinner on the evening 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 65 
 
 of our arrival in Baltimore, and to talk over, in a 
 manner to me alike interesting and instructive, the reign- 
 ing topics of the period. I never saw Mr. Kendall in so 
 gladsome and communicative a mood, and he from time 
 to time discoursed upon the gravest and most important 
 questions of State with a profundity and power which 
 left a lasting impression on my mind. 
 
 We were detained in Baltimore until the evening suc- 
 ceeding our arrival in that city, awaiting the setting forth 
 of the rail-car to Fredericktown, and during the interme- 
 diate time a scene occurred which I am inclined here to re- 
 late, at the hazard of being regarded by some as a little 
 frivolous and fanciful. I was walking out in the morning 
 about 10 o'clock, along one of the most frequented streets 
 of the city, when I unexpectedly met a gentleman form- 
 erly well known in Mississippi, who told me that he was 
 on his way to the hotel where I was staying for the pur- 
 pose of inviting me and the friends who were traveling 
 with me to dinner at his house that day. He told me 
 that he would accept no refusal of the invitation tendered, 
 and that the preparations for the banquet in prospect had 
 been already made. Of course I accepted his hospitable 
 offer, as did all the others invited. He requested me to 
 come to his house an hour or two before the moment of 
 dining would arrive, as he wished to introduce me to the 
 lady whom he had recently married and with whom he 
 knew I would be charmed. 
 
 Before I proceed further with my story let me give some 
 account of the individual who was thus putting himself 
 to so much trouble and expense for our entertainment. 
 
 Louis Levin was a South Carolinian by birth ; by des- 
 cent an Israelite. He was a man of exceedingly handsome 
 person, at least in early life. His mind was full of ac- 
 tivity and sprightlrness. He possessed the most remark- 
 able me mory I have ever known. His organ of language 
 5r 
 
GQ CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 was so large that his bright eyes positively almost seemed 
 when he chanced to be a little excited, to be ready to fall 
 from their sockets. lie had been well educated ; had read 
 much, and had forgotten nought that he had ever learned. 
 He knew most of the best English poetry by heart, and 
 sometimes, when called on to do so, made recitations far 
 more impressive than any that lever heard from Macready ? 
 Booth, or Forrest. His declamation of Coll ins' " Ode to 
 the Passions " was so masterly as positively to electrify 
 all who witnessed it. His conversational powers were 
 very remarkable; though he seemed in general to talk far 
 more from memory than as the result of present cogitation. 
 He spoke in public with great fluency, but without much 
 display of argumentative power. I am well satisfied that 
 he was a person of most kind and genial disposition, and 
 that if he had possessed the treasures of the world he 
 would have lavished them all upon friends that he loved ? 
 or have expended them in the accomplishment of objects 
 which chanced to be especially desirable to him. He was 
 brave almost to a fault, and was imbued with all the most 
 extreme notions of Southern chivalry. 
 
 I saw this very remarkable person first in the city of 
 Vicksburg, about the year 1832, at which place he had 
 but recently arrived, bearing with him letters of intro- 
 duction to myself and others from gentlemen of standing 
 then resident in the county of Wilkinson, in the same 
 State. He had just emerged from a duel, fought with a 
 young man about his own age, who, after Levin had de- 
 livered a brilliant 4th of July oration, and was receiving 
 on all sides the commendations of those who had heard 
 it, had laid claim to its authorship. Levin lingered about 
 Vicksburg for some time, and there his very impulsive 
 nature got him into several serious personal quarrels, from 
 which I had much trouble in rescuing him. At length 
 he disappeared from Vicksburg, and in a few weeks T heard 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 67 
 
 of his having made his entree into the city of Nashville, 
 where, hearing his native State, South Carolina, then in- 
 volved in the convulsive throes of Nullification, fiercely 
 denounced, as well as several of her leading statesmen of 
 that period, hy one or two public speakers of eminence, 
 he boldly mounted the stand and poured forth such a 
 tirade of vindicatory declamation as astounded all who 
 listened to it. Remaining then for several weeks in Nash- 
 ville, he became decidedly a social lion, and succeeded in 
 captivating the heart of a young lady of that vicinage 
 whose rare beauty and accomplishments are yet spoken 
 of in Middle Tennessee in language of unqualified com- 
 mendation, and the virtues of whose heart are, if possi- 
 ble, still more esteemed and praised. To this lady he was 
 in a short time married. But alas! she did not long sur- 
 vive. On her decease Levin journeyed to Baltimore, in 
 order to procure a suitable monument for the helpmate 
 he had so unfortunately lost. On going one morning into 
 the workshop of a worthy lapidary of that city for the 
 purpose of leaving directions with him for the prepara- 
 tion of a suitable tombstone for his departed wife, he 
 saw a beautiful young widow who had come thither also 
 with a view to performing the same pious honors to the 
 memory of a husband who had been recently taken from 
 her. The coincidence of their coming together on that 
 spot so unexpectedly when having precisely similar mis- 
 sions to execute struck them both most forcibly. In short, 
 they fell in love at once, and in a week or two it was gen- 
 erally known in Baltimore and the surrounding country 
 that a marriage between these two romantic young peo- 
 ple^ would soon occur. It chanced that at this time a 
 gentleman was spending a few days in Baltimore who was 
 of some prominence in the city of Nashville, who, hearing 
 of the match which was in contemplation, and not being 
 at all prepossessed in favor of Levin, deemed it his duty 
 
68 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 to interpose for the purpose of disappointing his connubial 
 anticipations. What this gentleman did or said on the 
 occasion I have never exactly known. It is certain, 
 though, that this unlooked for interference roused the ire 
 of my inflammable friend Levin very greatly, and that 
 he sought out this personage without delay on the street- 
 side, and made upon him a fierce attack, which very de- 
 monstrably indicated the deep sense of injury with which 
 his own bosom was lacerated. This transaction found 
 its way very promptly into a court of criminal cognizance 
 where Levin, following up the example of Caesar, of whom 
 Quintillian says : " He spoke with the energy with which 
 he fought," he undertook his own defense, and so acquit- 
 ted himself of this duty as to awaken much admiration 
 and sympathy among those who listened to his indignant 
 philippic. All impediments to his marriage being thus 
 removed, he soon found himself the possessor of a lady 
 whose personal charms were greatly set off and height- 
 ened b}- the large estate which she held in ownership. In 
 a month or two more Levin became very favorably known 
 as a defender of criminals in the courts of Baltimore, and 
 I recollect that on the very morning that I had met him 
 on the street-side, in the manner already described, while 
 he and I were holding brief converse, a gentleman of very 
 good exterior approached us, and was introduced to me 
 as the son of the renowned William Pin|kney, who com- 
 mended Levin in the most emphatic manner on account 
 of a very felicitous speech which he said that he had 
 heard from his lips in the Criminal Court the day 
 before. 
 
 I proceeded to the house of Mr. Levin so soon as I could 
 make my toilet, and was there presented to his very 
 handsome and captivating lady, the charms of whose con- 
 versation exceeded even the beauty of her person. She was 
 rather low of stature, but elegantly proportioned; her face 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 69 
 
 was delicate and well formed; her expression was perfect- 
 ly angelic, and her voice was as sweet and inspiring as 
 that of the nightingale itself. The company soon arrived, 
 and the few hours which now flew rapidly away were 
 marked with a joyousness of spirit which I am sure has 
 never been surpassed. 
 
 The indomitable Levin attended our party to Frederick- 
 town that evening, and, soon after reaching the hotel 
 where we were to spend the night, he made known to us 
 his wish that we should attend at his room, at the hour of 
 9 o'clock, to participate in a farewell scene of good humor 
 and jollity, which he thought would a little soften the 
 pain of our expected separation. We attended accord- 
 ingly, and found wine and hot whisky-punch flowing 
 there in abundance. Just before tins goodly company 
 dispersed to their places of rest an incident occurred which 
 impressed me very forcibly indeed, and upon which I 
 have often pleasantly ruminated since. A young lawyer 
 of promise belonging to the Maryland bar, whose name I 
 do not choose to mention here, came up to be presented 
 to Mr. Levin. He was a very fine-looking person, and 
 possessed a countenance expressive both of good nature 
 and intellect. I observed that durins; the scene of intra- 
 duction he evinced a blushing embarrassment not at all 
 usual in such cases. Presently, in the tendercst accents of 
 interrogation, he inquired after the health of Mrs. Levin, 
 whom he said he had known previous to her marriage. 
 There was something in the aspect and manner of the 
 young gentleman, as well as in the tones of his voice, 
 which irresistibly conveyed to my mind at the moment 
 images which prompted me to propound to him at once, 
 in as kind and delicate a manner as I could, several 
 questions, which, with the tremulous responses made to 
 them, I will here recite: "Tell me, my dear sir, did not 
 you know Mrs. Levin before marriage?" "I did/' he 
 
70 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 answered, with much embarrassment. "Did you not 
 
 love her?" I then asked. "I did," he responded, with in- 
 creasing confusion. "Did you not at one time expect 
 confidently to marry her ?" I asked. He replied in the 
 affirmative, and hurst into tears. 
 
 This denouement was exceedingly surprising to Levin 
 himself, as well as to all others present, for he assured 
 me that he had never heard before that his wife had such 
 an acquaintance in the world. 
 
 A year or two elapsed, and I heard of Levin in Phila- 
 delphia, where he was reported to have taken an active 
 part in those memorable riotous proceedings which eventu- 
 ated in the burning of a Catholic church there. In pro- 
 cess of time he was taken up as an anti-Catholic and a 
 Know-Nothing, and sent to Congress, where I found him 
 when I took my seat in the Senate in December, 1847. I 
 frequently visited him and his amiable wife during my 
 stay in Washington. I resigned my place in the Senate, 
 and after passing through many intermediate scenes of 
 turmoil and strife, both in Mississippi and in California, 
 visited Washington again in 1858. It was soon made 
 known to me that my friends of former days were in the 
 city, and were boarding at one of the hotels. Here I 
 visited Mr. Levin and his wife; but, alas ! what changes 
 had occurred in both of them! Levin, from long-con- 
 tinued genial excesses and other causes, had become in- 
 sane, and had, as I was told, been the occupant of a cell 
 in the Lunatic Asylum, from which he had but recently 
 emerged. His wife was a victim of chronic rheumatism, 
 and had grown old before her time. She was still cheer- 
 ful in converse, and seemed not to have altogether lost 
 her early vivacity. She alluded to the scenes of the past 
 in a kind and graceful manner, complained not of the 
 calamities which had fallen upon her, and seemed to have 
 most happily concentrated all the solicitude of her nature 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 71 
 
 upon a darling and accomplished daughter in whose 
 person and intellect she might well recognize her own 
 early graces to have been reproduced. I was asked by 
 these doting parents to take charge of this young lady 
 that very evening and see her safely to the great party 
 which Mr. Douglas was then giving to Mr. Bancroft. So, 
 indeed, I did, and soon after took my leave of this inter- 
 esting family, expecting never to behold two of them 
 again on this side the tomb. Sic transit gloria mundi ! 
 
 After the usual discomforts of traveling by stage, our 
 party arrived at Louisville without anything having 
 occurred to us worth relating. When about to com- 
 mence our journey down the Ohio river on board the tine 
 steamer Sultana, Colonel Wharton came to me with a 
 newspaper in his hand, which he asked me to read. It 
 was a number of the National Gazette, of Philadelphia, 
 and gave an account of a very remarkable man who had 
 just left London in disgust, and was then, as was reported, 
 somewhere in the United States. This person had made 
 his appearance in the British metropolis a few years before 
 as the Marquis of Moscati. He had been greatly ridiculed 
 in one of the Loudon newspapers, and been denounced as 
 an arrant humbag,nn<l various reasons were given for thus 
 assailing him. He had instituted a suit for libel, and the 
 case had just been tried and determined in the Court of 
 King's Bench. On the trial much evidence pro and con- 
 had been adduced, of which only a small portion can be 
 here mentioned. All the testimony of the defense had 
 been introduced in support of the plea of j 'testification which 
 had been put in. The plaintiff was proved at different 
 times to have claimed the authorship of the Pelham novels, 
 and yet Lord Lytton, on being brought forward to tes- 
 tify, bore evidence that he was himself the sole author of 
 the books in question ; but he added that he knew the 
 Marquis well ; that he was, as he thought, a very amiable 
 
72 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 and accomplished man, and that he had repeatedly em- 
 ployed him to write articles for his literary magazine ; 
 that, though a foreigner by birth, he was an admirable 
 English scholar, and was a man of very large attainments 
 in general science. It was further proved that the plain- 
 tiff claimed to be the Marquis of Moscati, of Italy ; and 
 yet, was it attested, in a very clear and satisfactory man- 
 ner, that there was no such Marquisate in Italy now, and 
 that there never had been. It was alleged that the plain- 
 till' had frequently boasted that he had fought ninety-odd 
 duels and had shot every one of his antagonists in the left 
 eye. It was further deposed that he had asserted himself 
 to have a genuine Toledo blade, which he usually wore 
 wrapped around his person, but which he could in an 
 instant disengage whenever he chose to do so, and apply 
 it to all the purposes for which a sword is capable of being 
 used. It was proved, in addition, that he had claimed to 
 have occupied a prominent position in all the great battles 
 fought by Napoleon, and that he had been asked by the 
 usurper, Don Miguel, to come to Portugal and take com- 
 mand of all his forces, which he had emphatically refused 
 to do upon the ground of his being a republican in prin- 
 ciple. Of course the suit for libel failed, upon which the 
 plaintiff was described to have left England in great indig- 
 nation for the United States, alleging that the jury had 
 found a false verdict, and that he had been cruelly perse- 
 cuted in England on account' of his political opinions. 
 
 When I had read through the article, "Now," says 
 Colonel Wharton, " this man is actually on board our 
 boat. He has been pointed out to me in the city, and I 
 have followed him down to this spot." After saying this 
 he asked me to endeavor to form an acquaintance with 
 him, and see what sort of person he was. And so I did; 
 and approaching the well-dressed, keen-looking, and rather 
 handsome little man, who was avouched by Colonel Whar- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 73 
 
 ton to be the person whose movements he had been watch- 
 ing so closely, I accosted him very civilly, told him in a 
 kind way that I knew very well who he was, and, encour- 
 aging him to confess his actual identity, by assuring him 
 that his republican principles, so far from raising up ene- 
 mies to him in this favored country would only surround 
 him with friends who would "stick closer to him than a 
 brother," he finally donned the Marquisate title once more, 
 though he had written his name in the book containing 
 the list of steamboat passengers in such a wa} T that all the 
 letters which he had inscribed there, if pronounced to- 
 gether, could not be made to produce a single articulate 
 sound. I soon after introduced him to all my friends on 
 board as the veritable Marquis of Moscati, of Italy ; and 
 all the way from Louisville to Yicksburg (at which latter 
 place I left the boat and took final leave of the Marquis, 
 who was bound for New Orleans) he talked almost inces- 
 santly, told a thousand of the most marvelous stories of 
 himself and his travels of which it is possible to conceive, 
 all the while giving abundant evidence of his learning, 
 his ^ood breeding, and his kind and accommodating tern- 
 per. I recollect that one of the gentlemen to whom I had 
 introduced him, Colonel John II. Claiborne, (then a Rep- 
 resentative in Congress from the State of Mississippi,) hav- 
 ing informed the Marquis that he was about to set out on 
 a journey to Europe, that he expected to visit Rome in a 
 month or two, and that, as he (the Marquis) had professed 
 to be personally acquainted with that illustrious person- 
 age, he would be glad to get a letter of introduction to 
 his Papal Majesty ; he at once complied, and wrote in 
 his behalf one of the most polished and elegant Latin 
 epistles I ever saw, which same epistle I do not at all 
 doubt my distinguished Mississippi friend yet has. 
 
74: CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. VIII. 
 
 JOHN C. CALHOUN — JOHN P. HALE — ROBERT J. WALKER — 
 HANGMAN FOOTE. 
 
 It was early in the summer of 1848 that an occurrence 
 took place in Washington city which was productive of 
 great excitement at the time, and which called forth, also, 
 much of that sort of crimination and recrimination which 
 never fails to leave behind it feelings of permanent alien- 
 ation and rancor, except, perchance, in a few bosoms of a 
 more generous mold than ordinary mortals can be expect- 
 ed to possess. Several of the unfortunate sons and 
 daughters of a race, whom a selfish and semi-barbarous 
 policy, originating in the Old World, and darkening with 
 its gloomy shadow the beautiful hills and valleys of our 
 own natal land for more than two sad centuries of shame 
 and sorrow, were prompted by that love of freedom, which 
 is everywhere inherent in the human bosom, to project a 
 scheme for their own enfranchisement, and it was under- 
 stood that some of them had sought concealment and 
 refuge in the free States of the North, whither they had 
 been counseled to go by several members of Congress of 
 much and deserved prominence at the time. One or two 
 of these refugees w 7 ere reported to have been in the owner- 
 ship of certain Southern members of Congress, who had 
 brought them to Washington, not for sale — which would 
 have been a palpable violation of the then existing laws 
 of the District of Columbia — but as domestic servants, 
 and deemed by them, at least, altogether essential to the 
 convenience and comfort of themselves and of their fam- 
 ilies. A movement so unusual and seeming to bode such 
 extensive mischief in the future may be easily imagined 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 7-") 
 
 to have had a very startling influence in certain quarters, 
 and much aggravation was supposed to have been lent to 
 this affair by the circumstance that the members of Con- 
 gress from the free States who were charged to have 
 given their countenance to this project of elopement boldly 
 confessed their own complicity therein, both in the news- 
 papers and in the two houses of the National Legislature. 
 When I reached my seat in the Senate on the morning 
 after the flight of these poor children of bondage had 
 occurred, I found Mr. Calhoun on his feet, and denounc- 
 ing, with a fervid vehemence of tone and manner, very 
 unusual with this grave and solemn Senator, what he 
 depictured as a fearful outrage upon the whole body of 
 Southern slave-holders — an outrage, he said, which, if 
 tamely submitted to, would in a short time bring about 
 the entire overthrow of a system of labor alike indispen- 
 sable to the enjoyment and prosperity of the cotton and 
 tobacco crowing region as to the wealth and greatness of 
 other portions of the Republic. When he closed his 
 remarks, not without striking indications of exhaustion 
 — he came to my seat and said : " I now leave this mat- 
 ter in the hands of my younger friends from the South. I 
 have stood here long in the front of battle, almost single- 
 handed and alone, defending the rights of our slave-hold- 
 ing constituents, and I begin to feel it to be high time 
 that such men as your colleague, Mr. Davis, and yourself, 
 should come forward to my relief." This was an appeal 
 which I found it almost impossible to resist, though really 
 I had never seen the time when I would have either gone 
 or sent an agent in quest of a runaway slave, and had 
 always been disposed to recognize the fact that one whose 
 acuteness and intelligence were such as to enable him to 
 achieve his own deliverance from thraldom might be well 
 presumed to be altogether capable of enjoying a state of 
 freedom and of creditably maintaining his new-found 
 
70 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 rights. "Waiting; a few minutes for that Boanerges of 
 debate, John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, to close a most 
 stormy and indignant harangue, in which his facility in 
 the application of potential and striking epithets had been 
 fully displayed, I leaped to my feet and made, as I must 
 frankly confess, under the overwhelming excitement of 
 the moment, one of the most fumy, rabid, and insulting 
 speeches that has ever dishonored a grave and dignified 
 parliamentary body; in which I told Mr. Hale, in plain 
 terms, that were he to visit any thickly-settled vicinage 
 in Mississippi, and there use such language as that which 
 he had just uttered, I did not at all doubt that he would 
 incur the hazard of being strung up on one of the loftiest 
 trees of the forest ; and that in such case, should there be 
 any want of a willing executioner, I would mj^self turn 
 hangman for his benefit. These frantic and indecent 
 words had scarcely been enunciated ere I become painfully 
 sensible of the stupid and unbecoming nature of my con- 
 duct, and I would have really given worlds to recall all 
 the nonsense I had uttered. 
 
 In less than forty-eight hours I received hundreds of 
 anonymous letters, filled with the most caustic revilement, 
 and others inclosing the most hideous caricatures of a 
 person whom these same caricatures denominated " Hang- 
 man Foote." I positively writhed in agony. Never had 
 nrv self-respect suffered such severe humiliation. I felt 
 that the fabled shirt of Nessus was actually enveloping 
 my limbs. Meanwhile, the jolly and kind-hearted Sena- 
 tor from New Hampshire and myself had long since got- 
 ten on good terms, and I had even taken up a decided 
 liking for him on account of his genial disposition, his 
 natural amiableness of temper, and his sparkling vivacity, 
 either in debate or in conversation. One morning, a 
 mOnth or two after the scene which has been just narrated, 
 Mr. Hale came to my seat and told me he had a favor to 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 77 
 
 ask of me, which he could not doubt that I would grant; 
 that there was a young man of his acquaintance, a native 
 of New Hampshire, who had been prosecuted for forgery, 
 or some kindred offense, who, having been convicted, was 
 then in jail. He said that the prosecution had taken place 
 under Federal jurisdiction, and that the culprit would 
 have to depend upon the clemency of the President of the 
 United States for pardon. "Now," said he, "you are, I 
 know, on most intimate terms with the Secretary of the 
 Treasury, Robert J. Walker, who will, I am sure, recom- 
 mend this young man for pardon on your request." He 
 added, that though he could not doubt that the young 
 man referred to was guilty as charged, yet he was satisfied 
 that there were extenuating circumstances in the case ; 
 that the offender was of very tender years and of a highly- 
 respectable connection ; and he then closed by informing 
 me that his sister, a young pure-minded, and affectionate 
 girl, had come on all the way from New England, hoping 
 to carry back with her to the bosom of his family her 
 erring but much-loved brother. Mr. Hale really made 
 this out to be almost a second Jenny Deans affair, and 
 though, perchance, I did not actually shed many tears 
 over his tender recital, it is certain that I promptly under- 
 took the mission suo-o-ested. Proceeding at once to Mr. 
 Walker and the President, I found no difficulty in obtain- 
 ing the pardon asked for, and returned to the Capitol in 
 less than two hours from the time I had set out on this 
 errand of mercy. On placing the pardon in the hands of 
 Mr. Hale, he introduced me to the young lady, who was 
 indeed overpowered with the good tidings which I had 
 brought. He then turned to her and said, in his own 
 characteristic way : " Young lady, this is a gentleman of 
 whom you have often heard in New England. He is one 
 of the Senators from Mississippi. To him alone are you 
 indebted for the liberation of your brother. When you 
 
/ tl 
 
 78 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 get home again be sure to tell your friends and neighbors 
 there never again to call him ' Hangman Foote.' ' 
 However generous may have been Mr. Hale's intentions 
 in this regard, I am constrained to acknowledge that I 
 have often since had proof that this euphonious and im- 
 pressive soubriquet has not yet ceased to vibrate upon the 
 lips of many among the excellent descendants of the time- 
 onored pilgrims. 
 Mr. Calhoun is entitled to more than the casual men- 
 tion which has been here made of him. He was unques- 
 tionably a very extraordinary man. Few more logical 
 and vigorous reasoners have ever made their appearance 
 in the world. He was as pure-minded and incorruptible 
 a statesman as our country has ever produced. His 
 morals were such as philosophers might emulate and 
 saints approve. He was intensely ambitious of public 
 honors, but he would have scorned to accept the most ex- 
 alted elevation which had to be reached by trickish sub- 
 tlety, by hypocritical double-dealing, or by fraud. His 
 knowledge of public affairs was profound, but was chiefly 
 confined to the concerns of his own country. His general 
 literary attainments bore no proportion to his knowledge 
 of the principles upon which our Government was origin- 
 ally founded, and the histories of party struggles on 
 American soil. He sought not at any time to obtain re- 
 cognition as a scholar, nor do I think that he had ever 
 read with attention a Greek or Latin book since he left 
 college. I once found him in his room glancing over the 
 pages of some novel which had just emanated from the 
 press; he told me that it was the first book of the sort he 
 had ever read, and that he was perusing this one only at 
 the request of some female friend who had sent it to him 
 from Charleston a few days before for his examination. J / 
 In the early part of his public career he bad entertained / 
 political opinions very different from those he had adopted 
 
CASKET OE REMINISCENCES. 79 
 
 in subsequent life and after his quarrel with General 
 Jackson. lie had been, when Secretary of War under 
 Mr. Monroe, a zealous advocate of an extended "system" of 
 internal improvements by the General Government; he had 
 voted in Congress some years before this for a national 
 bank, and had given his deliberate sanction to the prin- 
 ciple of protection. In 1833 he had become an out-and- 
 out milliner, and had issued two elaborate exposes in sup- 
 port of the doctrine which he had then embraced. His 
 views assumed a strictly sectional character during the 
 last twenty years of his life, and I am persuaded that no 
 reward could have tempted him to tread upon terra firma 
 anywhere north of Mason and Dixon's line. He had 
 long since ceased to feel the least confidence in the per- 
 manency of our Federal Union, and he often openly 
 avowed the opinion that republican institutions, in their 
 purest and most useful form, could only be unjje*ld in this 
 hemisphere on the basis of African slavery. ^±Ie was, for 
 several years previous to his decease, straggling to call 
 into existence a Southern convention, through the instru- 
 mentality of which he hoped to bring about a peaceful 
 separation of the States. His celebrated "Address to the 
 People of the South," issued about two years before his 
 death, and subscribed by many who did not fully com- 
 prehend its true import and purpose, was doubtless, as 
 subsequent events most clearly proved, designed by him 
 to pave the way to the accomplishment of the end which 
 he had so much at heart. The second grand expedient 
 upon which he relied for the termination of a political 
 union which had positively become hateful to him was 
 the assemblage of a convention at Nashville in 1850. He 
 hoped that the proceedings of this body would be such as 
 effectually to defeat the efforts then making in Congress 
 to settle all the difficulties existing in connection with 
 slavery, and enable the South to set up a new govern- 
 
80 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 merit, under a constitution which he repeatedly avowed 
 he had prepared for her, and in which the perpetuation 
 of African slavery would be a loading and fundamental 
 feature. The fatal tendency of the Nashville convention 
 movement was happily counteracted by the wise and manly 
 conduct of its President, Judge William L. Sharkey; else 
 there is no conjecturing what ruinous effects might have 
 resulted from the action of this body. Some time before 
 the last Congress which Mr. Calhoun attended met — in 
 the month of October, 1849 — I had written a letter urg- 
 ing him warmly to take the lead, upon the opening of 
 Congress, in moving the admission of California. He had 
 written a letter in reply stating his firm determination to 
 keep California out of the Union as long as he could, but 
 avowing at the same time his entire willingness to vote 
 for the admission of Utah. In the latter Territory, he 
 said, the convention which had assembled there had pro- 
 vided for the introduction of slavery ; whereas California, 
 as he had learned, was overspread with abolitionists, to 
 whom, he stated, the New York regiment sent there by 
 Mr. Polk had served as a nucleus. I wrote to him re- 
 peatedly before he reached Washington city, urging him, 
 upon various grounds, to modify his views touching this 
 matter, but to no purpose. When he got to Washington 
 he very soon became greatly excited, and declared to my- 
 self and to others that he thought the time for compro- 
 mise had gone by, and that he should hold any Southern 
 man dishonored who would, in the condition of things 
 then existing, initiate a proposition of that kind. At 
 length the last scene of this extraordinary man's public 
 career had its progress. He had caused the most elabor- 
 ate speech of his life to be prepared and to be put in print. 
 He was unable to deliver it, and he, therefore, got Mr. 
 Mason, one of the Senators from Virginia, to read it in 
 the hearing of the Senate. Never shall I forget the im- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 81 
 
 port of that most alarming speech or Mr. Calhoun's ex- 
 cited aspect while it was being read. To all the most 
 menacing positions embodied therein he bowed his head 
 assentingly, and looked round the Senate-room with an 
 expression of fierce determination, which I had never 
 een him exhibit on any other occasion. 
 
 I greatly apprehended the effect of that speech upon the 
 deliberations of the Nashville convention, which body 
 was then in session. When I read it in the newspapers 
 next morning I found that in the name of the South he 
 had demanded a constitutional amendment, which he said 
 was indispensable to the settlement of the questions in 
 agitation. So, early that day, I brought the subject to 
 the notice of the Senate and the country, and declared 
 emphatically that I did not concur with Mr. Calhoun in 
 his demand for a constitutional amendment. This/gen- 
 tleman coming in while I was yet speaking, interrupted 
 me for a moment, and, after interrogating me in regard 
 to the allusions I had been making to himself, and after 
 having heard my response thereto, he said, as reported in 
 the Congressional Globe : 
 
 "But I will say, and I say it boldly, for I am not afraid to say the 
 truth on any question, that, as things now stand, the Southern States 
 can not with safety remain in the Union. When this question may be 
 settled, when we shall come to a constitutional understanding, is a 
 question of time ; but, as things now stand, I appeal to the Senator 
 from 'Mississippi if he thinks that the South can remain in the Union 
 upon terms of equality.'" 
 
 To which I am reported as having replied : 
 
 " We can not, unless the pending questions are settled; but, in my 
 
 opinion, these questions maybe settled, and honorably settled, within 
 
 ten days' time." 
 
 Then rejoined Mr. Calhoun : 
 
 "Does the Senator think that the South can remain in the Union 
 upon terms of equality without a speci ftc guarantee that she shall enjoy 
 her rights unmolested '■ " ^y* 
 
 Gr 
 
 IS**^ 
 
82 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 To which the answer, as reported, was : 
 
 kt I think she may, without any previous amendment of the Constitution. 
 There we disagree." 
 
 Mr. Calhoun then frankly responded: 
 
 "Yes, there we .disagree entirely; and there, I think, he disagrees 
 with our ancestors. I agree with them.*' 
 
 It is evident to all minds now that had this demand 
 of a new guarantee for slavery been concurred in by the 
 whole South in L850 civil war would have been inevitably 
 brought upon the land. It was the injudicious getting 
 up of a similar demand afterward, in 1861, and the refusal 
 to accede to it, which caused the war of four years through 
 which the country has since passed. Whether if Mr. Cal- 
 houn had lived he would have persevered in this requisi- 
 tion to the extreme apparently indicated may be perhaps 
 a little questionable. He greatly preferred discussion to 
 the shedding of blood, and would possibly have been found 
 willing to ret ' <•» his steps had he seen murder and carnage 
 before him. 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 83 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. IX. 
 
 SAFETY COMMITTEE OF NEW YORK MR. CLAY AND GENERAL 
 
 CASS — GENERAL PIERCE — MR. BUCHANAN — MR. DOUGLAS — 
 MR. DICKINSON — JEFF DAVIS. 
 
 I have not heretofore noticed a very important move- 
 ment which originated in the city of New York, (a place 
 ever remarkable for its steady conservatism in national 
 polities,) which, had it been allowed to progress to its 
 natural and hoped-for termination, would have tended 
 greatly to harmonize all the conflicting elem 'its then 
 astir in the land, and would in all pro 1 lity have 
 ushered in a new "era of good feelitig;." Jailing for a 
 dav or two on certain friends in this great commercial 
 emporium, when on my way to Washington, in the 
 month of November, 1851, I was visited by a number 
 of gentlemen belonging to what was then known as the 
 Safety Committee of the city of New York, composed of 
 a hundred individuals of great respectability and wealth, 
 'which committee had rendered great service to the Union 
 cause during the trying period of 1850. By these persons 
 I was consulted seriously touching the expediency of get- 
 ting up, if such a thing should be found practicable, a 
 mixed Presidential ticket for the canvass of 1852, upon 
 which should be inscribed the name of one Democrat and 
 one Whig, both of whom should be known to be men of 
 weight and experience, and true to the cause of the 
 Union. The names of Mr. Clay and General Cass were 
 the two most favored at that time in New York, and per- 
 haps in every State of the North, the South, the East, 
 and the West. I was greatly pleased with the scheme 
 proposed, and at once agreed to co-operate therein most 
 
84 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 zealously The disjointed and demoralized condition of 
 both the old party organizations at that time, each of 
 which was known within its bosom to contain elements 
 of extremism constantly threatening combustion and an- 
 archy, seemed to demand very imperiously that these or- 
 ganizations should be recognized as now in a defunct 
 state, and that a new political party should be called into 
 existence, strictly national in its character, and which 
 would be strong enough to suppress faction everywhere 
 and consolidate the Government upon a platform recog- 
 nizing the compromise measures of 1850 as a complete 
 and final settlement, in principle and in substance, of the 
 distracting questions growing out of African slavery. 
 
 Such a ticket as that suggested, it was believed, would 
 sweep the Union from Maine to California, and defeat 
 the hopes of those everywhere who preferred sectionalism 
 to nationality. The committee promised to have suita- 
 ble resolutions prepared for adoption at a large popular 
 assemblage soon to be held in the city of Xew York ; and 
 they engaged also to address at the proper time a letter 
 to Mr. Clay, and another to General Cass, asking of them 
 the privilege of using their names in the manner sug- 
 gested. These letters were to be inclosed to me, on con- 
 dition that I would at once hand them to the parties to 
 whom they were to be directed, and would ask of them 
 respectfully and earnestly a prompt response to the same. 
 I had the honor to be requested also to express to the 
 committee my own opinion of the project, provided that 
 on Teaching Washington the views then entertained by 
 me should undergo no change. In a few days the letters 
 from the committee reached my hands, and I lost no time 
 in delivering to Messrs. Clay and Cass the communica- 
 tions addressed to them, accompanying this act with a 
 very warm solicitation on my part that they would' com- 
 ply with the patriotic demand with which they had been 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. . 8q 
 
 honored. Mr. Clay was then in a very feeble state of 
 health, and was not expecting even to live more than a 
 year or two longer at most. He had long since ceased to 
 cherish Presidential aspirations ; but his great soul was 
 yet beating healthfully and fervently for his country's re- 
 pose and happiness. He at once consented to pursue the 
 course suggested by the committee, provided General Cass 
 should agree to co-operate in the movement. Mr. Clay, 
 it will be recollected, had some time before announced his 
 opinion that the time had arrived for the Whig party to 
 retire from the arena, and I know that he entertained 
 precisely the same view in regard to the duty of those 
 who constituted what was called the Democratic party. 
 
 For a day or two after the delivery of these important 
 letters I really thought most confidently that the move- 
 ment must inevitably prove a great success. But the 
 event showed that 1 greatly underrated the power of 
 party bigotry, and the inclination almost unavoidable 
 among the accustomed leaders of great political move- 
 ments to rely for the attainment of desired public ends 
 exclusively and implicitly upon the well-organized party 
 machinery which they hold at the time under their con- 
 trol, and with all the mysterious operations of • ich long 
 use has rendered them thoroughly familiar. It is, per- 
 haps, but natural for such persons to suppose i hat to rescue 
 a country from danger by instrumentalities different from 
 those they have been in the habit of employing would be 
 almost equivalent to taking poison — certain to slay, in 
 order to get rid of some troublesome malady, conjectured 
 to be otherwise incurable. To go outside the Democratic 
 party with a hope of thus finding relief for evils preying 
 upon the vitals of the body politic would seem even now 
 to some veteran party managers whom I know to be far 
 worse than formally giving their consent to the imme- 
 diate death of the Republic itself. Instead of making 
 
86 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 party merely a convenient, as it often is, a valuable sub- 
 sidiary also to patriotism, they willingly sacrifice all 
 patriotic purposes to the glory of the Democratic name 
 and discipline. To reason with such persons is simply to 
 waste your time, especially if they be such as have long- 
 cherished desires of personal advancement by means of 
 strict party support. So it was in this very instance. 
 General Cass, whose aspirations to the Presidency had 
 not yet left the pure and lofty bosom which they had so 
 long animated, and who was now hopefully looking for- 
 ward to a second nomination for the Presidency at the 
 hands of the party which he had been very assiduously 
 serving for a toilsome and troublous lifetime, read the let- 
 ter sent him by the New York committee with equal sur- 
 prise and mortification, and told me, with little appear- 
 ance of gratitude for my ofiiciousness in his behalf, that 
 he would consult Mr. Dickinson, Mr. Douglas, and some 
 others that he named from among his -known political 
 devotees, and that should they consent to his taking such 
 a step as that now admonished, he would make known 
 the fact as soon as he could after having been by them 
 counseled to do so. In about two days he brought to me 
 his letter of declension to the New York committee, and 
 thus lost the best opportunity for the acquisition of true 
 glory which had ever opened upon his view. Mr. Clay 
 could of course only now imitate his example, and with a 
 sore and aggrieved bosom I transmitted these responses 
 to the appropriate destination, though not without pro- 
 testing, as I have been so often constrained to do, over 
 the madness as well as the dishonoring < of a cold- 
 
 blooded and soul-withering party-poli' shall be ex- 
 
 cused for here adding that I was the; as well satis- 
 
 fied as ever I have subsequently become that what was 
 called the Democratic party had even then degenerated 
 into a selfish and spoils-adoring faction; that as a politic 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 8T 
 
 cal organization it had lost all its lofty and disinterested 
 
 aspirations; that it was destined only to be kept in exist- 
 ence for the benefit of such party managers as might 
 feel that they had no right to hope for advancement upon 
 the basis of merit and qualification, and must therefore 
 rely alone upon a cunning trickery, and a super-subtile 
 dexterity ; and I am confident that I now see depicted 
 upon the sky of a not distant future the deep disgrace 
 and ruinous discomfiture which are to be hereafter the 
 reward of those who, having no longer any great and 
 patriotic ends to accomplish, and no distinctive principles 
 to maintain, foolishly attempt to keep in existence names 
 and symbols once of surpassing dignity, but which only 
 now serve to cover the purposes of a low-minded ambition, 
 and aid, perchance, in elevating to places of important 
 public trust men whose sole usefulness really consists in 
 the capability which they are seen sometimes to manifest 
 of putting in use a sort of silent, whispering eloquence, a 
 stupid, unharmfulness — the meet companion of this sort 
 of impotencj\ In the forlorn condition of things which 
 I then saw to exist I did not altogether despair, and I 
 sought to anticipate the action of convention-party ma- 
 chinery by getting the two houses of Congress to adopt at 
 once a resolution declaring the Compromise enactments of 
 1850 to be " a final settlement, in principle and substance, 
 of all the distracting questions growing out of African 
 slavery." This resolution I left in the Senate when I re- 
 signed my seat in that body in order to return to Missis- 
 sippi, where I had just been elected Governor. Though 
 it did not afterward pass the Senate, in a month or two the 
 same resolution found its way, almost in totldem verbis, into 
 the political platforms adopted by the Democratic and 
 Whig national conventions respectively; the important 
 words embraced in which, it was hoped by some, might 
 be respected in office by him who should be chosen Presi- 
 
88 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 dent in that contest, which soon after, to the surprise of 
 all who could not comprehend the full force of party ma- 
 chinery and unscrupulous chicane, resulted in raising to 
 the office once held by a Washington and a Jackson, 
 Franklin Pierce, of ]N"ew Hampshire. 
 
 All acquainted' with the history of that time need not 
 now to be told that the main question existing in the 
 popular mind in the Presidential canvass of 1852 was as 
 to whether General Scott or General Pierce was the bet- 
 ter finality man. That is to say, whether the country 
 would be, in all probability, the more effectually tran- 
 quilized under the administration of the one or under 
 that of the other? Mr. Pierce undoubtedly owed his 
 nomination for the Presidency in 1852 mainly to the fact, 
 very dexterously paraded at the time before the conven- 
 tion of the Democratic party in Baltimore, that he had a 
 few weeks before written and published a strong finality 
 letter; but for which circumstance he would certainly 
 never have had an opportunity presented to him of cruel- 
 ly disappointing the hopes of a generous and confiding 
 people, and of rekindling as far as it lay in his power the 
 smouldering fires of sectional strife into a perilous and all- 
 destroying conflagration. Surely there was nothing in 
 Mr. Pierce's abilities or habits of life to cause the public 
 attention to be fixed upon him as a suitable person to 
 mount the car of state at a moment so critical ; and the 
 furious and dashing vehemence with which he was soon 
 seen to move along the political firmament might well 
 have suggested to the classic mind the enterprising career 
 of that fabled son of Phoebus, Phaeton by name, who is de- 
 scribed as having on a certain occasion, in a moment of 
 celestial frolicksomeness, set all the heavens in a blaze. 
 
 So emphatically had Mr. Pierce been recognized every- 
 where as irrevocably pledged to the compromise measures 
 of 1850, and to the finality policy now annexed thereto, 
 
CASKET (IK REMINISCENCES. <S ( ,» 
 
 that he notoriously lost many thousand votes in the South 
 among men of secession proclivities on this account, and 
 in Mississippi alone, it is within my own personal knowl- 
 edge, that at least five thousand voters of this description 
 refused him their support, while all who had voted for me 
 in my contest with Jefferson Davis in the preceding guber- 
 natorial canvass came forward cheerfully and yielded 
 their full support to the opponent of that gallant, upright, 
 and thrice glorious military commander, whom the Whigs 
 had selected as their standard-bearer in that tierce con- 
 flict. 
 
 In reference to the matter at present under considera- 
 tion, I find it stated in a work whose correctness it would 
 become me least of all men living to call in question, that 
 Mr. Pierce " had scarcely been elected to the Presidency 
 when he called into special conference Mr. Hunter, of 
 Virginia, one of the most extreme men in his opinions 
 that, outside of South Carolina, the whole South con- 
 tained, and the noted Caleb dishing, of Massachusetts, 
 who had signalized himself very specially, many years 
 before, by delivering the most furious and uncompromis- 
 ing speech ever heard in Congress upon the occasion of 
 Arkansas, asking admission into the Union ; who, 
 although he had afterward yielded support to the admin- 
 istration of Mr. Tyler for a short period, (for which his 
 services had been rewarded with an Oriental coinmis- 
 sionership, in which he is reported to have become quite 
 a connoisseur in distinguishing between the savoiy flesh 
 of ducks and that of the young froles of the canine spe- 
 cies,) and though he had subsequently given his support 
 to the Mexican war, and gone through certain romantic 
 adventures beyond the Rio Grande without having a 
 chance of staining his virgin sword with the hated blood 
 of the foe, had really not a particle of claim to control the 
 action of a Democratic administration entering upon its 
 
90 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 official career under such circumstances as those which 
 now surrounded Mr. Pierce. These two sage advisers are 
 understood to have counseled Mr. Pierce to call to his 
 Cabinet Mr. Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, who was then 
 in profound retirement after his unsuccessful experiment 
 of secession in 1851, in which retirement it is quite cer- 
 tain he would have permanently remained but for Mr. 
 Pierce's being weak enough to act upon this advice. It 
 is understood that this appointment was made with a 
 view to conciliating the secessionists of the South, who 
 had, as already observed, yielded to Mr. Pierce but a cold 
 and reluctant support, many of them, indeed, and especially 
 in Mr. Davis' own State, having altogether declined voting 
 in the Presidential election. Mr. dishing, who was to be 
 Attorney General under the new regime, had reason to 
 believe that by force of his early political affiliations and 
 by the skillful distribution of the spoils of office he would 
 bring into the fold all the aspirants to public station who 
 then belonged to the abolition faction of the Xorth, while 
 Mr. Davis, by discriminating in appointing to office in 
 favor of known disunionists and against those who had 
 battled so faithfully for the Compromise measures, through- 
 out the South, it was confidently expected would work 
 wonders in attracting to the support of his over-confiding 
 ehief the sectional factionists of that region. It was fanci- 
 fully enough supposed that the friends of the Union every- 
 where would infallibly remain firm in their support of 
 Mr. Pierce on the ground of his former professions, so 
 that there was, upon the whole, as they opined, a capital 
 prospect of opening upon the country an administration 
 of four vears which would be fortunate enough to awaken 
 no enmities, and an equally flattering prospect that Mr. 
 Pierce would himself be re-elected in 1856, or that at least 
 the privilege would be accorded to him of nominating 
 his own successor ; which successor would undoubtedly 
 
GASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 91 
 
 have been the immortal Jeff. Davis himself ow signally 
 and cruelly all these fine-spun calculate a were disap- 
 pointed in the sequel, and how soon all these vapid and 
 airy speculations passed away into the somber region of 
 nothingness, the world now knows. Mr. Pierce, who 
 imagined himself to possess, and who was supposed by 
 some of his own partial friends also to possess quite a pretty 
 talent for phosphorescent declamatory rhetoric, com- 
 menced so soon as he had a cbance to do so, in his official 
 messages and otherwise, discoursing vehemently upon the 
 untold blessings of slavery. He extolled the Sunny South 
 and all her peculiar modes of thought and sentiment in 
 language of most glowing exuberance ; proclaimed him- 
 self to all the world as a sort of heaven-descended cham- 
 pion of her slave-holding rights and interests ; and very 
 soon managed to disgust every truly national man in the 
 country ; giving renewed organization and overwhelming 
 strength to the anti-slavery associations of the North ; 
 while the lavish outpouring of official patronage upon 
 known Free-Soil Democrats of that section imparted so 
 much of adscititious dignity to this particular class of 
 individuals as enabled them to wield an almost irresistible 
 potency in the Presidential contest of 1854; but not in 
 or of James Buchanan ! 
 
 Meanwhile Mr. Pierce and his worse than purblind 
 Cabinet assistants openly and unblushingly interfered in 
 all the political elections in all the States, (a favorite 
 expedient with the spoils-loving and degenerate Democ- 
 racy in these modern days,) employing patronage every- 
 where in order to control votes, (thus setting the first dis- 
 gusting example of this sort known in our annals,) and 
 spreading through every part of the Republic such an 
 abominable spirit of huckstering and corrupt political 
 bargaining as even Walpole, in the palmiest days of his 
 guiit-besmirched glory, had never been able to call into 
 
02 CASKET Of REMINISCENCES, 
 
 existence. In less than a twelvemonth after Mr. Pierce's 
 induction into the Presidency every man of solid under- 
 standing, both in Congress and elsewhere, who had aided 
 this ill-starred scion of the Granite State in his efforts to 
 reach the Presidency, became satisfied of his utter incom- 
 petency for the performance of the duties devolved on him, 
 and honest men everywhere were rilled with mingled 
 amazement and disgust at nearly all that was from time 
 to time reported to them as occurring • ;ider the sinister 
 auspices which clustered around him. or instance, such 
 men as Daniel S. Dickinson and lamented Justice 
 
 Bronson, of New York, and matty other fair-minded 
 Democrats elsewhere of almost equal eminence, were 
 driven, alike by a feeling of elevated self-respect and by a 
 sentiment of genuine patriotism, into open opposition ; 
 and innumerable official blunders, Ostencl manifestoes, and 
 the like, soon rendered Mr. Pierce and his ill-assorted 
 Cabinet as sublimely ridiculous before the world at large 
 as the accidents of political fortune had made them pow- 
 erful for mischief and impotent for any purpose of good 
 within the confines of their own country. 
 
 A fact has now to be mentioned which I shall never 
 cease to regret, and which at the time of its occurrence 
 filled my mind alike with surprise and chagrin. For 
 Stephen A. Douglas, while he was yet living, I entertained 
 a sincere friendship and respect, proof of which I could 
 give, if need be, that would leave no mind in the least 
 doubt. I knew him intimately for many years. I admired 
 his noble and manly spirit, his remarkable energy and 
 industry, his vigor and effectiveness in debate, and his 
 ardent love of country. I voted for him in 1860 for the 
 Presidency of the Republic, and were the contest of that 
 period now to recur I should do precisely as I did then. 
 He had his faults, like other men, but these faults did not 
 obscure the luster of his virtues, or seriously weaken his 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 93 
 
 claims to the esteem and gratitude of his affectionate and 
 admiring countrymen. I saw Mr. Douglas for the last 
 time in my own distant home in the Southwest, with the 
 exception of a single other occasion, when I heard him 
 address a large and enthusiastic meeting in the bosom of 
 the State of Georgia. I am about to observe very briefly 
 upon one of his acts, which I personally know that he 
 did himself most painfully regret. I will speak of this 
 act only as I have repeatedly spoken to himself of it in 
 private. Of course, I am alluding to his connection with 
 what is known as the Kansas-Nebraska bill, or rather to 
 his agreeing to incorporate in that bill a clause repealing 
 the Missouri compromise. It is known that for some 
 time he was reluctant to give his assent to a proposition 
 which he had so much reason to fear might revive the 
 agitation which he had for so many years been laboring 
 to assuage. I obtained sixteen y ears ago full evidences of 
 the real facts of this case from the lips of a high-minded 
 citizen of Kentucky, who I am glad to know is still liv- 
 ing, and by whom the repealing proposition was first 
 introduced into the National Senate. Mr. Douglas only 
 agreed to become sponsor for the proposition to repeal the 
 Missouri compromise after having been solicited to do so 
 by certain gentlemen from the South of extreme views in 
 regard to slavery, one of whom, at least, was a member, of 
 Mr. Pierce's cabinet. It was even whispered to Mr. Doug- 
 las that, should he yield compliance to the solicitations 
 with which he was being plied, it would secure him the 
 support of Mr. Pierce and his Cabinet in the then approach- 
 ing Presidential race. 
 
 •That the formal repeal of the Missouri compromise was 
 a violation of the principle of finality no one will venture 
 to deny who has read Mr. Douglas' admirably-drawn 
 report on this subject in the Thirty-Third Congress; in 
 which report, referring to the fact that the adopters of 
 
94 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 the Compromise of 1850 had cautiously avoided all inter- 
 meddling with this very delicate question, he said : " As 
 Congress deemed it wise and prudent to refrain from 
 deciding the matter then, either by affirming or repealing 
 the Mexican laws, or by an act declaratory of the true 
 intent of the Constitution, and the extent of the protec- 
 tion afforded by it to slave property in the Territories, so 
 your committee are not prepared to recommend a depar- 
 ture from the course pursued on that occasion, either by 
 affirming or repealing the eighth section of the Missouri 
 act, or by any act declaratory of the true meaning of the 
 Constitution in respect to the legal points in dispute." 
 
 Mr. Pierce came into power when the country was visi- 
 bly passing into a state of happy and prosperous repose. 
 He left behind him, when he returned to private life, the 
 incipient mutterings of a rising tempest, whose fury, 
 though once or twice intermediately suspended for a short 
 period, was not to receive its final quietus until after a 
 long period of blood and carnage should have been expe- 
 rienced ; until the evil system of servile labor, for the 
 maintenance and perpetuation of which he had toiled so 
 industriously, should be seen to tumble into ruin e 
 the recoiling of the forces emplo} r ed for itssupporl . until 
 the Democratic cause and name should both 1 so dis- 
 credited and enfeebled that no earthly power would ever 
 be able to redeem them from dishonor, or render it safe or 
 expedient to rely upon its boasted enginery either for the 
 upholding of our national honor, or for the giving a 
 healthful and beneficent propagation in foreign lands to 
 the sacred principles of civil and religious liberty which 
 our unequaled fathers have handed down to us and ours 
 for eternal preservation. 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 95 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. X. 
 
 MR. VAN BUR EN — MR. FORSYTH — MR. HOLT — MR. PRESTON — 
 MR. PIERCE. 
 
 It is almost unnecessary that I should state that on my 
 return to Mississippi in the summer of 1836, after the visit 
 to Albany already mentioned, I took an active part in the 
 Presidential canvass then in progress. "W hether I rendered 
 any service to the Democratic cause at that period in the 
 Southwestern section of the Union it is not for me to de- 
 cide. 
 
 I should ill perform the reminiscent task which I have 
 undertaken did I not here make some mention of an in- 
 dividual with whom my first acquaintance was formed 
 about this period, and in connection with the political 
 movements then in progress. This person has since ob- 
 tained much and deserved celebrity, and in the elevated 
 position now occupied by him stands little in need of any 
 commendation which it would be in my power to bestow 
 on him. He has held many high official stations in the 
 last fifteen years, and has acquired a reputation for ability 
 which no one would think of calling in question. Joseph 
 Holt is a native of Kentucky, and made his entree upon 
 the political arena, as I have learned, under the auspices 
 of the celebrated Amos Kendall, a personage whom I 
 knew for many years very familiarly, and for whom I 
 ever cherished a veritable respect and friendship. Mr. 
 Holt was assistant editor of a well-known newspaper pub- 
 lished in Kentucky of which Mr, Kendall had the chief 
 control. At least this is what I have often heard stated 
 by those who professed to have personal knowledge of the 
 fact. He was afterward district attorney for some time 
 
96 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 in Louisville, and displayed such extraordinary adroit- 
 ness and skill in the prosecution of criminal offenders 
 that it is related as a fact that the Governor of Kentucky 
 refused to continue him in the office which he so ably 
 filled, expressly on the ground that it was impossible for 
 any alleged culprit to escape the undergoing of legal pun- 
 ishment when Mr. Holt put out his whole strength as the 
 representative of the government. In 1836 Mr. Holt 
 made his appearance at the National Democratic Conven- 
 tion which held its session in Baltimore ; and when Col- 
 onel Richard M. Johnson was put in nomination for the 
 Vice Presidency, he rose upland delivered a speech in sup- 
 port of his claims which is said to have surprised and 
 even electrified all who listened to it. This speech im- 
 mediately made its appearance in the newspapers, and 
 the young Kentucky orator in a few hours experienced 
 what Lord Byron so strikingly describes when he says, 
 in reference to the first publication of the earlier cantos 
 of Childe Harold : "I waked up in the morning and found 
 myself famous." A short time after this achievement, 
 Mr. Holt came to Mississippi, and his arrival there was 
 productive of a most profound sensation. I well remem- 
 ber calling upon him a few days subsequent to his advent 
 among us, in one of the parlors of the hotel in the town 
 of Clinton, then a place of much importance, in company 
 with several other gentlemen, for the purpose of welcom- 
 ing him to the bosom of that then prosperous common- 
 wealth, and proffering him our assurances of sympathy 
 and esteem. We were all struck with the modesty of his 
 aspect and demeanor, and we were pained to observe 
 what we thought to be the tokens of declining health — ■ 
 soon, in all probability, we feared, to be succeeded by a 
 premature decease. Mr. Holt lost no time in entering 
 upon the brilliant forensic career which he afterward ran; 
 and, by an extraordinary exercise of professional dili- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 97 
 
 gence, as well as by giving constant evidence of ability, 
 he succeeded in the short space of four or five years in ac- 
 cumulating a larger estate than most lawyers are able to 
 acquire by the labors of a lifetime. I heard him very 
 often when ensued Ul the argument of cases of the great- 
 est dignity and magnitude, and I can declare with truth 
 that I have never listened to a more brilliant or effective 
 advocate. He always had an air of great serenity and 
 mildness when en^ao'ed in discussion, and his counte- 
 nance was generally a little shaded by what seemed to be 
 an expression of sadness. The tones of his voice had 
 something in them inexpressibly soft and touching ; and 
 so attractive did he often become, as he advanced from 
 point to point, that those who heard his calm and uni- 
 formly insinuating exordium were irresistibly constrained 
 to remain in his presence long enough to hear the last 
 words of his peroration. He indulged less than any emi- 
 nent speaker I have known in gesture, and scarcely ever 
 withdrew his earnest j^aze from the faces of those he was 
 addressing; and, strange to say, I never saw him on any 
 occasion cast an inquiring glance upon the surrounding 
 audience for the wished-for tokens of approval, which is 
 now so common a practice. It was then evident that 
 Mr. Holt was a well-read lawyer; and the style in which 
 he expressed himself, either to judge or jury, bore marks 
 of very high literary culture. The contests in court 
 which sometimes occurred between himself and the cele- 
 brated S. S. Prentiss, of Mississippi, (of whom I am gen- 
 erally supposed to know about as much as any other in- 
 dividual,) would, I am certain, have commanded atten- 
 tion as well as enlisted the most intense interest also even 
 in Westminster Hall, or in the most renowned courts of 
 the European continent, and I would now travel many 
 miles to witness one such scene of intellectual digladia- 
 7 R 
 
98 CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 
 
 tion as I have formerly beheld with so much delight and 
 admiration between these two giants of the bar. 
 
 Mr. Holt came to see me several times in Washington 
 when I had the honor to be here in a public capacity. 
 On one of these occasions, I remember, he was on his way 
 to the Old World, and on another I saw him after his 
 return, and I listened to his glowing and graphic descrip- 
 tion of all that he had been surveying, both in Europe 
 and Asia, with the highest gratification. 
 
 It has always been a source of gratulation to me that 
 Mr. Holt felt a deep sympathy for me in the struggle I 
 had to wage upon the soil of Mississippi in 1851 against 
 the efforts then so fiercely and perse veringly made for the 
 disruption of the Federal Union ; but it lias been to me 
 cause of unqualified regret that this gentleman was after- 
 ward compelled to suffer the most cruel injustice at the 
 hands of Mr. Pierce and his ill-starred Cabinet solely on 
 this account, with whom the strange and unnatural policy 
 had originated of crushing out Unionism in the South 
 and giving renewed ascendency to the secessionists of 
 that region, notwithstanding the solemn finality pledge 
 which Mr. Pierce had given before his nomination as a 
 Presidential candidate. In this and in other instances of 
 principle violated, I thought I then plainly discerned the 
 boding of much of that evil which has since been expe- 
 rienced. Mr. Holt had made several able speeches in sup- 
 port of Mr. Pierce during the Presidential canvass of 1852. 
 These had been widely circulated and had proved singu- 
 larly effective ; but when this gentleman's warm friends 
 and admirers in the Southwest — of whom I was one — 
 earnestly pressed upon the President whom we had just 
 elected the appointment of Mr. Holt to a foreign mission 
 of only secondary grade, it was discovered that a malign 
 and fatal influence had forced its way even into the 
 bosom of Mr. Pierce's shallow and intriguing Cabinet, 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 99 
 
 which rendered it alike impossible in several of the South- 
 ern States that any man previously appointed to office by 
 Mr. Fillmore by reason of his devotion to the cause of the 
 Union could remain in public station, or that any promi- 
 nent individual could receive favor at the hands of those 
 who were controlling official patronage who had been 
 manly enough to declare against the secessionists in Mis- 
 sissippi and Georgia in the tierce contest of that period. 
 So that the strange and monstrous spectacle was exhibited 
 of a Government seeking to the extent of its ability to 
 strengthen those whose parricidal hands had been so 
 recently employed for the destruction of its own vitality ! 
 
 I have seldom had an opportunity of holding direct per- 
 sonal intercourse with Mr. Holt since he informed me by 
 letter of the defeat of the application made in his behalf 
 for a mission abroad and the cause of the disappointment 
 of his reasonable expectation in regard to this matter. 
 We have not exchanged a word of soeial amity in the last 
 thirteen years, during which a dark and devastating civil 
 war has rolled its waves between the subject of this notice 
 and his friend of other times. I am rejoiced to know that 
 Mr. Holt's health has, since I saw him last, been com- 
 pletely re-established ; and that his fame is imperishably 
 intertwined with the honor of his country. Maybe live 
 long to enjoy the advantages of every kind by which he 
 is encircled, and never see this great and glorious Repub- 
 lic disturbed again as it has been since he and I sojourned 
 amicably together amidst the hills and valleys of that far 
 off region which the wickedness and stupidity of faction 
 have forever despoiled of its dignity and happiness! 
 
 I witnessed the inauguration of Mr. Van Buren in 
 March, 1837. A vast crowd was in attendance. His 
 inaugural address was short, well worded, and to the point, 
 and seemed to give satifaction to most of those who had 
 voted for the new President. But even then, feelings of 
 
100 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES, 
 
 dissatisfaction in connection with the fiscal action of the 
 Government and the general financial concerns of the 
 country were beginning to disclose themselves, and seemed 
 to discerning eyes to bode a most disastrous defeat of the 
 democratic party in 1840. 
 
 Mr. Van Buren is considered to have evinced much 
 good sense in the selection of his Cabinet. They were all 
 worth}' and pure-minded men, and bad severally given 
 proof of ability in the past history of the Republic. His 
 Secretary of State, John Forsyth, of Georgia, was in many 
 respects one of the most remarkable men to whom our 
 country lias at any time given birth. He first saw the 
 light on Virginia soil, and claimed, as I have heard, the 
 neighborhood of Fredericksburg as his place of nativity, 
 lie emigrated to Georgia early, and bad scarcely attained 
 to manhood before he began to participate in the public 
 concerns of his adopted State. He was a lawyer. by pro- 
 fession, and is admitted to have acquired a competent 
 amount of professional learning at a very early period of 
 bis career, and to have shown also an uncommon aptitude 
 for politics. He was for some years a zealous and de- 
 voted Federalist, and, like Mr. Berrien, his great rival in 
 after times, was kept in obscurity for some years by reason 
 of that fact. He was a warm supporter of Trofp and h is. 
 State rights policy during the administration of John 
 Quincy Adams, but is said to have acted with marked 
 moderation and decorum at that stormy period. He was 
 afterward Governor of the State, and in 1829 came into 
 the Senate of the United States, to which he was twice 
 elected, and during his occupancy of a seat in that body 
 he exhibited such singular dexterity, readiness, self-pos- 
 session, and vigor in debate as attracted toward him in a 
 remarkable manner the respect and affectionate admira- 
 tion of his fellow citizens of all parties. Mr. Forsyth was 
 a man of mosl commanding person; his manners were 
 
GASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 101 
 
 eminently polished and captivating,; his personal courage 
 was unquestionable, and his integrity was universally 
 confided in. Had he survived a few years longer it lias 
 been supposed by some that lie would have attained the 
 Presidential dignity itself; and had. he done so his ad- 
 ministration, I am confident, would have constituted a 
 bright and happy period in our annals as a nation. I have 
 often heard the great contest in 1832, at the capital of 
 Georgia, between himself and Mr. Berrien, involving the 
 question of nullification, referred to, and it seems to have 
 been the general opinion among those who witnessed it 
 that Mr. Forsyth was successful in obtaining a most signal 
 triumph over his accomplished and eloquent antagonist. 
 How strange it is that the monster of secession should 
 after such a scene as this have been able to dominate over 
 the understandings and the hearts of so bold, so practical, 
 and so patriotic a people ! 
 
102 CASKET OF REMINISCENCE*. 
 
 REMINISCENCE Ho. XI. 
 
 ANDREW JACKSON — HENRY CLAY — WASHINGTON — CxESARISM. 
 
 There is no period of our history more marked with 
 stirring incidents, or more replete with sound instruction, 
 to such as may be able to review in a calm and unpre- 
 judiced manner the character and conduct of that extra- 
 ordinary man, than the eight years' administration of 
 Andrew Jackson. He was accustomed to call it " my 
 administration ;" for doing which certain silly sophisters 
 and carping calumniators denounced and ridiculed him 
 without stint or decency. Certain it was, that while he 
 was the Executive chief of the nation he was " every 
 inch " a President. He quailed not before domestic facr 
 tion at home nor growling menaces from abroad. He was 
 ever exerting himself to find out what was right and 
 politic, and when he had resolved upon any particular 
 course he moved forward firmly and fearlessly in the 
 pathway of duty, never pausing even for a moment to 
 ascertain what malignant faetionists said of him, or in 
 what manner the shallow scribblers for the daily press 
 misrepresented and defamed him. He had but ore rule 
 of action, and that rule he found embodied in the ofKeia! 
 oath which he had taken. Regarding the Constitution, 
 and the laws made in conformity therewith, together with 
 our treaties with foreign nations, as " the supreme law of 
 the land, anything in the constitutions or law r s of the 
 States to the contrary notwithstanding, " he permitted no 
 body of faetionists anywhere to array themselves in arms 
 against the just authority of the Government. It was 
 indeed most fortunate for the country that he was known 
 so well to be a man of indomitable courage and inflexible 
 
CASKET OF 1 ; B MINISC EN C BS. L03 
 
 [firmness, for had this not been the case there was more 
 than one occasion during his eight years of Presidential 
 service when local demagogues of the hour would have 
 been tempted to measure their strength with that of the 
 'Government of which lie was the chosen chief. It is per- 
 fectly well known to many that in 1832, when the Xulli- 
 tiers of South Carolina menaced insurrectionary opposition 
 to the constituted authorities of the Republic, General 
 Jackson did not hesitate openly to declare his determina- 
 tion to arrest several of the prominent leaders of the con- 
 templated movement in Washington city, and subject 
 them to prompt punishment should they persevere in their 
 insane project ; nor is there much reason to doubt that 
 he would in a short time have proceeded to this extremity 
 but for the interposition of Mr. Clay and others co-operat- 
 ing with him at that period, who succeeded in bringing 
 .•about the celebrated compromise of 1832. I knew General 
 Jackson well, and I am sure that a more honest, disin- 
 terested, and truly patriotic man has never lived. His 
 mind was active, astute, and vigorous. He was a profound 
 judge of men, and had more capacity for controlling the ac- 
 tion of those associated with him than any one I ever knew 
 lie was a democratic-republican in principle ; was a firm 
 believer in the capacity of the American people for self- 
 government ; and had a just and enlightened regard for 
 all " the reserved rights of the States and people ;" but 
 the fanciful and absurd notion had never entered into his 
 head that either the States or people had reserved to them- 
 selves the right to set at naught when they pleased the 
 authority of the Federal Government, or to break up a 
 Union which the Articles of Confederation had declared 
 to be "perpetual," and which the Constitution afterward 
 adopted had expressly asserted to have been made more 
 " perfect" by its own provisions. The weak and untena- 
 ble position that the government of a nation has not full 
 
104 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 light to coerce obedience to all its legitimate behests, and 
 to use all needful means for the preservation of its own 
 vitality, his sound and discriminating mind could no more 
 have been inclined to entertain than the unheroicand dis- 
 honoring theory that a human being has no right to 
 defend his own life against assailment, and in any manner 
 whatever that shall be found most convenient. His 
 demeanor in private life, as I personally know, was always 
 kind, obliging, and courteous ; lie conversed in general 
 with a modest and easy familiarity, was always profoundly 
 courteous to the gentler sex, and tenderly mindful of all 
 who came into his own social circle. There were subjects, 
 though, the very mention of which always roused him to 
 a. pitch of stormy indignation, and there were several of 
 our eminent public men in whose integrity and patriotism 
 he had for a long time ceased to have the smallest confi- 
 dence, of whom he, indeed, occasionally spoke in terms of 
 vehement denunciation. 
 
 It has always been quite apparent to my mind that 
 during his whole Presidential career General Jackson never 
 once transcended the powers clearly allotted to the Execu- 
 tive Department of the Government ; though the peculiar 
 dangers and difficulties which he had from time to time 
 to encounter more than once constrained him to resort 
 to energetic expedients, and to adopt a tone and manner 
 that called forth in full volume the objurgatory malevo- 
 lence of his foes, who freely applied to him epithets that 
 the sober pen of the impartial historian will not be found 
 to justify. He was called a tyrant, a usurper, an imperial 
 despot, and was charged with intending to overthrow the 
 liberties of his country. Toward the close of his first term 
 as President he was fiercely accused of aspiring to a third 
 election, and some affected to believe that he would never 
 rest satisfied until his temples should be encircled with a 
 kingly diadem. This truly heroic and pure-minded man 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 105 
 
 is reported to have been exceedingly patient and self-pos- 
 sessed under this assailment, and to have rarely complained 
 of the calumnies to which he was daily and hourly sub- 
 jected. Doubtless he was powerfully sustained by the 
 proud consciousness of his own innocence, and by the con- 
 fidence which he always felt in the good sense and in the 
 generous instincts of the American people. He could not 
 but remember, also, how Washington himself had been 
 traduced in a similar manner, and how signally his repu- 
 tation had triumphed in the end over the industrious 
 malice of his foes. No one, I am certain, now supposes 
 Andrew Jackson to have been deficient either in integrity, 
 in patriotism, or in a true devotion to the eause of civil 
 and religious freedom. No one now censures him for 
 having used all his constitutional powers for the preserva- 
 tion of the Union against those who sought so causelessly 
 in 1832 to overthrow it. Nobody now suspects him to 
 have been guilty of corruption, because, under the indepen- 
 dent treasury sj-stem which he had set on foot, innumer- 
 able defalcations occurred among such as were trusted 
 with the keeping of the public money. No intelligent 
 and patriotic man now laments that he vigorously main- 
 tained the principles of law and order against the anar- 
 chical attempts made during his administration to under- 
 mine and uproot them. No man of sense now believes 
 that he was desirous of enjoying a third Presidential 
 term, though it is certain that he did not deem himself 
 bound, in the eircumstances which surrounded him, to 
 make a premature announcement of his intention to retire. 
 Had he done so, nothing is more certain than that the 
 various factions who had opposed particular branches of 
 his policy, though differing among themselves in regard 
 to several essential matters, would have had it in their 
 power to coalesce for the defeat of that very policy. It 
 was never positively known that Jackson would not be a 
 
106 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 candidate for a third term until he had become certain 
 that Martin Van Buren was almost sure to be nominated; 
 who, he well knew, if elected to succeed him, might be 
 confidently relied on for the maintenance of those princi- 
 ples which he regarded as indispensable to the national 
 safety and repose. Had he acted otherwise than he did 
 in reference to this matter I should, for one, have con- 
 sidered him seriously to blame. That we have now a 
 republican government at all is perhaps owing to his firm- 
 ness and resolution at this delicate and perilous conjunc- 
 ture. 
 
 I am really not informed, in any authentic way, that 
 this illustrious personage would have allowed himself to 
 be presented for a third term under any circumstances. I 
 know perfectly well that he felt a profound respect for the 
 character and example of Washington, who on due reflec- 
 tion determined to retire to private life after the end of 
 his second term. But it would be greatly wronging; Gen- 
 eral Jackson not to admit that he must have been per- 
 fectly aware that there was no clause in the Federal Con- 
 stitution positively making the President ineligible for a 
 third term. The fact that the framers of that instrument 
 had, after the fullest consideration, refused to adopt such 
 a clause, raises an irresistible presumption that those wise 
 statesmen foresaw the possibility that some exigency might 
 arise which would make it desirable that a President who 
 had served two terms should be continued in office for 
 four years more. What the nature of that exigency should 
 be which would justify a departure from the example of 
 Washington as to this matter I am myself by no means 
 prepared to decide; but I am sure that I can imagine one 
 which would have compelled even Washington himself to 
 have become a Presidential candidate a third time. Had 
 he believed at the period of his retirement that there was 
 a political party in the United States in close alliance with 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 107 
 
 the French Jacobinical faction, (as many supposed to be 
 the case in 179(3,) and that this party would succeed in 
 electing some such person as Robespierre, Danton, or 
 .Marat to the office of President, unless he should himself 
 consent to enter the field against him, I do not at all doubt 
 that Washington would have felt it his duty to forego 
 his own ease and happiness in order to secure his country 
 from the evils which the elevation of such a monster would 
 inevitably have brought upon it. I conjecture that Jack- 
 son would have acted in the same manner had he seen 
 any such evils likely to arise in consequence of his with- 
 drawing altogether from the political arena. So again, I 
 fancy, would it have been with the mild and unambitious 
 Madison himself had he seen the Federal party, with all 
 its sins of the war of 1812-'15 upon its head, about to 
 organize anew for the purpose of electing some anti-war 
 man of the Hartford Convention stamp to the Presiden- 
 tial office, under whose rule a new series of alien and sedi- 
 tion acts and other legislative enormities might perchance 
 be attempted, and could he have been in addition satisfied 
 that no man thoroughly identified with the war of that 
 period except himself would be strong enough successfully 
 to resist the reactionary tide. Let the Washingtonian rule 
 be as sacred as any one may choose to consider it, (and 
 surely I do not at all underrate that sacredness,) yet I 
 opine that this, like all other general rules, would be sub- 
 ject to that rule above rules, exceptio probed regulam. 
 
 Thank Heaven, the hero of the Hermitage was saved 
 from this fearful test, for he was able, without resorting 
 to means at all questionable, to secure the casting of the 
 Presidential mantle upon the shoulders of Mr. Van Buren, 
 and, ere he took leave of public life forever, had the grati- 
 fication of hearing from the lips of this gentleman before 
 a hundred thousand citizens that celebrated pledge that in 
 performing the Presidential functions he " would tread 
 generally in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessor ;" 
 
1(58 
 
 CASKET OF REMEMSCENCES. 
 
 so that Jackson was able to return to his own quiet home 
 in Tennessee with the conviction resting upon Lis mind 
 that he had left "this great Republic prosperous and 
 happy." There he lived for eight years more, surrounded 
 by all that could render his declining years peaceful and 
 contented. 
 
 No two public men in the United States were, perhaps, 
 more hostile to each other for many years than were Henry 
 Clay and Andrew Jackson, and yet were they strikingly 
 alike in some of their leading attributes. They were both 
 men of warm temperament, brave almost to a fault, patri- 
 otic, devoted to their friends, truthful, honest, lovers of 
 their kind, staunch supporters of the Union, and willing 
 to make almost any sacrifice for the maintenance of repub- 
 lican institutions. 
 
 I wish it were in my power to record here that they 
 were cordially reconciled before leaving the troublous 
 stage of action whereupon each of them had borne so dis- 
 tinguished and so meritorious a part. This much I can 
 with truth state, as being within my own knowledge, that 
 when, in 1850, citizens of the Democratic faith from re- 
 mote sections of the country beset Mr. Clay for the pur- 
 pose of cheering him on in the patriotic labors that were 
 then imperiling his life, they often said to him, with tears 
 in their eyes, "Oh, Mr. Clay, how much you remind us of 
 the lamented Jackson !" Xor did this sort of salutation 
 prove unpleasant to him who was the recipient of it; but, 
 on the contrary, he always' expressed himself on such 
 occasions as exceedingly gratified. 
 
 It is known to many that Mr. Madison first tendered 
 the commission of major general, afterward bestowed on 
 General Jackson, to Mr. Clay. Had he accepted it and 
 fought successfully the battle of New Orleans, as he doubt- 
 less would have done, how different might have been his 
 own political fortunes, and how dilferent the history of 
 our country ! 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 109 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XII. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN — ROBERT J. WALKER — JACOB THOMPSON — 
 WILLIAM M. GWIN — STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 
 
 The sectional agitation which Mr. Pierce's Administra- 
 tion had, despite all the pledges by which it w T as hound, 
 managed to call forth anew, was raging with much vio- 
 lence when Mr. Buchanan came into the Presidential 
 office. This latter gentleman having: been for several 
 years abroad had been able to keep his mind free from 
 all the excitements of the period, and having good reason 
 for believing that Mr. Pierce's failure to obtain a renomi- 
 nation had been greatly owing to his indiscreet, and 
 indeed unpardonable, discussion in his messages and 
 otherwise of the dangerous questions put to rest by the 
 compromise settlement of 1850, it would have been, 
 indeed, surprising had he at once proceeded to imitate the 
 ill example of his discredited predecessor. The inaugural 
 address which he enunciated was pre-eminently moderate 
 and conservative in its tone, and was calculated to awaken 
 new hope of the restoration of peace and tranquillity. 
 The National Intelligencer hailed this address most rejoic- 
 ingly, and proclaimed to the country that if the new 
 President should carry out faithfully and persistently the 
 views which he had just promulgated it would be the 
 duty of all the true friends of the Union to yield to him a 
 zealous and efficient support. Such, indeed, was the view 
 entertained by patriotic and enlightened minds every- 
 where ; and that considerable body of patriotic and 
 enlightened voters who had sustained Mr. Fillmore in the 
 Presidential contest of 1856 almost unanimously declared 
 their determination to present no opposition to Mr. 
 Buchanan's Administration so long as he should continue 
 
110 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 to show himself alike exempt from free-soil extremism 
 and the equally dangerous dogma of pro-slavery propa- 
 gandism. Never was a President of the United States 
 more favorably situated than was Mr. Buchanan in the 
 spring and summer of 1857 for conducting the Govern- 
 ment upon broad, national principles, and securing to 
 himself the glory of permanently pacificating a long dis- 
 tracted country. That such was his original ambition and 
 aim I have never at all doubted ; and his well-known 
 instructions to Governor Walker, whom he had dis- 
 patched to Kansas for the purpose of harmonizing the 
 elements of discord there, then in active fermentation, 
 gave most gratifying assurance to all the lovers of peace 
 and political brotherhood that, come what might, the 
 influence of the Government would never be wielded for 
 the encouragement of sectional factions of any name or 
 complexion, but be used for the upholding of the funda- 
 mental principle of self-government which our fathers had 
 established, even by the outpouring of their own precious 
 life-blood. 
 
 In order to understand the causes of Mr. Buchanan's 
 sudden and most lamentable departure from the line of 
 policy which he had prescribed to himself in the outset of 
 his presidential career, it will be necessary for a moment 
 to examine, in a spirit of dispassionate scrutiny, some of 
 the qualities which entered into the composition of his 
 own remarkable character, and to pass rapidly in review, 
 also, the peculiar obstacles which he very soon found to 
 
 set his pathway. 
 
 I knew James Buchanan for many years, and inti- 
 mately. During Mr. Polk's excellent and very successful 
 administration many occurrences took place which of 
 necessity brought Mr. Buchanan and myself into close and 
 familiar contact. Having been twice elected by the 
 National Senate to the position of chairman of the 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. Ill 
 
 Committee on Foreign Affairs, I bad to consult with him 
 often and in the most confidential maimer. He professed 
 to entertain for me a warm personal friendship, and I 
 never had reason to doubt the sincerity of his professions 
 in this regard. I had every opportunity, alike in private 
 life and amid the turmoil and excitement of political con- 
 troversy, to learn his real temper and character, so as now 
 to be able to speak of them with something approaching 
 to authority. He was undoubtedly a man of solid and 
 vigorous intellect, without having the least claim, though, 
 to be ranked as a man of genius. He was said, (and so I 
 suppose the fact to have been,) to be accurately informed 
 in the legal profession, and well adapted to all the ordi- 
 nary duties of a provincial American advocate, though 
 no one would, 1 am certain, have thought of claiming for 
 him a profound acquaintance with jurisprudential science, 
 or bave expected from him a great and luminous argu- 
 ment ..upon legal questions of particular difficulty and per- 
 plexity, and especially of such as had not been already 
 made the subject of repeated adjudication. His knowl- 
 edge of the ancient classic writers was exceedingly imper- 
 fect, and he was far from being at all familiar with any 
 of the renowned British authors who, in prose and verse, 
 have filled up the space of years between Chaucer and 
 Macauley. When a member of the Senate of the United 
 States, though his intellectual powers must bave been 
 then in their prime, he was not known to deliver a single 
 speech remarkable either for eloquence, for potential rea- 
 soning, or for valuable practical illustration. He was 
 notably deficient both in ingenuity and in rhetorical bril- 
 liancy. I do not think he ever uttered a genuine witticism 
 in his life; though, on social occasions, he was often more 
 or less facetious, and, in what Dryden calls " the horse- 
 play of raillery,"' was indeed quite an adept. Nobody, 
 though, ever heard him talk stupidly or ignorantly : and 
 
112 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 whenever a subject chanced to be introduced with which 
 he felt himself to be unacquainted he had the good sense 
 to be obdurately and unmovedly silent, lie was far from 
 being one of those who "wear their hearts upon their 
 sleeve for daws to peck at ;" in colloquial scenes he very 
 rarely expressed his opinions at all upon disputed ques- 
 tions, except in language especially marked with a cau- 
 tious circumspection almost amounting to timidity. In 
 the ordinary scenes of social life he was exceedingly sim- 
 ple and unassuming, exhibiting occasionally, but never in 
 a positively offensive manner, a sort of blunt and home- 
 spun frankness and familiarity which many persons found 
 more or less agreeable. 
 
 That he was himself a man of inflexible integrity I do 
 not think admits of question ; though it is yet not alto- 
 gether forgotten, and perhaps never will be, that in the 
 earlier part of his political career he had been known once 
 or twice to have become involved in perplexing predica- 
 ments which exposed him to the suspicion of being a little 
 insincere and ambidextrous in matters of political manage- 
 ment. Fame had long set down Mr. Buchanan as having 
 been a Federalist in the days of his opening manhood; 
 but this charge he had always positively denied, and was 
 accustomed to refer those who inquired of him relative to 
 this matter to what lie deemed a decisive negative fact — ■ 
 that he had marched as a common soldier from Lancaster 
 to Baltimore for the defense of that city from British 
 invaders in the war of 1812— *15. He had long been desir- 
 ous of reaching the Presidential station ; had once or 
 twice actively, but unsuccessfully, sought a conventional 
 nomination; and was perhaps at last indebted for his 
 being selected as the chief standard-bearer of the Democ- 
 racy to the fact that his long absence from the United 
 States was supposed to have neutralized ancient antipa- 
 thies in his own bosom, and to have saved him from the 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 113 
 
 discrediting responsibilities of Mr. Pierce's egregious mal- 
 td ministration. 
 
 Mr. Buchanan had always professed to hold in great 
 horror the doctrines of the extreme State's rights school 
 of the South ; had often ridiculed, even on public occa- 
 sions, the far-famed resolutions of '98, and professed an 
 ardent love of the National Union, which sentiment he 
 doubtless felt. I very well recollect that he wrote to me 
 an earnest and patriotic letter in the autumn of 1849, in 
 favor of the Missouri compromise as a basis of settlement 
 applicable, as he thought, to the questions then engaging 
 the public attention, and that he wrote another letter dur- 
 ing the summer of 1850 in full approval of the plan of 
 adjustment then before Congress. But he had, in some 
 way, learned to dread the fierce audacity of the Southern 
 fire-eaters, as he was accustomed to call them, and it sev- 
 eral times became obvious to me, long before he fell under 
 their domination in 1860, that his fear of the leaders of 
 this blustrous and menacing faction was not wholly 
 unmixed with something of a respectful admiration. 
 
 He was, as a general thing, exceedingly truthful and 
 confiding, and delighted more than any public man I have 
 known in what is sometimes called " crony ship," but, 
 unfortunately, selected often as the special partners of his 
 counsels men of very small mental caliber and who had 
 recommended themselves to his regard mainly by their 
 adroitness in the arts of adulation, to the influence of 
 which arts he was indeed most lamentably open. It is a 
 fact perfectly well known to me that General Cass, who 
 occupied under his administration the office of Secretary 
 of State, and whose accomplishments and prolonged public 
 experience, no less than the honesty of his nature and his 
 extraordinary powers of intellect, should have commanded 
 for his opinions the most profound deference, had far less 
 influence over Mr. Buchanan's official action than Howell 
 8r 
 
114 CASKET 01 .ISCENCES. 
 
 Cobb or Jacob Thompse . fact which of itself speaks 
 volumes in explanation of those prodigious blunders which 
 were soon to render the close of Mr. Buchanan's Presi- 
 dential term the most melancholy period in our annals. 
 
 In the summer of 1857 I reached Washington from 
 California, where I had been sojourning for four years, 
 and found Mr. Buchanan and his Cabinet in a very 
 excited and anxious state touching the troubles then in 
 progress in Kansas. Governor Walker had been there 
 carrying faithfully into operation the instructions under 
 which he had been sent to that region, which instructions 
 Mr. Buchanan had even drawn up in his own hand- 
 writing. 
 
 In further explanation of this matter I will call to the 
 notice of those who are honoring these reminiscences with 
 a perusal a short extract from a volume which I published 
 seven years ago, none of the material statements con- 
 tained in which have ever yet been, so far at least as I am 
 informed, at all impugned: 
 
 "Just about this time certain leading politicians in 
 Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina commenced a 
 course of open and unmeasured denunciation of Mr. Bu- 
 chanan on account of his having sent Governor Walker 
 to Kansas, and on account of the acts of this latter per- 
 sonage as Governor of the Territory^, charging the Presi- 
 dent with the basest ingratitude to the Southern States 
 and people, to whose support they asserted him to have 
 chiefly owed his elevation, and menacing him in addition 
 with such opposition in Congress and elsewhere as would 
 speedily bring him to punishment for the gross infidelity 
 which they accused him of having exhibited toward his 
 political benefactors. Fearing very seriously the effect 
 of these movements upon Mr. - Buchanan, whom I well 
 knew to be morbidly sensitive to public reproach, and 
 solicitous, beyond the wise sedateness of statesmanship, 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 115 
 
 to please everybody, I had now visited Washington, hop- 
 ing there to find out whether there was any likelihood of 
 the administration's recoiling from the attitude which it 
 then occupied. There I soon learned, from the lips of 
 Mr. Jacob Thompson and others, that though Mr. Bu- 
 chanan had been much galled and mortified by the course 
 pursued toward him in the Southern States, he was re- 
 solved to stand firmly by Governor Walker and non-in- 
 tervention in Kansas, whatever might be the consequences 
 of his doing so to himself personally, or to the future 
 prosperity of his administration. Mr. Thompson having 
 himself expressed strong fears that in the Southwest, par- 
 ticularly in Mississippi and the adjoining States, Senators 
 Davis and Brown, and others in- alliance with them, 
 might succeed, if not promptly counteracted, in mislead- 
 ing their fellow-citizens touching the Kansas imbroglio, I 
 volunteered to go in that direction myself, for the pur- 
 pose of employing such influence as might yet remain to 
 me, after a four years' absence, in furthering a cause 
 which I had ever had so much at heart. I set out ac- 
 cordingly, and journeyed at once to the city of Memphis, 
 where, being invited to address my fellow-citizens, I at- 
 tended a large popular assemblage, convoked under the 
 auspices of the most influential public persons in that 
 vicinage, over which the eminently patriotic ex-Governor 
 Jones presided, and in a harangue of several hours' dura- 
 tion I called the attention of those present to the then ex- 
 isting condition of public affairs, and labored to show 
 them that it was the true policy of the South, as of the 
 whole country besides, to yield to Mr. Buchanan the 
 most zealous and unremitting support at that perilous 
 conjuncture. The address which I delivered on this oc- 
 casion, with the evidences of popular approval which the 
 suggestions embodied therein had elicited, in manner and 
 form precisely as the same were set forth in the news- 
 
116 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 papers of the vicinage, I took occasion to transmit direct- 
 ly to Washington for Mr. Buchanan's examination, and 
 quickly moved on to the capital of Mississippi, confidently 
 expecting there to obtain a similar indorsement of the 
 non-intervention attitude of the administration. On 
 reaching this place, and on learning that the two Missis- 
 sippi Senators, Messrs. Davis and Brown, had both ad- 
 dressed a large public meeting at the Capitol the evening 
 before my arrival in Jackson, and that each of these gen- 
 tlemen had denounced Mr. Buchanan in unmeasured 
 terms, I accepted an invitation to speak at the same 
 place the very evening after; having done which, and 
 having procured similar testimonials of approval of the 
 President and his non-intervention policy as I had ob- 
 tained at Memphis, I forwarded these also to Washing- 
 ton to the address of the Hon. William M. Gwin, then in 
 that city, to be handed over to Mr. Buchanan for his en- 
 couragement. It was unfortunately of no avail that 
 these efforts to reassure Mr. Buchanan were at that time 
 essayed by myself and others ; he had already become 
 thoroughly panic-stricken ; the howlings of the bull-dog 
 of secession had fairly frightened him out of his wits, and 
 he ingloriously resolved to yield without further resist- 
 ance to the decrial and villification to which he had been 
 so acrimoniously subjected. In point of fact, a week or 
 two thereafter the Hon. Glancy Jones, of Pennsylvania, 
 a well-known and confidential friend of Mr. Buchanan, 
 published in the newspapers a letter in which the first 
 significant foreshadowings appeared of the President's 
 determination to go over — horse, foot, and dragoons — to 
 the secession faction." 
 
 In common with thousands of others I had now be- 
 come seriously alarmed at the condition of the country. 
 L knew well that a scheme for the destruction of the 
 Union had been long on foot in the South. I'knew quite 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 117 
 
 as well that the leaders of this movement were only wait- 
 ing for the enfeebling of the Democratic party in the 
 ISTorth, and the general triumph of Free-soilism as a con- 
 sequence thereof, to alarm the whole South into acqui- 
 escence in theiii policy. I was satisfied that if that most 
 unwise and corrupt measure, the Lecompton constitution, 
 should be approved in Congress, on the recommendation 
 of Mr. Buchanan and by the votes of Democratic members 
 of Congress, the Democratic organization in the States of 
 the North , already sadly weakened and demoralized by the 
 causes heretofore enumerated, would forever lose its 
 power for usefulness, and dwindle into just such a 
 wretched and discordant faction as it has ever been since. 
 I felt, as many other persons felt also, that the attempt 
 now making; in Congress to force through the infamous 
 Lecompton bill would permanently dishonor the South, 
 which would now, for the first time in her history, be 
 justly accused of having given her deliberate sanction to 
 a trickish and dishonest attempt to fasten slavery upon 
 an unwilling and fiercely-resisting people by a fraud 
 which no one could deny to have been perpetrated. 
 With such views and feelings I visited Washington dux- 
 ing the session of Congress of 1857-'58, and immediately 
 had recourse to General Cass and others who stood high 
 in my confidence, and protested solemnly against the 
 action which has just been described. General Cass at 
 once confessed, frankly, his entire condemnation of Mr. 
 Buchanan's conduct in the Lecompton matter, and earn- 
 estly besought me to go at once to him and remonstrate 
 solemnly against his further perseverance in the mad 
 course which he had been induced to adopt. This I, of 
 course, declined doing unless the President should do me 
 the honor of asking my advice, which I felt it to be cer- 
 tain that he would never think of. 
 
 Thus, by this most disgraceful procedure, and sc^ 
 
118 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 others of a kindred cast, adopted at that period, did the 
 Democratic party forever lose its dignity as a great 
 national organization and sink down into a mere sectional 
 faction, powerless for all real good, yet fearfully potential 
 
 c evil. • 
 
 There are one or two incidents of this period which I 
 will relate here as strikingly illustrative of the condi- 
 tion of things then existing. I went one day into the 
 Department of the Treasury on official husiness. When 
 this had been concluded, Howell Cobb turned to me and 
 said that he hoped I would do what I could to aid the 
 Administration in carrying through Congress the Le- 
 compton bill. I asked him what prospect there was of 
 its being adopted. To which he responded briskly : "Oh, 
 I think that we shall get it through. We have now se- 
 cured almost as many votes as will be necessary to its 
 passage ; and you know that this Department is always, 
 in such a struggle, good for at least twenty votes." 
 "Great God !" I said, "and has the Democratic party sunk 
 so low as to seek to procure the adoption of a measure 
 notoriously corrupt in itself by administering official 
 bribes to the trusted representatives of the people ?" This 
 was the last familiar conversation I ever held with this 
 once loved and respected citizen of Georgia. 
 
 A night or two after I chanced to attend a party at 
 the house of the British Minister. I was passing through 
 one of the most crowded rooms, when I saw a special 
 coterie engaged in animated conversation. The distin- 
 guished Jeremiah S. Black, then Attorney General, was 
 one of the group, and the lamented Mrs. Greenough an- 
 other. As I passed, this good lady called to me and said: 
 "We are discussing a question, Governor, in relation to 
 which I should like to know your opinion. I am insist- 
 ing that Mr. Buchanan ought to be brought forward a 
 second time for the Presidency; what think you as to 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 119 
 
 this matter ?" To which I responded, I fear, in a style a 
 little too abrupt : "Why, madam, Mr. Buchanan may be 
 entitled in the estimation of his admiring friends to a re- 
 nomination, but could he with honor accept it, having 
 heretofore given a deliberate and public pledge not to al- 
 low his name thus to be made use of?" 
 
 After Mr. Buchanan had sent into Congress two 
 several messages earnestly recommending to that body 
 the ratification of the Lecompton swindle, he began to 
 grow exceedingly restless and uneasy, and I conversed 
 with more than a dozen members of Congress, who in- 
 formed me that they had just come from the White 
 House, where the anxious President had urged them, in 
 language almost of imprecation, for God's sake not to for- 
 sake him and the true Democratic cause at this crisis. I 
 heard from the lips of the brilliant and eccentric Mr. 
 Toombs, about this period, a rather amusing anecdote, 
 alike illustrative of the uneasiness of Mr. Buchanan as to 
 the fate of this pet scheme of his in Congress, and of his 
 ingenuity in devising new schemes for the strengthening 
 of his position. Mr. Toombs said that a few days before 
 he had visited the Presidential Mansion', when the con- 
 versation chancing to turn upon the troubles then exist- 
 ing in Congress the poor President said: "Mr. Toombs, 
 when I was*"a member of Congress some years ago, and the 
 Democratic party was at any time hard pressed, we always 
 went into a caucus, where it was ever found quite'easy to re- 
 concile discordances and secure a union of party strength. 
 Why do you not call a Democratic caucus in Congress now? 
 I am certain that it would be attended with exceedingly 
 beneficial effects." 
 
 "Oh !" responded the ever-facetious Toombs, "Oh, Mr. 
 President, you have evidently forgotten my own political 
 history a little. When I came first into Congress as a 
 Senator, a few years ago, I did so as a Union Whig. I 
 
120 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 could not, therefore, you know, with any appearance of 
 propriety, go into a strictly Democratic caucus until the 
 expiration of my present Senatorial term. I have been 
 recently elected for a new term of six years by Demo- 
 cratic votes. This term will commence on the coming 
 4th of March. "Wait patiently, I pray you, for a few 
 weeks, and I promise to be as good a caucus Democrat as 
 ever you heard of." 
 
 On a cold and bright Sunday morning, the very day 
 before I left Washington for the South, I met Mr. Bu- 
 chanan on the street-side. He was just returning from 
 Senator Bright's on foot, whither he had escorted his 
 charming daughter from church. He was looking very 
 well, and seemed quite cheerful. He advanced and 
 saluted me quite cordially, and complained that I had 
 not been to see him. To which I answered : "Mr. Presi- 
 dent, I should, under circumstances a little different from 
 those now existing, have delighted to call upon you." 
 I added, "Mr. President, I shall be off for the South to- 
 morrow, and I wish I could return to my own home with- 
 out carrying with me feelings of great uneasiness in re- 
 gard to the condition of the country. I fear that this 
 Lecompton experiment has been fatal to the Democratic 
 organization of the North ; that the Republican party 
 will signally triumph in the Presidential election of 1860, 
 and that the secession leaders of the South, with whom 
 you now seem to be in close alliance, will sieze the op- 
 portunity which will be then afforded them of attempting 
 to destroy the Union. Mr. President, I know the men 
 upon whom you are now relying better than you do ; as 
 sure as there is a God in Heaven you will be compelled 
 to fio\ht against them for the maintenance of the Gov- 
 ernment itself before your term of Presidential duty shall 
 have drawn to a close." 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 121 
 
 lie responded, evidently with much embarrassment, 
 pretty much as follows : 
 
 "Let me say to you, sir, in frankness, that should such 
 dangers arise as those to which you refer, I shall know 
 how to do my duty. In 1852 I sought the Presidential 
 nomination at the hands of the Democratic party. In 
 1856 this nomination sought me. I made no effort to 
 procure it. My position is therefore one of independence, 
 and should any body of men anywhere attempt to subvert 
 this Government whose executive chief I am, I shall know 
 well how to deal with them, and the whole Republic will 
 find me religiously faithful to the great trust with which 
 I have been invested." I replied : "I doubt not the good- 
 ness of your intentions ; I trust that you will prove in all 
 respects equal to the perilous conjuncture which I am 
 sure is not far distant ; but I fear much that you are con- 
 fiding in the friendship and integrity of some who will 
 fail you when the moment of greatest danger shall ar- 
 rive." 
 
 So saying, I bade him good-by, never to see him r 
 on this side the grave. 
 
 AVhat difficulties he had afterward to encounter ; how 
 lie joined at the White House, a month or two after, in 
 the silly rejoicings which there took place over the adop- 
 tion of what was called the English bill ; how he openly 
 took part in the efforts made in Illinois to defeat Mr. 
 Douglas ; how he yielded his countenance to the proceed- 
 ings in the Charleston convention, which fatally broke 
 up the unity of the Democratic party ; how he gave his 
 indirect sanction to that monstrous alteration in the 
 national Democratic platform, confessedly intended to 
 give to slavery an "aggressive attitude ;" how he enter- 
 tained in the White House the secession leaders when 
 they were on their way to Baltimore, after they had dis- 
 gracefully abandoned their seats in the Charleston con- 
 
122 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 vention, because of the nomination of the high-souled 
 and heroic Douglas ; how the attempt was made in 
 Charleston by the opponents of this noble martyr to the 
 cause of principle to call to the Presidency of the Union 
 the man who in 1851 had arduously sought to destroy 
 this Government, and who was known to all the world 
 to be thoroughly committed to the fearful dogma of se- 
 cession ; how several of Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet after- 
 ward aided in the secret concoction of a scheme for the 
 overthrow of a Government with which they had a close 
 official connection, and co-operated in an effort to murder 
 that sacred Constitution which they had solemnly sworn 
 to support ; how Mr. Buchanan himself was persuaded 
 ingloriously to relinquish all attempts to maintain the 
 authority which had been intrusted to him, on the ab- 
 surd ground that the Government founded by our sage 
 forefathers had been given no power of self -protection 
 against lawless and unprovoked violence, are matters 
 which already belong to history and which the bloody 
 occurrences of a fratricidal war have engraved in char- 
 acters more durable than brass itself upon the hearts and 
 understandings of all America. 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 123 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XIII. 
 
 WM. H. SEWARD — ABRAHAM LINCOLN — CHARLES FRANCIS 
 
 ADAMS. 
 
 I have arrived at a very interesting point in the history 
 of the past. A very striking and peculiar character now 
 conies up for our special observation. Few men have 
 done or said more to secure the lasting remembrance of 
 mankind, either for the good that he did or the good that 
 he failed to accomplish, than William H. Seward. I w T as 
 well acquainted with him, without ever having possessed 
 his full confidence, and without ever having desired to 
 possess it. I was never his personal enemy. The rela- 
 tions existing between us never rose to the dignity of 
 friendship. I always looked upon him as a considerable 
 figure upon the picture of political and social life in this 
 country. I regarded him as a man of many peculiarities > 
 and made him a special object of my study from the 
 moment of my being introduced to him on a steamboat 
 descending the North river, in New r York, up to the period 
 of his departure from the realms of mortality. 
 
 I shall speak of him as I think, and as I have continu- 
 ously thought of him now for twenty-five years, " neither 
 extenuating nor setting down aught in malice," being 
 duly mindful of the w r ords of Antony over the dead body 
 of the murdered Julius: " The evil which men do lives 
 after them ; the good is oft interred with their bones. So 
 let it be with Csesar !" 
 
 William H. Seward was undoubtedly one of the best 
 educated young men on this continent when he left his 
 father's home for the sunny plains of Georgia, and he there 
 discharged the duties of a vocation held in peculiar honor 
 in all truly civilized and refined communities under the 
 
124 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 sun. I have never doubted that lie himself derived as 
 much of improvement from his occupation as a school- 
 master in the days of his early manhood as it was possible 
 even for his pupils to do under that industrious and skill- 
 ful performance of his preceptorial functions, for which 
 he has been given credit. The knowledge which he had 
 himself acquired at college became more thoroughly 
 engrafted upon his memory, and must have assumed a 
 more digested and orderly character, adapting it more con- 
 veniently to the practical uses of life. I should not pro- 
 nounce, though, that he ever became a thoroughly ripe 
 scholar, being in this respect, as I venture to suggest, 
 greatly inferior to Rufus ^ Choate, Edward Everett, 
 Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, Caleb Gushing, John 
 Quincy \ lams, and some others whom it would be easy 
 to name Ht^was the maker of many speeches, but he had 
 written far more than he had spoken ; a truth which no 
 one will be disposed to question after having learned that 
 he wrote much which was never orally enunciated, and 
 that he never spoke what he had not already first written. 
 His style of composition had many excellencies, and but 
 few positive faults. He wrote in a clear, polished, and 
 vigorous style, seldom using more words than were neces- 
 sary to express his meaning, and rarely leaving his mean- 
 ing so involved in ill-selected words as not to be easy of 
 apprehension, even to an ordinary reader. He possessed 
 in a Irish degree as a writer both the suaviter in modo and 
 the fortiter in re — never, or very rarely, running into the 
 error confessed by Horace, in his "Ars Poetica," when he 
 says: " Breve esse laboro ; Jio obscurus ;" while it must be 
 admitted that he never rose to the dignity and elegance of 
 a Cicero or a Macaulay, and never exhibited the grandeur 
 or profoundity of a Burke or a Webster. He was a good 
 deal given to facetiousness, but I never heard him utter a 
 decidedly brilliant witticism in my life. His memory was 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 125 
 
 most extraordinary, and lie kept it in good condition by 
 constant exercise. His capacity for reasoning upon any 
 given question was far superior to his judgment of either 
 men or thing's. He did not seem to me to be so desirous 
 of ascertaining the exact truth about any matter of dis- 
 pute which he professed to be seeking to elucidate, as to 
 make the most plausible showing possible for the side of 
 the question which he had himself espoused. His tem- 
 perament was cold and unexcitable ; he had really no 
 intense emotions, and he therefore never fell into the lan- 
 guage of passion. His imagination was dull and sluggish, 
 though he had labored hard to lash it into activity. He 
 bad indefatigably sought to fill his memory with the 
 beauties of speech which had originated in other minds 
 but without being able completely to assimilate what he 
 had thus borrowed with his own native stores ; so that 
 when he was ambitious of adorning his elocution with 
 figurative illustrations he wore the air of a frigid and 
 passionless reciter of the fine utterances of others far more 
 than he did that of a sublime and electrical enunciator of 
 grand ideas and startling sentiments originating in a 
 moment o peculiar inspiration in the mind of the orator 
 himself. '} he labor of a lifetime might have qualified him, 
 perhaps, almost to have written such a work as that 
 bequeathed to the world by Quintillian ; no amount of 
 industry, no concurrence of fortunate circumstances, could 
 ever have enabled him to attain a height of oratorical 
 excellence which might suggest to the minds of those who 
 listened to him the propriety of comparing him to a 
 Demosthenes, a Cicero, a Chatham, or a Clay. His manner 
 as a speaker was far below his matter in point of dignity 
 and imprcssivenes-. His person was diminutive; his face 
 was almost beardless ; he had a cold gray eye, which never 
 glistened with excitement, and never mellowed with sym- 
 pathetic emotion ; his movements, when on his legs, were 
 
126 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES, 
 
 awkward and shambling ; his voice was husky and indis- 
 tinct ; he read in a cold and overstrained manner what 
 h*e had carefully prepared for the occasion ; or, if he 
 uttered several paragraphs from memory, without referring 
 to the elaborate notes which he had prepared, he had ever 
 and anon to throw his eyes upon the paper before him so 
 as to be bled to go throuo'h with what he called his 
 speech. Such a discourse as this, delivered in the manner 
 I have described, might pass very well for a lecture, but 
 it is as far from being such oratory as the rhetoricians of 
 old have described as anything which could be possibly 
 imagined. 
 
 I have heard Mr. Seward, more than once, when vio- 
 lently assailed in the Senate, declare that it had long been 
 with him a rule of life never to grow angry under coarse 
 and unjust decrial, and never to retaliate words of per- 
 sonal insult. I can well believe this statement to be true. 
 "Whether he was always able to avoid the feeling of resent- 
 ment under supposed injury may be a question, and I con- 
 fess that I am among those who suppose him to have been, 
 in a quiet way, an exceedingly good hater. 
 
 He had a great and peculiar turn for what is called 
 diplomacy. The order of his mind admirably fitted him 
 for the cool and subtle discussion of questions growing- 
 out of international intercourse ; and I doubt not that his 
 correspondence with American Ministers abroad whilst 
 Secretary of State will pass down to posterity with distin- 
 guished honor, and be read by generations yet to come 
 with instruction, with entertainment, and even with ever- 
 increasing admiration. 
 
 I do not at all agree with those of the present day who 
 attribute the whole administrative policy of Mr. Lincoln 
 to the personage of whom I am now speaking. Abraham 
 Lincoln Avas far better fitted for the general functions of 
 the high office which he filled with so much credit to him- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 127 
 
 self, and with such lasting honor to the Republic, than 
 William H. Seward would have shown himself to be had 
 he ever attained the Presidency. I should rather be 
 inclined to attribute the zigzag; and blundering adminis- 
 tration of Andrew Johnson to the unhappy inspiration of 
 his renowned Secretary of State. It was the ambitious 
 and contriving mind of the great political manager of New 
 York which originated the " my policy " series of mea- 
 sures adopted by the maladroit Johnson in order to recon- 
 struct the States just coming out of the rebellion before 
 Congress could come together for the purpose of settling 
 the modus operandi of a proceeding which unquestionably 
 belonged to the legislative department of the Government. 
 In fact, Mr. Seward, in a well-known and carefully pre- 
 pared speech of his, delivered at his own home in New 
 York, during the summer or autumn of 1865, asserted in 
 the most emphatic manner that the reconstruction policy 
 of Johnson, which many persons then thought might 
 prove a great success, had originated with the antecedent 
 Administration. This was evidently intended to secure 
 to himself the credit of having controlled both Adminis- 
 trations. It is certain that Mr. Seward warmly approved 
 of President Johnson's whole course, up to the day of his 
 leaving Washington for the mountains of East Tennessee. 
 He attended him in that romantic and most memorable 
 ramble made by the enterprising Johnson, when he* was 
 "swinging" so ominously " round the circle." He aided 
 him in the huge attempt to get up a third party at Phila- 
 delphia, which was expected to secure the election of 
 Andrew Johnson for a second Presidential term. He 
 co-operated heartily with Andrew Johnson in that most 
 unwise and ungracious act of setting aside the noble com- 
 pact of surrender agreed upon between General Sherman 
 and General Joe Johnston, which the lamented Lincoln 
 would certainly have ratified most cordially had he con- 
 
128 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 tinued to live, and the execution of which would, seven 
 years ago, have restored all the States and people of this 
 Republic to their condition of primeval tranquillity and 
 brotherhood. Mr. Seward, it should never be forgotten j 
 sent by telegram to Washington city the evidence of his 
 warm approval of the silliest and most malignant speech 
 which even Andrew Johnson ever made ; I allude to that 
 one delivered by him on the night of the 22d of February, 
 1866 ; after the pouring out which, he became, in the ex. 
 alted station which he occupied, utterly powerless for any 
 good whatever, and even the prolific source of woes innu- 
 merable. Oh, no! let William II. Seward have all the honors 
 awarded to him which he justly deserves to have ; but let 
 us not " rob Peter to pay Paul ;" let us not deprive the 
 martyred Lincoln of the glories which so splendidly encir- 
 cle his name, and which, next to Washington himself, in 
 my judgment, over all other Presidents which the country 
 has yet known, he deserves to have accorded to him by 
 the children and the children's children of those for whom 
 he toiled, thought, and died. 
 
 The best specimen of Mr. Seward's prolific pen is per- 
 haps "The Life of John Quincy Adams." It is indeed a 
 most readable and instructive volume, does full justice to 
 the character and public services of the eminent states- 
 man whom he has undertaken to depict w», and, I am 
 glad to know, is most generously appreciated by his ac- 
 complished son, whose respect and admiration for Mr. 
 Seward may be supposed, on a recent occasion, to have 
 assumed a somewhat extravagant form, without gravely 
 calling in question either the feelings of his heart or the 
 general soundness of his judgment. 
 
 In the last days of the session of Congress, terminating 
 on the night of the 3d of March, 1849, Mr. Douglas, of 
 Illinois, raised an important test question in connection 
 with the bill, then on its passage, for the organization of 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. '129 
 
 the new Territory of Oregon, by the introduction of an 
 amendment providing for the extension of the Missouri 
 compromise line of 36° 30' to the Pacific ocean. Mr. 
 Seward, being very much opposed to such a settlement of 
 the pending question of slavery as this amendment con- 
 templated, before even he had yet taken his scat in the 
 national Senate, occupied himself very industriously in 
 securing the defeat of this measure, an account of which 
 exploit he immediately thereafter published, over his own 
 signature, in the National Intelligencer. In illustration of 
 his conduct on this occasion, it is due to Mr. Seward to 
 publish the following extract of a speech of his upon the 
 compromise measures of 1850. He said: "It is insisted 
 that the admission of California shall be attended by a 
 compromise of questions growing out of slavery. I am 
 opposed to any such compromise, in any and in all the 
 forms in which it has been proposed, because, while ad- 
 mitting the purity and the patriotism of all from whom 
 it is my misfortune to differ, I think all legislative com- 
 promises which are not absolutely necessary radically 
 wrong and essentially vicious." 
 
 Mr. Seward delivered a very remarkable speech in 
 Cleveland, Ohio, in 1818, in which he said: "There are 
 two antagonist! cal elements of society in America, free- 
 dom and slavery. Freedom is in harmony with our sys- 
 tem of government and with the spirit of the age, and is 
 therefore passive and quiescent. Slavery is in conflict 
 with that system, with justice, and with humanity, and 
 is therefore organized, defensive, and active, and perpetu- 
 ally aggressive." 
 
 These are words of very striking import, and, joined 
 with Mr. Yancey's noted declaration in 1860, that the 
 time had come to make slavery aggressive, may prove 
 very worthy of calm consideration among the generations 
 hereafter to inherit the free soil of America. It is quite 
 On 
 
130 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 /a remarkable fact that a little more than ten years after 
 the Cleveland speech Mr. Seward himself became a zeal- 
 ous advocate of compromise. 
 
 There was one portion of this same Cleveland speech 
 which was of a highly inflammatory tendency, and plainly 
 menaced civil war ; on reading which one can hardly help 
 being struck with the remarkable contrast apparent be- 
 tween the spirit therein displayed by Mr. Seward and 
 that breathed by Mr. Burke when saying: "We ought 
 to act in political affairs with all the moderation which 
 does not absolutely enervate that vigor and repress that 
 fervency of spirit without which the best wishes for the 
 public good must evaporate in empty speculation." 
 
 During my stay in Washington pending the discus- 
 sions on the Lecompton bill heretofore referred to — that 
 is to say, in the winter of 1858 — I had the unexpected 
 honor of being invited to a well-known restaurant in 
 that city. Of course' I did not refuse the kindly sum- 
 mons, and proceeded at the time appointed to the place 
 specified. Before I had reached the banqueting hall some 
 special information was communicated to me which I 
 will now proceed to narrate. General kelson, the per- 
 sonage who figured so prominently in Kentucky and 
 Tennessee during the late war, and who was so unfortu- 
 nately killed in private combat at Louisville by that 
 General Davis who has recently been winning so much 
 renown on the Pacific slope, when walking to the Capi- 
 tol, on the morning immediately preceding the dinner 
 scene presently to be described, had accidentally en- 
 countered a well-dressed Englishman, of rather an eccen- 
 tric appearance and manners, who inquired in a decided- 
 ly eockneyish style, as was reported to me, the way to the 
 room in which the Supreme Court of the United States 
 was holding its sittings. After the desired information 
 had been supplied, a sort of miscellaneous conversation 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 131 
 
 sprang up between General Nelson and his supposed Lon- 
 don acquaintance. He resolved to go with him to the 
 Supreme Court-room, that he might there see more of him. 
 While sitting there, it struck him that a very funny ban- 
 queting scene might be gotten up, if he should draw up a 
 card of invitation to the aforesaid son of "The Fast- An- 
 chored Isle," requesting him in the name of several dis- 
 tinguished members of Congress — easy to be obtained — 
 to accept, that very evening, a social repast, to be given 
 in honor of her Majesty, Queen Victoria, and the British 
 people. This invitation had been very courteously ac- 
 cepted, and when I reached the designated place of social 
 reunion, I found an exceedingly gay and splendid com- 
 pany assembled. The English guest was of course occu- 
 pying the seat of honor, and at different parts of the table 
 were to be seen Vice President Breckinridge, William H. 
 Seward, Colonel Orr, the late Minister to Russia, who 
 was then Speaker of the House of Representatives ; Lewis 
 D. Campbell, of Ohio; the celebrated Humphrey Marshall, 
 of Kentucky ; Albert Pike, the erudite lawyer, the bril- 
 liant colloquialist, and of late, as I am glad to learn, the 
 author of a most profound and entertaining work on 
 Comparative Philology ; General Nelson himself, and 
 this reminiscent. Dinner had already commenced when 
 I reached the arena of action, and the first glass of wine 
 was about to bo drunk. A sentiment preceded it, which, 
 being in honor of her gracious Majesty, the Queen of the 
 British realm, called her loyal subject to his feet ; when, 
 without the least embarrassment, in as easy, dignified, 
 and graceful a style as either Lord Chesterfield or Lord 
 Palmerston could have exhibited, he poured forth an im- 
 promptu response which was in all respects a perfect 
 masterpiece of its kind. The whole company was mani- 
 festly thrown aback by a display so unlooked for. After 
 a while the wine began to circulate very freely ; glass after 
 
132 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 glass was drunk with hearty good "will, while choice anec- 
 dote, brilliant repartee, and songs, both merry and pa- 
 thetic, served to enliven the occasion. Just as the com- 
 pany was rising from the table, Mr. Seward, who had al- 
 ready contributed at least his full quota to our entertain- 
 ment, rose, and with more than usual gravity, asked to 
 be permitted to offer a sentiment, to which all the com- 
 pany assenting, he said : "Gentlemen, it has been my for- 
 tune to occupy a seat in Congress, as you all very well 
 know, for many years, during which period I have made 
 one of many genial meetings like the present. I lament 
 to say, gentlemen, that it has uniformly happened here- 
 tofore on such occasions that the concord and agreeable 
 hilarity of the dinner scene have been more or less marred 
 by the unhappy introduction of irritating sectional topics. 
 To-day nothing of the sort has occurred, a circumstance 
 to me exceedingly gratifying, I now give you, gentle- 
 men, the following sentiment : 'Ma}^ many such pleasant 
 banquets as this hereafter occur among us, and may none 
 of them be interrupted or rendered less agreeable by the 
 introduction of sectional topics.' " 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. L33 
 
 REMINISCENCE No: XIV. 
 
 LINCOLN — BUCHANAN — DOUGLAS — JOHN SLIDELL. 
 
 It is with feelings of peculiar solemnity that I proceed 
 to state some recollections connected with the coming of 
 Abraham Lincoln into the office of President of the Uni- 
 ted States. This event stands inseparably connected with 
 others of the greatest and most painful import. I hope, 
 in mentioning my own remembrances of the various mat- 
 ters alluded to I may do injustice to neither the living 
 nor the dead ; but a frank and unvarnished exposition has 
 become necessary of certain occurrences which have too 
 long been the subject of the grossest misrepresentation, 
 and, therefore, the source of much error and of much 
 suffering. Abraham Lincoln was by birth a Southern 
 man, having been born on the soil of Kentucky. He was 
 in the beginning of his career poor and obscure, and had 
 to work for his livelihood. He was an attorney by pro- 
 fession, and had so conducted himself amid the multiplied 
 temptations which beset the vocation in which he had 
 enlisted as to be everywhere recognized in a very special 
 manner as an honest lawyer. No suspicion was ever 
 breathed as to his intregity or truth. Pie is known to 
 have been personally brave, and it was universally under- 
 stood of him that while never insulting any one, he never 
 quietly submitted to indignity or outrage. In all respects 
 he was a man of sound and unimpeachable morality, and 
 he had ever proved himself an affectionate and attentive 
 husband, a tender and providing parent, and a firm and 
 steadfast friend to all for whom he had once professed 
 amity. I doubt if there ever was a more upright and 
 reliable person on the soil of this continent than the 
 individual of whom I am now writing. He was not an 
 
184 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 abolitionist, in the ordinary sense of that word, at any 
 period of his life, though he had always disapproved of 
 slavery in all its forms, and would at any time have 
 rejoiced to see it brought to an end in all the States of the 
 Union, in some peaceful and constitutional manner. He 
 was a firm and inflexible supporter of the Constitution of 
 the United States, and had no inclination to disturb any 
 of its guarantees so long as that instrument should remain 
 unaltered. He was, doubtless, sagacious enough to under- 
 stand that African slavery, existing as it did in the United 
 States in opposition to the almost universal public senti- 
 ment of the civilized world, could only be expected to be 
 maintained under the protection of the guarantees just 
 referred to ; and he must have always understood that 
 whenever slavery should become decidedly aggressive in its 
 character, and should attempt to extend itself by unconsti- 
 tutional means, this would be almost certain to lead to its 
 speedy overthrow. He did not believe that slavery could 
 be legitimately carried to the territorial domain of the 
 Government outside the States wherein it was already 
 established, and he fully concurred with Mr. Clay, Mr. 
 Webster, and others that Congress, having exclusive legis- 
 lative jurisdiction within the District of Columbia, it was* 
 competent for that body to discontinue it there whenever 
 it should be judged expedient to do so. While the fugi- 
 tive slave law should continue to exist he was in favor of 
 enforcing its provisions even within the limits of the free 
 Stales themselves, and he is not know : to have made any 
 strenuous effort to procure its repeal hi truth, Mr. Lin- 
 coln was little more than a Whig of he Clay and Webster 
 stamp, and warmly supported Mr. Clay in all his attempts 
 to reach the Presidential office. When he ran against 
 Mr. Douglas for the United States Senate, only a short 
 time before he became a candidate for the Presidency, it 
 is well known that Mr. Buchanan, the leader and repre- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 135 
 
 sentative of the Democracy of that period, openly sympa- 
 thized with him in that contest, and urged various gen- 
 tlemen of some ability as speakers to visit the State of 
 Illinois and aid in securing the election of Mr. Lincoln to 
 the Senate of the United States in preference to Mr. Doug- 
 las. I was myself positively assured by Colonel Carpenter, 
 a gentleman then very favorably known as a stump- 
 speaker in the West, that he had canvassed Illinois against 
 Mr. Douglas at the earnest request of Mr. Buchanan, and 
 upon a positive promise of the Commissionership to China 
 if he would perform this duty — a post, however, which 
 was not, in the sequel, bestowed upon him, and of the 
 failure to confer which Mr. Carpenter most vehemently 
 complained. John Slidell, well known in Louisiana for 
 many years as a corrupt tamperer with popular elections 
 in the interests of the Democracy, openly confessed to me, 
 in the city of Memphis, on his return from Illinois, where 
 he had been exerting himself for the defeat of Mr. Doug- 
 las' Senatorial aspirations, in presence of from Mty to one 
 hundred respectable citizens, that he had used money 
 freely in Illinois for the overthrow of Douglas, avowing 
 at the same time his anxiety to see Lincoln elected over 
 him. So that it is quite evident that at this time even 
 Mr. Lincoln's avowed political foes entertained great per- 
 sonal respect for him, and regarded his presence in the 
 Senate of the United States as altogether desirable. It is 
 well known, both to myself and others in Mr. Douglas' 
 confidence, that he always entertained a very high opinion 
 of Mr. Lincoln's abilities and character; and, I am credi- 
 bly informed by persons of the highest standing, that an 
 hour or two after the delivery of President Lincoln's 
 inaugural address Mr. Douglas approached him and 
 declared his warm approval of all that he had uttered on 
 that occasion. 
 
 Let it be boi o in mind that the intriguing politicians 
 
136 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 of the secession stamp had labored with great assiduity in 
 the Charleston Convention to defeat Mr. Douglas, because 
 of his firm adherence to the ancient Democratic platform ; 
 that they had urged the adoption of a resolution, as part 
 of that platform, providing for the positive intervention of 
 Congress in the vacant Territories of the Union in favor 
 of slavery ; that this resolution was afterward adopted in 
 Baltimore ; that in connection with these proceedings the 
 Presidential ticket, upon which were inscribed the names 
 of Breckinridge and Lane, was put in the field ; that it 
 was openly avowed by Mr. Yancey and others of the 
 secession stamp at this very time that they had little ex- 
 pectation of electing the ticket they had formed, but 
 hoped to defeat Douglas by the means they were using 
 for that purpose ; and that Mr. Yancey, the great seces- 
 sion leader of that period, had more than once declared, 
 with his own characteristic frankness, that if Mr. Lincoln 
 should be elected to the Presidency, even by a mere plu- 
 rality of votes, he and his political confreres would imme- 
 diately, upon that pretext, attempt to withdraw the 
 Southern States from the Union. Consider, too, that Mr. 
 Buchanan and his Cabinet had been all along openly 
 abetting these movements ; that several of the members 
 of his Cabinet had already become thoroughly compro- 
 mised in various ways in the secession scheme ; that 
 menaces of- armed resistance to the Government had been 
 made in various forms, and that all were denounced in 
 advance as dishonored men who would accept office of 
 any grade or character at the hands of Mr. Lincoln. 
 
 Now, let us examine for a moment the conduct of Mr. 
 Lincoln — the extreme moderation and forbearance shown 
 by him — bearing in mind all the while that the declara- 
 tions which he solemnly made at this time were, for rea- 
 sons already given, entitled to the fullest confidence. In 
 his speech at Indianapolis, the first of many which he 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 137 
 
 delivered on the way to Washington city, lie used this 
 language : 
 
 "What, then, is coercion? What, then, is invasion? Would the 
 marching of an army into South Carolina without the consent of her 
 people, and with hostile intent toward them, be invasion? I certainly 
 think it would be invasion, and coercion also, if South Carolina were 
 forced to submit. But if the United States should merely hold and 
 retake her own forts and other property, and collect the duties on for- 
 eign importations, or even withhold the mails from places where they 
 were habitually violated, would any one or all these things be invasion 
 or coercion?" 
 
 Again he said, at Pittsburg : 
 
 i; I repeat now, there is no crisis except such a one as may be gotten 
 up at any time by designing politicians. My advice to them, under the 
 circumstances, is, to ' keep cool.' If the great American people keep 
 their temper on both sides of the line the trouble will come to an end, 
 and the question which now distracts the country be settled, just as 
 surely as all other difficulties of a like character which have originated 
 in this Government have been adjusted. Let the people on both sides 
 keep their self-possession, and just as other clouds have cleared away 
 in due time so will this great nation continue to prosper as heretofore." 
 
 How wise and considerate are all these suggestions, and 
 how impressively applicable to certain over-excited dis- 
 tricts of our country at the present time ! Would that 
 the fierce zealots who are raging now so wildly in one or 
 two vicinages in the far Southwest would act the part 
 then so impressively recommended ! Oh ! how I should 
 rejoice to see our countrymen everywhere exercising that 
 coolness and self-possession, never forgetting for a moment 
 that this is a land of government and law, and that the 
 sacred and unavoidable duty of those invested with 
 authority is to maintain the principles of law and order 
 at all hazards ; for without this we are indeed all com- 
 pletely wrecked. 
 
 In Philadelphia, at Independence Hall, Mr. Lincoln 
 concluded a modest and dignified harangue thus nobly : 
 
 11 Now, in my view of the present aspect of affairs, there need be no 
 
138 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 bloodshed or war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of 
 such a course ; and I may say, and in advance, that there will be no 
 bloodshed, unless it be forced upon the Government, and then it wil* 
 be in self-defense." 
 
 What could Washington himself have said more patri- 
 otic and pacific had he been in such a situation as that at 
 this moment occupied by Mr. Lincoln? 
 
 But in his inaugural address he ^ave still fuller assur- 
 ances to the whole country as to the course intended to be 
 pursued by him. In the opening portion thereof he 
 said : 
 
 iw Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern 
 States that, b} r the accession of a Republican Administration, their pro- 
 perty and their peace and personal security will be endangered. There 
 has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed? 
 the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed, and 
 been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published 
 speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of 
 those speeches when I declare that 'I have no purpose, directly or indi- 
 rectly, to interfere with slavery in the States where it exists. I believe 
 I have no lawful right to do so, and [ have no intention to do so. 
 Those who nominated me and elected me did so with this and many 
 similar declarations, and I had never recanted them. Moreover, they 
 placed in the platform, for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves 
 and to me, the emphatic resolution which I now read : 
 
 " ' Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the 
 States, and especially the right of each to order and control its own do- 
 mestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essen. 
 tial to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of 
 our political fabric depend ; and we denounce the lawless invasion by 
 armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what 
 pretext, as the greatest of crimes.' " 
 
 Then, after adding, that " all the protection which, 
 consistently with the Constitution and laws," could " be 
 given, would be cheerfully given to all the States, when 
 lawfully demanded, for whatever cause, as cheerfully to 
 one section as to another," he referred to the clause in the 
 Federal Constitution relating to the returning of " fugi- 
 tives from service," and said : 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 139 
 
 " It is scarcely questioned that, this provision was intended by those 
 who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves, and the 
 intention of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear their 
 support to the whole Constitution, to this as well as any other. To 
 the proposition, then, that slaves 'shall be delivered up ' their oaths are 
 unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could 
 they not, with nearly equal unanimity, frame and pass a law by 
 means of which they could keep good that unanimous oath?" 
 
 He presently proceeds to say : 
 
 " I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservation, and with 
 no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical 
 rules ; and while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Con- 
 gress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer 
 for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by 
 all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, 
 trusting to find impunity in having them held unconstitutional." 
 
 How could any reasonable Southern man have demanded 
 any stronger assurances than these ? They are positively 
 stronger and more comprehensive than any previous Presi- 
 dent had found it necessary to give, and Mr. Lincoln's 
 character, was, after all, really the best guarantee that they 
 could possibly have possessed. 
 
 Referring to his duty to maintain the Government he 
 says : 
 
 "I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as a declared 
 purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and maintain 
 itself. In doing this there need be no bloodshed or violence, and there 
 shall be none unless it is torced upon the national authority." 
 
 He closes his address in these noble words : 
 
 "My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this 
 who'e subject ; nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. 
 
 ''If there be an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step 
 which you would 1 ever take deliberately, that objeet will be frustrated 
 by taking time ; but no good object can be frustrated by it. 
 
 ** Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution 
 unimpaired, and on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing 
 under it, while the new Administration will have no immediate power, 
 if it would, to change either. 
 
 kt If it were admitted that you, who are dissatisfied, hold the right side 
 
140 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 in the dispute* there is still no single reason for precipitate action. In- 
 telligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who 
 has never yet forsaken the favored land are still competent to adjust 
 in the best way all our difficulties. 
 
 " In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, 
 is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail 
 you. 
 
 ' " You can have no conflict without making yourselves the aggressors. 
 You eat* have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, 
 while I shall have the most solemn one to ; preserve, protect, and de- 
 fend' it. 
 
 il I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must 
 not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break 
 the bonds of affection. 
 
 "The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field 
 and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this 
 broad land will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, 
 as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." 
 
 It would indeed seem that this memorable address 
 should have had a most soothing and reassuring influence 
 upon the minds and hearts even of those who stood 
 already committed to extreme measures, and who had 
 made secret preparations for the daring and mad experi- 
 ment which was soon to be essayed. Mr. Calhoun had 
 demanded a new constitutional guarantee in behalf "of 
 slavery before California was admitted into the Union as a 
 sine qua non to the continuance of the Union, and his hot- 
 headed disciples of 1860 made the same demand, and upon 
 its not being yielded, they immediately commenced war 
 by ordering that the fort at Charleston should be fired 
 upon. The day will surely come when this will be looked 
 upon universally as the most unjustifiable and unwise pro- 
 ceeding which has ever marked the history of a civilized 
 and Christian people. This I have for one always thought 
 and shall never cease to think, though circumstances 
 beyond my control afterward drew me and other known 
 friends of the Union into a most deplorable attitude, for 
 the assumption of which, even for a single instant of time, 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 141 
 
 I shall never entirely forgive myself, albeit a magnani- 
 mous Government has already pardoned the offense. 
 
 In reference to the unfortunate result of the efforts in 
 Congress in the spring of 1861 to obviate existing dangers 
 dl venture to offer one or two remarks here. 
 
 Mr. Crittenden's well-known resolutions of compromise 
 could, doubtless, have been obtained, but for the fact that 
 certain Southern Senators, five in number, (evidently by 
 preconcert,) when the motion to substitute the two reso- 
 lutions of Mr. Clarke in lieu of them was voted on, refused 
 to vote at all; when, had they voted, as they ought to 
 have done, Mr. Clarke's resolutions would have been 
 defeated by a vote of 28 to 29, and Mr. Crittenden's must 
 have been afterward adopted. When the last test vote 
 upon Mr. Clarke's substitute was taken in the Senate just 
 before the session terminated, Crittenden's resolutions of 
 compromise were defeated by a vote of 20 to 19, a number 
 of Southern Senators having meanwhile, with equal want 
 of true wisdom and practical fidelity to the South, resigned 
 their seats in Congress and returned to their own homes 
 to aid in consummating the work of secession, then in ac- 
 tive progress. It is due to Mr. Seward to state that, 
 though before that perilous moment opposed to all com- 
 promise, he now introduced a proposition in the Senatorial 
 committee of thirteen which, had it been accepted in 
 behalf of the South, and incorporated into the Federal 
 Constitution, would certainly have given permanent 
 security to the slaveholding region, though it would just 
 as certainly have perpetuated the evil of slavery. It was 
 in these words : " No amendment shall be made to the 
 Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress any 
 power to abolish or interfere in any State with the domes- 
 tic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to 
 service or labor by the laws of said State." To this pro- 
 position, as is now well known, Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, 
 
142 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 and Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, refused their assent in com 
 mittee, these gentlemen having other fish to fry in the 
 neighborhood of Montgomery, Alabama ! 
 
 I have been compelled to give these statements of fact 
 to most persons, doubtless, quite well known heretofore, 
 in order to open the way for the presentation hereafter of 
 some curious reminiscences, which might not otherwise be 
 so fully appreciated. 
 
 9 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 143 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XV. 
 
 MR. DAVIS — MR. SEDDON MR. BENJAMIN. 
 
 Thcmistocles, when on a certain occasion a teacher of 
 the art of memory tendered his" services to him as an in- 
 structor, is reported to have said that he should greatly 
 prefer becoming poss essed in some way of the means of 
 forgetting all things of a disagreeable nature, and is said 
 somewhat proudly to have rejected the proffered aid. 
 Cicero professes to admire much the greatness of mind 
 displayed by the illustrious Athenian in this instance, 
 but does" not hesitate to say for himself : u Non sum qui 
 oblivionis artem quam memories mallem" Without com- 
 mitting myself absolutely on this delicate point, and re- 
 cognizing in the fullest manner the correctness of Tully's 
 definition of memory when he says of it : "Memoria est 
 per quam animus repetit ilia quefuerunt — thesaurus re rum 
 inventarum" yet must I say that I should very gladly for- 
 get forever all that was so sad and humiliating in the 
 insane and ruinous eareer of what was ten years ago 
 known as the Government of the Confederate States of 
 America. And yet are there one or two facts in addition 
 to those already very hastily alluded to which I do not 
 feel at liberty to exclude altogether from the observation 
 of such as may be curious in reference to the trying scenes 
 through which a deceived and misguided people had so 
 painfully to pass. I shall be as concise as possible in 
 dealing with these matters, and I shall state nothing the 
 proof of which is not easy to be adduced. 
 
 When Mr. Benjamin was compelled to forego reappoint- 
 ment to the Secretaryship of War by the continual com- 
 plaints made in Congress and elsewhere of his gross offi- 
 
144 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 cial misconduct, Mr' Davis 'was persuaded to appoint to 
 the vacant place a gentleman of rare qualifications and of 
 extraordinary moral worth — Mr. Randolph, of Virginia, 
 a grandson of Thomas Jefferson. During this gentle- 
 man's occupancy of the Department of War his conduct 
 was eminently exemplary, his high ability was constantly 
 displayed in the performance of his arduous official du- 
 ties, his industry was niost untiring, and he gave the 
 most indisputable evidence, every day and hour, of his 
 remarkable virtues and of his disinterested devotion to 
 the cause which he had espoused. He was a man, 
 though, of singular independence of spirit, and though 
 sufficiently deferential toward those to whom he was offi- 
 cially responsible, yet he possessed far too elevated a feel- 
 ing of self-respect and too much regard for his own well- 
 established fame to become the mere slave of a vain and 
 arrogant Chief Magistrate. So, in a short time, the pub- 
 lic learned with regret that General Randolph had re- 
 signed and gone into private life, and that Mr. James A. 
 Scddon, also a native of Virginia, had shown himself so 
 indecently regardless of the honor of the "Ancient Do- 
 minion" as to allow himself to be foisted into a place 
 from which his noble predecessor had been ousted by 
 such cruel ill-treatment. 
 
 From a man who had been willingly inducted into of- 
 fice in a manner so discreditable of course not much was 
 to be expected, either of manly and efficient service, or 
 of official purity and disinterestedness. The career of 
 Mr. Seddon, as Secretary of War, will long be remem- 
 bered by all who ever entered the War Department at 
 Richmond while he sat enthroned therein. It may be 
 safely asserted that he did not possess a single one of the 
 qualities needed for a creditable and useful performance 
 of the duties now devolved on him. He was never able 
 to learn even the ordinary routine of official business, 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 145 
 
 and often scornfully declined attending to matters of the 
 most urgent importance, lie was as arrogant and in- 
 sulting to those who approached him in his official sanc- 
 tum as he was notoriously servile and fawning to his own 
 executive chief. He evinced, from his very entrance into 
 office, an utter disregard of all constitutional obligations, 
 and in the exercise of the authority committed to him 
 he proved himself to be the most heartless and ruffianly 
 tyrant whom I have ever yet seen in the possession of 
 official power. Though he had always been an ardent 
 State-rights man in profession, it soon became evident 
 that he had never sincerely cherished the smallest regard 
 for the principles embodied in the well-known State- 
 rights creed, and he habitually trampled under foot, and 
 without the least appearance of a blush upon his livid and 
 atrabilious visage, all the anciently recognized muni- 
 ments of State sovereignty. I shall not now go into a 
 minute specification of this man's offenses. It is perhaps 
 sufficient to state that he enforced with the most unfeel- 
 ing rigor all the most stringent and oppressive enact- 
 ments of the Confederate Congress in connection with 
 forcible impressment and conscription ; that in many 
 known instances he went far beyond the scope of these 
 enactments, while in others he criminally relaxed the 
 law in order to accommodate special friends or the mem- 
 bers of his own family connection ; that he was an earn- 
 est advocate for the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, 
 and that when this writ was suspended in a manner com- 
 pletely to uproot everything like civic jurisdiction in 
 every nook and corner of the unhappy South, he eagerly 
 took advantage of the condition of things to fill the 
 prison-houses everywhere with as good citizens as any 
 the South contained, and to compel individuals to do 
 military duty, in violation of the most solemn govern- 
 mental compacts. This was especially true in regard to 
 10r 
 
146 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 the six or seven thousand volunteers from the State of 
 Maryland, who, after enlisting, without persuasion from 
 any quarter, in the Confederate service for a limited and 
 specified period, after the expiration of this period were 
 rudely seized upon by the myrmidons of the War De- 
 partment . with a view to compelling them to re-enlist, 
 under the penalty, should they refuse to do so, of being 
 tried and punished as for desertion. It is even true, 
 within my own knowledge, that when that firm and up- 
 right judicial magistrate, Judge Haliburton, undertook 
 in certain cases to grant writs of habeas corpus in behalf 
 of some of those persecuted Marylanders, and manifested 
 a disposition to do them justice as far, at least, as was in 
 his power, the rampant tyrant at the War office evinced 
 an open disregard even of the authority of the Confed- 
 erate district judge ; and that officer was even informed, 
 in the columns of the recognized Government organ, (the 
 Sentinel,) which doubtless spoke by the card$ that the Sec- 
 retary of War would pay no earthly regard to the most 
 deliberate adjudications of the court in which he pre- 
 sided. And yet Mr. Davis retained Mr. Seddon in office, 
 amid continual indications of popular indignation and 
 disgust, from month to month, and from year to year ; 
 nor would he have removed him at all but for my formal 
 exposition of the fact on the last day of my appearance 
 in Congress, (which fact stood verified by his own official 
 records,) that he had recently caused himself to be paid, 
 by the hands of his own official subordinate, $40 per 
 bushel for his whole crop of wheat for the year 1864, 
 while he was, by the instrumentality of forcible impress- 
 ment, compelling the farmers of North Carolina, Geor- 
 gia, and other States to yield up their wheat to the Gov- 
 ernment officials at the very inadequate price of from $7 
 to $9 per bushel, in Confederate paper. My exposition 
 was made in Congress one morning, and the next morn- 
 
CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 147 
 
 ing Mr. Sedclon resigned ; but all the facts then adverted 
 to by me had been well known to a special committee of 
 the House for several months, whose decided action on 
 the subject I found it impossible to obtain, such was the 
 slavish submissiveness of the hour, and so terrific had 
 Mr. Davis and his Pretorian bands become. 
 
 As chairman of a special committee of the Confederate 
 Congress, organized at my own instance, for inquiring 
 into cases of alleged illegal imprisonment, I obtained 
 from the superintendent of the prison-house in Richmond 
 a grim and shocking catalogue of the persons then con- 
 fined there, amounting to the number of several hun- 
 dred, all of whom stood charged with only suspected in- 
 fidelity to the Confederate cause, and these had been ar- 
 rested, not on oath of any kind. Just as I was about to 
 take proper steps to have these poor creatures discharged, 
 Mr. Davis' demand for a renewed habeas corpus suspen- 
 sion was yielded to, and the door of hope forever closed 
 upon these victims of despotism, most of whom died in 
 confinement. This case of suffering was really almost 
 equal to that of the famous Black Hole of Calcutta I 
 
 It is a notorious and undeniable fact that Mr. Seddon, 
 as the incumbent of the War Department, did actually 
 interpose in a manner most rude and unfeeling to pre- 
 vent the Confederate lines from being passed by ladies of 
 the highest respectability, desirous only of carrying their 
 infant children to school in Maryland and other States, 
 where the ordinary means of education yet survived, hop- 
 ing in this way to save them from a portion of the worst 
 horrors of the unhappy war then in progress. This I assert 
 upon my own personal knowledge, and am prepared to 
 give names and dates when called on for that purpose. 
 
 Mr. Seddon had been at one time a member of the 
 Federal Congress. There he had signalized himself as a 
 furious State-rights man. In the celebrated Peace Con- 
 
148 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 ference of 1861 he distinguished himself by going beyond 
 all others in demanding additional guarantees for the 
 protection of the slave-holding interest. Just before he 
 received the appointment of Secretary of War he had 
 been very badly beaten in the Petersburg Congressional 
 district by a gentleman of more conservative views. 
 
 This person I had accidentally met on Pennsylvania 
 avenue, in Washington, in the summer of 1850. He had 
 the presumption to tell me that he intended to go to Mis- 
 sissippi in order to report to my constituents there my 
 gross misrepresentation of them in Congress in connection 
 with the compromise measures of that period. I imme- 
 diately told him that I would meet him upon the questions 
 involved in these measures before his own constituents, in 
 Richmond, but he did not deem it prudent to take up 
 my challenge. 
 
 Such are some of the beauties of secession ; and such 
 was the arbitrary and tyrannical conduct of those who 
 had attempted to break up the Federal Union in order 
 to avoid the imaginary danger of consolidation ! 
 
 To show the spirit of imperial domination then raging 
 in Richmond I will relate a curious anecdote, for the 
 truth of which I personally vouch. One morning, very 
 early in the day, I was walking through the Capitol 
 grounds in Richmond, when I met a respectable officer in 
 the employment of the Confederate Government, who at 
 once inquired of me whether Mr. Davis ever got 
 drunk. I told him I thought not, and inquired 
 his reason for propounding this question ; to which 
 he responded as follows: "Mr. Davis, Mr. Mal- 
 lory, and others had visited Drewry's Bluff on yesterday. 
 When the company reached Rocketts, on their return, 
 Mr. Davis, not finding his carriage there to meet him, as 
 he had expected, determined to go home on foot. His 
 lady was accompanying him. They had to pass the Lib- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 149 
 
 by* Prison in their route. When they reached this well- 
 known spot, where it would seem that Mr. Davis had 
 never been before, it being twilight, the sentinel on duty 
 before the prison door would not have been able at once 
 to distinguish the Confederate chief even if he had been 
 previously familiar with his august person. But in 
 point of fact he did not know him at all, never having 
 seen him face to face in his life. He challenged the new- 
 comers accordingly, as was to have been expected. Upon 
 this Mr. Davis announced that he was Jefferson 
 Davis, President of the Confederate States of Ameri- 
 ca. Says the sentinel : 'I wish I knew this to be 
 true, but really I do not know Mr. Davis, and I can not 
 allow you to pass ;' when Mr. Davis, drawing his sword- 
 cane, sprang toward the sentinel with fierce and angry 
 menaces upon his lips. The sentinel pointed his piece 
 directly toward his person, and would have shot him, 
 then and there, but for the prompt and fearless interposi- 
 tion of Mrs. Davis, who, assuring the honest soldier upon 
 her honor that this was Jefferson Davis, and her hus- 
 band ; the sentinel, faltering under her influence, agreed 
 to take the responsibility of letting Davis and his lady 
 pass. And so they did ; but so soon as Mr. Davis got to 
 his home he sent for General Winder, informed him of 
 the serious indignity which had been done him by one 
 of his subordinates, and ordered his immediate arrest, 
 with a view to his condign punishment. Winder respect- 
 fully remonstrated against this course of proceeding. 
 Davis got into a towering passion, and threatened to re- 
 move Winder if he did not obey the order which had 
 been given him immediately. Upon this the young man 
 was arrested, and is now in custody." 
 
 1 asked the gentleman who gave me this information 
 if either of the editors in Richmond knew of the affair. 
 He replied that he had given a full account of the par- 
 
150 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 ticulars recited to a reporter for the Examiner. Fearing 
 the effect of such a publication as was now likely to be 
 made, I besought my young friend not to mention the 
 matter again, and proceeded at once to the office of the 
 Examiner, where I persuaded its editor not to make any 
 publication in his paper of an occurrence so ridiculous 
 and disgusting, and thus succeeded in getting it for the 
 time suppressed. 
 
 I have been frequently asked whether Mr. Davis made 
 any money by the war in which he and his associates had 
 succeeded in involving the cotton States, and to this 
 question I have never been able to respond satisfactorily. 
 I know that I always expected him and Mr. Benjamin to 
 get rich by the war, and I often ventured to predict that 
 they would be found whenever the Confederate cause 
 caved in to have provided largely for themselves in 
 Liverpool, whither the Confederate' Government had 
 sent considerable amounts of cotton. Mr. Benjamin's 
 sudden flight to England immediately on his decamping 
 from Richmond was to my mind always quite a suspi- 
 cious circumstance, knowing well jls I did that devoted 
 fondness for money which he had evinced even from bis 
 earjiest boyhood.^ .Mr, Davis' subsequent movement in 
 the same direction was a sfrong confirmatory, fact.'- ■» The 
 public is at least entitled to a fuller explanation on this 
 subject than it has yet received; and those who advanced 
 their all in gold and silver to the Confederate officials, 
 when that Government was in its last agony — receiving 
 therefor only drafts on Liverpool, never yet met — are 
 fairly entitled to a juster consideration at the hands of 
 Mr. Davis and his associates than they have yet received. 
 I know a number of instances of this kind, over which 
 my heart has bled, and for the honor of human nature 
 it is to be hoped that something will yet be done to al- 
 leviate such unmerited sufferings. There is one consider- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 151 
 
 able fund about which I personally know something, and 
 in reference to which many persons would now like 
 much to know more than I am prepared to tell them. 
 Some two hundred thousand dollars in gold, or more, 
 were placed in the hands of Mr. Jacob Thompson for cer- 
 tain war purposes, which he took with him to Canada, 
 and deposited in the bank of Mr. Porterfield, (now a 
 Nashville neighbor of mine of the greatest respectability.) 
 Mr. Porterfield told me in Montreal, in the summer of 
 1865, that Thompson had, a few days before my arrival 
 there, drawn out all his money and taken it with him to 
 England. The war was then over, for Lee and Joe 
 Johnston had both surrendered. Now, what did Mr. 
 Thompson do with this large sum? Did he and Mr. 
 Davis divide it between them ? Did_the ^immortal Ben- 
 jamin get his share, or has the whole amount been subse- 
 quently distributed in charity among the thousands and 
 hundreds of thousands of the unhappy people of the 
 South ruined by following the fortunes of their once 
 loved and honored leader, and testing with him the true 
 value of the once venerated State-rights-secession-Demo- 
 cratic creed ? 
 
 I once witnessed a curious scene in connection with the 
 conscription law of the Confederate Government. A 
 young gentleman of good family, who belonged to a well- 
 known Quaker connection in the county of Maury, and 
 in the State of Tennessee, had been run down by one of 
 the official bloodhounds employed by the Davis despotism 
 to collect conscripts. This young man was about eigh- 
 teen or nineteen years of age ; he was blooming, hand- 
 some, genteel in his manners, and well-dressed. When 
 brought into camp he at once stated that he was of 
 Quaker origin and creed ; that he had been brought up 
 to believe that all fighting was wrong, andthat to shed 
 blood upon the field of battle was the greatest crime of 
 
152 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 which human nature could possibly be guilty. He was 
 singularly intelligent, and sustained, his non-combative at- 
 titude with great ingenuity and with the aid of most ap- 
 posite citations from Scripture. General Manney, the 
 commander holding this interesting young man in 
 charge, came to me at Chattanooga, and told me how 
 much he was perplexed and agonized with this case, and 
 requested me to visit the young prisoner in camp and 
 talk to him. So indeed I did. My conversation with 
 him was a long and public one. I could not overcome 
 his objections to enlisting, and to the last he refused to 
 bear arms in the fratricidal war then spins; on# General 
 Manney did not shoot him, as the conscript law directed ; 
 his humanity forbade this. The young man underwent 
 great sufferings of every kind for some months, and the 
 war at last ending he returned to the enjoyment of life, 
 liberty, and the society of his family. I have seen him 
 repeatedly in the last year or two. lie recently obtained 
 a patent for some useful invention, and is now a prosper- 
 ous and happy citizen. 
 
 Will our hot-blooded and mercurial Southern people 
 ever be persuaded to try another secession experiment, or 
 will they hereafter remain firmly and immovably at- 
 tached to the flag of their fathers? Will they not resist 
 the first efforts of the over-zealous devotees of party to 
 draw them into an attitude antagonistical to the Con- 
 stitution and laws of their country ? 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 153 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XVI. 
 
 MR. LINCOLN — MR. DAVIS— GENERAL JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON- 
 GENERAL SHERMAN. 
 
 The most censurable act ever performed by Mr. Davis 
 as the chosen chief of the Confederate Government has 
 been already alluded to, but not expatiated on. President 
 Lincoln, with that true humanity of spirit and genuine 
 magnanimity which belong to all great and elevated char- 
 acters, had traveled from Washington to the mouth of the 
 blames river to tender just and generous terms of peace to 
 his insurgent fellow-citizens. These terms had been dis- 
 tinctly made known to the Commissioners whom Mr. Da- 
 vis had been compelled by stress of circumstances to send 
 to him for consultation. The Commissioners, bound up 
 by prohibitory instructions to the contrary, had been able 
 to make no peace. To return without having attained 
 the object which at least tw^o of these gentlemen had so 
 much desired to effect had doubtless been to them a source 
 of much unhappiness and chagrin. But yet undoubtedly 
 some progress had been made, for it had been ascertained 
 that the most mild and liberal terms would be accorded 
 to the people of the Confederate States ; indeed, almost 
 any terms consistent with the maintenance of the Union. 
 They might well have hoped, when on their way back to 
 Richmond, Mr. Davis, in whom most unfortunately the 
 whole pow r er to treat for peace had been centered, would 
 gladly embrace the opportunity of stopping the effusion 
 of blood and restoring the blessings of concord and broth- 
 erly amity. If they expected this they w^ere most pain- 
 fully disappointed, for so soon as Mr. Davis heard what 
 had been the kind and conciliatory language of Mr. Lin- 
 
154 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 coin, he at once said that it must not be known either to 
 Congress or the people of the insurgent States that a just 
 and honorable peace had been found to be a practica- 
 ble thing, but the truth must be concealed from those so 
 well entitled to know it, and a vile falsehood most cruelly 
 promulgated. So a meeting was convoked for that very 
 night at the African Church, in Richmond, where he and 
 Mr. Benjamin both attended and made known to those 
 assembled the fact that Mr. Lincoln had only agreed to 
 accept their absolute submission, and would give no guar- 
 antee whatever of his future good treatment of those who 
 had been enlisted in rebellion. A viler or more mischiev- 
 ous fraud was never perpetrated, but the success of the 
 movement was complete, those assembled at the African 
 Church relying on the solemn but utterly false representa- 
 tions of Mr. Davis and his Secretary of State, and suppos- 
 ing that the continuance of the war was now inevitable, 
 unless they were prepared to submit to permanent dishonor 
 and never-ending servitude. So a deluded and betrayed 
 people resolved to renew the struggle for independence 
 with fresh energy and determination ! 
 
 There is nothing else so disgraceful as this known 
 in history, and coming generations will be sure to credit 
 these monsters of iniquity with all the precious lives de- 
 stroyed, and all the devastation afterward committed in 
 the further progress of the war. 
 
 Mr. Davis having adroitly managed to attract the at- 
 tention of Mr. Lincoln and his Secretary to himself as the 
 only possible medium of pacification, and having awak- 
 ened in Mr. Lincoln's mind some hope of a speedy termi- 
 nation of the war, the mission which I had undertaken 
 was completely baffled. 
 
 Generous men will excuse'my here briefly stating that 
 when, after delivering a four-hours' speech in the Confed- 
 erate Congress, in which I took occasion solemnly to warn 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 155 
 
 my unfortunate countrymen of the danger then menacing 
 them, and of which so many of them seemed to he wholly 
 unconscious, and fortifying my prophetic foreshado wings 
 of the early fall of Richmond by the solemn citation of 
 that well-known couplet from Campbell : 
 
 *' The sunset of life lends a mystical lore, 
 And coming events cast their shadows before." 
 
 I left that doomed city, and in a few days addressed a 
 letter to Mr. Speaker Bocock, in which the following lan- 
 guage occurred : 
 
 " Sir : In an hour or two, if some unseen impediment does not arise 
 to defeat the execution of my present design, I shall cross the majestic 
 river upon the banks of which have reposed for many generations the 
 ashes of my forefathers, and in all probability visit the city of Washing- 
 ton, for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not it is practicable to 
 obtain for the people of the Confederate States an early and an honor- 
 able peace, after the most bloody and exhausting struggle of arms, and 
 in all respects the most deplorable one, which has yet found record 
 upon the page of history. No human being save myself is responsible 
 for this movement, nor should I have undertaken it but for the well- 
 known fact that the two Executive departments, at Washington and 
 Richmond, have relations with each other which render it almost im- 
 possible that regular diplomatic intercourse should occur between 
 them, and the additional fact that the two houses of the Confederate 
 Congress seem to be altogether averse to the doing of anything where- 
 by a cessation of hostilities and the. restoration of peace and amity may 
 be secured between those who, in my deliberate judgment, should 
 never have allowed-themselves to be drawn into a war so unnatural 
 and fratricidal in its character, so destructive of the best interests of 
 eivilization and Christianity, and which, should it continue to be prose- 
 cuted for four yenvs more, must inevitably, from the operation of war 
 itself, result in the establishment of two of the mostgrinding despotisms 
 the world has yet knowo. Should I succeed in my present undertak- 
 ing, my country and the cause of freedom will be materially benefited. 
 Should I fail, discredit, ridicule, and even contempt will be most surely 
 visited upon me in full measure ; even many sensible and good men 
 will recognize me as a mere visionary projector ; while the envious, the 
 illiberal, the malevolent, the ignoble time-servers of the period, the slav- 
 ish idolaters of power, will not scruple to denounce me as a traitor to 
 what is known as the Confederate Government. For all this lam pre- 
 pared, as 1 likewise am prepared to undergo trial for alleged treason 
 
150 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 to the Government of the United States, should those now occupying 
 the seats of authority in Washington city deem this to be the fitting 
 treatment of a voluntary embassador of peace. I hope that it will not 
 appear either vainglorious or egotistical in me to declare further that 
 should it be my fate to die upon the scaffold in consequence of my un- 
 dertaking a mission sanctioned by some of the wisest and most vir_ 
 tuous men now upholding the Confederate cause, I feel, notwithstand- 
 ing — though my sufferings will awaken most probably but little of 
 commiserative sympathy in any quarter — that in passing from the stage 
 of mortal existence, I shall be able sincerely to exclaim in the language 
 of classic poesy : 
 
 * * * ' Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori." " 
 
 The public has been long apprised that my Washington 
 city trip was rudely intercepted ; that I was held in mili- 
 tary custody for several days by order of Mr. Davis ; that 
 I was afterward discharged on habeas corpus ; that I yet- 
 persevered in my original determination to obtain peace 
 could it be obtained on honorable terms ; that with a view 
 to this end, in cold and inclement weather, and amid snow 
 and ice, I penetrated to the military headquarters of Gen- 
 eral Devin, of the Federal army, where I was courteously 
 entertained and allowed to correspond with the Washing- 
 oii authorities ; that failing in my efforts to obtain a 
 declaration of the terms of peace which I was seeking, I 
 declined giving them the names of my advisers and con- 
 sociates, and submitted voluntarily to imprisonment in 
 New York, previous to my setting sail for the European 
 continent ; that while in New York I again opened cor- 
 respondence with the Government with a view to pacifi- 
 cation, but with equal want of success, and that for reasons 
 already stated, I then embarked for Liverpool. 
 
 From on board the steamship in which I sailed, I 
 wrote a long and earnest letter to Mr. Lincoln, warning 
 him of the danger which lay in his relying too confidently 
 upon securing peace through the medium of Mr. Davis' 
 stringently-instructed peace commissioners to the neigh- 
 borhood of Norfolk, and urging him to send forth his own 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 157 
 
 proclamation to the Southern people, in which should be 
 embodied the terms of pacification, and, among other 
 things, I said this to him : 
 
 U I write to you from mid-ocean, while the stormy billows of the sur- 
 rounding sea are every moment reminding me of that fearful scene of 
 commotion and turmoil which I have left behind me, in a land once so 
 peaceful and happy, but now marked so wofully with ravage and the 
 copious shedding of fraternal blood in civil strife. Sir, allow me to say, 
 in all earnestness and sincerity, that in my opinion the ancient classic 
 poets have not described Neptune himself as having more power as the 
 grand composer of the waves of the vexed and angry ocean than you 
 now possess, in your high official character, for calming the troubles 
 which at present so deplorably convulse the enlightened and patriotic 
 freemen who inhabit our own native America. You hold the trident 
 of pacification in your hands. May that trident be wielded with true 
 benevolence and wisdom, and in the genuine AVashington spirit!" 
 
 Seven weeks only was I absent from New York when I 
 returned thither, after having rapidly traversed England, 
 France, Switzerland, and Italy. The first news which I 
 received on entering the port of 'New York was that of 
 the surrender of the valiant, upright, and noble-minded 
 Lee, an event which I had so long seen to be inevitable. 
 Davis, Benjamin, and other well-known official person- 
 ages, I soon learned, had made their escape from the 
 Virginia capital, and were making tracks God only knew 
 whitherward. Davis and his dapper little attache tarried 
 just long enough to make themselves ridiculous, by the 
 formal announcement that the war would be yet vigor 
 ously prosecuted, even after Lee s own heroic heart had 
 been forced to despair of the Confederate cause. 
 
 " Hope springs eternal in tin- human breast; 
 Man never is, but always to be blest." 
 
 Benjamin flies precipitately toward the sea, and passes 
 rapidly across the Atlantic, in the direction of Liverpool, 
 to look after the Confederate cotton sales there going on, 
 and soon gets ready in London to publish rather a super- 
 fluous legal work entitled "Benjamin on Sales," soon him- 
 
158 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 self as he might fondly anticipate to be enveloped in the 
 official wig and gown of Queen's counsel. Davis, like 
 Charles V, Charles II of England, and several other illus- 
 trious worthies of ancient and modern times, seeks pro- 
 tection from habiliments of a similar cut, but alas ! in vain. 
 lie is intercepted on his way to Texas, where he had 
 hoped to find himself soon at the head of a large and val- 
 iant army, to be composed in part of 100,000 French sol- 
 diers fresh from the spoliation of Mexico. Had he passed 
 the Father of Waters in safety, what chance was there of 
 his bringing back with him an armed force large enough 
 to have reconquered the Southern States lost by the un- 
 trained and luckless valor of Lee and Joe Johnston ? Had 
 such a reconquest been consummated, what probability 
 was there that the warm-hearted Southern people would, 
 in a burst of convulsive gratitude, have greeted him with 
 the cheering exclamation, " Vive VEmpereur?" 
 
 That he had some such vain fancy as this is certain. Gen- 
 eral Toombs told me, in fact, on my reaching Richmond, 
 in the winter of 1861, that the ambitious Confederate 
 President had already made out his list of field-marshals, 
 and that, in order to defeat the imperial aspirations of his 
 lordly civil chief, he had himself thought it most prudent 
 to resign the Department of State, which he had for some 
 time held, hoping that by taking a position in the army 
 he might be able to give important aid in baffling the Na- 
 poleonic aspirations of this first champion of American 
 Ca?sarism, who, I sincerely hope and believe, will be the 
 last. 
 
 Surely no one can now doubt that secession, or the 
 breaking up of the States which composed this Union into 
 separate sectional organizations must inevitably result in 
 perpetual border wars; that border wars would necessitate 
 the organization of large standing armies in each of the 
 separate nationalities ; whence an imperial despotism 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 159 
 
 would arise almost immediately. So that, in fact, the 
 shortest and, perhaps, the only certain road to Cresarism 
 in this country passes along by the grim and turreted 
 castle of Democratic-State-rights secessionism. 
 
 General Joe Johnston had told me in the commence- 
 ment of 1864, with that ready and decisive frankness for 
 which he is so remarkable, and in response to a special in- 
 quiry addressed to him by' me, that whenever General 
 Sherman should pass to the sea-coast through Georgia, 
 march through South Carolina and North Carolina to the 
 neighborhood of Grant's army in Virginia, Richmond 
 would be able to hold out no longer, and there would soon 
 be an end of the Confederate straggle for independence. 
 Mr. Davis kindly opened Georgia and South Carolina to 
 him by removing Joe Johnston from the command of the 
 Confederate army defending Atlanta, and sending it, un- 
 der the command of Hood, through north Alabama, to 
 Middle Tennessee. Upon this insane movement on the 
 part of Mr. Davis being made known to the Confederate 
 Congress, I did not fail to denounce the same in language 
 of the most emphatic decrial, for doing which I was 
 charged by Mr. Davis' still idolatrous admirers with be- 
 ing both presumptuous and unjust. In General Grant's 
 report of that campaign the following very striking lan- 
 o'uasje is to be found : 
 
 " General Sherman, immediately on the fall of Atlanta, put his 
 armies in camp in and about the place, and made all preparations for 
 refitting and supplying them for future service. The great length of 
 road from Atlanta to Cumberland river, however, which had to be 
 guarded, allowed the troops but little rest. During this time Jefferson 
 Davis made a speech in Macon, Georgia, which was reported in the 
 papers in the South, and soon became known to the whole country, dis- 
 closing the plans of the enemy, thus enabling General Sherman fully 
 to meet them. He exhibited the weakness of supposing that an army 
 that had been beaten and fearfully decimated in a vain attempt at the 
 defensive could successfully undertake the offensive against the army 
 that had so often defeated it." 
 
160 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 The double surrender of Generel R. E. Lee and General 
 Joseph E. Johnston left no doubt whatever that there 
 would soon be a universal cessation of hostilities. All 
 had now been done for the support of the Confederate 
 cause that military skill, ardent and persevering valor, and 
 a most self-sacrificing devotion to principle could do. The 
 soldiers who filled the Confederate ranks had for the most 
 part not at all participated in the movements which ulti- 
 mately led to armed collision between the assailants and 
 the supporters of the Federal Union. But few of the rank 
 and file on either side had at any time embarked in sec- 
 tional controversy and strife. They were nearly all true- 
 hearted and brave American citizens, who loved peace and 
 social brotherhood, and had become soldiers under what, 
 on the one side and on the other, was felt to be a sacred 
 sense of duty. Never had more valor been displayed than 
 marked the bloody conflicts of those four fearful and san- 
 guinary years which rolled away after the impolitic and. 
 criminal firing upon Fort Sumter. The displays of hero- 
 ism made on either side are part and portion of the " moral 
 treasures of the country, and the whole country ;" and 
 the day will assuredly come, though perhaps not quite so 
 soon as all liberal-minded men are hoping and praying that 
 it may, when a general oblivion of all that is painful in the 
 past, and a disinterested appreciation of all that was no- 
 bly and grandly done on either side, will make as all once 
 more compatriots, friends, and brethren. 
 
 The wise and magnanimous compact of surrender, signed 
 upon the soil of the Old North State by General William 
 T. Sherman and General Joseph E. Johnston, I have ever 
 regarded as eminently creditable to the distinguished com- 
 manders with whom this compact originated ; and though 
 the envy of some, and the selfish illiberal ity of others, 
 may for a time have succeeded in attaching some doubt 
 as to the policy and propriety of this much-discussed mea- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 161 
 
 sure, there are but few if any men of sound understanding 
 now to be found anywhere who do not regard the terms 
 of surrender originally agreed upon as entitling both Gen- 
 eral Sherman and General Johnston to very great praise. 
 
 The delicate and truly chivalrous demeanor of General 
 Grant in employing his honored friend and comrade in 
 arms, General Sherman, to conduct, from first to last, the 
 reactionary proceeding directed by President Johnson to 
 be carried on is worthy of all praise, and is one of those 
 high-toned and heroic acts which most dignify and em- 
 blazon the page of history. 
 
 In reference to General Sherman and General Joe John- 
 ston, I have a few words of just commendation to offer, 
 the utterance of which, though it may not at all benefit 
 either of these distinguished individuals, I feel to be due 
 to my own long-cherished opinions and feelings. 
 
 There are few men on the continent of a braver soul, of 
 a more cultured mind, or of more urbane and o-entlemanlv 
 manners than General Joseph E. Johnston. I have never 
 yet heard his courage, his disinterestedness, or his abili- 
 ties called in question ; and I sincerely hope that the 
 day is not far distant, should war again arise in the land, 
 when this meritorious soldier will be once more found bat- 
 tling gloriously and successfully against some foreign foe 
 side by side with such men as Sherman and other distin- 
 guished defenders of the Union in the recent struggle of 
 arms, under the immortal Stars and Stripes, beneath which 
 he has so often in other days won undying renown. 
 
 General Sherman I have long and intimately known. 
 I first became acquainted with him in California nearly 
 twenty years ago, where I had business dealings with him 
 from time to time of a very important character. He was 
 then a member of the great banking firm of Lucas, Turner 
 & Company, which was perhaps the strongest and best 
 regulated banking association then to be found on the 
 11r 
 
162 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Pacific coast. General Sherman's business habits at that 
 time were such as commanded for him universal respect 
 and confidence ; nor was there a banker in California who 
 was more universally commended for his justice, his lib- 
 erality, and his financial skill. He was remarkable for 
 his public spirit, and manifested a deep interest in all that 
 concerned the prosperity and welfare of his then recently 
 adopted home. No man ever had more diligence, more 
 activity, and more perseverance. Self-love has never, even 
 for an instant, I am sure, predominated in his bosom over 
 the feelings of generosity and manliness. His personal ap- 
 pearance is most commanding ; in conversation he is frank, 
 cordial, and obliging ; he has not a particle of hauteur or 
 arrogance, and he has the manners of a high-bred, affable, 
 and warm-hearted gentleman. His mind is quick, vigor- 
 ous, and comprehensive ; and he talks with a graceful and 
 impressive elegance upon all occasions and with all classes 
 of our population. He has never been a zealous and acri- 
 monious partisan in politics, and I think I have heard him 
 say that he had never voted at a political election in his 
 life. He is one of the most thoroughly domestic men I 
 ever knew, and when not absorbed in his public duties he 
 is prone, above most men I know, to seek the society of 
 his family or that of his dear and trusted friends. 
 
 Eo commander on either side during the late sanguinary 
 and wasteful war was more active and energetic than 
 General Sherman, and few men have in any age displayed 
 more ability as a military commander, either in the plan- 
 ning of grand schemes of operation or in carrying these 
 schemes into effect. During the recent war he wrote and 
 published several letters, which, at the time of their ap- 
 pearance, gave more or less annoyance to some individuals 
 or classes of individuals. But these letters were really 
 very well adapted to the attainment of the objects he had 
 at the time in view. Mr. Macaulay very truly observes 
 
CASKET OE REMINISCENCES. 163 
 
 somewhere, and in language which I should willingly 
 enough recite here did I bear the same distinctly in 
 memory, that war being the greatest of evils, the long pro- 
 traction of hostilities is, if possible, to be avoided ; and, 
 therefore, as he infers, an active, vigorous, and awe-inspir- 
 ing campaign may be, in general, regarded as dictated by 
 an enlightened and far-seeing humanity. I am rarely so 
 positive in my language as I feel inclined to be upon the 
 point in question ; and I take the liber ity of declaring 
 that I do not think that there lives beneath the sun a 
 more kind-hearted, charitable, and genial gentleman than 
 the distinguished subject of this notice. 
 
 When about sixteen years ago the second vigilance com- 
 mittee was organized in San Francisco, the Governor of the 
 State of California, Mr. Johnson, sent General Sherman the 
 commission of major general, with instructions to put down 
 the forces of the committee at all hazards. He accepted 
 the commission tendered, and issued a proclamation de- 
 claring his determination to vindicate the wounded ma- 
 jesty of the law ; but a few hours of calm and prudent 
 consideration of the matter satisfied him that, situated as 
 he was at the time, with the fiscal interests of thousands 
 under his control, it would be both unjust and unwise to 
 retain this commission. So he sent it back to the Gov- 
 ernor at once. I have often heard his conduct at this con- 
 juncture referred to in conversation, and never otherwise 
 than in terms of respect and commendation. 
 
 In the summer of 1860, 1 met General Sherman at the 
 Relay House, a few miles on this side of Baltimore. We 
 conversed for some fifteen or twenty minutes, in a frank 
 and unreserved manner, touching the dangerous state of 
 affairs then existing ; and he agreed with me in the opin- 
 ion that the secessionists of the South were determined to 
 bring on war with the Government for the purpose of es- 
 tablishing slavery in the Territories. We were both quite 
 
164 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 unhappy at the prospect then apparently opening upon the 
 country. I recollect well that he said to me with more 
 than ordinary emphasis: " Well, if such a war is com- 
 menced, which God forbid, I shall certainly offer my ser- 
 vices to that Government which educated me and made 
 me what I am." When I heard of him in the war, as I 
 did very often, I always recurred to this interesting in- 
 terview. I am satisfied that there is not a man in the 
 Republic more absolutely free than General Sherman from 
 everything like sectional prejudice, of which there are 
 many and conclusive proofs. 
 
GASKET OF REMINISCENCES! 165 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XVII. 
 
 GENERAL TAYLOR — GEORGE WASHINGTON CUSTIS — THE WASH- 
 INGTON FAMILY — GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE. 
 
 In the summer of 1850 the good people of Washington 
 determined to celebrate the 4th of July in a very special 
 manner, and I had the honor to be invited to deliver an ad- 
 dress in commemoration of our national independence at 
 the Washington Monument, whither a vast assemblage 
 cMine, including President Taylor and his Cabinet. I en- 
 deavored, so far as it was in my power, to accommodate the 
 speech which was to be uttered to the peculiar circumstances 
 of the hour, and to do what I could to harmonize discordant 
 opinions and guard against the serious sectional collision 
 then plainly menaced. The crisis existing was indeed 
 one of great anxiety and peril. Dark and portentous 
 clouds begloomed the political firmament in two opposite 
 directions, and it was difficult to tell whether the first 
 movements of civil strife would occur in consequence of 
 the violent action of extremists of the North or of those 
 of the South. Mr. Hume tells us that the ''extremes are 
 often nearer than the means," and so it proved in this in- 
 stance. Mr. Clay and his friends in Congress were for 
 immediately staunching the bleeding wounds in the body 
 politic which had already been inflicted by the hands of 
 over-heated zealots and selfish demagogues, wholly re- 
 gardless of the public repose if they could but suceeed in 
 accomplishing their own unholy ends. What was called 
 at the time the "Non-action" policy, in opposition to the 
 policy of adjusting at once in some just and reasonable 
 manner the questions growing out of African slavery, 
 was equally favored by the extremists in Congress from 
 
166 CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 
 
 the North and the extremists of the South, which two 
 factions were alike, and about equal ly, opposed to any 
 settlement which might have the effect of giving the na- 
 tion quietude and safety and restore the suspended feel- 
 ings of national brotherhood. Posterity is destined to ex- 
 perience a deep and painful feeling of astonishment at 
 rinding that there were in the bosom of the Republic at 
 this time so many individuals, who, upon various pretexts, 
 were resolved to do all in their power to prolong the sea- 
 son of civil strife and perpetuate the evils of sectional dis- 
 trust and animosity ; and still more surprise will probably 
 be felt by after generations at learning that men of the 
 most conflicting: views and wishes in the two houses of 
 Congress were daily and hourly conferring with each other 
 as to the means of defeating the compromise measures 
 then pending in the National Legislature, and keeping 
 open the field of discussion by the occupancy of which 
 they were hoping to enhance their own local popularity. 
 In performing the task which had been allotted to me of 
 haranguing the multitudinous concourse which was in 
 attendance on the day of our national anniversary, I couki 
 not but be sensible of all the delicate and embarrassing 
 circumstances which surrounded me, and what I said on 
 this occasion was very far, indeed, from coming up to my 
 own wishes, or perhaps satisfying the reasonable expecta- 
 tions of ethers. It is gratifying now to remember that 
 the noble-hearted patriot who then occupied the Presi- 
 dential chair did me the honor to thank me, formally and 
 publicly, for my poor but well-intended address, which act 
 of noble generosity was performed by him not without 
 visible indications of strong inward emotion. I suppose 
 that a purer and more disinterested devotee to liberty than 
 General Zachary Taylor has never been elevated to the 
 Presidential station. If he committed some palpable 
 errors in his administration of the Government, and in 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 1(57 
 
 some instances yielded too unreserved a confidence to 
 tricky and unscrupulous counselors, this must be attributed 
 altogether to his want of civic experience, and to the abso- 
 lute guilelessness of his own nature. 
 
 So soon as the oration was brought to a close, General 
 Taylor and his Cabinet left the well-shaded platform upon 
 which they had been seated, and prepared to return to 
 the Presidential mansion. Had they done so, in all proba- 
 bility he would have been still living. But the announce- 
 ment being made that some traveler had just brought 
 with him to Washington a handful of dust from the 
 mausoleum of the famed Kosciusko, and that it was de- 
 sired that all present should witness the deposit of this 
 same dust in a niche prepared for its reception in another 
 part of the monument, where several additional addresses 
 would be made, the amiable President could not refuse 
 the honor of his presence, and there he stood for more 
 than an hour, without even an umbrella over his head for 
 a considerable portion of the time, while the untempered 
 rays of a noonday July sun were pouring down in full 
 power upon him. Before the ceremonial was at an end, Gen- 
 eral Taylor was thoroughly exhausted, and going home 
 he was tempted by the extreme thirst which he felt and 
 his heated and languid condition to swallow down copious 
 draughts of cold ice- water, and to partake of unwholesome 
 viands sent hastily to him from the kitchen in a half- 
 cooked state, which speedily brought on an attack from 
 which he died in a few days. 
 
 The celebrated George Washington Parke Custis, of 
 Arlington, was the principal speaker on the interesting 
 occasion just alluded to, and was said to have acquitted 
 himself of the task assigned in his usual felicitous manner. 
 Air. Custis had been long renowned as a brilliant and im- 
 pivssive declaimer, and even in very early life had de- 
 livered several orations in connection with the stirring 
 
168 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 public events of the time which had awakened much admi- 
 ration. I recollect especially his funeral speech in honor of 
 General Lingan, a Revolutionary worthy who had lost his 
 life at Baltimore at the hands of a furious political mob, 
 amid a scene of riotous violence such as has seldom discred- 
 ited the character of the intelligent and patriotic city 
 where it occurred. I knew Mr. Custis well, and regarded 
 him always as an amiable, upright, and accomplished gen- 
 tleman. Had he been born poor, he would probably have 
 attained great distinction in some one of the learned pro- 
 fessions. He was a high-spirited, sociable, and patriotic 
 personage, a devoted lover of the National Union, and a 
 firm supporter of the Government. For the character of 
 Washington, of whom he was an adopted son, he ever 
 cherished the most profound veneration, and often whilst 
 he lived did he supply the columns of the National Intelli- 
 gencer with graphic and intensely interesting reminiscences 
 of the Father of his Country. 
 
 Mr. Custis, in addition to his being the grandson of 
 Mrs. Washington, was a descendant of the celebrated 
 Lord Baltimore, under whose auspices the State of Mary- 
 land was colonized and the first formal edict of universal 
 religious toleration adopted and promulgated. The maiden 
 name of his mother was Calvert. After the decease of her 
 first husband she married Dr. David Stuart, by whom she 
 had a numerous progeny. Many of her descendants of the 
 Stuart name, and under other names also, are yet surviv- 
 utf ' ing in Virginia and elsewhere. The second marriage of 
 . \ Mrs. Custis took place during the trying days of the 
 Revolutionary struggle, and those who shall choose to look 
 V*l into the matter more deeply will find among the letters of 
 \ jo^General Washington, published under the supervision of 
 ^V^ Mr. Spark^s, a highly interesting correspondence relative 
 to this same marriage. Dr. Stuart was the person who 
 first called General Washington's attention to the famous 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 169 
 
 Mazzei letter, written by Mr. Jefferson, a very interesting 
 account of which will be found in the " Life of Washing 
 ton," by Chief Justice John Marshall. As this Dr. Stuart 
 was the eldest brother of my own venerated mother, it 
 may become me to say nothing special here in commenda- 
 tion of his ability, his remarkable learning, and the vir- 
 tues which adorned his character. 
 
 Mr. Custis had three sisters, and no brother. Of these 
 three sisters one married Mr. Lawrence Lewis, of Fairfax 
 county, in the State of Virginia. Him I remember well, 
 and I entirely concur with those who supposed him to ex- 
 hibit a most remarkable likeness in person to General 
 Washington, whose nephew he was; at least he was so 
 much like the best pictures of Washington that he might 
 be well supposed by one who did not know otherwise to 
 have actually sat for them. A second of the Miss Custises 
 married a Mr. John Law, a nephew of Lord Ellenborough, 
 of England. Mr. Law had spent the early portion of his 
 life in the East Indies. He is reported to have been a 
 man of much learning and of great astuteness, but must 
 have been also very eccentric in his temper and his habits 
 of life. It is stated of him that his mind was in general 
 so deeply occupied with matters of an abstract character 
 that he became occasionally oblivious of ordinary con- 
 cerns, including even his own name, and that having 
 called one day at the post office for letters, one of the 
 clerks there, who did not know him, inquired his name; 
 upon which he became painfully embarrassed. " Name I" 
 ww Name !" he said, and not being able to give the desired 
 information on the subject, he suddenly turned away from 
 the post-office window and moved rapidly toward his 
 home, for the purpose of there refreshing his memory, 
 when, meeting some acquaintance who said to him, " Good 
 morning, Mr. Law," he at once exclaimed, " Ah, that is 
 
V 
 
 170 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 the name," and went back quickly to the post office to get 
 possession of his letters there remaining. 
 
 Mrs. Peter, another sister, I knew for many years. She 
 must have been exceedingly handsome in early life. When 
 I last saw her, in 1851, she was a noble looking person, full 
 of life and intelligence. It was to her that one of the most 
 beautiful and interesting letters ever written by Wash- 
 ington was addressed, on the occasion of her attending the 
 first public social party. There is a paternal tenderness 
 displayed in this letter, set off, as it is, with an exquisite 
 play of humor, that presents Washington in one of his 
 most captivating aspects, No one can now read this 
 epistle without loving this great and good man far more 
 than he could well have done had he never seen its con- 
 tents. Mrs. Peter left several descendants, who are fav- 
 orably known to the history of the country. She was a 
 woman of large intelligence and of countless virtues. 
 
 I have heretofore said something of the only daughter 
 of Mr. Custis, Mrs. Robert E. Lee. I shall venture to 
 mention now one or two facts in the history of her distin- 
 guished husband which are perhaps at present not fully 
 known to all. General Lee was never a politician, in the 
 ordinary sense of the word. He had been all his life a 
 soldier and a faithful and efficient one. He had gained 
 great distinction in the Mexican war, had rendered much 
 and valuable service often on various fields of duty, and 
 had a right to expect that when General Scott should 
 either die or resign he would himself succeed that illus- 
 trious personage in the chief military command of the 
 Republic. No one loved more intensely the Federal Union 
 which his forefathers had assisted so prominently in estab- 
 lishing than he did. He had never given his sanction to 
 the dogmas of nullification and secession. His mind was 
 too sound and well regulated to render this even possible. 
 He had done nothing whatever in 1861 or before to bring 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 171 
 
 on the crisis which he found himself now most unexpect- 
 edly compelled to meet. He saw naught whatever in the 
 condition of the country to justify the States of the South 
 in assuming the attitude of hostility to the General Gov- 
 ernment which most of them were now doing. He was 
 clearly and undoubtingly of opinion that if the South had 
 experienced grievances or was menaced with injury of any 
 kind, it would be far better to seek relief by pacific expe- 
 dients and by the employment of known constitutional 
 remedies. He at least had no personal ambition to gratify 
 by aiming to be the head of a grand revolutionary move- 
 ment. The imagined glories of despotic military rule had 
 no charms for him. He ardently loved his country, and 
 every part of that country. He was greatly attached to 
 his brothers in arms, side by side with whom he had in 
 past times participated in so many difficult and sanguinary 
 battles. What personal advantage could he expect to gain 
 by the war which had been so injudiciously and madly 
 commenced, and which no sound-thinking man could sup- 
 pose was likely to have any result but that which was 
 afterward experienced ? It has been said of late that on his 
 arrival in Washington, on the 18th of April, 1861, the 
 command of the army of the Government was tendered 
 him, and that he declined it. This fact I see now stated 
 positively upon the authority of the Hon. Montgomery 
 Blair, who must have been correctly informed as to this 
 matter. General Lee is reported to have declined it, and 
 General Scott is said to have thus briefly addressed him 
 on the occasion : " Lee, you have made the greatest mis- 
 take in your life ; but I feared it would be so." 
 
 Two days thereafter he announced to General Scott his 
 final conclusion in these memorable words : 
 
 "Arlington, Va., April 20, 1861. 
 "General: Since my Uiterview with you, on the 18th instant, I 
 have felt that I ought not to retain my commission in the army, l 
 therefore tender my resignation, which I request .von will recommend 
 
172 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 for acceptance. It would have been presented at once but for the 
 struggle it has cost me to separate myself from a service to which I have 
 devoted all the best years of my life and all the ability I possessed. 
 During the whole of that time — more than a quarter of a century — I 
 have experienced nothing but kindness from my superiors, and the most 
 cordial friendship from my comrades. To no one, General, have I been 
 as much indebted as to yourself for uniform kindness and consideration ; 
 and it has always been my ardent desire to merit your approbation. 1 
 shall carry to the grave the most grateful recollections of your kind 
 consideration, and your name and fame will always be dear to me. 
 
 Save in defense of my native State I never desire again to draw ray 
 sword. Be pleased to accept my most earnest wishes for the contin- 
 uance of your happiness and prosperity, and believe me most truly 
 yours, R. E. Lee.' 1 
 
 How General Lee conducted himself afterward, as a 
 military commander, is already known to the world. 
 What wisdom he displayed subsequently in surrendering 
 his army after all hopes of success in the Confederate 
 struggle for -independence had become extinct is equally 
 well known. Mr. Davis' insane proclamation from Dan- 
 ville afterward, calling the propriety of General Lee's sur- 
 render in question, and proposing to continue, a contest in 
 which even the most complete success would have been 
 ruin and degradation, is one of those airy bubbles upon 
 the surface of the stormy ocean of the past which has 
 long since exploded, even by the force of its own ineffable 
 feebleness. 
 
 The letter of General Lee, of January 23, 1861, written 
 
 at Fort Mason, Texas, throws a still stronger light upon 
 
 his painful moral struggle through which the great soul 
 
 was now passing. These are his impressive words : 
 
 •' I received Everett's ' Lifeof Washington,' which you sent me, and 
 enjoyed its perusal. How his spirit would be grieved could he see the 
 wreck of his mighty labors. I will not, however, permit myself to be- 
 lieve until all ground for hope is gone that the fruit of his noble deed- 
 will be destroyed, and that his precious and virtuous example will so 
 soon be forgotten by his countrymen. As far as 1 can judge by the 
 papers we are between a state of anarchy and civil war. May God 
 avert both these cwils from us ! 1 fear that mankind for years will not 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 173 
 
 ho sufficiently Christianized to bear the absence of restraint and force. 
 I sec that four States have declared themselves out of the Union ; four 
 more will apparently follow their example. Then, if the 1 border States 
 are brought into the gulf of revolution, one-half of the country will he 
 arrayed against the other. I must try and be patient and await the 
 end, tor I can do nothing to hasten or retard it." 
 
 It seems to be manifest that if Virginia had refused to 
 participate in the secession movement General Lee would 
 not have resigned his commission in the United State* 
 army. Had Virginia remained firm, so would North 
 Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas have done, and perhaps 
 a State or two more. General Lee would then undoubt- 
 edly have been forced by his own sense of duty to lead the 
 Union army. It is doubtful whether, under such circum- 
 stances, the war would have lasted a twelvemonth. I hold 
 it to be even probable that in such a case no great battle 
 would have been fought at all. Had a short struggle of 
 arms occurred, General Lee, after securing the true safety 
 and honor of all the States by maintaining the Federal 
 Union in full vigor, on the restoration of peace, would 
 have occupied very much the same position as the cele- 
 brated Duke of Argyle did in Scotland in 1715, who, after 
 overcoming rebellion on Scottish soil, and putting down 
 the forces of the Pretender, had it in his power to save his 
 deluded fellow-citizens of Scotland from immeasurable 
 sufferings which might have otherwise fallen upon them, 
 and which their own irritability was constantly provok- 
 ing. It is easy to imagine how effective such a man as 
 General Lee would have been, after defending the Gov- 
 ernment against armed assailment ; after his own wisdom 
 and labor should have brought back peace and safety to 
 that very Government, and to the whole American people, 
 had the victorious party shown itself, in some glaring in- 
 stance afterward unduly oppressive toward the fallen, in 
 interposing for the rescue of those whom he had been com- 
 pelled to chasten in war. A new MacCallunmiore might 
 
174 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 have then made his appearance even in the halls of Con- 
 gress, and have responded to some American Hardwicke, 
 almost in the very words of the Duke of Argyle, when he 
 said : " I appeal to the House — to the nation, if I can be 
 justly branded with the infamy of being a jobber or a par- 
 tisan. Have I been a briber of votes ? a buyer of boroughs ? 
 The agent of corruption for any purpose or on behalf of 
 any party ? Consider my life, examine my actions in the 
 field and in the Cabinet, and see where lies a blot that can 
 attach to my honor. I have shown myself the friend of 
 my country — the loyal subject of my king. I am ready 
 to do so again without an instant's regard to the powers 
 or smiles of a court. I have experienced both, and am 
 prepared with indifference for either. I have given my 
 reasons for opposing this measure, and have made it ap- 
 pear that it is repugnant to the international treaty of 
 union, to the liberty of Scotland, and reflectively to that 
 of England, to common justice, to common sense, and to 
 the public interest. Shall the metropolis of Scotland, the 
 capital of an independent nation, the residence of a long 
 line of monarchs, by whom that noble city was graced and 
 dignified — shall such a city, for the fault of an obscure and 
 unknown body of rioters, be deprived of its honors and its 
 privileges, its gates and its guards ? and shall a native 
 Scotsman tamely behold the havoc ? I glory, my Lords, in 
 opposing such unjust rigor, and reckon it my dearest pride 
 and honor to stand up in defense of my native country, 
 while thus laid open to undeserved shame and unmerited 
 spoliation."* 
 
 That General Lee, had he been more fortunately situated, 
 might have been able to enact the noble part herein depic- 
 tured I hold to be certain ; but " circumstance, that un- 
 
 *This speech was made by the Dnkc of Argyle in connection with 
 the affair of the Porteous mob. 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 175 
 
 spiritual god and misdirector," came forward and touched 
 Lis energies " with his crutch-like rod " and " turned his 
 flowing hopes to dust — the dust we all have trod." 
 
170 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XVIII. 
 
 DUELING — MAJOE KEMP — BERNARD TIOOE— DOCTOR GEORGE 
 
 GRAHAM. 
 
 Bella, horrida bdla. 
 FJ Thybrim mutto spumantem sanguine cento. 
 
 These prophetic words of the Cumsean sybil might well 
 have been applied a century ago to that portion of our 
 country situated upon the hanks of our own pater fluvium, 
 the Mississippi river, and its tributary streams and stream- 
 lets. For since we know that helium is only a contraction 
 of the old Latin word duellum, signifying battle — (in refer- 
 ence to which Cicero says: "Antiqui nomina contrahebant, 
 quo essentaptiora, nam ut duellwm est bellum") — the prevalence 
 of duels, or affairs of honor, as they have heen called, in 
 our Western and Southern regions, mi^ht be in this sense 
 sufficiently well expressed by words signifying the con- 
 tinued raging of bloody and ghastly wars of any kind. 
 
 But, without dwelling upon this point of scholastic 
 criticism, let me remind the gentle reader, whether learned 
 or unlearned, that the dueling-field was far more resorted 
 to for the settlement of personal disputes forty years ago 
 in every part of our much favored land than it is at the 
 present time, and that scenes of --mortal conflict, brought 
 on not seldom for little or no reasonable cause, were far 
 more numerous in our Southern and Western States and 
 Territories than in the older and more settled common- 
 wealths, in which our fathers and our fathers' fathers 
 quietly and piously dwelt; though it can hardly be said 
 that any portion of our wide-spread domain has been at 
 all times entirely exempt from this abominable practice. 
 Eminent public statesmen among the Romans, from the 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 177 
 
 earliest period of the annals of their great republic, indulged 
 often in fierce and insulting controversy, sometimes end- 
 ing in scenes of physical conflict, but nothing like a regu- 
 lar duel, such as known in our time, was ever thought of 
 by the parties disputant. Demosthenes and Eschines 
 railed at each other for hours and days together, in lan- 
 guage far more caustic and irritating than any modern 
 speaker has shown himself to be master of, but when this 
 mutual objurgation was over no one apprehended that a 
 more deadly conflict would thereafter bring about the 
 needless destruction of human life. For some centuries 
 past, though, in most of our Christianly civilized coun- 
 tries, dueling has been more or less in vogue, and is gen- 
 erally spoken of in them all as a relic of the days of chiv- 
 alry, as, indeed, it doubtless is. Within a century past 
 Fox and Pitt were both known to draw trigger; Sheri- 
 dan fought one of the most desperate duels ever described 
 — before, however, he attained a seat in Parliament ; Cur- 
 ran and Flood, the great Irish orators, gave noted proof 
 that they did not at all disapprove of this unreasonable 
 mode of settling personal misunderstandings. O'Connell 
 killed his man ; after which, though averse to the further 
 shedding of blood with his own hands, in a mode alike 
 unsanctioned by the laws of God and man, he is under- 
 stood not to have blamed his son very harshly for taking 
 it upon himself to imitate his own early example. Per- 
 haps the killing of Alexander Hamilton by Aaron Burr 
 awakened the first decidedly retroactive feeling in this 
 country against the practice of dueling; though it is cer- 
 tain that many instances have since occurred in the neigh- 
 borhood of New York and Washington city, and among 
 men of great and merited distinction, too, showing that 
 public sentiment is not even yet so firmly established in 
 opposition to a species of warfare so unphilosophical and 
 12r 
 
178 » ASlvET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 so savage, as all humane and enlightened minds would 
 wish it to be. 
 
 In the days of mv early boyhood a duel occurred within 
 some twenty-five or thirty miles of the city of Washing 
 ton, which must have produced at the time a very 
 deep impression upon public sentiment throughout Vir- 
 ginia, for the deplorable result of this memorable conflict 
 of* arms is said to have been the principal cause of the 
 excellent anti-dueling act to be found in the statute-book 
 of this grave and dignified Commonwealth, which exam- 
 ple of wise and wholesome legislation is well known to 
 have been since very extensively imitated elsewhere. The 
 affair to which I have just made special reference was the 
 famous duel between Kemp and Ilooe, of Prince William 
 county. Hooe was a man of fine intellect, of highly re- 
 spectable attainments, and of great personal popularity. 
 T well recollect seeing him repeatedly at my father's 
 house, and of hearing him spoken of in terms of the warm- 
 est commendation. He was a relative of my own, and 
 was much loved and honored by a large and influential 
 family connection. Bernard Hooe was a zealous Federal- 
 ist, and had once or twice represented the county of 
 Prince William in the State Legislature, in which body 
 he was a great favorite. Mr. Kemp was a Democrat, and 
 the quarrel between these gentlemen was almost strictlj T 
 political. Kemp shot down his antagonist, who died im- 
 mediately, leaving behind him a widow and many chil- 
 dren, all of whom were known to me familiarly. Many 
 a time have I participated in the reproduction of this 
 duel, as one of a band of youthful dramatis person^ in the 
 parlor of my own home, with certain of my equals in age, 
 and in the absence of all grown persons ; and never did I 
 go through this melancholy scene without fresh emotions 
 of distress and chagrin. 
 
 I have seen the victor in this contest more than once. 
 He was considerably the junior of Hooe, was also a man 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 179 
 
 of fine presence, and. bore the reputation of being a warm- 
 hearted, brave, enterprising, and intelligent young man. 
 He is described to me to have been a deputy sheriff in the 
 county of Prince William for some years, and to have ac 
 quired in that office much popularity. 
 
 There was in this county at that time a young' lady of 
 singular beauty and accomplishments, of the name of 
 Graham. Her education had been well attended to, and 
 all who knew her spoke of her temper and manners in 
 language of the warmest commendation. She was the 
 daughter of Dr. George Graham, a gentleman of rare ac- 
 complishments and high reputation in the medical pro- 
 fession. He had been educated at Edinburgh, being him- 
 self a native of Scotland, and was reported to be of good 
 birth and affiliations in his native land. This gentleman 
 was the third husband of my venerated grandmother, and 
 often have I sat in his lap in childhood and been the 
 grateful recipient of his more than fatherly attentions. 
 After the decease of my grandmother, Dr. Graham mar- 
 ried a Miss Hooe, sister to the Bernard Hooe whom I 
 have already mentioned as having lost his life on the field 
 of honor. 
 
 When in my twelfth year, I heard the Episcopal funeral 
 service read by my father (there being no minister pres- 
 ent) over the remains of Dr. Graham on one of the coldest 
 winter days I ever experienced. The grave in which this 
 excellent man lies interred is distant from the celebrated 
 Dull Run battle-field some two or three miles only. A 
 cannon fired by the Federal army might have transported 
 the ball with which it was charged to the verv margin of 
 that same grave ; which fact I mention particularly for 
 a reason which will presently be obvious. 
 
 Kemp was a warm admirer of Miss Graham, and made 
 proposals of marriage to her. The young lady was said 
 to have been much attached to him, and to have expressed 
 her willingness to become his wife. Friends interfered 
 
180 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 who broke off the marriage. Miss Graham was afterward 
 married to Mr. Bird, an old bachelor, and about the 
 wealthiest man in Prince William county. He died in 
 less than a year, and, as soon as decency would allow, 
 Kemp renewed his matrimonial proposals to his former 
 mistress, and was accepted. Bird had devised to his 
 young wife the whole of his estate. 
 
 After Kemp's marriage with Mrs. Bird he disposed of 
 her property, and removed to the far Southwest. He lo- 
 cated in the neighborhood of the city of Natchez, where 
 he became a wealthy and prosperous cotton-planter. 
 When General Jackson marched to the defense of New 
 Orleans he passed through the State of Mississippi. Here 
 General (then Colonel) Hinds joined, him, bringing to his 
 aid that celebrated dragoon regiment which distinguished 
 itself so much in the memorable battle which saved "the 
 booty and beauty " of ^New Orleans from the cruel hands 
 of the spoiler. Kemp commanded one of the finest com- 
 panies in Hinds' regiment, and participated in all the 
 glory of his illustrious commander, of whom General 
 Jackson said in his famous report of the battle that he 
 rode fearlessly between the two opposing hosts just before 
 the moment of conflict, " the pride of one army and the 
 terror of the other." Kemp returned 'home and lived 
 only for a few years, leaving a number of children. 
 Among the daughters who sprang from him was a Mrs. 
 Howell, of whom, I am told, Mrs. Jefferson Davis is the 
 daughter. If this be true, (and others perhaps know more 
 of the facts now related than I could possibly do,) why, 
 then, when Jefferson Davis rode over the Bull Run bat- 
 tle-field, on the clay after this famous conflict of arms, he 
 was, perhaps without being at all conscious of the fact, 
 within a few hundred yards of that sequestered forest 
 grave where, thirty years before, I had seen the mortal 
 remains of his wife's great grandfather solemnly depos- 
 ited! 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 181 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XIX. 
 
 DUELS — S. S. PRENTISS— MASON AND M'CARTY — BARRON AND 
 
 DECATUR m'dUEFEE AND CUMMINS — CLAY AND RANDOLPH 
 
 PETTUS AND BIDDLE WISE AND COKE BENTON AND LU- 
 CAS. 
 
 Having yielded to the request of several respected 
 friends who desired that I should give to the public some 
 account of the duels in which I have heretofore been a 
 party, or which were transacted under my own personal 
 observation, I deem it expedient to declare in advance my 
 own decided disapproval of the practice of settling individ- 
 ual disputes upon the field of honor, as it has be'en so long 
 grossly misnamed. There never was a time when 1 
 held any other sentiments than those I now utter, and did 
 I think that the statement of what I bear in memory 
 touching matters of this kind would tend in the least de- 
 gree to impart dignity and popularity to this enormous 
 social evil nothing could tempt me to utter even a word 
 or a syllable designed to preserve what I have seen or ex- 
 perienced in former days in connection with this most re- 
 volting subject. 
 
 So far as dueling is concerned I occupy precisely the 
 situation which I did in reference to the late unhappy 
 civil war. No one, I am sure, can be mentioned who more 
 uniformly condemned the absurd and dangerous principle 
 of secession, in support of which that war was commenced, 
 than myself. No man ever deplored more deeply than I 
 did the prevalence of sectional prejudices in two opposite 
 portions of the Union, menacing, almost for a half cen- 
 tury, just such a fearful and disastrous combustion as af- 
 terward ensued. No one ever struggled harder than I did 
 
182 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 to prevent that fatal internecine war through which we 
 have been doomed to pass. No man was ever better satis- 
 tied than I have been for nearly fifty years that any 
 attempt to disrupt this Union of States and divide it into 
 separate republics, even if successful, would be ruinous to 
 all engaged therein, opening the way, as it would cer- 
 tainly do, to continued border wars, standing armies for 
 the purpose of guarding against ever-impending attacks 
 from without, and the ultimate establishment of a mon- 
 archical despotism in each one of the new-formed confeder- 
 acies. No individual will ever be found who had clearer 
 convictions than I have always entertained of the inevita- 
 bly demoralizing influence of all wars, and especially of 
 those occurring between people of the same derivation, 
 language, and civil history. And yet was I drawn into 
 that very war which I had so long dreaded and so often 
 predicted. My nature was too weak to resist the influ- 
 ences which were brought to bear upon me. When the 
 blood of my kindred began to stream upon my natal soil ; 
 when all with whom I stood connected, either by ties of 
 consanguinity or of affinity, had taken sides in the con- 
 flict ; when my beloved native State, the venerated mother 
 of many States, and the prolitic genitrix of so many men 
 of immortal renown, broke loose from her moorings and 
 unfurled the Confederate banner almost in view of the 
 National Capitol, my once boasted firmness gave way. I 
 became an earnest champion of resistance. I aided in 
 arming my gallant young countrymen of the South 
 against the wisest, noblest, freest Government that the 
 wit of man has ever put in action. I did this without a 
 sober and scrutinizing examination of all the real circum- 
 stances then in existence. I joined in making causeless 
 and unprovoked war; war, too, under an Executive Chief 
 whose incompetency I had long known ; the selfishness of 
 whose nature was as familiar to mv mind as his wizard 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 183 
 
 physiognomy was to my vision; whose lawless aspira- 
 tions to despotic power I had for many years more than 
 suspected; and whose overweening prejudices and par- 
 tialities I could not doubt would be every moment dis- 
 playing themselves so long as he could anywhere find a 
 few blind servitors willing to obey his behests and aid him 
 in the gratification of his enormous and insatiable am- 
 bition. Yes, I entered into that war blindly and madly, 
 with little to give me hope as to the future except the 
 known virtue and intelligence of the Southern people and 
 the heroic valor of that chivalrous and self-devoting sol- 
 diery whose merits and whose sufferings in behalf of a 
 cause in which they had so imp'ulsively entered will stand 
 enrolled in ever-living characters upon the pages of the 
 just-minded and philosophic historians whom future 
 generations shall supply. 
 
 If I committed the great error of my life in joining the 
 ranks of insurrectionary hostility against that paternal 
 government whose magnanimity toward the conquered is 
 at this instant calling forth plaudits from the whole civil- 
 ized world, much do I rejoice that it is yet in my power 
 to make some little atonement for my past dereliction by 
 a free and full confession thereof, and by doing all that is 
 now possible for me to do in binding up the yet bleeding 
 wounds of civil conflict ; in guarding the unwary against 
 future aberrations from civil rectitude, and especially in 
 calming the rage of ever-fermenting sectionalism ; in sup- 
 pressing extreme party zeal wheresoever it may be found, 
 and in persuading good men everywhere to join as com- 
 patriots and brethren in upholding our beneficently 
 framed, and yet more beneficently amended organic system, 
 against all who may essay to overturn it by open violence, 
 or to sap its foundations by the covert and insidious en- 
 croachments of a spoils-loving and principle-renouncing 
 partisanship. 
 
184 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 So, as I have said already, it is with me also in regard 
 to dueling. I have at one time, and more than once, taken 
 part in scenes enacted upon what men have chosen to call 
 the "field of honor, even when, as I have already declared, 
 I utterly condemned this ahsurd and barbarous mode of 
 settling individual disputes. I found a vicious state of 
 public sentiment existing in the Southwest when I went 
 thither to reside in 1825, and I weakly and criminally 
 yielded to it in opposition to my own inward convictions 
 of right and propriety. I sorely regret all my sins in this 
 regard, and offer now to make all the atonement in my 
 power by asking forgiveness of a high-minded and gene- 
 rous public. 
 
 It has long been with me a subject of warm self-grat il- 
 lation that I have never yet been so unfortunate as to take 
 away human life upon occasions of this kind, for had 1 
 done so, even had the whole world joined in forgiving me, 
 never should I have forgiven myself. 
 
 It seems to me to be the most surprising delusion that 
 has ever entered the mind of a sane human creature that 
 in a land of government and laws any man, or set of men, 
 could feel justified in openly violating the prohibitoiy be- 
 hests of those laws, and in setting the principles of social 
 order at defiance. Surely it is only in the firm and steady 
 maintenance of law that any man's life is safe, or any 
 man's rights of property. It is mainly by the existence 
 of laws, and of just and enlightened functionaries to ad- 
 minister them, that civilized men are distinguishable from 
 barbarians and savages. A country that boasts of having 
 laws, and yet is compelled to confess its inability to en- 
 force them, is not at all entitled to the respect, of the 
 refined and cultivated portion of our race ; and a govern- 
 ment which is not both able and willing to see right 
 maintained and justice firmly administered, in opposition 
 to all the efforts of violent and iniquitous persons any- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 185 
 
 where to perpetuate indi victual wrong or obstruct the 
 peaceful progress of society, deserves all the reproaches 
 which are reported to have burst from the lips of the Scy- 
 thian philosopher, Anacharsis, in his memorable conversa- 
 tion with the great law-giver, Solon, touching the value 
 of the legal code which he had just prepared for the peo- 
 ple of Athens, when he said: "Your laws are strong 
 enough to entangle feeble and innocuous Hies, but the 
 hornets and wasps of your community will break through 
 them at pleasure." 
 
 I am happy to have it in my power to declare that the 
 anti-dueling law of Virginia, already referred to, and 
 others passed elsewhere in its likeness, had a very reforma- 
 tory influence wherever they were duly enforced. But in 
 a few years after its enactment the war of three years with 
 Great Britain re-engendered elements of lawlessness, which 
 exhibited their potency for mischief in various forms ; and 
 the dignity unfortunately imparted to this unseemly and 
 unchristian practice by various men of note in different 
 parts of the Republic began soon to be felt by society in a 
 very grievous manner. I well remember how much of 
 public attention, not unmingled with admiration also, was 
 called forth by certain duels fought between the years 
 1815 and 1810. I will here specify a few of them only — 
 those between Mason and McCarty, Decatur and Barron, 
 Coffee and Jesse Benton, Houston and White, Clay and 
 Randolph, McDuffee and Cummins, Benton and Lucas, 
 Pettus and Biddle, Wise and Coke, &c. The scenes alluded 
 to, described in all the newspapers of the time, had called 
 into existence a code of social morals most deplorable in- 
 deed, and influences which no young man of unestablished 
 reputation for personal courage could be expected to resist 
 without much difficulty. From the time of my own set- 
 tlement in Tuscumbia, Alabama, in the autumn of 1825, 
 tor at least twenty -five years thereafter, I really do not 
 remember to have heard any one in the section of country 
 
186 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 where I resided call in question the propriety of dueling, 
 and so imperious and exacting had public sentiment be- 
 come in relation to this matter that no individual, not in 
 close connection with some Christian denomination, could 
 have refused a summons to the field of honor without be- 
 ing consigned to permanent discredit and coldly shut out 
 from all intercourse with gentlemen. To show hwo 
 ridiculouslv far this evil state of things had o-one, I will 
 
 «/ DO' 
 
 here mention a fact which will, perhaps, a little startle 
 some who have never heard of it before. A year or two 
 previous to the breaking out of the Mexican war (the pre- 
 cise date not now recollected) a large public meeting was 
 held in the city of Vicksburg, Miss., in which the cele- 
 brated Jefferson Davis and his elder brother, Joseph, took 
 a very active and prominent part ; at which meeting 
 resolutions were deliberately adopted upholding the prac- 
 tice of dueling, and recommendiug this unpeaceful mode 
 of settling disputes among men of honor in most emphatic 
 language. About this period duels were multiplying 
 along the bank of the Mississippi, and especially in the 
 vicinage where these resolutions were adopted, with most 
 fearful rapidity ; one of the political newspapers there 
 lost, I think, as many as three editors at the pistol's 
 mouth, and there were numerous victims of a like kind 
 in that neighborhood — victims of a species of madness 
 positively wprse than that which is known to prey upon 
 the canine genus. 
 
 It might well occasion astonishment that men should 
 
 o 
 
 be found anywhere who would thus openly and arrogantly 
 attempt to incite the young and mercurial members of 
 the community to this unblushing and audacious disre- 
 gard of law and sound morality ; but the fact which I 
 have just stated is just as true as it is that the States- 
 rights-secession-Demoeratic party of the State of Missis- 
 sippi in the year 1853 adopted a legislative resolution 
 submitting to a test vote among the people of that State, 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 187 
 
 at the then approaching general election, the propriety of 
 taxing themselves to pay the accruing interest on the 
 bonds of the Planters' Bank, the validity of which bonds 
 no man has ever presumed to dispute ; and that the politi- 
 cal party, routed in the previous election, when Mr. Davis 
 had himself been ingloriously defeated, was able, by this 
 notable expedient, to secure its own return to [tower, 
 through the procurement of popular sanction for so base 
 and unpardonable a fraud. In point of fact, I resigned 
 the office of Governor thereafter, expressly upon the 
 ground that I could not participate, in the least degree, in 
 that unprecedented act of perfidy. Some will doubtless 
 be surprised to learn that Jefferson Davis did himself per- 
 sonally vote in the city of Natchez, in presence of wit- 
 nesses, in that election, and in a very ostentatious manner, 
 too, against the taxation proposed. I mention this case 
 now, in this incidental way, in order to illustrate still 
 more fully, if I can, the policy, in a community of laws, of 
 always adhering to the requisitions of the law ; and, in a 
 community professing to be humane and civilized, of giving 
 no public countenance on any occasion to that which im- 
 plies moral obliquity or the spirit of lawlessness. 
 
 As to my own personal example in the matter of duel- 
 ing I have only to say, in addition to what I have said 
 already, that I had the misfortune twice to be challenged 
 to the field of honor ; in two other instances I was foolish 
 enough to be the challenging party. On the first occasion, 
 in 1828, I was shot in the left shoulder by one of the cele- 
 brated dueling pistols of General Jackson, borrowed by 
 my antagonist from the venerable hero of the Hermitage ; 
 who, by the by, bad certainly no hand in instigating this 
 duel, and who lived and died my friend — bestowing upon 
 me an important office almost in the lalt days of his ever- 
 glorious administration. The last time I fought was in 
 1837, when, after five shots having been exchanged, the 
 affair terminated without the least personal injury to my-: 
 
188 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 self, my adversary having been disabled by my fifth shot, 
 which had entered his hip. 
 
 In the winter of 1832-'33 I had a personal dispute at 
 the bar with the famous S. S. Prentiss, during the trial of 
 a capital case of much importance. His language, though 
 sufficiently retaliated by me at the time, induced me to 
 send him a challenge, which I ought never to have thought 
 of doing. He promptly accepted, proved a far better shot 
 than myself, and wounded me very painfully in the left 
 shoulder. We adjusted our dispute before we left the 
 ground. An indiscreet friend or two of his spoke disparag- 
 ingly of my conduct on the occasion. I was highly exas- 
 perated, and wrote him a note demanding whether he had 
 given his sanction to this act of injustice. He at once 
 denied doing so. I published the correspondence. He 
 placed such an interpretation upon my letter to him as 
 gave him much offense. He proposed reopening the fight, 
 which we did on exceedingly desperate terms. He 
 shot me down, giving me a very dangerous wound. 
 In three months we were good friends, and lived in the 
 greatest amity and harmony up to the period of his death, 
 which happened in 1849. Of this remarkable man, and 
 of Alexander Iv. McClung, who waited on me to the field 
 when I had my second duel with Mr. Prentiss, I shall 
 have something special to say hereafter ; for these were, 
 upon the whole, among the most remarkable men I nave 
 every known. In native intellect I am satisfied that 
 neither has had a superior in the Southwestern section of 
 the Union. Both were brave, affectionate, magnanimous, 
 and patriotic. I exceedingly doubt whether the State of 
 Mississippi will ever have in her midst men of loftier 
 bearing, and of greater intellectual powers than those 
 friends of by-go%e years to whom I have thus briefly 
 alluded. I haveno space here to speak of either of them 
 as I feel them both to deserve at my hands, but shall take 
 pride in doing so hereafter. 
 
CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 189 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XX. 
 
 S. S. PRENTISS — RETURN J. MEIGS — MR. DAVIS — MONTGOMERY 
 WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS. 
 
 In the year 18G8 I was traveling on the railroad which 
 connects Nashville with Chattanooga, when I was intro- 
 duced to a gentleman whom I had never seen before. Hav- 
 ing formany years heard him spoken of as a jurist of pro- 
 found learning, a ripe and accurate scholar, a public- 
 spirited and patriotic man, and one renowned for all the 
 virtues which adorn social and domestic life, I could not 
 but regard it as an instance of personal good fortune thus 
 to be allowed to form his acquaintance. Having much 
 curiosity about this personage, I sought to draw him into 
 familiar converse. I found him polite and affable; but he 
 was evidently at the time in low spirits, and there was 
 something in his tone and aspect that made the impression 
 upon my mind that he had recently been the subject of 
 some serious misfortune, the remembrance of which was 
 then sorrowfully preying upon his sensibilities. He left the 
 car in which we were riding at some way-side station, and 
 when we were once more in motion, I learned on inquiry 
 that this gentleman had a few days before lost an amia- 
 ble and accomplished wife, whom he had loved with a de- 
 votion almost romantic, and that his many friends were 
 beginning: to fear that his former cheerfulness and anima- 
 tion would never more return to him. 
 
 The individual to whom I have been referring is now a 
 resident of Washington city, and is the incumbent of an 
 office, the duties of which all admit he is discharging with 
 singular fidelity and credit. I will now meut ion his name: it 
 
190 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 is Return J. Meigs, a man who is at this moment greatly re. 
 speeted and loved by all intelligent and patriotic citizens 
 of Tennessee on either side of the Cumberland mountain. 
 He was concerned for nearly thirty years in the manage- 
 ment of as large a number of difficult and important 
 causes in the Supreme Court of Tennessee, and before the 
 subordinate judicial tribunals of the State, as any other 
 individual that can be mentioned. He is the author of a 
 voluminous digest of the judicial decisions of the State, 
 which I have long thought by far the best arranged and 
 most skillfully prepared book of the kind I have ever ex- 
 amined on either side of the Atlantic. He is one of the 
 compilers of the "Code of Tennessee, " which will favorably 
 compare with any other municipal code I have yet seen. 
 Tennessee is more indebted to this learned and accom- 
 plished person for that choice selection of books to be 
 found in her valuable State library than to all other persons 
 besides, whether living or dead There are but few of the 
 languages ever heretofore spoken among civilized men 
 with which Air. Meigs is not more or less acquainted. 
 
 In the Latin and Greek classics he has been asserted 
 to be thoroughly versed by far more competent judges 
 than I could justly claim to be considered. He ha s 
 o;iven as much attention to what is now known as com- 
 parative philology as any man I have yet met. There is 
 no branch of human knowledge which is altogether terra 
 incognita to his liberal and scrutinizing mind. He has 
 ever manifested a deep and peculiar interest in the general 
 spread of education, and in all things connected with re- 
 form and improvement in the system of teaching. 
 
 I often met Mr. Meigs in social intercourse in Xashvillc 
 before he left that city, and now look back to the moments 
 then spent in converse with him as among the most pleas- 
 ant and instructive of my whole life. Our occasional en- 
 counters in the room of our State library (shall I confess it?) 
 
< ASIvET OF REMINISCENCES. 191 
 
 on the long and otherwise almost unoccupied Sabbath 
 days, 1 am sure I shall never cease to remember, both with 
 gratification and thankfulness, so long as I shall continue 
 to live. 
 
 Mr. Meigs practiced law for many years in Athens, East 
 Tennessee, and afterward removed to Nashville, where he 
 ran as brilliant, as useful, and as inoffensive a career as any 
 man has ever done in any age or country. Here he re- 
 mained until the terrible excitements which marked the 
 first year of the late ever-to-be-lamented civil war induced 
 him to dispose of his possessions in Nashville and remove 
 elsewhere. It is, indeed, distressful to reflect that such a 
 man as this should have been compelled, by such causes as 
 I have alluded to, to leave the home to which he was so 
 devotedly attached, and to break asunder so abruptly alj 
 the social ties of a whole lifetime; but so it was. Mr. 
 Meigs was a firm and inflexible Union man. He mortally 
 detested the secession dogma, and had but little respect 
 either for the understandings or the hearts of its noisy and 
 mischievous advocates. He sometimes expressed his views 
 in regard to these matters in the frank and manly lan- 
 guage which he had ever been accustomed to use among 
 his friends and associates, and he occasionally warned 
 some (who I know deeply to regret now not having heeded 
 his sage monitions) of the dangers and sufferings to which 
 they were about to expose themselves and their country. 
 
 But never for a moment did he descend to the use of 
 coarse or scurrilous language; of which, indeed, he was 
 wholly incapable. I have always been of opinion that 
 nine-tenths of our Xashville population would have fought, 
 if necessary, in defense of this excellent man's life orperson; 
 but there were doubtless at the time in that/city, as is so 
 apt to be the case in commercial places of this description, a 
 few noisy zealots, hanging loosely on the skirts of society, 
 and ambitious of acquiring a sort of vulgar notoriety, who 
 
192 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 were ready to make themselves acceptable in certain 
 quarters by doing such a personage as this some violence. 
 I certainly never knew that he had reason to consider him- 
 self in danger until Mr. Meigs had ceased to be a citizen of 
 Nashville. When he took his leave of Tennessee he left no 
 equal behind him, either in scholarship or general attain- 
 ment. The only man who indeed could be compared to 
 him in the city of Nashville was the venerable Francis B. 
 Fogg, who now, almost an octogenarian, is as genia! and 
 kindly as he could have been fifty years ago, and has at 
 this time no rival in the place of his residence in deep legal 
 research, scholarly accomplishments, and in that calm and 
 philosophic dignity of aspect and demeanor — blended- 
 with a uniform graciousness of temper and a constantly 
 overflowing benevolence, which have justly rendered him 
 an object of universal esteem and veneration. 
 
 I have been of opinion for several weeks past that these 
 Reminiscences would not be complete without some special 
 notice of the honored individual of whom I have said so 
 much on this occasion, but I did not know exactly how I 
 should manage to introduce him to the notice of my 
 readers. This difficulty was removed this morning by the 
 unexpected reception of a note from Mr. Meigs, which T 
 now take the liberty of publishing, and even without 
 asking his consent thereto. To the letter was prefixed a 
 printed slip, which, on examining it, I found to be a short 
 extract from one of my own former reminiscences. I here 
 insert the printed slip, with Mr. Meigs' communication, 
 precisely in the form in which they have just reached my 
 hands. 
 
 " It is gratifying to me to remember that I oner voted for S. S. Pren- 
 tiss when he was a candidate for Congress, against the regularly nomi- 
 nated ticket of my own party, just as now I should rejoice to recollect 
 that [ had co-operated in elevating to the Presidency of the Union two 
 such noble-spirited and gifted American statesmen as Henry Clay and 
 Daniel Webster ; whose names, could they be inscribed on the Presi- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 193 
 
 dential scroll in lien of two others thai T could specify, would transmit 
 our loved Republic to the men of other ages invested with a grand and 
 imperishable luster that all the vain and heartless triumphs of taction. 
 devoted to the ingathering of the vulgar and perishable spoils ot office, 
 can never compensate. '" 
 
 This divine paragraph comes of the true inspiration of the historic 
 muse, and, mejudice, rarely has the Goddess done herself greater credit. 
 Seldom, indeed, has she made an appeal so pathetic to the masses who 
 wield the destinies of our great experiment. Not often has she stamped 
 upon the shameless front of faction a brand more ineffaceable. 
 
 Washington, August 17, 1873. R. J. Meigs. 
 
 Though I can not but feel that the above commendation 
 is very far beyond my merits as a writer, yet am I not at all 
 relucant to publish it here, for sundry reasons, the principal 
 one of which is that I am anxious to avail myself of Mr. 
 Meigs' high literary authority as an effectual counteractive 
 to what I have learned, without any special emotion, that 
 several paltry partisan scribblers have been publishing of 
 late in decrial both of myself and of my currente ealamo ef- 
 fusions. 
 
 What my friend Mr. Meigs says, with something of 
 stoical severity, concerning " the shameless front of 
 faction,"' in connection with that which I have myself 
 heretofore published in regard to the honored and lamented 
 S. S. Prentiss, induces me to notice for a moment one or 
 two other scenes in the career of that remarkable man 
 which I have heretofore pretermitted. 
 
 Mr. Prentiss was by nature a poet, lie wrote beautiful 
 verses, which sometimes seemed to be impregnated with 
 the loftiest inspiration. Several of his fugitive poetic 
 productions, which I have often heard him recite to a 
 choice bevy of friends, were exquisitely humorous. His 
 recitations from Bryon, who was evidently his favorite 
 among modern poets, were altogether the most impressive 
 and electiifying 1 ever listened to. Both the " Siege of 
 Corinth," and the " [sles of Greece," from the pages of 
 kt Don Juan," 1 heard him repeat more than once, and in 
 
 loR 
 
194 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 his golden convivial moments he would glowingly enun- 
 ciate Byron's description of Alp, the Renegade — " Alp 
 with the right arm bare " — dressed in character, that is 
 to say, standing up in a fierce, soldierly attitude, denuded 
 of his coat, and with his shirt-sleeve neatly tucked up 
 above the elbow. I feel confident that Biyon himself 
 would have been made more sensible of the grandeur and 
 nameless beauties of his own noble poetry could he have 
 listened to the soul-rousing recitals of one so strikingly 
 like himself, both in genius and person, even to the natural 
 lameness of his right foot. 
 
 The last of many political controversies which I had 
 with Mr. Prentiss occurred in the summer of 1840, in the 
 town of Gallatin, before a vast crowd of ladies and gentle- 
 men. The conflict continued for eleven hours; the 
 speeches being delivered alternatively. I shall not under- 
 take to describe the extraordinary powers displayed by 
 this highly-gifted orator on this occasion. I would will- 
 ingly now travel a thousand miles to hear what I then 
 heard, and would cheerfully once more consent to act as 
 an humble foil to show off more conspicuously the surpass- 
 ing brilliancy of this wonderful genius. Not a word of 
 discourtesy was spoken during this memorable day and 
 night by either of us ; we slept amicably in the same room 
 that night, in a little log tavern at Gallatin, and traveled 
 in company next d ay, lunching on the road-side before we 
 parted company for our respective homes. 
 
 It is extremely gratifying to me now to recollect that 
 when I was elected to the United States Senate in 184(J, 
 Mr. Prentiss expressed himself as being highly rejoiced at 
 the event. A month or two after I took my seat in thai 
 body he addressed m e a friendly letter, in which he earn- 
 estly pressed upon my attention the claim of a worthy 
 lady to remuneration at the hands of the Government, on 
 account of a considerable sum of money loaned by her 
 ancestor, a celebrated merchant of Amsterdam, in aid of 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 195 
 
 the American struggle for Independence. Mr. Prentiss 
 had no pecuniary interest whatever involved in the case, 
 hut he had examined the facts connected therewith, and 
 had hecome thoroughly satisfied that the demand set up 
 was a just one. I took up the matter at his instance 
 at once, and succeeded in getting the claim paid by the 
 order of the Secretary of the Treasury. I hope it is need- 
 less to say that I received not a dollar for my trouble in 
 that affair. 
 
 My attention chances this moment to be called by a 
 friend to the fact, often, as I understand, published here- 
 tofore in various forms, that Mr. Prentiss, on the occasion 
 of my last duel with him, audibly made some ludicrous 
 remark about my " wild shooting," and recommended to 
 certain boys who had climbed trees from which they could 
 conveniently overlook the scene of combat, to descend 
 therefrom if they did not wish that I should shoot them. 
 I can only say that I never heard of this incident until 
 fifteen or sixteen years after it is supposed to have 
 occurred ; and it would seem to be hardly in unison with 
 Mr. Prentiss' high-bred refinement and courtesy ; but 
 re<i*ardincr the joke as told rather too o-ood a one to be 
 spoiled by contradiction I have not heretofore given it 
 any serious notice ; just in the same way as I have not 
 deemed it necessary in airy formal manner to correct a mis- 
 take made by the worthy Mr. Lanman in his Congres- 
 sional Dictionary, who has put me down as being just four 
 years older than I really am. 
 
 T leave all such triHes as these for the discussion and 
 entertainment of those who shall feel more interested in 
 them than I could possibly do. 
 
 The pointed expression used in Mr. Meigs 1 elegant note, 
 "shameless front of faction," brought to my view at once 
 the language of a certain chief of faction the other day at 
 the Montgomery White Sulphur Springs, of Virginia, 
 where he again attempted, most unamiably, to revive the 
 
196 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 
 excitement? connected with the late unhappy war ; 
 charged Generals Lee and Joe Johnston with having been 
 " cheated '" by the Presidents and Generals of the United 
 States into a deceitful peace; asserted that, had the subse- 
 quent conduct of the Federal Government been antici- 
 pated, nothing would have been more easy than for the 
 Confederates to have won their independence in arms; 
 praised the ladies of the South for not having yet sub- 
 mitted to reconstruction ; absurdly menaced a renewal of 
 the struggle of arms for the principles contended for for 
 four years unsuccessfully ; and did all in his power to 
 rekindle the feelings of sectional unkindness which good 
 citizens everywhere over the land were hoping would be 
 soon extinguished forever. This is the spirit of faction 
 with a vengeance, and will, I fear, bring more detriment 
 upon the long-suffering South than fifty such men as Mr. 
 Davis would be able to compensate in a century. I trust 
 that the Union-loving men of the Republic will soon find 
 that Mr. Davis speaks only for himself and under the 
 ^ promptings of his own restless ambition, and not for the 
 high-souled and patriotic men of the South by whom he 
 is now exceedingly well known. If I thought he could 
 understand sound Latinity as well as my scholastic friend 
 Mr. Meigs, I* should be strongly tempted to give him a few 
 lines from Horace's description of the disturbed condition 
 of the Roman Republic when Sextus Pompey was about 
 to make a piratical descent upon the coast of Italy, and 
 say to him, in application to our own noble ship of State, 
 now lying quietly anchored : 
 
 navis, referent in mare te uovi 
 
 Fluctus ! O quid agis? Fort iter occupa 
 Portum. Nonne vides ut 
 
 Nudum remigio latus, 
 Ki mains celeri saucius Africo, 
 
 Anteiiujeque gemant, ac ine fuiiibus 
 Vix aura re carina: 
 
 Possint imperiosius 
 -3Cquor? 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 197 
 
 There is one other assertion of Mr. Davis which may 
 demand a graver and somewhat more pointed response. 
 He says that he has yet to meet with the first Southern 
 lady who has been reconstructed— that is to say, who is 
 reconciled to the Government. Now, if he means sweep- 
 ingly to declare that all the Southern ladies stiil cherish 
 the spirit of rebellion, he certainly does them most cruel 
 injustice, and may, in certain cases which I could specify, 
 bring upon them a misconstruction on the part of the 
 Government officers in Washington, that might result in 
 serious injury to claims now pending before them. If he 
 does not mean this, hut only intends to make known to 
 the public that he has not happened to fall personally 
 into the company of any Southern female not now breath- 
 ing forth " war, pestilence, and famine" against the au- 
 thorities at Washington and to those who submit quietly 
 to their [tower, why I can see no earthly objection to 
 admitting this to be true, since it may be that Mr. Davis 
 has not been quite so. select of late in his choice of politi- 
 cal counselors of the gentler sex as he might have been. 
 If he expects now to stir up rebellion again in the South 
 by such pitiful and slavering commendation of Southern 
 women as trickled so deceitfully from his lips three days 
 ago at the Montgomery White Sulphur Springs, I can 
 tell him that he never made a greater blunder in his life. 
 Our women of the South are not yet all Amazons, and all 
 the more refined and intelligent among them do ardently 
 desire peace and the universal diffusion of kind feeling 
 among all classes of our people, from the wave-resounding 
 shore of the boisterous Atlantic to the sweet, quiet mar- 
 gin of the far-off Pacific. 
 
198 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XXI. 
 
 m'NUTT — JEFFERSON DAVIS — ANDREW JOHNSON. 
 
 At the special request of friends to whose judgments I 
 owe much deference —friends who have been long familiar 
 with some very curious and stirring events in my own 
 early history which I have heretofore refrained from com- 
 municating to the public at large from the apprehension 
 which I could not but feel that by doing so in detail I 
 should possibly incur the charge of egotism, (so likely to 
 be applied in all such cases) — I shall now proceed to give 
 some account of a few matters not heretofore narrated. 
 
 A day or two after I reached the city of Natchez, in 
 the winter of 1830-'31, 1 was introduced to an individual 
 of whom I had then never previously heard. His name 
 was Alexander G. McNutt. He was a native of Rock- 
 bridge county, Virginia, and was doubtless very credit- 
 ably connected there. Mr. McNutt appeared to be at 
 that time about thirty-two or three years old. He was a 
 man of huge bulk; exhibited in a very striking manner 
 all the ordinary indications of good living, and had be- 
 come much renowned as a liberal consumer both of meats 
 and of strong drink. He was a lawyer by profession, and 
 had located in the city of Vicksburg some ten years be- 
 fore. He got but little employment in his profession for 
 several years, but Mr. Huff, a wealthy merchant in Vicks- 
 burg, having then recently retired from business, and hav- 
 ing a great deal of money owing to him by his numerous 
 customers, threw, to the general surprise of the commu- 
 nity, the whole mass of his outstanding claims into the 
 hands of McNutt for collection ; for whom he had in some 
 way contracted a strong partiality. It is but justice to 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 199 
 
 Mr. McNutt to say that lie was very diligent and success- 
 i*i 1 1 in the task thus devolved on him, and, in a year <>r 
 two after Mr. Huffs business was wound up by him, lie 
 got into a very large collecting practice, and obtained re- 
 cognition as a man of considerable pecuniary means, lie 
 then formed a partnership with one Joel S. Cameron in 
 the business of cotton-planting, and at the time of my 
 meeting him at Natchez, as mentioned, this cotton-plant- 
 ing firm was reported to have made the largest crops in 
 proportion to the number of hands employed ever known 
 in Mississippi. Perhaps Cameron was, upon the whole, 
 one of the most skillful planters that had ever undertaken 
 the cultivation of the earth ; and the plantation upon 
 which he was located had been long celebrated as being 
 peculiarly adapted to the growing of cotton. It was situ- 
 ated among the alluvial hills which surround Vicksburg 
 on all sides except along the river bank, and inclosed 
 within its limits a deep and beautiful lake, the vaporous 
 effusion of which was supposed to be particularly propi- 
 tious to the growth of vegetation of every description. This 
 was the precise state of affairs when I first saw A. Gr. 
 McNutt in the city of Natchez, a little more than forty 
 years ago. Having determined to settle in Vicksburg, I 
 went thither late in the month of January, 1831, leaving 
 my new acquaintance, McNutt, behind me in Natchez, 
 with other members of the V icksburg bar, attending upon 
 the Supreme Court of the State, then in session. 
 
 A few days after getting to Vicksburg a report reached 
 that place that a personal difficulty, growing out of a 
 heated conversation upon State politics, had arisen at one 
 of the hotels in Natchez, between McNutt and a brother 
 attorney, Mr. Joseph Smith, (with whom afterward I be- 
 came well acquainted,) in the course of which the parties 
 interchanged uncivil and insulting language, and even 
 came to blows; that is to say, Smith slapped McNutt's 
 jaws, who, unfortunately, at the moment, having lost his 
 
200 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 presence of mind, made no attempt to retaliate in kind, el- 
 even to defend himself. 'Phis was a most deplorable state 
 of affairs, it must be confessed, considering the condition 
 of public sentiment in Mississippi in regard to such mat- 
 ters at that period. When McXutt got back to Vicks- 
 burg, which he did in a few (lays, lie immediately sought 
 an interview with me, and asked my advice as to the 
 course he should pursue in order to the vindication of bis 
 wounded personal honor. lie requested me to state 
 frankly to him what it would be best tor him to do. I 
 inquired of him immediately whether he recognized what 
 was called the code of honor. He said he did. " Then," 
 said I, " the matter seems to me to be of very easy solu- 
 tion. If you had stricken Mr. Smith in turn, when you 
 received the indignity at his hands of which you com- 
 plain, I should say, wit lout hesitation, that you were not 
 bound to carry this matter any further: hut as you did 
 not, you are now hound, in order to retrieve your charac- 
 ter, certainly at this moment under a cloud, either to at- 
 tack him on the street-side with weapons, after having 
 given him due warning, or to send him a challenge to 
 meet you in the mode recognized among gentlemen. To 
 the former I am utterly opposed, since a right on the street- 
 side might involve the Lives of innocent persons, and this 
 would be, moreover, in my judgment, an indecent viola- 
 tion of the rules of social decorum and propriety. I would 
 advise you, therefore, to send Mr. Smith a challenge im- 
 mediately, unless you have determined to submit dis- 
 gracefully to the outrage of which you have been the re- 
 cipient." He then told me that he must ask my aid in 
 the preparation of a challenge, as he was wholly unac- 
 customed to the mode of procedure used in such cases. I 
 drew up a short note for him, in the usual form, and, 
 after having read the same in his hearing, handed it to 
 him for signature. He took it and read it over, hut in a 
 second or two I saw from the discomposure which he 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 201 
 
 evinced thai he was much in the condition of the valiant 
 Bob Acres, as described so inimitably by Sheridan. He 
 read the challenge over several times, his agitation deep- 
 ening every instant, and finally said to me: " I would 
 prefer keeping this paper by me until to-morrow morning, 
 with a view to a slight alteration in its phraseology ; to- 
 morrow I will bring it to your lodgings, and ask you to de- 
 liver it to my adversary." " Very well, " said I; " the 
 note should surely be such a one as you could yourself 
 fully approve, and I will now withdraw, with a view to 
 giving you an opportunity of well considering the busi- 
 ness, and coming to such conclusion as may prove entirely 
 satisfactory to yourself hereafter." 
 
 Ft is almost useless to say that the subject of the chal- 
 lenge was never again discussed between Mr. Xutt and 
 myself; and in a few months all mention of the matter 
 in social circles was discontinued. 
 
 In less than two years from this period the good citi- 
 zens of Vicksburg and its vicinage were greatly shocked 
 by a murder, which was ascertained to have oceurred upon 
 the plantation cultivated by Cameron and McNutt, the 
 latter of whom resided in the city. Cameron was reputed 
 to have been slain by his own negroes, four of whom were 
 apprehended and brought to town for trial. I was ap- 
 pointed by the County Court of Warren county to con- 
 duct the examination, under the supervision of the mem- 
 bers of that tribunal, before which alone at that time 
 slaves were triable: and I did so. The negroes were 
 ably and skillfully defended; but the proof against them 
 was clear and conelusive, and all of them put under trial 
 were convicted, and thereafter hung. It appeared on the 
 investigation that this murder had been concerted some 
 time before: that tie; negroes implicated had assaulted 
 Cameron with elubs as he passed early in the morning, on 
 horseback, upon a narrow path, which ran along the verge 
 of a thicket of brushwood, where the murderers lay con- 
 
202 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 cealed, and when he was proceeding from his own house 
 to the field where his hands were at work. After he had 
 been killed by repeated blows, the murderers attached 
 large iron weights to the exanimate body, and sank it in 
 the waters of the lake, which was not far distant. The 
 horse of Cameron returning to his house riderless, some 
 suspicion was at once aroused in regard to the fate of 
 Cameron himself; but his death was not certainly found 
 out to have occurred until a violent thunder-storm had so 
 agitated the waters in which the body had been sub- 
 merged that it rose to the surface, where it was discov- 
 ered and brought to land. 
 
 There was one of the murderers who was a very remark- 
 able man. His name was Daniel. He was considerably 
 above the ordinary stature, well shaped, and of a very 
 commanding aspect and hearing. His conduct while on 
 trial was singularly calm and decorous, and he was evi- 
 dently without hope of acquittal from the very beginning 
 of the investigation. A fact came to light in the course 
 of the trial which attracted some attention at the time, 
 and called forth also some comment. Daniel had been for 
 many years a great favorite with his master, and it was 
 said that the bosom of this negro was the dark repository 
 of some secrets which Cameron had much interest in keep- 
 ing concealed from the world. It was stated, and gener- 
 ally believed too, that Cameron had at different times put 
 to death seven or eight of his own slaves, whese bodies 
 were suspected to have been interred in places of sepulture 
 only known to Daniel and himself. Cameron had fallen 
 out with his comrade in iniquity, who had been for many 
 years his foreman — for some reason not fully developed in 
 testimony; and with a view to gratifying the feelings of 
 revenge which he cherished toward Daniel, he had re- 
 tracted a singular indulgence which he had previously 
 and for many years extended to him. This indulgence 
 had relation to the two wives whom he had been allowed 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 203 
 
 to marry and hold under marital authority after the 
 fashion of Mormonism. Cameron had, a few weeks be- 
 fore, abstracted from him one of these wives, and, as was 
 said, the particular one to whom Daniel was most at- 
 tached, and had solemnly declared to him that in future 
 lie should be a practical monogamist. This treatment, it 
 was shown, had been the main cause of Daniel's hostility 
 to his once much-beloved lord and master. The murder- 
 ers all died without murmur or complaint, except Daniel. 
 He, after being carried back to jail, uttered many things, 
 whether true or false, of a nature to give great umbrage 
 to Mr. McNutt, and threatened, a day or two before his 
 execution occurred, to develop on the scaffold, ere the 
 fatal rope should do its office, circumstances calculated to 
 throw the whole community into commotion. Mr. 
 McXutt, being advised of these menaces, proceeded to the 
 jail window, and made known to the prisoner that if lie 
 continued to repeat the language which had previously 
 issued from his lips lie would cause all his teeth to be 
 drawn by a dentist. This silenced him for a time; but 
 when he came upon the scaffold he attempted to address 
 the assembled crowd in vindication of himself. This he 
 was not permitted to do ; but when he began to speak, in 
 accordance, as was well understood, with i:\ie directions of 
 McXutt, the drum was most vociferously beaten, so as to 
 drown the voice of the dying man, and he w r as thus con- 
 fusedly 1 mrried into eternity. 
 
 The community could have little or no regret that 
 Cameron had ceased to live. He had been Ion ^ recoff- 
 nized as a monster of cruelty, and had little social inter- 
 course except with his own father-in-law — a blacksmith 
 in the neighborhood by the name of Lewis — who had 
 been himself twice tried for murder, within my own 
 knowledge, and had barely escaped capital punishment. 
 The last of the murders with which he had been charged 
 was one inflicted upon a negro fellow, whom he had 
 
20 A CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 actually held upon the burning coals until the tire found 
 its way to his vitals. I regret to say that in this part of 
 the South, at the time referred to, juries were not at all 
 accustomed to hang white men for murder done upon the 
 sons and daughters of Africa. 
 
 McXutt was not yet satiated with blood. He insti- 
 tuted a prosecution in the Circuit Court of Warren 
 county against a free man of color called Mercer Byrd, 
 whom he charged in the indictment to have been acces- 
 sory after the fact to Cameron's murder. It is certain 
 that the watch of the murdered Cameron was found buried 
 in Byrd's hen-house. The fact of its being deposited there 
 was disclosed by one of those who had been executed, but 
 he did not assert that the secreting of the watch in that 
 place was at all known to Mercer Byrd. Mr. Prentiss, as 
 I have heretofore incidentally mentioned, was employed to 
 aid in the prosecution of Byrd, and for so doing he com- 
 pelled McXutt to pay him S4,000 in cash, which was in 
 truth but a reasonable fee. Notwithstanding Mr. Pren- 
 tiss' high powers as an advocate Mercer Byrd was very 
 near escaping. Two verdicts w T ere obtained against him, 
 which the Supreme Court of the State afterward reversed 
 on full argument. On the third trial he was again con- 
 victed, and hung. 
 
 I have heretofore stated that I was one of Byrd's legal 
 defenders. The day before he was executed I was sent 
 for to the jail where he was confined, in order that he 
 might advise with me in regard to an exceedingly deli- 
 cate matter. I lived eight miles from the place of his 
 imprisonment, and was at the time very far from being 
 well. I-went to see the unfortunate prisoner, notwith- 
 standing*. On entering the cell I found much to awaken 
 both surprise and gra iiication. It was reported that the 
 prisoner had a day before professed to have experienced a 
 change of heart, and it was said that he was not only pre- 
 pared for death, but anxious to quit a world where he 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 205 
 
 bad seen so little of unalloyed comfort and happiness. I 
 was too unwell to sit up, and had, therefore, to recline 
 upon the prison-floor, over which I had spread my cloak, 
 while I listened to a paper called his confession, which lie 
 had employed a gentleman of great respectability in the 
 neighborhood to draw up tor him. It was, indeed, a most 
 astonishing document, lie charged, upon the statements 
 made to him by Daniel and his co-murderers, as well as 
 upon certain pregnant facts known to him personally, 
 that Cameron had been murdered at the instigation of 
 MeXutt himself, and he pointed in support of his accusa- 
 tion to the fact that McXutt was then in possession of 
 Cameron's whole fortune (which he held in part as sur- 
 viving partner) as well as of his wire, whom he had mar- 
 ried in seven months after the death of Cameron — refer- 
 ring impressively to the circumstance that this same mar- 
 riage had been celebrated amid extraordinary festivities, 
 extending through two entire days and nights. This 
 scene was indeed a very severe trial to me, but I endeav- 
 ored to go through it with dignity and composure. So 
 soon as the reading of the confession was brought to an 
 end I rose up from my prostrate position, and addressed 
 my wretched client substantially thus: "Mercer Byrd, 
 is it true that you have made your peace with Heaven, 
 and are ready now to meet the great Judge of the quick 
 and the dead in the world of spirits?" He answered: 
 " It is true that I have experienced the forgiveness of my 
 sins, and I am prepared to meet ray God face to face." 1 
 then said : " Mercer Byrd, do you know that you are to 
 die to-morrow morning at 11 o'clock?" He answered: 
 "Certainly; I have no hope of escaping the death to 
 which I am sentenced." I then said in continuation : 
 " Mercer Byrd, are you willing to put at hazard your 
 eternal salvation upon the truth of the statements con- 
 tained in the paper just read ? " lie responded, most sol- 
 emnly and emphatically, " I am." Upon which I ad- 
 
206 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 dressed him thus : u Mercer Byrd, I have served you long 
 and faithfully ; I have received not a dollar for my ser- 
 vices ; I expect nothing, and would have nothing, from 
 you in the way of pecuniary recompense. I have now a 
 single personal favor to ask of you: Let me suppress this 
 confession; its publication can do no good, arid may do 
 much harm. Leave the world, I heseech you, in peace 
 with all mankind — even with those whom you believe to 
 have persecuted you. ,, There was a serene smile upon the 
 countenance of the dying man as he said: " Do as you 
 please in the matter ; I am content/' I took my leave of 
 him, and never saw him more. 
 
 Mercer Byrd was a tall, fine-looking mulatto man, of 
 much intelligence, and of excellent character before being 
 charged with this offense. I had known him well for six 
 or seven years, and had also been acquainted witli his 
 family in North Alabama. I have heretofore stated that 
 the late Judge Sharkey and the Hon. George Coalter as- 
 sisted me in his defense. I will now add that both these 
 gentlemen concurred with me in believing Byrd alto- 
 gether innocent of the crime imputed to him. 
 
 A year or two passed away after this catastrophe with- 
 out any knowledge of the allegations contained in Byrd's 
 confession being obtained by the community generally, 
 though the nature and extent of these allegations were 
 known to about a dozen persons, some of whom are yet 
 alive. Mr. McNutt, having become then a wealthy man, 
 aspired to a seat in the Senate of Mississippi. The Demo- 
 crats of the State were then struggling hard to defeat the 
 celebrated George Poindexter in his effort to be re-elected 
 to the United States Senate, where his acrimonious oppo- 
 sition to General Jackson's administration bad given 
 much offense to the adherents of this loved and honored 
 political chief. MclSTutt was himself a Democrat, while a 
 very large majority of the voters of Warren county were 
 Whigs. The Whig candidate in that county for the State 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 207 
 
 Senate was irreconcilably opposed to Poindexter's re-elec- 
 tion. So McNutt, when he became a candidate, pledged 
 himself to vote for Poindexter's re-election if he himself 
 should be elected to the position which he sought. The 
 desired result was in this way easily enough achieved, and 
 during the next winter MeNutt was seated in the State 
 Senate, where, taking a very extreme part against the 
 1 tanks of the State, to many of which he was himself a 
 large debtor, he managed to procure a nomination for 
 the office of Governor at the hands of some dozen of his 
 legislative associates of the ultra anti-hank stamp, and 
 took the field as a candidate accordingly. There were 
 then many Democrats in Mississippi (including myself) 
 who thought that the elevation of Mr. McNutt to the 
 office of Governor of the State, notwithstanding the fact 
 that he had recently displayed much more of a certain 
 sort of ability than anyone had previously suspected him 
 of possessing, would be productive of much evil in various 
 ways, and would especially give encouragement to a low 
 and huckstering demagogism which was then beginning 
 to display itself in a particularly menacing and disgust- 
 ing form. So we urged that able, high-toned, and truly 
 Roman-like personage, Major Benjamin W. Edwards, 
 (nephew to the worthy personage of the same name who 
 was the early protector and patriot of the celebrated Wil- 
 liam Wirt, and who so long represented in the Legisla- 
 ture of Maryland the adjoining county of Montgomery,) 
 to take the field against him. Major Edwards reluctantly 
 consented ; so that there were now in the arena four can- 
 didates for the office of Governor, Mr. MaN"utt, Major 
 Edwards, Colonel John A. Grimball, and Dr. Jacob B. 
 Morgan, two Whigs and two Democrats. Major Ed- 
 wards unfortunately died in the midst of the canvass, and 
 1 was called upon to deliver his funeral eulogy in the town 
 of Clinton in the sunnier of 1837. MoXutt was afterward 
 elected by a mere plurality of popular votes. 
 
208 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 In the midst of that gubernatorial canvass, in which I 
 was really taking no very active part, MeNUtt went 
 through the State making characteristic speeches every- 
 where, and succeeded in deluding many as to his true 
 character and purposes. A few days before he reached 
 the vicinage of the State capital, where I then resided, 1 
 learned with some surprise and regret that he had more 
 than once mentioned my own name very disrespectfully 
 and unkindly in several of his addresses to the people, and 
 that he had charged me with being influenced by motives 
 in opposing him of which he well knew me to be utterly 
 incapable. I determined to put an end to this sort of as- 
 sailment without delay; and with this view I proceeded 
 to the town of Brandon, distant from Jackson only ten 
 miles, where he was expected to speak, for the purpose of 
 confronting him. So soon as we met at the hotel of the 
 village, in presence of a large crowd, I demanded of him, 
 in a calm and courteous manner, whether he had used the 
 injurious language in relation to myself and my public 
 conduct which had been reported to me. With much 
 confusion and embarrassment, he confessed that he had. 
 I then demanded tlyxt he should make a formal retraxit of 
 all that he had said of me of a disrespectful nature in 
 hearing of those who were them assembling to hear him. 
 This he refused to do. I then turned to him and said : 
 ct Sir, you know well that I have never been your enemy. 
 For some years past there lias been no familiarity between 
 us. I have openly but respectfully opposed your election 
 to the office of Governor, of which I well know you to be 
 altogether unworthy. You have been guilty of traducing 
 my character when I was not present to defend it. I 
 have now demanded justice at your hands. This you re- 
 fuse to afford. Xo one could know better than I do that 
 you do not hold yourself responsible to the laws of 1101101'. 
 No recourse now is left me but one. 1 will not dishonor 
 myself by applying to you language of personal denuncia- 
 
CASKKT OF KKMTNISOKNOES. 20$ 
 
 tion, which, however merited by you, 1 could not use 
 without some loss of self-respect. I now notify you, there- 
 fore, in presence of this multitude, that you have been en- 
 gaged for the last two or three weeks in calumniating a 
 man who has, without your knowing it, been heretofore 
 your best benefactor.'' He looked very much surprised. 
 I then gave an account of the confession made by Mercer 
 Byrd ; of my agency in preventing the publication of the 
 charges contained in it, and said : " Now, sir, you plainly 
 perceive that I have heretofore saved you from being 
 placed before the public in an attitude which could not 
 hut have given you great and permanent annoj^ance. I 
 do not even now say that I am satisfied of your guilt ; for 
 God knows that T have been struggling for years to avoid 
 considering you so bad a man as the dying Byrd charged 
 you with being; hut I do now assert, what you too must 
 feel to be true, that had I not interposed, live years ago, 
 to prevent the publication of that same confession, you 
 would never have been able to occupy a seat in the Legis- 
 lature of the State, or have had the presumption now to 
 [•resent yourself as a candidate for the office of Governor. 
 I feel now compelled to go a little further, and say to you 
 that if you mention my name in your speech to-day I will 
 expose you at once to public infamy ; and that if you fail 
 to revoke this day all the unjust aspersions which you 
 have heretofore heaped upon me, at your meeting in the 
 city of Jackson to-morrow I will be present, and then re- 
 quite you in full for all your unprovoked attempts to in- 
 jure me." He burst into tears and appealed to those pres- 
 ent for sympathy, but received none. That day he spoke, 
 and made no mention of my name. I went to the old 
 capitul building in the city of Jackson, next day, to meet 
 him in discussion, as I had threatened to do. He came to 
 the back part of the building, and looked through the 
 window to sec who was present, and, finding that I had 
 14b 
 
21U CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 been as good as my promise, he silently retired. Under 
 these circumstances I brought this affair to a termination 
 by publishing all the preceding facts in the newspaper- 
 called the Mississippian, in a tile of which my long and 
 very denunciatory address to the people of Mississippi may 
 be yet seen, accompanied with comments such as I shall 
 nut now recite. 
 
 in the office of Governor it is but just to say that 
 MeNutt got along tolerably well, though he was hut a 
 poor representative of the virtue and refinement of the 
 oeople over whose civic concerns he presided. A year or 
 two after his course of gubernatorial services had drawn 
 to an end he formally announced himself as a candidate 
 for the position of United States Senator, and sent forth 
 printed handbills making known the times and places 
 where he would address his fellow-citizens in support of 
 his claims to be chosen Senator, as the successor of Mr. 
 John Henderson, whose official term was just about expir- 
 ing. This announcement of Mr. McXutt as a Senatorial 
 candidate gave a good deal of uneasiness to several gentle- 
 men who were then already known to desire the Senato- 
 rial position, among whom were John A. Quitman, Al- 
 bert G. Brown, Jacob Tbompson, and William M. Gwin, 
 all of whom were men of prominence and of great and 
 ascertained popularity. The Senatorial candidacy of 
 McXutt was productive of particular solicitude also in 
 the minds of some by reason of the fact that he openly 
 proclaimed his determination to conrine himself in the po 
 litical canvass which lie was about to commence to dis- 
 cussing the question of repudiating what were known as 
 the Union Bank bonds. This course on the part of Gov- 
 ernor McNutt was the more surprising and disgraceful 
 because of the fact that he had himself imparted dignity 
 to these very bonds by subscribing them as Governor, and 
 attaching to them the great seal of the State. I was 
 
rASKKT OF REMINISCENCES. 211 
 
 really at this time only u a looker-on in Vieime," and was 
 quietly pursuing my profession, having no earthly desire 
 for political promotion of any kind. But this quiet and 
 agreeable life I was not permitted to enjoy, for one day, 
 when proceeding to my own home in the city of Jackson, 
 General Quitman came to me and said that he had just 
 been consulting several gentlemen who were, as he was, 
 adverse to the Senatorial aspirations of Governor McNutt, 
 in regard to the means of defeating him, and that all of 
 them had come to the conclusion that the only way of ac- 
 complishing this object was to get some suitable person to 
 attend upon his proposed journeys through the State, and 
 respond to all his speeches. He added, in a manner very 
 Mattering, that I had been unanimously selected as the 
 champion who was to go forth to do battle against this 
 modern Samson Agonistes. I did not agree with these 
 gentlemen as to the propriety of my assuming the per- 
 formance of this duty, and at first positively declined it, 
 adding that my personal relations with McNutt were 
 such as would make it particularly disagreeable to me to 
 pursue him thorough the State in the manner proposed. 
 " Besides," (as I said to General Quitman when he was 
 urging this task upon me,) '' recollect that I have already 
 openly declared you to be my choice for United States 
 Senator; is there not danger that it I go forth against 
 McXutt, and succeed in securing his defeat, the members 
 of the Legislature, when that body shall assemble next 
 winter, grateful as they will naturally be to the performer 
 of such a service, may conclude to take me up, whether I 
 wish it or not, and send me to the Senate instead of send- 
 ing yourself, as I hope that they will? I warn you before- 
 hand, my excellent friend, of the impending danger; I 
 shall certainly not seek the place myself, either directly or 
 indirectly ; wwy day of the canvass [ shall admit my pre- 
 ference for you, ami assign as good reasons as \ can for 
 
£12 GASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 this preference ; every day I shall defend yourself, Gov- 
 ernor Brown, Dr. Gvvin, and Mr. Thompson against 
 McNutt's assaults; every day I shall carry the war into 
 Africa, also with what force and skill I may possess; but 
 T tell you again, very solemnly, that if you persist in forc- 
 ing me into this painful and arduous struggle the proba- 
 bility is that L may myself be chosen Senator." As this 
 enterprise was pressed upon my attention, day after day, 
 and I may well say hour after hour, at length I concluded 
 to undertake it. And here occurs to me a sentence or two 
 from an interesting work that I have just read, which 
 runs thus: ,k Every lite as it unrolls has its turning-points, 
 its critical moments. Among these turning-points there 
 is often one that constitutes the crisfs of being. School, 
 college, busiuess, friendship, love, accidents, deaths, may 
 all prove such to us. Xone the less are our schemes, our 
 chances, or our mistakes and disappointments. There 
 comes also a great spiritual crisis to which ordinary life 
 is related, either as the preparation or the result." So it 
 seems to me now to have been with myself in this case. T 
 followed Governor McXutt from county to county 
 through the whole State of Mississippi, and met him be- 
 fore the people. Every day he assaulted, with the utmost 
 fierceness, Quitman, Brown, Thompson, Gwin, and their 
 prominent friends in the different parts of the State, de- 
 nouncing the gentlemen named as " Sleepies," who did 
 not dare to come out to meet him in open fight, but who 
 expected quietly to clutch the Senatorial prize at the end 
 of the conflict, tie every day compared himself to some 
 skillful snake-killer with his flail, striking about him 
 on all sides in the thick grass, with a hope of killing the 
 serpents that he knew to be nestling therein. Every day 
 did I defend these gentlemen and their absent friends 
 with what ability 1 possessed, and I had the better op- 
 portunity to do so in consequence of the fact that Mi-. 
 
(\SKKT OF KKMINISCKNCKS. 218 
 
 MeNutt constantly acknowledged me to be an excellenl 
 Democrat, with whom he wished to have no collision, 
 while he charged those who came under his chastising 
 scourge with being Whigs in disguise, or at least mere 
 pseudo-Democrats. Eie spoke every day about three 
 hours, and then retired precipitately from the rostrum and 
 the place of meeting, and moved on to the next appoint- 
 ment. Every day, so soon as he closed his long-winded 
 harangue, I spoke for about thirty minutes, and went on 
 in pursuit of him. We never interchanged a syllable dur- 
 ing the whole canvass. Sometimes we put up at the same 
 hotel, and occasionally were even lodged in the same room. 
 I suppose that we must have severally delivered at least 
 one hundred speeches. Governor MeNutt finally trans- 
 formed his accustomed speech into a dream or vision, as 
 he used to call it, which he took occasion to add to and 
 embellish with new incidents from day to day, until it 
 really became quite a ludicrous melange, and all at the ex- 
 pense of the " sleepy " candidates for the Senate. As he 
 poured forth mainly the same utterances on each succes- 
 sive occasion of speaking, the colored boy, William, who 
 drove my buggy, managed to get it by heart, and he re- 
 peated it with well-mimicked gestures and intonation to 
 large crowds, whom he never tailed to convulse with 
 laughter. 
 
 At last the struggle closed. Then it became evident to 
 all that MeNutt could not possibly be elected. The peo- 
 ple agreed with me that it was not proper to send him to 
 the United States Senate, as a reward for murdering his 
 own offspring — the Union Bank bonds. He had man- 
 aged so deeply to incense all the other candidates and 
 their friends by his continued abuse of them that they 
 would have preferred to aid in the election of any man 
 whatever in preference to this most persevering tormentor. 
 1 had attacked no one during the whole struggle save 
 
214 CASKET OF KEMJNISCENCES. 
 
 Mc^sutt himself. The result, therefore, was not at all to 
 be wondered at. When the Legislative Democratic cau- 
 cus met in ihe city of Jackson, in the succeeding Janu- 
 ary, MoNatt got on the first ballot twenty votes; (this 
 number was never increased on any succeeding ballot;) I 
 received eighteen votes; Quit man, Thompson, and Brown 
 each less than this number. Gwin had withdrawn be. 
 fore the balloting commenced. My number of votes was 
 increased on every fresh ballot, until at last I received 
 every Democratic vote in the Legislature save one. In a 
 few days thereafter I was chosen Senator in due form, and 
 removed to a field of action where I should rejoice to 
 know that my labors were at all beneficial to my country 
 and the cause of constitutional liberty. 
 
 This first attempt in Mississippi to obtain popular ap- 
 proval of the fearful dogma of repudiation was indeed 
 signally unsuccessful. But it is due to the truth of his- 
 tory to confess that the experiment thus essayed by Mr. 
 McNutt has been much more successful since when con- 
 ducted by more subtle and persevering ministers of mis- 
 chief, who in 1858 were able at last, under the counsel 
 and direction of Mr. Jefferson Davis, to impress upon 
 the once unstained escutcheon of a gallant and noble Com- 
 monwealth a blot of infamy that all the waters of ocean 
 can not wash away, and which it is not in the power of 
 all-consuming time itself completely to obliterate. 
 
 The wretched McNutt, always held to be unconquera- 
 ble before this memorable struggle, found it difficult to 
 bear up under a result which stood accompanied with cir- 
 cumstances so well calculated to gall his sensibilities and 
 mortify his pride. Had any man been elected save him 
 who had publicly divulged the contents of that confession 
 of Mercer Byrd the discredit reflected upon him would 
 not have been altogether so intolerable. He was exceed- 
 ingly indisposed for a few days, afterward got a little bet- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 2 I .S 
 
 ter, but was never the same confident and blustering dema- 
 gogue he had previously been. He died about two years 
 after, and the "ruling passion" being with him also 
 " strong in death,*' he talked politics to the last, calling out, 
 as I have been told, in his last moments, fin his favorite 
 newspaper, the Mississipian. 
 
 I have all the more readily consented to recite the par- 
 ticulars above set forth by reason of the fact that I have 
 thought that in the career of this remarkable man the 
 seeds of wholesome moral instruction might be discerned, 
 and that the disappointments which marked the latter 
 years of his life may have a. salutary influence on those 
 of the rising generation who shall choose to meditate upon 
 them. There are certain names which I hope will remain 
 forever imbedded in the recollection of our mercurial, but 
 high-minded, Southern people, as warnings against the ex- 
 ceeding unprofitableness of demagogism, and thefeaifn' 
 dangers which wait upon its prevalence. Tt is really to be 
 much desired, in my opinion, that the examples of Alex- 
 ander G. McNutt, of Jefferson Davis, and of Andrew 
 Johnson, with the self-destructive results of an unscrupu- 
 lous and all-grasping ambition, should he handed down to 
 the latest posterity. 
 
216 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XXII. 
 
 HON. ROBERT J. WALKER — OEORGE POIXDKXTER AND JACKSON'S 
 ADMINISTRATION — A WORTHY TRIBUTE TO W. W. CORCORAN. 
 
 I ought, perhaps, long since to have performed the task 
 upon which I am now entering. To no one outside of his 
 own family circle was the late Robert J. Walker better 
 known than to the author of the present reminiscence. 
 My first acquaintance with him was formed in the winter 
 of 1830-'31. He was then the most prominent member 
 of the bar in the city of Natchez, where he had been a 
 resident for some tour or five years. He was a native of 
 Pennsylvania, had graduated, as I have heard him say, 
 as a doctor of medicine anterior to his commencement ot 
 the study of law, and before he located in Mississippi he 
 had given much attention to the civil as well as to the 
 common law, and was said by those quite competent to 
 judge of this matter to be exceedingly well versed in both 
 these branches of the jurisprudential science. Mr. Walker 
 found, when he became established in Natchez, his amia- 
 ble and accomplished brother, Duncan Walker, in full 
 practice, and he had an opportunity afforded him at once 
 of appearing as an advocate in many cases of the greatest 
 magnitude and difficulty, and in the argument of these 
 soon became recognized as a lawyer of eminent learning 
 and ability. In a year or two after the opening of his 
 forensic career in Natchez three very distinguished mem- 
 bers of the bar of that city died: Mr. Griffith, Thomas B. 
 Reed, and Robert II. Adams. The two last became well 
 known as members of the National Senate. Mr. Reed 
 was a Iventuckian by birth, was a man of m m com u Hid- 
 ing person, and was undoubtedly a man of much ability 
 
GASKET OF REMINISCENCES. id 7 
 
 and learning, but he was not remarkable for brilliancy as 
 a speaker or for scholastic attainments. Robert II. Adams 
 was born in the county of Rockbridge and State of Vir- 
 ginia; he was a cooper by trade, and had worked at this 
 occupation for several years before commencing the study 
 of the law. lie located, in the days of his early manhood, 
 in the city of Knoxville, Tenn., where he very soon rose 1 
 to distinction. He afterward removed to the city of Nash- 
 ville, hut did not remain there long before he determined 
 to migrate to Natchez, where, in five or six years, lie 
 became recognized as a well-informed and industrious 
 barrister, and a bold, earnest, and energetic speaker. Mr. 
 Adams and Mr. Walker were very intimate friends, and 
 a year or two before the decease of the former these two 
 gentlemen had entered into an agreement to practice law 
 in partnership in the city of New Orleans, which they 
 were prevented from doing alone by Mr. Adams' sudden 
 and unexpected election to the United States Semite about 
 twelve months before his demise. 
 
 Previous to Mr. Walker's emigration from his native 
 State lie had gained some prominence as a politician, and 
 he claimed, no doubt rightfully, the credit of having made 
 the first speech in support of General Jackson for the 
 !> idency, some time during the year 1824. 
 
 adieu the dogma .of nullification was suddenly broached 
 by the politicians of South Carolina in 1832, Mr. Walker 
 came forth at once, in the public newspapers and elsewhere, 
 as the stern and uncompromising supporter of General 
 .Jackson's famous Union proclamation, and 1 remember 
 him then to have sent forth one of the ablest and most 
 eioquenl addresses in support of the cause which he had 
 espoused that \ have ever had an opportunity of reading. 
 When, afterward, the supporters of General Jackson's 
 administration in the State of Mississippi made up their 
 minds to do all that might lie in their power to defeat the 
 
218 CASKET OF REMINISCENCKS. 
 
 re-election to the National Senate of the celebrated Greorge 
 Poindexter, an opportunity was presented to Mr. Walker 
 of heading this important mo verm which lie did with 
 singular address and effective there are some curious 
 
 particulars connected with th -riod of the history of 
 
 Mississippi which many still surviving in that State, no 
 doubt, yet bear in vivid recollection. The enemies of the 
 Jackson administration tendered to Mr. Poindexter a 
 series of public banquets, at which he was expected to 
 address those who might attend in vindication of his own 
 course and in fierce assailment, both of General Jackson 
 and the measures of Government which he had at that 
 time recommended. One of these banquets was to be 
 spread in the village of Raymond, then and now the seat 
 of justice of the county of Hinds. Some of my political 
 friends had demanded ot me that 1 should attend at Ray- 
 mond on the day tixed for the entertainment mentioned, 
 and that L should at the close of Mr. Poindexter's address 
 proceed to respond thereto, at the court-house, which was 
 not far distant from the stand erected for the occupancy 
 of this personage. This I had consented to do, when 
 suddenly I received a letter from my friend, Mr. Walker, 
 calling my attention to a vevy spiteful and unjustifiable 
 attack made by Mr. Poindexter in the National Senate 
 upon his personal and political character, and urging me 
 at the same time to allow him to take my place on the 
 occasion just referred to as the answerer of Mr. Poindex- 
 ter's anticipated speech. To this application I promptly 
 acceded, and invited Mr. Walker to come up from Natchez 
 immediately for the purpose of performing this duty of 
 patriotism, and of aiding the friends of the Administra- 
 tion in the fierce and difficult political struggle which 
 was then before us. 
 
 When the day of conflict came, the Democrats of the 
 county attended in great numbers. Mr. Poindexter made 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 219 
 
 his expected speech, which was evidently very coldly 
 received by most of those present ; after which I ascended 
 a table not far distant from the stand from which he had 
 held forth, and announced 1 hat Robert J. Walker, of 
 Natchez, who was then present, would immediately reply 
 to the address just made, at the court-house, and invited 
 all in attendance to accompany me thither, which most of 
 them did. Mr. Walker, on being introduced to the crowd 
 assembled, rose and delivered one of the most powerful 
 political speeches I ever listened to, and I immediately 
 afterward offered a resolution inviting him to become a 
 Senatorial candidate in opposition to Mr. Poindexter, 
 which he consented to do This speech of Mr. Walker 
 was promptly published in every part of the State, and 
 produced a most marked effect everywhere. In a week 
 or two this gentleman commenced a regular canvass of 
 the State, and spoke to large audiences in almost ovary 
 county of Mississippi, receiving nearly everywhere the 
 niost decided tokens of popular approval. Almost av^vy 
 day he was assailed by some anti-Jackson speaker, and on 
 eveiw such occasion I defended him with such ability as 
 I possessed. The struggle was protracted, from various 
 causes, for nearly two years, when at last Mr. Poindexter 
 was defeated and Mr. Walker returned to the Senate in 
 his place. His career in this illustrious body was one of 
 great distinction, with the leading scenes of which the 
 whole country is familiar. His Senatorial speeches, pub- 
 lished at the time of their delivery in t he Congressional 
 Globe, were evincive of great ability and industry, and 
 would have done credit, as I think, to almost any man 
 that the country has produced. In legal learning, in 
 general literary attainments, in scholastic erudition, and 
 in a knowledge of all the more useful branches of science, 
 there were bul few of his cofemporaries who could have 
 safely stood comparison with him. He was a warm-hearted, 
 
220 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 truthful, and courageous gentleman, a tender and devoted 
 husband, a dutiful and respectful son, and a most affec- 
 tionate and pains-taking father. In friendship he was 
 disinterested, faithful, and self-sacrificing. In all the 
 duties of a high-toned and expanded patriotism no man 
 lias ever surpassed him. Man}' of the most pleasant days 
 of my past life were spent in social intercourse with him, 
 and it is exceedingly gratifying to me now to remember 
 that I never had the least reason either to distrust his 
 friendly regard for me or to question his perfect upright- 
 ness and honor. 
 
 Mr. Walker acquired a great and solid reputation as 
 Secretary of the Treasury during Mr. Polk's administra- 
 tion, and his management of the financial concerns of the 
 Republic during the interesting and trying period of the 
 Mexican war added greatly to his fame as n statesman, 
 and established in his favor a permanent claim to the 
 admiration and gratitude of his countrymen. 
 
 Mr. Walker participated vary conspicuously in all the 
 measures leading; to the recognition of Texas as an inde- 
 pendent State, and to her subsequent admission into the 
 Federal Union: and when the capital of the Mexican 
 Republic was in possession of our invading army, under 
 General Scott, he openly expressed the opinion that the 
 wisest policy which could then he adopted by our own 
 Government would be at once to issue a formal proclama- 
 tion of conquest, applicable to the whole Mexican domain, 
 to be speedily followed up by measures looking to the 
 opening of that attractive region to our own enterprising 
 countrymen, the establishment of post offices and post 
 roads, the introduction of railways, and the organization 
 of lines of telegraphic communication: l^y which means 
 lie insisted all Mexico would be in a few years completely 
 Americanized, and placed for the first time in her history 
 under the control of a sound and Stable government, and 
 
tj \skkt OF R-EMlNISOEKCBSi ±1\ 
 
 cease to be the theater of bloody and exhausting wars, 
 and the dismal abiding-place of civil disorder and social 
 anarchy. Mr. Walker's political sagacity and foresight 
 were sometimes displayed in a truly wonderful manner, 
 and, from my knowledge of his temper and general views, 
 [ have no hesitation in declaring the opinion that, were 
 he now living he would still be, as he ever was, an ardent 
 advocate for the extension, by all legitimate and lawful 
 means, of our admirable civil institutions over all North 
 America. Had his life been prolonged up to the present 
 moment he would, I am certain, have been among the 
 foremost in urging the early acquisition of Cuba, San 
 Domingo, .Jamaica, Porto Rico, and all the other islands 
 belonging to the West [ndia group and washed by the 
 waters of the Gulf of Mexico. He would, I doubt not, 
 have seen that the acquisition of these islands has been 
 rendered doubly desirable in the last few years by the 
 recent amendments of the Federal Constitution, since it is 
 most apparent that under the fostering protection of these 
 the colored inhabitants o\' that region would be given a 
 sure guarantee for the perpetual enjoyment of liberty and 
 a complete equality of civil rights, such as now so happily 
 exists in our own Republic. 
 
 Those who are familiar with the intimate relations of 
 various kinds subsisting for many years between Robert 
 J. Walker and another worthy citizen of this vicinage 
 will not feel any surprise at my here subjoining a very 
 brief notice of one whom L have more or less known for 
 the last fifty years, and for whose character, both public 
 and private, L have cherished a constantly-increasing 
 respect since the year 1817. [ do not fear being charged 
 with extravagance in any respectable quarter when T 
 declare that I know of no man now living upon this con- 
 tinent more deserving to be loved and respected as a wise 
 and munificent public benefactor, and as a humane and 
 
222 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES, 
 
 judicious bestower of charity, in the broadest and most 
 comprehensive meaning of that word, than our jet sur- 
 viving neighbor and fellow-citizen, William Wilson Cor- 
 coran. A purer, kinder, or more public-spirited man I 
 have never known ; and if all the great capitalists that 
 our country contains could but be persuaded to imitate 
 his noble example our Republic would soon become a 
 paradise, and the possession of wealth, so far from attract- 
 ing envy, as it is so often known to do, and begetting 
 enmity, would be thenceforth recognized, and justly, as 
 only the enjoyment of the high and sacred privilege of 
 doing good, of relieving the manifold distresses of human 
 kind, and of extending the happiness of our fellow crea- 
 tures wheresoever they may be found. This would confer 
 more real honor than all the titles of nobility that the 
 aristocrats of the world have been able to invent, and be 
 the source of more true glory than even the winners of 
 great battles have ever been able to achieve. 
 
 There is no danger that the generations of posterity 
 will forget the numerous but unostentatious charities 
 which the heart of Mr. Corcoran has prompted and his 
 sound and discriminating intellect has put in operation. 
 Numerous gifted pens, I am glad to know, have been 
 already occupied in the specification of his benefactions, 
 and in the delineation of his social and domestic virtues, 
 and there are solid and enduring monuments in our midst, 
 and in almost every corner of this District, which will 
 preserve his fame as a philanthropist and as a munificent 
 patron of the arts for a thousand generations to come. 
 So long ;is the national capital shall continue to stand as 
 a token of the power and glory of this unequaled Republic, 
 or the lordly Potomac be seen to wash the foot of that 
 beautiful hill which it occupies and adorns, will the warm- 
 hearted men and women of the land be heard to breathe 
 forth accents of praise and gratitude in honor of one to 
 
CASKET OF REMIMSOKNCt>. 22-i 
 
 whom, perhaps, with more justice might be applied than 
 
 to any other man now treading the soil of this continent , 
 the glowing and beautiful lines of the renowned moral 
 poet of England, who thus sung, nearly two centuries ago. 
 in praise of one of his own countrymen: 
 
 But all our praises why should lords engross? 
 
 liise, honest muse ! and sing "The Man'of Ross ! " 
 
 Pleased Vaga echoes through her winding hound-. 
 
 And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds. 
 
 Who hung with woods yon mountain's sultry brow? 
 
 From the dry rock who hade the waters flow? 
 
 Not to the skies in useless columns toss'd, 
 
 Or in proud tails magnificently lost, 
 
 But clear and artless pouring through the plain, 
 
 Health to the sick, and solace to the swain. 
 
 Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows? 
 
 Whose seats the weary traveler repose? 
 
 Who taught that heaven-directed spire to rise? 
 
 "The Man of Ross, " each lisping babe replies. 
 
 Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread ! 
 
 "The Man of Ross" divides the weekly bread ! 
 
 He feeds yon almshouse, neat, but void of state, 
 
 Where age mul want sit smiling at Ike gate: 
 
 Him, portioned maids, apprenticed orphans blessed, 
 
 The young who labor, and the old who rest. 
 
 Is any sick? "The Man of Ross " relieves, 
 
 Prescribes, attends, the med'eine makes and gives. 
 
 Is there a variance? enter but this door, 
 
 Baulked are the courts, and content is no more 
 
 Despairing quacks with curses fled the place 
 
 And vile attorneys, now a useless race. 
 
224 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XXIII. 
 
 GOVERNOR BROWNLOW — MR. BENJAMIN. 
 
 In the same desultory or " carptim " manner, as Sallus- 
 tius Crispns would call it, I proceed farther to notice the 
 men and things which have been heretofore present to my 
 experience. 
 
 There is an individual living in Knoxville, Tenn., 
 whom I have long and familiarly known. He and I have 
 never belonged to the same political party, and there are, 
 doubtless, many questions now more or less agitating 
 the public mind upon which we are not precisely in 
 harmony. But the mere ties of party I have never held 
 to be of equal dignity with the obligations ot moral duty, 
 and there has never been, and I trust there never will be, 
 a time when I shall take it for granted that, all who 
 ao-ree with me in political sentiment are necessarily honest 
 and patriotic, and those who do not thus agree with me 
 are knaves and enemies to the cause of freedom. [ have 
 lived long enough to find out that there are good and bad 
 men of all parties and of all sects of religion under the sun, 
 and that there are not two greater foes to virtue and the 
 general well-being of society than the prejudice engendered 
 by extreme political partisanship and the unreasoning 
 religious bigotry which damns without mercy all the 
 members of all Christian sects whatever who chance to 
 dissent either in regard to doctrinal principles or church 
 ceremonials from the particular denomination with which 
 they may have associated themselves. Et is currently as- 
 serted among certain rather superficial persons that the 
 existence of party dissensions in a republic like our own 
 is a sort of necessary evil. I have never so thought. 
 
OASKKl OP REMINISCENCES. 225 
 
 though I am quite aware that a number of causes may be 
 of power to produce soms contrariety of views upon 
 almost any question which could be mentioned. In such 
 a high condition of social culture as it is at least easy to 
 imagine, and in the absence of all those demoralizing in- 
 fluences which war of every kind is sure to call into 
 being, I have ever believed that though absolute uniform- 
 ity of sentiment is not to be confidently anticipated, yet 
 that everything in the form of an over-close party 
 organization, accompanied as it must ever be by the 
 blind and barbarizing antagonisms of faction— selfishly and 
 unscrupulously seeking the spoils of office, or to lay hold 
 upon the exterior symbols of political power in order to 
 the gratification of a low and huckstering ambition — 
 might as easily be avoided as many other mischiefs which 
 are known to vanish as society advances in refinement and 
 intelligence. I am yet to witness or to hear of the firs*" 
 signal party triumph that was not in the sequel marked 
 with gross abuses of power and with deeds of every de- 
 scription calculated to awaken feelings of horror and 
 disgust in upright and elevate 1 minds; and he has surely 
 read the pages of history with little profit; who is not 
 aware that all great and widely beneficial reforms in 
 government and laws have been brought about, not by 
 theexclusive instrumentality of any one political faction, 
 fervidly exultant over some recently-won party victory, 
 but by the cool and steady co-operation of liberal-minded 
 and enlightened patriots, who, without regard to existing 
 party designations, have been able to rise up for the time 
 above the delusory and fatal guidance of extreme party 
 zealotry, and the trickish subtleties of a low-bred, vulgar, 
 and mischief-spreading demagoguism. It was the sage 
 and brotherly union of highly-endowed patriotic tories 
 with persons of a similar moral stamp, previously recog- 
 nized as belonging to the Whig ranks, to which Eng- 
 15k 
 
'226 C \SKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 land is undeniably indebted for the civic revolution of 
 168S, the more recent repeal of the corn laws, for Catholic 
 emancipation, and for all the invaluable ameliorations 
 which have been effected in our own time in her criminal 
 code and in her rules of judicial procedure. So in our 
 own country, even our intelligent schoolboys know that 
 similar results were brought about hy almost precisely 
 similar means in 1819, in 1831, in 1850, and in 1861, or 
 rather between that noted year and the year 1865. How 
 how much in error, then, must those be who seek to per- 
 petuate enmities of a partisan cast for purposes altogether 
 distinct from the real w elfare of the Eepublic, or who 
 struggle to keep in existence the mere hull of a political 
 party after all the great ends of its original mission have 
 been fully accomplished, and when even its distinctive 
 corporate cognomen has become suggestive only of past 
 transactions, of a comparatively recent date, deeply dishon- 
 oring to all directly concerned therein, and little less dis- 
 creditable to those who have thoughtlessly yielded their 
 momentary countenance and support to these proceedings 
 while in process of enactment, and to their known projec- 
 tors or instigators. 
 
 These general remarks, which may seem at first to some 
 to be a little out of place here, will at least serve as an in- 
 troduction to what I have to say in reference to the 
 worthy citizen of my own State who has been already al- 
 luded to. 
 
 The Hon. William G. Brownlow is undoubtedly one of 
 the most marked and peculiar characters of the present 
 age. I speak of what I am sure I know perfectly when I 
 assert that there is not a man to lie found on the terra 
 Jirma of America more honest, more truthful, or kinder 
 hearted than the personage just mentioned. Little do 
 they know of the graces which adorn his character, or of 
 the generous qualities of his nature, who judge of him 
 
Casket of reminiscences. --21 
 
 alone by the terrible fill mi nations which sometimes are 
 
 seen to flash from his gifted and all-excoriating pen. He 
 is certainly the most potential castigator of impertinence 
 or tolly that the country now knows, and he who ventures 
 to assail him had far better ronse the fury of the fret- 
 ted porcupine. It is certain that all who are ambitions 
 'of having collision with him would act with commenda- 
 ble prudence, ere they do so, to put there own house in 
 order; for nothing is more certain than if they have left a 
 cranny open anywhere he will find it out and penetrate 
 it, and leave such marks of his destructive access as neither 
 time nor the circumstances of personal good fortune will 
 have power to obliterate. Mr. Brownlow is no longer a 
 speaker of speeches in the accustomed sense of that word ; 
 but what he writes of men and things is always read, and 
 he may be well said to possess in an eminent degree that 
 sort of eloquence which was attributed to one of old, who 
 was said "to leave stings in the minds of iiis hearers." 
 His mind is by nature vigorous, agile, and astute to a de- 
 gree unsurpassed by any of his cotemporaries. He well 
 understands the genus homo, both in the abstract and in the 
 concrete; yet lie is as tar from everything approaching to 
 misanthropy as any human being could possibly be. He 
 possesses, and in a form perfectly ready for immediate use, 
 the most particular and precise knowledge of the charac- 
 ter and history of every man of the least note in this 
 country that the last half century has brought to view. 
 He is, in as high a degree as any man I have at any time 
 known, an inflexible devotee to principle, though he is 
 not weak enough to pride himself upon having been abso- 
 lutely consistent in regard to mere trivialities, or of those 
 of a non-essential character. He has unquestionably com- 
 mitted errors, and these, when he has found them out, he 
 has been always both brave and honest enough to confess. 
 He is certainly ever true to the monitions of his own con- 
 
'12H casket oi? hkminisckS'oe&. 
 
 science, and he would therefore !>e indeed a harsh and 
 illiberal critic who would not make prompt allowance for 
 mistakes committed by such an individual. He was, 
 some years ago, one of the boldest and most powerful 
 champions and defenders that the slaveholding interest of 
 the South has ever yet boasted, and so he continued to be 
 as long as he regarded the attacks made upon that sys- 
 tem as instigated by a blind and unreasoning fanaticism, 
 or as originating in demagoguical ambition, seeking local 
 popularity and political advancement at the expense of 
 the peace and happiness of the Republic. When he after- 
 ward found the slaveholding system of the South seized 
 upon by the hare-brained fanatics of the sunny region in 
 which he himself resided, for the purpose of bursting 
 asunder the bonds of the Union and building up for the 
 benefit of a few designing aspirants a separate and inde- 
 pendent republic — soon to eventuate, if allowed to have 
 its natural progress, in an irresponsible military despo- 
 tism — he promptly armed himself for this new contest, 
 and eventually consented to the sacrifice of the system 
 which he had once so eloquently and heroically defended, 
 upon the altar of his country's tranquillity and repose. In 
 the early period of the recent struggle for the establish- 
 ment of a Southern Confederacy he was made the vic- 
 tim of lawless violence under the special inspiration of 
 the War Department at Richmond, in which the infamous 
 Judah P. Benjamin then presided. lie was ruthlessly 
 rorn from the society of his family, deprived of his liberty, 
 and subjected to all sorts of indignities on account of his 
 daring to give free and courteous expression to his opin- 
 ions as a lover of the Union and as a veritable self-devot- 
 ing patriot. Such was the cruel maltreatment which he 
 received that his physical constitution was completely 
 broken down, and his bodily health irretrievably ruined. 
 It is one of the most gratifying reminiscences of my life 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 2 W 21> 
 
 that, thoagh myself inveigled at the time in the Confed- 
 erate meshes, I openly and earnestly protested against this 
 unjust and ruffianly harrassment of one whom I greatly 
 loved and honored, despite our differences of opinion 
 touching 1 the matters then in progress, [t is almost equally 
 gratifying to me to know that when 1 was in a state of 
 constrained exile upon a foreign shore Mr. Brownlow's 
 most strenuous efforts in my behalf were made without 
 my solicitation, and even without my knowledge. I am 
 confident that no suffering Confederate in Tennessee ever 
 asked Mr. Browulow's kindly interposition in his own 
 behalf with the Government at Washington who was re- 
 fused it. I remember that in the very summer of my own 
 return home, that is to say, in 1865,1 drew up a petition, 
 addressed to the President of the United States, praying 
 the liberation of Jeff. Davis and Alexander Stephens from 
 imprisonment. I got it subscribed by a number of citi- 
 zens, and took it to Mr. Brownlow, then Governor of 
 Tennessee, for his signature. 
 
 He received me very graciously; said the question was 
 one of some delicacy and perplexity, and he would, with 
 my consent, take my petition under consideration for a 
 few days, in his own characteristic style saying: '* I shall 
 have to fast and pray over this application ; yes, Governor, 
 T shall have to fast and pray over it ! " If he did not su In- 
 scribe the paper at once, as E greatly wished him to do, no 
 one could convince me that his motives for refusing to do 
 so were otherwise than unright and patriotic. 
 
 Mr. Brownlow is no longer Governor of Tennessee. 
 While he was in that high and responsible office no one 
 ever ranked me among his political supporters; though L 
 should he ashamed to remember now that I have ever for 
 a moment distrusted his integrity or seriously called in 
 question his capacity. I can now say with absolute sin- 
 cerity what all Tennessee, I arusure, will one day acknowU 
 
230 CASKET OF REMipSCENCES. 
 
 edge, that the noble State which holds in her bosom the 
 ashes of a Jackson, a Polk, and a Bell, has seldom, if ever, 
 been blessed with an executive chief of greater ability 
 than Mr. Brownlow, and certainly with not a single one 
 more nnright and well-intentioned than himself. I regret 
 to have to say, in conclusion, that some startlingly cor- 
 rupt and profligate transactions recently reported to me 
 from the capital of Tennessee have constrained me pain- 
 fully to regret that some such an incorruptible and in- 
 domitable man as the much reviled William G. Brownlow 
 is not now at the governmental helm of that unfortunate 
 but time-honored Commonwealth, where organized rob- 
 bery, under the once venerated name of Democracy, has 
 been notoriously allowed to seat itself among the money 
 bags of the State treasury, in order to satiate, at leisure, 
 its rapacious maw with that which has been extracted 
 from the blood and sweat of an industrious, high-minded, 
 but too confiding people. 
 
 Some of mine ancient friends in Tennessee will now un- 
 derstand that of which I warned them two years ago, 
 when certain plausible, fair-spoken gentlemen about their 
 State Capitol were opposing so fiercely and uncivilly the 
 creation of a third party in Tennessee — to be composed of 
 the best materials of the two old ones— and perceive what 
 objects these ingenious gentlemen then had in view, and 
 will, I hope, guard against any similar attempt to deceive 
 them from the same quarter. Surely after- this astound- 
 ing development few citizens of Tennessee will continue 
 to doubt the imperious necessity there existing that old 
 and worn-out party names should be forever given up; 
 that the rotten and tottering organization still called 
 Democratic, but which really has not now one particle of 
 healthful and useful vitality, and which has been, by de- 
 ceitful specifics of various kinds, retained upon the arena 
 for the exclusive benefit of a few heartless and uncultured 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 281 
 
 demagogues, should be at once allowed to sink into the 
 grave which has been for full ten years yawning to receive 
 
 it; after which all the real friends of order and progress 
 may become, there as elsewhere, cordially united in an 
 effort to cicatrize all the wounds of the past, and to renew 
 those scenes of sweet tranquillity and brotherhood in 
 which our honored fathers, in the olden time, once so re- 
 joicingly participated. 
 
CASKET 0. REMfNISOENCES. 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XXIV. 
 
 THE CONFEDERATE CABINET JUDAH P. BENJAMIN'S CAREER 
 
 THE HAMPTON ROADS CONFERENCE AND THE MEETING AT THE 
 AFRICAN CHURCH. 
 
 [ have thiouojht it best to reserve certain particulars 
 specified in the present number for this perhaps last of the 
 reminiscences of the past which I shall now write. The 
 facts which will be narrated in the paragraphs which follow 
 have to some extent been alluded to before, but not fully 
 set forth. 
 
 I was not a little amused the other day at learning 
 from the lips of a very distinguished citizen of Maryland 
 that ex-Senator Wigfall, now, as I learn, a resident of the 
 neighboring city of Baltimore, is much in the habit of 
 saying that there are no two men living who could have 
 brought about the defeat of the Confederate cause save 
 Jeff. Davis and Judah P. Benjamin. Mr. Wigfall is un- 
 doubtedly himself a man of an active and vigorous intel- 
 lect, and of a singularly enterprising spirit, and it is but 
 due to him to say that, while occupying a seat in the Con 
 federate Senate, he manifested on many occasions a sterling 
 independence of character, and yielded a consistent support 
 of his own avowed principles, calculated to secure to him 
 the esteem and confidence of many who were themselves 
 very far from concurring in all his extreme political opiri- 
 ioi)3. That he placed a proper estimate upon Mr. Davis 
 and Mr. Benjamin 1 shall readily acknowledge: but 1 
 must be permitted to doubt whether any abilities or vir- 
 tues in the leaders nt' the Confederate movement would 
 have been sufficient to secure the object sought to be at 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 233 
 
 tained,and I tun very confident, for reasons already given 
 by me, that the most complete success of the rebellion 
 
 would have been signally ruinous and dishonoring to the 
 Southern States and people. E have no inclination to de- 
 scant further now upon this painful topic. The day is 
 very far distant, I am sure, when any such injudicious ex- 
 periment as the attempt to establish a separate Southern 
 republic will he again essayed; and the sad experience of 
 the past will be very likely to prevent those who have suf- 
 fered so grievousl) from the shortcomings arid gross dere- 
 lictions of Messrs. Davis, Benjamin, and their close ally, 
 Mr Hunter, of Virginia, from intrusting to three individ- 
 uals of precisely such attributes and qualifications as they 
 have heretofore exhibited the lead in any movement what- 
 ever of great national importance. 
 
 After all that has been heretofore published by me no 
 one, I am sure, will be at all surprised that almost as soon 
 as I reached Richmond, in the winter of 18'J2-'3, I felt 
 called upon to initiate a, struggle for the reformation of 
 Mr. Davis strangely-constituted Cabinet. Every honor- 
 able effort of which I was capable was made for the official 
 displacement of Mi-. Benjamin, Mr. Mallory, Mr. Seddon, 
 Mr. Memminger, and Mr. Northrop, the Confederate Com- 
 missary General. After a warm and long-continued strug- 
 gle Mr. Mallory was able to secure impunity at the hands 
 of Congress for his many malfeasances and almost in- 
 numerable blunders. Mr. Benjamin's renomination by 
 Mr. Davis for the Department of War was defeated in the 
 Confederate Senate, but this, as it chanced to turn out, 
 was only equivalent to "kicking him up stairs," as is 
 known to have been the case in a certain noted instance 
 in English history; for on Mr. Davis' nomination of him 
 afterward for Secretary of State the Confederate Senate 
 wa> persuaded to confirm him — mainly, as one may rea- 
 sonably conjecture, because of its being known that Mr. 
 
234 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Davis Deeded constantly the aid of a facile and polished 
 writer in the preparation of his messages and other im- 
 portant official documents. After an earnest and long- 
 continued effort I procured at last such a declaration from 
 the Honse of Representatives of want of confidence in Mr. 
 Memminger as compelled his special friends in that body 
 to engage for him that if I would not press my resolution 
 to a final vote he would resign immediately after theclpse 
 of the session of Congress then in progress. Mr. Seddon, 
 against whom I originated proceedings equally hostile, 
 was able to prolong his official life for some months by 
 reason alone of the shameful inaction of the special com- 
 mittee to whom my resolution of inquiry in his ease had 
 been referred to report the deeply dishonoring facts which 
 had been fully established against him. But his official 
 head at last underwent the process of amputation with 
 something like universal consent. Mr. Northrop, being a 
 special favorite of Mr. Davis, was able to hang on yet a 
 little longer before Congress at last united in demanding 
 his removal. Benjamin remained in the Department of 
 State practicing every sort of enormity up to the moment 
 of Mr. Davis* noted hegira from Richmond, and then these 
 two great State culprits fled together, leaving orders be- 
 hind them for the immediate burning of Richmond. 
 
 Before this occurrence, though, as has been already 
 heretofore mentioned, the two houses of the Confederate 
 Congress, having at last become thoroughly satisfied of 
 Mr. Davis" utter incompetency, had demanded in form 
 that he should at once surrender all control of the armies 
 of the Confederacy into the hands of that upright and 
 able commander General Robert E. Lee, to which official 
 degradation Mr. Davis, though manifesting at the same 
 time the greatest reluctance, was absolutely compelled to 
 submit. 
 
 About ten or twelve days before this last transaction I 
 
CASKET <)F REMINISCENCES. 285 
 
 left Richmond; not, though, before making every possible 
 effort to get Congress to adopt a resolution advising Mr. 
 Davis to make peace with the Government at Washing- 
 ton upon the very just and liberal terms which it was 
 well known to us that President Lincoln was then willing 
 to accord. 
 
 I will pause in the recital which has been commenced 
 for a moment or two only, in order to put on record here 
 in a more particular manner certain matters in reference 
 to which posterity will be likely to feel a little curious. 
 Mr. Benjamin has been already more or less referred to in 
 terms of merited reprobation; but there are well-known 
 facts in this man's history which should have always pre- 
 cluded him from official employment, even of the lowest 
 grade. He undeniably disgraced himself in a notorious 
 case of meum and tuuni, causa pecunice, before he lefl col- 
 lege. His whole career in Louisiana had been hideously 
 marked with dishonesty and corruption. I Lis known 
 participancy in the famous Houmas fraud, while a mem- 
 ber of the United States Senate, by which Air. Slidell and 
 other associates in wickedness by a shameful act of legis- 
 lative legerdemain on the last night of a session "of Con- 
 gress, got passed through both houses of the National 
 Legislature an amendment to a bill there pending, (the 
 effect of which, bad it not been afterward set aside by the 
 action of Congress during the early days of its next ses- 
 sion, would have been to deprive several hundred citizens 
 of Louisiana of their cherished homes,) was fully exposed 
 at the time in the columns of the National Intelligencer by 
 thai intelligent and upright gentleman, the Hon. Henry 
 Johnson, and therefore needs no further explanation here. 
 This man Benjamin was notoriously occupied almost 
 every night during his stay in Richmond in betting at 
 faro, and on several occasions while thus disreputably en- 
 gaged is reported to have owed his escape from the vigi- 
 
23 '6 CASK E T F R MINIS C E N CBS . 
 
 lahce of the officers of the law alone to his prompt dex- 
 terity in leaping from the back-doors of the gambling-- 
 hells, where he was thus seeking the recreation of his 
 faculties. These, with many other particulars or a simi- 
 lar stamp, were openly depictured by me in the legislative 
 body of which I was a member : in proof of which I shall 
 venture to insert an extract here from iv Pollard's First 
 Year of the War,"" which, though it may be justly thought 
 to commend me far beyond my merits, will supply evi- 
 dence that what I am now saying about the official mal- 
 conduct of the person to whom 1 have been alluding is 
 not now for the first time uttered by me. These are the 
 words of Mr. Pollard : 
 
 There was bur little opposition in Congress to President Davis, bnt 
 there was some which took the direction of his Cabinet, and this oppo- 
 sition was represented by Mr. Foote, of Tennessee — a man of acknowl- 
 edged ability and many virtues of character, who had re-entered upon 
 the political stage after a public life which, however much it lacked in 
 the cheap merit of political consistency, had been adorned by displays 
 of wonderful intellect and great political genius. Mr. Foote was not a 
 man to be deterred from -peaking the truth ; his quickness to resent- 
 ment and his chivalry, which, somewhat Quixotic, was founded in the 
 most noble and delicate sense of honor, made those who would have 
 bullied or silenced a weaker person stand in awe of him. A man of 
 such temper was not likely to stint words in assailing an opponent, and 
 his sharp declamation in Congress, hi> searching comment-, and hi- 
 great powers of sarcasm, used upon such men a- Mallory. Benjamin. 
 ;ind linger, were the only relief of the dullness of the Congress, and. 
 the only historical feature* of ii- debates. 
 
 I do not wish now to expatiate upon this nauseating 
 theme; but, in order to present Mr. Benjamin in the 
 fiendish character which lie so consistently sustained dur- 
 ing the whole course of the rebellion. I shall here insert 
 part of a well-known order whieh emanated from him as 
 Secretary of War on the 25th of November. 1861, ad- 
 dressed to Colonel \V. 13. Wood: 
 
 Siu: Your report of the 20th instant is received, and I now proceed 
 
(j AS k ET i- K E M I N I SC E \ ( ! Eg. Z6 i 
 
 tp give you the desired instruction in relation to the prisoners of war 
 taken by you among the traitors of East Tennessee : 
 
 First. Ulsuch as can be identified in having been engaged in bridge- 
 burning are to be tried summarily by drum-head court-martial, and if 
 found guilty, executed on flu- spol by hanging. // n-<,ul I be well to 
 hare I heir bodies hanging in ///(■ vicinity of the burned bridges, &c. 
 
 This infernal act of Mr. Benjamin needs no comment, 
 lie is a man of undoubted ability and learning. Mis voice 
 is as dulcet anc[ mellifluous as that of the nightingale. 
 lie wears almost perpetually upon his visage a smile as 
 bland and insinuating as that which may be supposed to 
 have sat upon the face of .Judas Iscariot when he was be- 
 traying the Saviour of the world with a kiss. After per- 
 petrating his heartless schemes of mischief he is repre- 
 sented by those familiar with his secret hours of relaxation 
 to have been repeatedly heard to chuckle like Qnilp in 
 the " Old Curiosity Shop, !' as delineated by the graphic 
 pen of Dickens, over similar achievements ; and the de- 
 scription of his grotesque person is, by reason of the some- 
 what dw'arrish yet bulky frame attributed to him, amus- 
 ingly applicable to the late Secretary of State of the so- 
 ealled Confederate States of America. 
 
 Now, as this man had the fortune to be such a special 
 favorite of Messrs. Davis and Hunter as to have been se- 
 lected by his cunning co-plotters in mischief to make the 
 opening speech to the crowd assembled at the African. 
 Church in Richmond for the purpose of being edih'od 
 touching the somber mysteries of the famed Hampton 
 Roads negotiation, it has been thought not amiss to let 
 the world know who and what he has heretofore been in 
 this world of sorrow uud care. 
 
 At this same meeting .VI r. Hunter is reported to have 
 [(resided, lie did not, as we are told, himself address the 
 assemblage. This would not at all have suited the pur- 
 pose desired to he accomplished. Had he done so he 
 would have been compelled \)\ the natural curiosity of 
 
2&8 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 those in attendance to answer sundry questions relating 
 to what had actually occurred at Hampton Roads, which 
 would have imposed upon him the necessity of revealing 
 all that he knew, or of telling a downright falsehood. 
 For neither of these was he quite prepared ; he preferred 
 the device so well known to trickish political demagogues 
 under the name of suppressio veri. It was announced 
 from the chair, as I learn, that no one would be expected 
 to speak on this occasion but those whose names would 
 be called in succession by the moderator of the meeting. 
 Mr. Benjamin now came forward, and made the most 
 guileful and plausible address which he was capable of 
 providing, in which those present were told, in most hon- 
 eyed and pathetic accents, that Mr. Davis was solicitous, 
 above all living men, for peace, and that with a view to 
 attaining this object he had dispatched three commission- 
 ers to meet Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward, one of whom, 
 he said, was Mr. Stephens, of Georgia, who, being known 
 by Mr. Davis to entertain the opinion that a just and hon- 
 orable peace was attainable, had been given a place on 
 the commission, in order that a fair experiment on this 
 subject should l>e made: but alas ! alas! and again alas! 
 Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward had been both found to be 
 inflexibly bent upon the prosecution of the war, and had 
 fiercely demanded of the Confederates States and people 
 an unconditional submission. Whether he shed tears on 
 this occasion over the cruel disappointment of Mr. Davis' 
 ardently-cherished wishes for peace I am not precisely in- 
 formed. After this siren song of Mr. Benjamin laid been 
 thus winningly sung, it was easy for Mr. Davis himself 
 to come forward and declare that since they were now 
 forced to choose between unconditional submission and a 
 continued prosecution of the war, he was decidedly for the 
 latter; and to get those whom he addressed, and who 
 were kept in absolute ignorance of the real facts that had 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 239 
 
 just been taking place on the steamer in Hampton Roads, 
 
 to adopt the bold and sanguinary resolutions which were 
 now presented for their consideration. 
 
 During- the three or four hours which were spent at the 
 African Church not a word was spoken by any one touch- 
 ing Mr. Lincoln's amiable and conciliatory demeanor at 
 Hampton Roads ; not a word about the four hundred mil- 
 lions which had been virtually tendered the slaveholding 
 peopl e of the South as a recompense for the slaves they 
 had lost; not a word was said about the magnanimous 
 offer of amnesty to the whole people of the South ; not a 
 word in reference to the manly explanation given of Mr. 
 Lincoln's proclamation of freedom to the colored population 
 of the South, favorable, as was that explanation, to the slave- 
 holding people of the South. Mr. Stephens, when he wrote 
 his famous book on the war, deemed it necessary to state 
 the facts just referred to at great length ; why did not Mr. 
 Hunter, as chairman of this Richmond meeting, do the 
 same thing? Why did not Mr. Davis make, at that time, 
 an exposition of the whole truth of the case to those who 
 had flocked to the African Church in order to learn the 
 exact condition of public affairs, and ascertain what 
 chance yet existed of the early termination of this wast- 
 ing and bloody conflict? Why were not Judge Campbell 
 and Mr. Stephens invited to state in the hearing of those 
 who had convened all that Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward 
 had said and done at the Hampton Roads? Why was it 
 not stated,' as Mr. Stephens has done in his book, what a 
 noble and magnanimous desire General Grant had ex- 
 hibited for peace without any more shedding of fraternal 
 blood, and of the disappointment and chagrin he had evi_ 
 denced at hearing that the negotiations for peace had 
 failed? Why were not all these important particulars 
 frankly disclosed to the Confederate Congress? Why 
 were not the citizens of the South, whether in the army 
 
240 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 or at their own homes, allowed to know what a golden 
 opportunity was now open to them of being restored once 
 more to the ineffable blessings of peace and to the pater- 
 nal protection of the noble Government upon which they 
 had been in an evii hour persuaded to commence so cause- 
 less and unprovoked a war ? 
 
 It will not do for these gigantic wrong-doers to plead 
 now in their defense that Mr. Lincoln made to the Con- 
 federate commissioners no formal tender of peace. This, 
 of course, it was impossible to do without impliedly recog- 
 nizing the independence of the Southern States, which it 
 was altogether out of Mr. Lincoln's power to grant had 
 he been ever so much disposed to do so. I insist, as I 
 have always insisted. and asall men of intelligence every- 
 where will be soon found to admit, that the artful, secre- 
 tive, and perfidious conduct of Mr. Davis, Mr. Hunter, 
 and Mr. Benjamin, in concealing from the people of the 
 generous and patriotic South the liberal and humane offers 
 of President Lincoln at Hampton Roads, is one of the 
 most unpardonable instances of public malefaction and 
 treachery that has ever stained the history of nations. 
 Nothing can now atone for it, and no excuses which can 
 he offered will be of power to assuage the rising indigna- 
 tion, of a cruelly mistreated people. Not a drop of hlood 
 was afterward shed in this terrible war for which Messrs. 
 Davis, Hunter, and Benjamin are not clearly responsible. 
 All the evils which the unhappy South has since experi- 
 enced are attributable to these monstrous public criminals 
 alone, and the day will come when the language which I 
 am now using on this subject, harsh as it may seem to 
 some over-fastidious ears, will be everywhere regarded as 
 singularly marked with moderation and forbearance. 
 
 Knowing Mr. Davis and the clique of which lie was the 
 head so well, I plainly perceived when I left Richmond 
 what course of deception and fraud they would he sure to 
 
Casket of reminiscences. 241 
 
 pursue when driven by public sentiment to make some 
 ostensible effort for peace. I did not at all doubt that 
 they would avow themselves to be for pesace, could one be 
 obtained on honorable terms; but to a peace on the basis 
 Of a restoration of the Union they were invincibly op- 
 posed. This would have robbed them of their ill-gotten 
 power; this would have consigned them to political dis- 
 credit ; this would have defeated the scheme of founding 
 a new empire on American soil, with Jefferson Davis as 
 its brilliant Executive Chief Imperial. The longer con- 
 tinuance of the war could do Mr. Davis and Mr. Benjamin 
 no harm, as those gentlemen well knew that, no matter 
 how disastrous this conflict might prove to others, they at 
 least would be safe from injury by reason of their having 
 a large sum of money waiting for them in Liverpool, 
 which they coijld seize upon and appropriate to their own 
 use in case the Southern people should be whipped into 
 submission. It was fully understood when they tied from 
 Richmond that Mr. Benjamin should traverse the ocean 
 as quickly as he could, in order to clutch this fund for 
 future division between himself and his recognized lord 
 and master. The journey to England by Mr. Benjamin, 
 and by Mr. Davis also in due time, upon this grand fiscal 
 expedition, many persons in Richmond know well that I 
 openly prophesied at least six months before it occurred. 
 
 Entertaining such views as these, I set out from Rich- 
 mond in the cold and freezing month of January, 1865, 
 in the direction of Washington city, in order to see 
 whether the Government authorities there would not be 
 willing to grant peace to the South on such terms as I 
 would not be ashamed to propose to my countrymen of 
 that region and urge upon their acceptance. Had I suc- 
 ceeded in my mission I should have borne these terms 
 back to Richmond, arid have boldly made them known to 
 the people there resident and to the Confederate Congress. 
 16r 
 
24l> CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 I designed to lay this grave matter before the people 
 throughout the Confederate States, and to obtain, if I 
 could, their prompt concurrence. A number of promi- 
 nent and influential members of the Confederate Congress 
 knew well what sort of a mission I was about to under- 
 take, and encouraged me warmly toward its prosecution. 
 Four worthy colleagues of mine in Congress from Tennes- 
 see were consulted, and evinced the deepest interest in the 
 success of my experiment. I had no favor to ask of the 
 Government at Washington in behalf of myself or my 
 particular friends. I contemplated making no revelation 
 of Confederate secrets. I was engaged in an effort for 
 peace and the restoration of the Union alone. 
 
 A more harassing and disagreeable trip than that which 
 T performed from Richmond to Lovettsville, near Har- 
 per's Ferry, it would be difficult to imagine. I traversed 
 a portion of the intermediate country by railway and on 
 horseback, and I walked many miles on foot through a 
 deep snow, and in weather as cold as I have ever felt. 
 
 I found, on my arrival at Lovettsville, Brigadier Gene- 
 ral Deven. of the United States army, in command there, 
 to whom I surrendered myself, and told him the object of 
 my coming. He treated me with marked courtesy and 
 kindness, and allowed me to open a correspondence with 
 the authorities in Washington, which correspondence was 
 published in full eight years since, and is, therefore, un- 
 necessary to be here repeated at length. 
 
 It is sufficient to say that the pacific mission which L 
 had assumed was a total failure, mainly, I have reason 
 to believe, because President Lincoln and Mr. Seward 
 had been persuaded to anticipate a successful issue of the 
 Hampton Roads negotiations. The following short ox- 
 tracts from my letter to Mr. Seward from Lovettsville, 
 will, perhaps, be read with more or less interest by some : 
 
 "I now have the honor to say for myself am] foralarge number of the 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 243 
 
 most weighty and influential statesmen that the South contains, and, 
 as I have good reason to believe, in accordance also with the wishes of 
 :i very large majority of the sovereign people of the Southern States, 
 whether in or out of the Confederate armies, thai we, conservatives of 
 tlie South, are ready and anxious to enter once more into fraterna] 
 union with our fellow-citizens of the North ; that we are resolved, if an 
 opportunity of doing so honorably shall be afforded us. to withdraw 
 at <>nee from all political connection with the government now located 
 in the city of Richmond, and to place ourselves once more under the 
 protection of the flag of our fathers. 
 
 "No one knows better tha 1 do that no such pacification asthaf which 
 I now propose can come from Mr. Davis. His official position and his 
 devotion to his own selfish schemes of individual aggrandizement alike 
 forbid it. But let President Lincoln issue a formal proclamation, ad- 
 dressed to the people of the Confederate 'Stairs, offering them complete 
 wnnesty for the past, and a full restoration of the constitutional rights 
 which they formerly enjoyed, and they will immediately hold conven- 
 tions in all the said States, and vote themselves back into the Federal 
 Union, call home their troops, and leave Mr. Davis to enjoy, in such 
 manner as he may.be able to do, the despotism which he has estab- 
 lished, together with such foreign protection for himself and his ignoble 
 projects as it may he in his power to secure. 
 
 ******** 
 
 " In conclusion, I have to declare that if, as I have never heretofore 
 believed, but as has been diligently inculcated by certain persons in the 
 South, subjugation, instead of paternal,paciflcation, is intended by those 
 who now bear rule in Washington city. I shall have to ask that — pro- 
 vided always you do not desire to try me as a criminal offender, an 
 ordeal not altogether unanticipated by me, and from which I shall 
 assuredly not shrink — you will be kind enough to send me such a pass- 
 port as will enable me to go to some foreign country without delay, 
 being utterly unwilling to witness the unimaginable horrors of which 
 the present year of this most unnatural and impolitic war can not but 
 he productive." 
 
 It being concluded at Washington not to negotiate fur- 
 ther with me unless I would reveal the names of my nsso- 
 ciates, I declined to do so. and was given written leave to 
 go abroad, which I determined to do in the first ocean 
 steamer which might set out for Liverpool. 
 
 During my further stay in New York Mr. Seward, for 
 some reason nol precisely known bo mo, directed that I 
 
244 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 should be kept in prison, where I remained until the day 
 of my departure for England, when I was escorted by a. 
 military officer to the steamship in which I was to em- 
 hark, and took my leave of my native land with much 
 sorrow and chagrin, intending to return, if I could, in two 
 months, by which time I felt confident the war would 
 have drawn to an end. 
 
 The voyage to Liverpool was performed in eleven days. 
 T proceeded thence to London, to Paris, to Lyons, to 
 Turin, Pavia, Bologna, Florence ; and, of course, I called at 
 all the intermediate points. From Florence I set out for 
 Leghorn, where I took a steamer for Xaples,and after visit- 
 ing Pompeii and other places of note in that vicinage, 1 
 proceeded to Rome by land, thence to Oivita Vecchia by 
 railway, thence to Leghorn by stage-coach, from which 
 latter place I set out for Marseilles by water. On arriv- 
 ing there I proceeded to Paris by railway, thence to Lon- 
 don again, thence to Liverpool, and set sail from that city 
 tor New York, which I reached in less than seven weeks 
 from the time that I had set sail from that place to Liver- 
 pool, .lust as I entered the port of New York the news 
 of General Lee's surrender was received, and I became' 
 anxious to go South, in order to aid in reconciling my 
 countrymen there to the results of the war. But Mr. 
 Seward not deeming; this to be desirable I was ag*ain cast 
 into prison for a week or two. President Lincoln, as I am 
 assured, was about to order my release when the hand of 
 the assassin consigned him to the tomb ! After Mr. John- 
 son's accession to power, through the zealous instrumen- 
 tality of several valued friends, I was allowed once more 
 to breathe the fresh air of heaven, but held under obliga- 
 tion to report at the headquarters of General Dix from 
 time to time, and. not on any account to go south of New 
 York ; from which I conjecture that I must have been 
 viewed b} r those then in power at Washington as a par- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 245 
 
 feicularly combative and dangerous person. Under these 
 circumstances I asked to be allowed to visit my children 
 and grandchildren on the Pacific coast; in response to 
 which application I was peremptorily ordered to leave the 
 United States on pain of being again thrown into confine- 
 ment. Without delay I proceeded to Montreal, in Can- 
 ada, where, for several months, I was the recipient of the 
 kindest hospitality at the hands of the intelligent and re- 
 fined population of that city. I was so much pleased with 
 Montreal that, despairing of being permitted within a 
 reasonable period of time to return to my own home in 
 Tennessee, I was proceeding to make arrangements for a 
 permanent residence in Canada when an event occurred 
 which unexpectedly procured me permission to return to 
 Nashville. One morning, in front of the principal hotel 
 in Montreal, some seven or eight persons, chiefly Confed- 
 erate refugees, announced to me their intention to pull 
 down the flag of the United States from the roof of the 
 building occupied by the American Consulate. I remon- 
 strated warmly against a movement so indecent and ruf- 
 fianly, and told them that if they persisted in the execu- 
 tion of this disgraceful project I would, in connection with 
 other citizens of the United States then in the neighbor- 
 hood, whose aid I could easily obtain, defend the flag of 
 our fathers at the hazard of my life ; stating that the war 
 was now over, and it behooved those of us who had been 
 seduced into rebellion to return as promptly as possible to 
 the pathway of patriotic duty. No more was heard of 
 this insane scheme. 
 
 A few days after this, Major Potter, the high-toned and 
 eliivalrous Consul General of the United States, called on 
 me at my boarding-house, expressed the high gratifica- 
 tion which my conduct on the occasion just mentioned 
 had given him, and told me that in consideration thereof 
 he had himself demanded from the Washington authori- 
 
246 CASKET of REMINISCENCES. 
 
 ties permission for my return to the bosom of my family 
 in Tennessee. In a day or two more I was journeying 
 toward the loved South, on reaching which I commenced 
 the most earnest efforts for the reconcilement of my un- 
 happily-estranged countrymen to each other, which efforts 
 have been unremittingly continued, as many thousands 
 well know, up to the present moment. 
 
 There are three circumstances upon which I shall ever 
 be disposed to congratulate myself; the first of these is 
 that I had no hand whatever in bringing on the war of 
 the rebellion ; the second is, that I have never possessed 
 the sympathy or confidence of the ultra-secession leaders 
 of the South and their slavish satellites; and the third is, 
 that I do not owe my restoration to the enjoyment of 
 civic rights to Andrew Johnson, but to the generous and 
 magnanimous action of the National Legislature; in 
 grateful return for which I pledge myself never again to 
 be persuaded to the assumption of a hostile attitude 
 against the noblest Government that the world has yet 
 seen, and to do all in my power, so long as 1113' life shall 
 be continued, to secure the return of universal peace, 
 amity, and true brotherhood among all classes of our peo- 
 ple and between the various sections of the Union, under 
 the Constitution as it is, and the laws made in conformity 
 thereto. 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 247 
 
 REMINJSCENOH No. XXV. 
 
 LYNCH LAW — VIGILANCE COMMITTEES IN THE SOUTH — HANG- 
 [NG OF NEGROES AND WHITES — THRILLING AND STARTLING 
 
 SCENES. 
 
 I shall soon be forced by the pressure of other affairs to 
 Bupend these Reminiscences for the present. Perhaps I 
 may never resume them again. They have been received 
 by good men and true of all parties with indications of 
 warm approval, as unexpected as they have been gratify- 
 ing. I have uttered not a syllable, in any of them, in the 
 interests of party or faction. I have lauded no one whom I 
 did not sincerely believe to deserve commendation. I 
 have stated objections to no one which I did not perfectly 
 know that I could incontrovertibly sustain by evidence. 
 It has been far from my expectation or desire to propitiate 
 the hirelings of faction, or to call forth the praises of those 
 whose minds know not how to give up errors once cher- 
 ished, or to receive tire pure teachings of truth, however 
 bitter and unsavory. To have received the praises of all 
 such as I have just mentioned would have deeply wounded 
 my own sense of personal self-respect, and have filled my 
 memory with the rankling thorns of remorse. Persons of 
 extreme views and of unassuageable prejudices, whether 
 resulting from ancient party collisions or from sectional 
 jealousy, I have not been desirous of enrolling upon the 
 list of my friends and approvers. With individuals of 
 this sort I have already waged a war longer than the an- 
 cient Peloponnesian struggle, nor have I ever desired to 
 be reconciled to any class of them at the expense of rea- 
 son and justice, and my country's welfare. I have re- 
 coiled from the discussion of no question however delicate 
 
24^ CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 the examination of which seemed to promise any consider- 
 ate public advantage. I have spared no bad man from 
 the lash of deserved reprehension, of whose crimes I felt 
 I had adequate assurance. Nor have I failed to hold up 
 the torch of ridicule for the exposition of the weaknesses 
 or derelictions of such men as I judged to be possessed of 
 tame and influence likely to stand in the way of my eoun- 
 try's repose and happiness, and of the essential principles 
 of progress needful to be welcomed and upheld upon the 
 natal soil of Washington, of Franklin, and of Jackson. 
 My earnest ambition has been, by all judicious and allow- 
 able means, to promote the sentiments of good-will, of 
 friendship, and of true brotherhood among all classes of 
 my fellow-citizens of whatever political antecedents, ami 
 of wdiatever complexion or lineage. The union of all who 
 truly love their country, for the sake of the Union founded 
 by Washington and his compeers, is a maxim which I am 
 neither ashamed to own nor to put in practice. The affec- 
 tionate and perpetual affiliation of all patriots and honest 
 men against all narrow-minded and plotting factionists 
 and all who love either gold or the perishable trappings 
 of official splendor and dignity more than they do the 
 priceless honor of this grand and noble Republic, its Con- 
 stitution and laws, its high examples of public virtue, and 
 all else that appertains to national honor and happiness, 
 is another maxim which is to my mind and heart alike 
 sacred aud dear. The past of my own humble career, 
 whatever it may have been, is beyond amelioration; for 
 the period of my earthly being which lies before me in the 
 future I have neither any over-anxious fears nor over- 
 hopeful anticipations. 
 
 There is now one very important subject remaining in 
 regard to which I desire to be heard as a, Reminiscent of 
 the past. It is one eminently momentous in its bearings 
 and well worthy of the sober and dispassionate, considera- 
 
CASKET OF RKMINISOENOES. 249 
 
 Hon of all who employ the powers of thought for purposes 
 of practical edification, and who are accustomed to treasure 
 
 up the varied lessons of experience for the promotion of 
 the real felicity of individual man and of all self-governing 
 peoples. 
 
 All who have ever duly meditated the actual uses of 
 civil government must have found out that no govern- 
 ment can be advantageous to those who live under it, or 
 worthy of the least respect anywhere, that is not both capa- 
 ble of enacting wise and wholesome laws and of enforcing 
 them among all elasses of those for the regulation of 
 whose municipal conduct they may have been provided; 
 and it may also be asserted with safety that the organiza- 
 tion of all social communities must be defective in some of 
 the essential principles of corporate vitality in which any 
 class of the people is allowed to set the laws at defiance, 
 to tyrannize politically over other classes, or to employ 
 the needful machinery of government itself for the purpose 
 of enriching the few at the expense of the many. Domes- 
 tic tranquillity, that most desirable of all municipal bless. 
 ings, can never be effectually secured where injustice and 
 oppression of any kind are systematically tolerated and up- 
 held; the oppressed and persecuted will, under the irresis- 
 tible promptings of self-love and the desire of self-preserva- 
 ation, be naturally inclined to rise up against those who 
 hold them in subjection ; and if the number of the wronged 
 be sufficiently large to make them at all formidable, a sense 
 of insecurity will find its way into the bosoms of the ruling 
 classes themselves, and render them continually subject to 
 groundless and fanciful alarms and apprehensions lest some 
 sudden movement of revolt should be attempted under the 
 leadership of a William Tell or a Spartacus, which must re- 
 sult either in the downfall of tyranny itself, or in the bloody 
 through transient avengenient of long-continued wrong. 
 
 The history of Sparta, and the scenes of collision which 
 
2-50 CASKET of REMINISCENCES. 
 
 so often marked with blood the repeated risings of the 
 Helotes against their masters, as well as the celebrated 
 servile insurrection in Italy already alluded to, in which 
 several well-organized Roman armies were overthrown by 
 the gladiatorial bands and the numerous white slaves 
 whom they seduced into armed affiliation with them — 
 during which even the Roman capital itself was for a 
 short time in the hands of the revolted forces, supply the 
 fullest illustration of the truth of the several propositions 
 above stated. Let no unjust and overbearing class any- 
 where, either in the British Isles, in France, in Spain, or 
 Italy, or in our own country either, expect to secure its 
 own permanent repose and happiness save by the meting 
 out full justice to all reasonable human creatures who 
 live within the limits of governmental control; for let it 
 ever be borne in mind that even they who war 
 
 With their own hopes and have been vanquished, hoar 
 Silence, but not submission ; in bis lair 
 Fixed Passion holds his breath until the hour 
 Which shall atone for years. None need despair : 
 It came, it cometh, and will come— the power 
 To punish or forgive — in one we shall be slower. 
 
 Lt lias been nearly a half century since the celebrated 
 Southampton negro insurrection occurred in the State of 
 Virginia, and many are yet living who remember well how 
 greatly the whole public mind of the Sou*h was shocked by 
 the bloody and revolting scenes with which that tragic 
 affair was attended. Before the painful sensations awak- \ 
 ened by it had well subsided the celebrated book of Stew- 
 art made its appearance, which in a very ingenious and 
 plausible manner delineated a scheme for the wide-spread 
 insurrection of the slaves of the South, which scheme he 
 asserted had been matured in the enterprising brain of the 
 celebrated John Murrell, of Tennessee, who, having asso- 
 ciated with himself a number of men of his own stamp, 
 scattered through the Mississippi valley, including the 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 251 
 
 noted Alonzo Phelps, and the whole body of Thompson 
 tan doctors, was, upon a day agreed upon, to inaugurate a 
 Bftovement which would soon result in such scenes of 
 bloodshed and devastation as no country cither in ancient 
 or in modern times has experienced. I knew Stewart 
 well ; he was one of the most sagacious and insinuating 
 persons I ever met. He traveled extensively through 
 Mississippi and several adjoining States, and sold many 
 thousands of his fearfully exciting and inflammatory hook. 
 In some places he received high public honors; large pop 
 alar assemblages were convened to do him honor, and 
 presents of much value were showered upon him by those 
 who lent credence to his alarming revelations. He was 
 looked upon by many as a great public benefactor, and 
 those who dared even to question the actual existence of \ 
 the dangers which he depictured were suspected by their 
 more excited fellow-citizens of a criminal insensibility to 
 the supposed perils of the hour, or were denounced as 
 traitors to the slaveholding interests of the South Never 
 was there an instance of more extravagant and even mad- 
 dening excitement amid a refined, intelligent, and virtue- 
 loving people than that which I had the pain to witness 
 in the counties of (ventral Mississippi in the summer of 
 L835. Vigilance committees were organized in some ten 
 pr a dozen counties, where the negro population was most 
 numerous, and where, of consequence, the slaveholding 
 class was more sensitive to the cries of alarm which at 
 this time literally rang through the whole community. 
 These committees were, in general, composed of the most 
 wealthy and intelligent planters to be found in the several 
 counties, but these planters were, of course, by reason of 
 the fact that they stood more exposed than others to the 
 dangers asserted to exist, also a good deal more alarmed 
 than those occupyiug a less obnoxious attitude. The im- 
 pression prevailed that the insurrectionary movement was 
 
252 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 to commence in the interior counties of Holmes, Yazoo, 
 and Madison ; that the slaves were all to rise in these 
 counties simultaneously ; that they were to murder their 
 owners and their families at midnight, burn the towns and 
 villages, and, after getting possession of sufficient supplies 
 of ammunition, guns, and other instruments of violence, 
 they were to sweep over the whole cotton-growing coun- 
 try, spreading carnage and desolation wherever they 
 should come. 
 
 I well recollect that in the town of Clinton, in Hinds 
 county, where I then resided, the panic awakened was so 
 great that night after night the women and children of 
 the place were assembled at a central position, where they 
 remained till daylight, while all the male citizens moved 
 in armed squads over the settlement, in order to meet the 
 earliest approach of the incendiary forces, who were ex- 
 pected confidently to come to our midst from the direction 
 of Madison county. After the first organization of the 
 vigilance committee, which sat afterward every day, the 
 excitement, as was natural, increased perceptibly every 
 hour. Suspected persons, both white and black, were ap- 
 prehended everywhere ; some of whom were brought be- 
 fore the committee for examination, while others, whose 
 guilt seemed to be fully established, were hung without 
 ceremony along the roadsides or in front of their own 
 dwellings by those who had apprehended them. 
 
 It was a veiy unfortunate circumstance that just at the 
 moment that these fearful occurrences were taking plaee 
 in the counties of the interior a kindred scene was dis- 
 played to view in the city of Vicksburg, in connection 
 with the gamblers who at that time infested in great 
 numbers this important commercial place. In consequence 
 of the daring and revolting manner in which these aban- 
 doned wretches carried on their unholy work of cheatcry 
 and pillage, many of the belter citizens of the place vol- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 253 
 
 unteered their services one morning to aid the officers of 
 the law in effecting their apprehension. The gamblers 
 shut themselves up in a certain house, which they barri- 
 caded, as they thought, very securely, and boldly defied 
 the regular functionaries of the law and those who were 
 now co-operating with them. Under these circumstances 
 the outside crowd resolved to force entrance into this ex- 
 temporized fortress, and with a view to this end, broke 
 down the door. The first person who got into the house 
 was a Dr. Bodely, whom I knew well, and whom 1 re- 
 member to have been a most intelligent and high-spirited 
 young gentleman, of great professional promise. He was 
 shot dead on the spot by some one of the villainous erew 
 whom he was aiding to bring to justice. His associates 
 then advanced upon the gamblers, succeeded in capturing 
 them, and speedily hung them all publicly upon the street- 
 side, without waiting for the more tardy and more author- 
 ized action of the judicial tribunals. 
 
 The new T s of this affair new quickly over the country in 
 every direction, and added greatly to the excitement, and 
 confusion already prevailing. 
 
 The vigilance committees in Madison and the adjoin- 
 ing counties were yet in vigorous and persevering action. 
 A number of the poor Thompsonian empirics were taken 
 up and either hung or severely whipped, according to the 
 seeming force of the evidence adduced against them sev- 
 erally. Madison county was still the main focus of ex- 
 citement, and every day we heard in the peaceful village 
 where I dwelt of some new case of supposed guilt which 
 had been there developed, and some new application of 
 punishment not known to the law of the land, but which 
 was supposed to be justified by the terrible necessity then 
 dominating over all things beside. One evening I received 
 a brief written application from a young Iventuckian,- then 
 in custody in the town of Livingston, in Madison county, 
 
254 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 beseeching me earnestly to come up and give him my aid 
 as an advocate before the self-constituted tribunal by 
 which he was to be tried next day. The poor fellow 
 seems to have imagined that it was a real court that \\ ;i> 
 about to examine into his case, and that a lawyer would 
 be allowed to defend him before it. I did not at all con- 
 cur in this notion, but not being able to refuse him my 
 sympathy, I got on my horse next morning, and pro- 
 ceeded to the place where his fate was to be determined ; 
 which gave me a ride of about twenty miles. When I 
 got to Livingston I saw a large multitude convened, com- 
 posed almost altogether of excited white citizens, to most 
 of whom I was personally well known. I dared not 
 name my business to any one, for had I done so there was 
 not much probability that I should have ever returned to 
 my own home again. I tied my horse to a post on the 
 street side, and went to the room in which the committee 
 was sitting. The trial had already commenced. I looked 
 into the face of the poor wretch who had sent for me, 
 without deeming it prudent to make known to him who 
 I was, and that I was now present at his solicitation. 
 The examination was conducted in a very rapid and in- 
 formal manner, and without the least regard to the estab- 
 lished principles of the law of evidence. At length it was 
 declared to be at an end. It appeared that this man had 
 brought down a boat-load of corn from Kentucky about a 
 month previous, had carried it up the Yazoo river for 
 sale, and had sold it, together with his boat, when he be- 
 came suddenly an object of suspicion, and was appre- 
 hended and brought to Livingston for trial. There was 
 not a particle of evidence implicating him in the guilt 
 alleged, except that of two or three ignorant negroes in 
 the vicinage, who had been seen once or twice near his 
 boat, and from whose reluctant lips certain disclosures had 
 been coerced under the severest infliction of the lash. I 
 
CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 255 
 
 saw that the committee was about to convict the man, 
 and I felt for him most deeply ; but what could I do? 
 One of the memberB of the committee, Colonel Harden B. 
 Runnels, observing that I manifested some interest in the 
 trial, and yet lingered in the room, told me that if I 
 wished to do so I might catechise the prisoner. I con- 
 sented to do so. A more honest and benign face than this 
 man presented I have never beheld. I turned to him, and 
 calling him by name, I said, " You are a white man ; you 
 say that you have a wife and children at home whom you 
 love dearly; you say, also, that you are very poor, and 
 that you came down here on a trading expedition, in or- 
 der to get the means of saving that loved family from 
 starvation ; you declare, in addition, that you have written 
 to some member of your family whenever you could, and 
 have sent them nearly all the money you have been able 
 to earn ; now tell me, I beseech you, were you to witness 
 a bloody conflict between the slaves of this country and 
 the white people, on which side would you be?' 7 His 
 eyes brightened with excitement, his voice was marked 
 with all the emphasis of deep and manly feeling, as he 
 responded, " Certainly, sir, I should be on the side of my 
 own color."' I interrogated him no further. He was 
 hung in less than twenty minutes! The newspapers in 
 Kentucky afterward teemed with the affectionate letters 
 addressed by him to his wife during his sojourn in Missis- 
 sippi, on reading which nobody, even where I lived, at all 
 doubted his innocence. 
 
 I mounted my horse and rode in the direction of my 
 uwn home. When I got about a mile from Livingston, 
 in the midst of the beautiful hills which lie proximate to 
 that well-remembered village, I saw a large crowd assem- 
 bled. A good-looking white man, whom I very well 
 knew, was tied to a tree, and stripped to the waist, whilst 
 he was receiving a terrible east i gat ion with rods. He had 
 
256 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 been tried by the committee and acquitted, but be was, 
 unfortunately, a Thompsonian doctor, and on tbat ground 
 it had been thought that he ought at least to be decently 
 scourged. 
 
 I got to my own home next morning. When I rode 
 into the town of Clinton I saw a large multitude assem- 
 bled on one of the most popular streets, in front of a store 
 in which a Mr. Archibald Kenney, now in Staunton, Vir- 
 ginia, had some years before sold merchandize. I dis- 
 mounted and went to the spot. I soon learned that the 
 vigilance committee of that vicinage, composed of some 
 of the best citizens of the county, had been trying a mu- 
 latto man, whom I knew very well, upon a charge of 
 being a participant in the scheme of alleged insurrection. 
 A considerable quantity of powder and shot had been 
 found in his possession, which circumstance had awak- 
 ened some suspicions against him. The committee had 
 tried him, and had sentenced him to be whipped only, 
 and they would, indeed, have discharged him altogether, 
 as I learned from themselves, had they not dreaded the 
 indignant rage of the population of the town, then in a 
 very excited condition. The committee had been unfor- 
 tunate enough to sit with closed doors, which gave to the 
 imagination of those not taking part in their proceedings 
 a wide field for unfavorable conjecture. When the sen- 
 tence was announced the outsiders determined to hang 
 their longed-for victim at any rate ; and at the time I 
 reached the place where they were assembled the prepara- 
 tions for the execution of the boy were going forward. 
 The boy had been in the ownership of a venerable gentle- 
 man of the neighborhood, Captain Bell, a Virginia friend 
 of mine of great respectability and intelligence. He had 
 been a great favorite with his master, who had left him 
 free. The captain had been dead about a year, and this 
 boy, who by-the-by was nearly white, and singularly po- 
 
CASKKT OK feEMlNlgCENCES. 257 
 
 lite and civil in his manners, had been since his master's 
 decease a faithful protector of his family, which consisted 
 of his widow and a single female child. This widowed 
 lady had reached the fearful scene some minutes hefore 
 my own arrival, and had been allowed, in connection with 
 a learned and pious minister of the Gospel, Dr. Comfort, 
 to hold a last interview with this unfortunate boy. She 
 came forth from this interview, attended by her pious and 
 humane protector, and advancing within the portico 
 where most of the multitude were located, she spoke, with 
 a voice much agitated and almost stilled with emotion, 
 while the tears were rapidly coursing down her venerable 
 cheeks, as follows : 
 
 14 Gentlemen, you all knew my husband during his life, 
 and respected him. This poor boy was his favorite ser- 
 vant. I know his disposition and character well. I have 
 just catechised him most searchingly. Had he been guilty 
 as charged 1 should have been able to detect his guilt. I 
 assure you that he is innocent. Oh ! gentlemen, (she 
 wildly exclaimed,) is there not one among you who will 
 stand up here as the representative and champion of a 
 poor, widowed, friendless female?" I immediately rose 
 to my foot, I looked circumspectly upon the crowd for a 
 moment. I saw standing just before me the grim-looking 
 face of a man notorious for his violent and blood-thirsty 
 character, whose name was IJardwick, and whom I soon 
 after prosecuted for a diabolical murder, for which he 
 would certainly have been hanged if the victim of his 
 atrocity had been a white man. I saw a new rope in this 
 ruffian's hands, the texture of which lie was feeling with 
 his accursed lingers, evidently for the purpose of ascer- 
 taining whether it was strong enough to do the dread 
 office effectually for which he had purchased it. I was 
 conscious of all the perils which surrounded my position, 
 17r 
 
&58 I \SKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 and I therefore proceeded with extreme caution. I spoke 
 thus: " Gentlemen, you have heard the touching appeal 
 of this venerable lady. I have nothing to add to her de- 
 corous and impressive address, but I have a word to say 
 to you of a prudential character in regard to yourselves 
 and your own future responsibilities. The excitement 
 now raging in this community may after awhile subside. 
 Then it may be that some officious person shall wish to 
 institute a prosecution for murder on account of the hang- 
 ing of this boy. In my judgment it will be most safe that 
 whatever is done in this affair shall be the act, as it were, 
 of the whole community. I am not willing that a few 
 generous-minded young men shall be made the scape-goats 
 of this vicinage. Let us all join in whatever act may be 
 resolved on. Now I will take the vote of the whole assem- 
 blage upon the question of banging, if no one shall object 
 to it." No objection being made, I said : "All in favor 
 of hanging this unfortunate boy will signify the same b} r 
 saying aye." Nine-tenths answered aye. I said : "Those 
 opposed to hanging will answer no." About eight or ten 
 persons said no. 
 
 I determined to make one more experiment before I 
 gave up all hope of saving a human being from a fate s<> 
 dreadful as that I saw impending. The day was intensely 
 hot. The street on which we were located was very wide 
 and intersected with deep gullies. I said: "Gentlemen, 
 let us settle this question more satisfactorily : All in favor 
 of hanging will range themselves on the opposite side of 
 the street: those in favor of mercy will remain under the 
 shade of this portico." Nearly all rushed across the street! 
 1 left the spot with feelings of sorrow and disgust which 
 no words can express. The boy was swung into eternity 
 in lees than lift ecu minutes from that moment, 
 
 On my way home to dinner I met that distressed widow. 
 6he was on horseback, and stopped for a moment to speak 
 
CASKKT (>F RKiWINISCKXCKS. 259 
 
 to me. She said: " Mr. Foote, you know what has taken 
 place today. You were, during the life of my venerated 
 husband, his friend and his legal adviser. Tell me what 
 1 had best do. I wish to prosecute the murderers of my 
 servant. Will you undertake to bring them to justice? 
 1 will reward you liberally. 7 ' 
 
 " My dear madam," I said, " We are in the midst of 
 most unhappy circumstances and of most appalling dan- 
 gers. The community in which we live is in a frenzied 
 condition. Were you to commence such a prosecution as 
 you mention your own life would not be safe. Let me 
 recommend to you earnestly to bow to the imperious 
 necessity of the hour. "She looked at me for a moment 
 with a mingled expression of sorrow and resentment 
 upon her countenance, and then responded to me with a 
 grave and touching solemnity of look I can never forget: 
 " I will take your advice. Farewell ! " 
 
 I remember to have at this moment consulted with my 
 family whether we should not at once leave a region so 
 replete with scenes of sorrow, and so full of danger to 
 those who relied on the laws of the land for protection 
 and security. 
 
 A few days after 1 was in the city of Jackson. The 
 Supreme Court of the State was in session there, of which 
 the Hon. William L. Sharkey, so well known in Wash- 
 ington, and so much beloved and respected everywhere, 
 was Chief Justice. He came suddenly to my room at the 
 hotel one day, about noon, and showed me a letter he had 
 just received from Mr. Patrick L. Sharkey, his first cousin. 
 1 read it. I found therein set forth the following facts, 
 which were of course very concisely stated. A day or two 
 before Mr. Patrick L. Sharkey, who was a very wealthy 
 planter, a man of high intelligence and known piety, and 
 who was also a justice of the peace, had, in his official 
 character, examined a case brought before him which in- 
 
260 CASKET! OP REMINISCENCES. 
 
 volvecl the charge of inciting the slaves to insurrection. 
 Finding no evidence worth}' of respect to he adduced 
 against the accused, he discharged the prisoner. This 
 conduct greatly infuriated those who apprehended him, 
 who, being citizens of Madison county, were manifestly un- 
 der the influence of that excitement then raging in that 
 most intelligent and refined community. These persons 
 returned home, brought with them a large party of 
 individuals equally excited as themselves to Sharkey's 
 residence in the night-time with the intention of hanging 
 him. He was a man of great fearlessness and determina- 
 tion, and when this fierce and murdering band advanced 
 to his house, threatening to put him to death if he did 
 not at once surrender, he commenced firing upon his per- 
 secutors, killed one of them, wounded another, slew a 
 horse or two of the party, and then, having been himself 
 severely wounded, crawled out of his house amid the dark- 
 ness of the night into his garden, where his pursuers were 
 not able to find him. He afterward managed to get to 
 Clinton, where lie was then remaining, and proposed 
 to throw himself under the protection of the committee 
 there sitting, being certain that if dragged to Madison 
 county in the existing temper of the popular mind there 
 he should never get home again alive. He had now pa- 
 pealed to his cousin, the highest judicial officer in the 
 State, for advice and sympathy. Judge Sharkey had de- 
 termined to obey the summons he had received — for he 
 was a man who never shrank from the performance of 
 what he believed to be his duty — and he now asked of me 
 to accompany him to Clinton and to aid, if I could, in res- 
 cuing his worthy cousin from jeopardy. I did as requested, 
 and when we reached the town we went forthwith to the 
 presence of his wounded and suffering relative, got into 
 his carriage with him, and proceeded to the room where 
 the committee of Hinds county were assembled. There, 
 
CASKET <)F REMINISCENCES. 261 
 
 in a few words, I explained the object of oar coming, and 
 urged that our fellow-citizen, Mr. Sharkey, had a right to 
 claim an investigation at the hands of a committee of his 
 own county instead of being sent to Madison county for 
 trial. After this Judge Sharkey rose and made a modest, 
 temperate, and exceedingly judicious speech, in which he 
 recognized the supereminent authority of the committee. 
 under the extraordinary ci^eumst-a-nees""e : xisting, and cx- 
 pressed a confident hope that this tribunal would do his 
 unfortunate relative justice, which was all that he asked 
 for him at their hands. A body of citizens from Madi- 
 son county were then in hearing, who came to demand 
 the person of Sharkey, with a view to carrying him at 
 once to Livingston, but our excellent Hinds county com- 
 mittee refused this application, set Sharkey at liberty, 
 and declared their determination to protect him against 
 all further molestation. After this I instituted, in the 
 name of the injured Sharkey, a suit for damages, and re- 
 covered $10,000. This affair wound up the concerns of 
 the vigilance committees in Mississippi. All alarm in 
 relation to negro insurrection soon after ceased, and this 
 docile and affectionate race a few years thereafter, din- 
 ing the progress of a fierce and sanguinary civil war, 
 proved that they are the most patient, the most forbear- 
 ing, and the most magnanimous class of God's rational 
 creatures that ever yet endured the unjust burden of ser- 
 vitude for centuries, and were afterward established in the 
 enjoyment of freedom by the manifest hand of the Deity 
 Himself. Considering the conduct of the sons and daugh- 
 ters of Africa during the war and since, too, so far as we 
 have striven in good faith, and in a reasonable and liberal 
 manner to conciliate them, it becomes us of the Caucasian 
 stock in all time hereafter to 
 
 Be to their faults a little blind, 
 Ami to their virtues very kind, 
 Hanging' a padlock on the mind. 
 
I 
 
 262 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 I have mentioned the man Hardwick that took the most 
 prominent part in the hanging of Captain Bell's favorite 
 servant. In less than a year from that time this individ- 
 ual, as I have already incidentally mentioned, murdered 
 a colored man in the town of Clinton, and was prosecuted 
 for it. This was one of the most ruffianly eases of killing 
 I ever knew. As amiable, honest, and industrious a man 
 as was to be found in all the land was torn by a band of 
 eight or ten white men, with the infernal Hardwick at 
 their head, from the bed of his sick wfie, amid the dark 
 hours of the night, upon a mere suspicion of some offense 
 never established against him in proof, tied over a barrel, 
 and given one thousand stripes upon his bare back, such 
 agony being inflicted upon the unfortunate victim that he 
 bit his own tongue in two and died of lockjaw. I had 
 Hardwick taken up immediately and put in close prison, 
 all attempts to bail him proving fruitless, in which confine- 
 ment he remained until brought to trial. At the end of 
 six months an honest and conscientious jury was per- 
 ' suaded to acquit him on the ground that to hang a white 
 man for murdering one of the colored race might have a 
 tendency to encourage the slaves to rise in insurrection. 
 When will men learn that perfect justice and humanity 
 constitute the wisest policy of the fortunate and the pow- 
 erful of this world ? 
 
 I have only time to glance for a moment at the me- 
 morable proceedings of the vigilance committees of San 
 Francisco, about which so much has been at different 
 times spoken and written, and in reference to which such 
 contrariety of sentiment at one time prevailed, alike iu 
 California and elsewhere. That both of these committees 
 owed their origin to the failure of courts of justice to en- 
 force the laws of the land, and to the gross corruptions 
 which had found their way into the popular elections of 
 that far-off region, no one would now think of denying. 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 268 
 
 Whether the social necessities existing were of so imperi- 
 ous a nature as to justify the extreme expedients resorted 
 to in this instance I shall not undertake to decide. I will 
 close by the mention of a carious anecdote which hears close 
 connection with the action of the last of these famous com- 
 mittees. The celebrated General Edward C. Baker, after the 
 committee had been organized, and was in full operation, 
 uudertook to resist its power in a public speech on the 
 plaza in San Francisco, to which I had the honor of lis- 
 tening. Eloquent as he ever was, and popular as he bad 
 been, the furious assemblage refused to listen to him. 
 Having reason to deem his own life even in danger, he 
 left San Francisco suddenly for the city of Sacramento. 
 Nov did he deem it prudent to return to the great me- 
 tropolis where he had so longed lived until the Presiden- 
 tial election of 1856 came on, when he had it in his power 
 to win back the popular favor by such extraordinary dis- 
 plays of popular eloquence as have rarely marked any politi- 
 cal conflict whatever, in support, too, of the Republican 
 Presidential candidate of that period ; after which he was 
 cordially invited back by the very people whose menaces 
 <>f personal violence had driven him into temporary ban- 
 ishment. Upon his return he delivered to a vast crowd in 
 San Francisco, on the last evening of the Presidential can- 
 vass, tlie most thrilling and electrical speech of his life. T 
 have heard him say that when he mounted the stand on 
 that occasion an amiable and accomplished daughter, 
 seated by his side, whispered to him : " This, my dear 
 father, is indeed the greatest triumph of your life." 
 
2B4 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XXVI. 
 
 RUM — ITS FATAL EFFECTS — DRUNKEN JUDGES, GOVERNORS,. 
 AND OFFICERS — A PROHIBITORY LAW YEARS AGO IN MISSIS- 
 SIPPI — HOW POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS WERE CONDUCTED. 
 
 There was, perhaps, nothing more noticeable in the 
 social status of Mississippi, and of several neighboring 
 States, in the period which intervened between the 
 years 1830 and 1840 than the immense quantities of in- 
 toxicating drinks consumed by those who dwelt in this 
 much-favored section of the Union. Drunkenness had, 
 indeed, become a common vice, owing to which, and the 
 deplorable fact that nearly all classes of the population 
 went habitually armed, the number of scenes marked 
 with personal violence which occurred it is really astound- 
 ing to contemplate, even in recollection. At the time 
 that I reached Mississippi it was almost impossible to 
 enter a house of public entertainment anywhere without 
 encountering men in a state of inebriation. The prevail- 
 ing mischief was confined to no particular class of inhab- 
 itants. Nearly all who went to places of public resort any- 
 where paid more or less homage to Bacchus; and to drink, 
 and to drink occasionally to excess, had positively become 
 so fashionable that a man of strict sobriety was by many 
 looked upon as a cold-blooded and uncongenial wretch, 
 scarcely worthy to live. A refusal to imbibe when called 
 upon to do so was apt to give serious offense, as implying 
 a want of personal respect and amity. A very general 
 notion was prevalent that the habitual use of alcohol — in 
 some one of the many forms in which this terrible ele- 
 ment of mischief was prepared for the gratification of an 
 acquired and morbid appetite — was necessary to health, 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 265 
 
 and thousands involved in this perilous delusion were 
 every day taking poison into their stomachs, the operation 
 of which, though slow and quiet, was just as certain in 
 the end to destroy life as the rifle-shot' or cannon-ball. I am 
 
 painting no fancy sketch when E say that I have often 
 seen judges remarkable for ability an learning, and who 
 before their elevation to the bench had ranked high as 
 lawyers both of learning and eloquence, so much over- 
 come with strong drink while presiding in court, even 
 when important trials were in progress, as almost be unable 
 to sit erect or get through the customary formalities of 
 judicial proceeding without some grotesque and unseemly 
 exhibition which it was exceedingly painful to witness. 
 There were not a few members of the bar also who were 
 found willing to aid as far as in their power to relieve the 
 severity of their grave and useful calling by occasional 
 participation in scenes of convivial enjoyment, and I have 
 had the opportunity of hearing on a number of occasioto 
 animated and boisterous speeches from lawyers of no lit- 
 tle eminence, both in criminal and civil cases, which they 
 w6uld never have thought of making but for the peculiar 
 inspiration which they had derived from the flowing 
 bowl. No one at that time seemed to suppose it even 
 possible that a political canvass could be conducted with 
 proper sprightliness and vigor unless some special arrange- 
 ment should have been made in advance for liberal sup- 
 plies of alcoholic stimulants to the sovereign voters of the 
 land, who it was feared might listen with something like 
 stolid indifference to dull and prosy harangues unless put 
 beforehand under the magnetic influence of intoxicating 
 draughts, known to have been paid for out of the pocket 
 of the speaker to whom they were asked to give au- 
 dience. 
 
 I remember a somewhat amusing incident illustrative 
 of the usual mode of conducting political canvasses in 
 
206 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Mississippi at this period, which I will here briefly relate. 
 Judge Edward Turner, for a long time chief justice of the 
 Supreme Court of the State, and a man of many domestic 
 and social virtues, became a candidate for a scat in the 
 convention which assembled in the city of Jackson, in 
 1833, for the purpose of amending the constitution of Mis- 
 sissippi. The Senatorial district which he aspired to rep- 
 resent in that body was composed of the counties of 
 Adams and Franklin. His opponent was a young lawyer 
 of some promise, who afterward became a zealous and 
 efficient Methodist preacher and who won not a little dis- 
 tinction also in the Mexican war. The voters and candi- 
 dates confronted each other at an early stage of the con- 
 test in a certain little country town. There was no very 
 elaborate attempt to edify the multitude on this occasion 
 by speech-making, but the use of an expedient far more 
 convenient, and perhaps equally potential sometimes, was 
 relied on for purposes of conciliation. Judge Turner had 
 his large demijohn of whisky in readiness, and in his 
 blandest manner called up the voters indiscriminately to 
 drink with him. With a view to fixing them more fully 
 in his interest this elegant and genial gentleman took it 
 upon himself to help each individual to a drink, handed 
 to him specially in the most affectionate and obsequious 
 manner. This seemed to have a very happy effect, and 
 any man but Dick Stewart, (as we were accustomed to 
 call him,) would have at once given up the contest. But 
 he did not even think for a moment of yielding the field. 
 On the contrary, the state of affairs seemed to have inspired 
 him with increased energy ami adroitness. When 
 Judge Turner's demijohn was exhausted Stewart rose up 
 and made known that he had some liquor on the ground 
 also, which he trusted his fellow-citizens would consent to 
 enjoy with him. When the voters gathered round the 
 new supply, lie said; 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 26,7 
 
 " Fellow-citizens : My venerable opponent, Judge 
 
 Turner, (loomed it prudent to measure out to you his 
 whisky. I shall do nothing of the sort. Here is my 
 jug, and hero are glasses for you all. Come forward, one 
 and all, and help yourselves." 
 
 It is almost needless to say that the multitude cheered 
 Stewart most vooiferously,and that he heal his venerable 
 opponent in the election several hundred votes. 
 
 I do not mean to say that this sort of treating to ardent 
 spirits was indispensable at this time, or afterward, to a 
 man's election in Mississippi. My own experience goes 
 far to disprove this proposition; for I rejoice to have it in 
 my power to say that I never Hid attempt, in any State 
 where I have lived, to obtain votes by supplying my fel- 
 low-citizens with the means of inebriation, either on a 
 large or small scale; and that there has never heen a time 
 when I have not looked upon this practice as far worse 
 than the exercise of pecuniary bribery. 
 
 But to proceed. There were, forty years ago, in the 
 State of Mississippi, many towns and villages where the 
 magnates of society would assemble regularly every day 
 — not always even excluding the Sabbath — at some favor- 
 ite hotel or tippling shop, and drink together in what 
 was called a social way, from the hour of t^u, or half after 
 ten in the forenoon, until the hour of dinner, which was 
 usually about 1 o'clock P. M.; and I have seen, I am sure, 
 each of those present on these occasions take some live or 
 six drinks on an average, and certainly without suspecting 
 that any one would he silly enough to accuse them of in- 
 temperance. Nothing was more common than for a com- 
 pany of jolly roysterers to get together, \>y day or night, 
 tor the purpose of having what was called a, frolic, and 
 seldom did they separate until the appearance of daylight, 
 or until a sufficient number were not remaining upon 
 their legs to keep the scene of festive merriment in lively 
 
268 GASKET UF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 ■ 
 
 and impressive progress. Scenes of disgusting drunken- 
 ness sometimes occurred, even in the bosom of grave legis- 
 lative assemblies, some of which, indeed, might well have 
 reminded one familiar with the pages of Tacitus of those 
 bacchanalian consultations which he describes as having 
 taken place among our worthy kinsmen, the ancient 
 Germans ; whom he graphically depictures as often set- 
 tling the gravest questions of peace and war under the en- 
 livening influences of their ancestral beverage, (which I 
 take to be lager beer;) and when each of those present was 
 armed to the teeth with such weapons as might give force 
 to eloquence that would otherwise possibly have been want- 
 ing in persuasive force — or that might supply the means of 
 counteracting what was deemed false logic — by processes 
 far more reliable than the famed Elenchus of the Socrato- 
 Platonic school of former days. 
 
 I speak with much consideration when 1 confidently 
 assert that a majority of ail the more serious criminal of- 
 fenses committed in Mississippi during my long residence 
 there were to be traced to the direct influence of intoxi- 
 cating drinks. Two-thirds, and J think more, of all the 
 instances of killing that occurred took place under cir- 
 cumstances proving conclusively that but for the parties 
 involved in collision having been demented at the time 
 by alcohol no such tragic event was at all likely to have 
 occurred. Those who have not properly explored this sub 
 ject would be surprised could they in some way be in- 
 formed how large a number of the social crimes not usually 
 charged to alcohol have owed their origin to its influence, 
 exerted either in a direct or indirect form. I am sure that 
 no experienced lawyer much concerned in divorce cases 
 will be inclined to call in question the assertion which I 
 venture to make, that at least two-thirds of all the applica- 
 tions for the abrogation of the matrimonial tie, now so 
 alarmingly numerous, are the resultsof intemperance in the 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 269 
 
 use of stimulating liquids. How many instances are now 
 daily occurring of husbands murdering their wives, fathers 
 slaying their own children, and children their aged and 
 helpless parents, which are found on examination to have 
 been brought about by the same terrible instrumentality! 
 How many large fortunes have been wasted, how many 
 fa mil ies have been consigned to abject poverty, how many 
 children of bright intellectual promise have been bound 
 in the chains of remediless ignorance, how many hearts of 
 faithful friends have been broken,how much precious blood 
 has been needlessly wasted, how much of individual fame 
 and of national honor has been sacrificed, how much has 
 the general wealth of the Republic been wasted in conse- 
 quence of the prevalence in our dear native land of that 
 single master-vice, intemperance 1 The money spent in 
 the purchase of that fatal poison, alcohol, by the people of 
 the United States would, in twenty years, probably pay 
 the whole national debt, succor all the paupers of the land, 
 and secure universal education to all the future men and 
 women of the nation. And all this money is expended in 
 purchasing that which only poisons the physical system 
 and demoralizes and degrades the inner man. How many 
 men who once enjoyed social respectability have been 
 sunk in cureless infamy by habitual indulgence in the use 
 of stimulating liquids! How many cherished friendships 
 have been rudely broken, how many wives constrained to 
 fly from once loved homes, how much genius and learning 
 has been lost to the world from the operation of this cause 
 alone ! Many a near and dear relative have I seen hurried 
 to an untimely grave by the undue use. of strong drink, 
 who, had they not listened foolishly to the voice of the 
 charmer, might now have been administering comfort and 
 happiness to large circles of loving and admiring friends. 
 How many men of marked and acknowledged ability in 
 ui) own profession have I not seen swept along by the 
 
£?0 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 fatal love of alcohol to want, to degradation, and to death 
 ere yet they could be considered to have reached the zenith 
 of their tame! How many individuals of all classes have 
 I not been fated to see expiring amid the indescribable ago- 
 nies of that most horrific of all maladies, known to us 
 moderns as mania-a-potu, but which had never made its 
 appearance in the world until the strong alcoholic liquids 
 were brought into common use about three centuries ago! 
 What a countless number of persons creditably connected 
 in society have I not seen at different times passing to the 
 grave as victims to the habitual use of strong drink, who 
 to all appearance had not become at all aware of the real 
 cause of the destruction of their bodily health ! 
 
 I say it with a feeling of poignant sorrow and chagrin, 
 and yet I assert with great confidence, that at least one- 
 third of my cotemporaries now no longer among the living 
 have been brought to an untimely end by the too free in- 
 dulgence in the use of strong drink. Every man who 
 drinks habitually is in constant danger of forming a habit 
 of drinking which, after a while he will , be totally u liable to 
 throw aside ; for the reception of this poison into the stom- 
 ach, unless it be used as a medicine by drops, as it was so 
 late as the reign of Queen Elizabeth in England, will in- 
 fallibly generate a disease in the most sensitive parts of 
 the nervous system, which, when once it becomes estab- 
 lished, experience lias shown very soon gets beyond the 
 reach of all curative remedies, and while it is preying upon 
 the s} T steni, is every moment acquiring additional force by 
 adding to the appetite for that which originally produced 
 it, undermining the will so as to make all efforts for relief 
 from its domination well nigh hopeless. This stupendous 
 public vice had become so much diffused and apparently 
 so essentially incorporated with the body-politic itself in 
 Mississippi thirty years ago; drunken Governors, drunken 
 legislators, and drunken judges, with many other persons 
 
cASKKT OK RKiYllNLSOKNCKS. 271 
 
 of wealth and intelligence there, had so long set an exam- 
 ple of intemperance to the multitude, and this example 
 had been so extensively imitated — that, painfully ruminat- 
 ing over the condition of the community, and foreseeing 
 the evils of every kind which were evidently menaced for 
 the t'utlire — having been elected to a seat in the State Leg- 
 islature in 1839, to fill a vacancy which had just arisen 
 — I resolved to make one effort to save the Commonwealth 
 as far as might be yet possible from the further experience 
 of such mischief as I have been detailing. With a view 
 to this end 1 introduced in the House of Representatives 
 a stringent and comprehensive anti-tippling bill, by which 
 all persons whatever were prohibited, under the penalty 
 of fine and imprisonment, from the vending of either vin- 
 ous or spiritous liquors, to be drunk on the spot, in less 
 quantities than a gallon, and which made it a penal offense 
 for any candidate for office to supply the voters of the 
 State with any quantity whatever of intoxicating liquors 
 pending a canvass, and rendering all such candidates for- 
 ever incompetent to hold any civil office whatever. There 
 were in this bill other provisions of a kindred character. 
 After a very warm struggle of a week or two I secured 
 the passage of the proposed measure through both houses 
 of the Legislature, winch thus became part of the law of 
 the land. 
 
 On the morning succeeding this occurrence a spectacle 
 saluted the eyes of the multitude in and about Jackson 
 which proved not a little amusing and gratifying to 
 some. The effigy of the hated author of the anti-tippling 
 law, which menaced grog-drinkers with such cruel depriva- 
 tion of t heir accustomed enjoyments, was ^een pendanl 
 from the boughs of a majestic oak which haply grew 
 there, upon which was inscribed in glowing capitals my 
 own name. I took no notice whatever of this insult, 
 further than to use somewhat more pains than I' should 
 
272 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 otherwise have pat in requisition in order to make it cer- 
 tain that the reformatory enactment which had given so 
 much offense to the votaries of Bacchus thould be duly 
 enforced in every part of the State. The beneficial effect* 
 produced thereby are yet vividly remembered by thou- 
 sands. The business of public tippling was almost totally 
 suppressed. The courts of criminal cognizance had hardly 
 anything to do. The principles of social order and deco- 
 rum prevailed to an extent exceedingly gratifying to the 
 hearts of all true philanthropists, and death from mania-a- 
 pota and other kindred maladies was hardly heard of. Un- 
 fortunately, though, for the State of Mississippi, demagog- 
 ism had not yet ceased to exist there, and in a year or 
 two after this most agreeable state of things was unfold- 
 ed to view a concerted effort was made in various parts 
 of the State to get the anti-tippling law repealed, on the 
 ground that it was a gross infraction of popular rights; 
 which effort, I regret to say, was but too successful. As a 
 natural consequence of this prodigious blunder in legisla- 
 tion the speedy renewal of the evil of intemperance was 
 realized, with all the baleful consequences natural thereto, 
 and in a worse form, perhaps, than would have been the 
 case had no attempt ever been essayed to drive this giant 
 monster from the land. Et is indeed sad to renect that 
 any considerable number of men were to be found in an 
 intelligent community who could suppose that the Creator 
 had bestowed upon the rational being to whom He has 
 given existence the right to destroy their own intellects 
 and debase their own souls, and to scatter wantonly 
 arrows, firebrands, and death through a wdiole community 
 at their own pleasure. In a country like ours, where the 
 successful solution of the problem of self-government ip 
 confessedly dependent upon the intellect and virtue of the 
 people themselves, the strange theory of human rights 
 which has been alluded to is certainly one of a very incom- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 273 
 
 prohensil)le character. As reason and the moral faculties 
 alone distinguish man from the brute creation, so cultivated 
 reason and the proper development of the moral faculties 
 chiefly distinguish the civilized man from the savage. It 
 is, therefore, obviously the duty of all governments, .and 
 especially of such as are instituted by the people them- 
 selves for the preservation and advancement of their own 
 happiness, to provide by all suitable expedients for the 
 extermination of all evils whatever threatening alike the 
 ultimate subversion of their liberties and the most com- 
 plete degradation of those from whom all civil power 
 must emanate. The whole system of granting to any class 
 of men the right to vend intoxicating liquids in places of 
 public resort — thus formally attaching the sanction of the 
 government itself to the efforts making to spread abroad 
 the worst social evil which ever assailed the repose and 
 well-being of mankind — should at once be discontinued, 
 else government itself must be justly held responsible for 
 all the mischiefs of every kind which uniform experience 
 lias shown to flow from this most prolific source of ill. 
 
 I have sometimes thought that the most painfully im- 
 pressive illustration of the dangers which beset our coun- 
 try at this time from the failure of the governmental au- 
 thorities among us to unite for the extermination of intem- 
 perance — that upas tree of mischief — from the soil of our 
 loved America — was supplied on the 4th day of March, 
 1865, when a Vice President-elect was inducted into the 
 second office ot the Republic in point of dignity in a 
 state of such beastly and disgraceful intoxication as would 
 scarcely have been tolerated even in a dramshop or a. 
 brothel. N r o scene at all similar is recorded in the 
 history of civilized nations. After one such humiliating 
 occurrence as Ibis, it is surely time.that we should look 
 out seriously for the honor of the Republic, and see that 
 18 R 
 
274 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 in all future time no such desecration of the high offices 
 of governmental trust shall ever again occur. 
 
 Strangers to our country and its institutions will, I 
 fear, suspect that there must be some radical unsound- 
 ness in our social organization if such conduct as that 
 just alluded to, and the demoniacal influences to which it 
 was doubtless in a great degree attributable, can be 
 brought to light without awakening the liveliest feelings 
 of disgust and indignation. 
 
 It is possible that the views herein expressed and the 
 unvarnished statement of facts I have ventured to make 
 may prove a little unsavory to some who prefer expedi- 
 ency to principle, and the unjust laudation of the un- 
 worthy to the frank exhibition of their criminal aberra- 
 tions from duty. In all that I have said on this occasion 
 I have obeyed no monitor but truth, and the opinions to 
 which 1 have given expression are those which I have 
 long entertained, and such also as I have never been either 
 ashamed or afraid to avow openly. Of one thing I have 
 been long thoroughly convinced: until we become a sober, 
 thoughtful, and righteous people, and dare to do our duty 
 and our whole duty toward man and God, honestly, 
 fearlessly, and patriotically, despite the arts of dema- 
 gogues and dissemblers of all classes and complexions, we 
 need not hope that the solid and enduring glory which 
 our venerated fathers have taught us to recognize as the 
 legitimate and logical result of the establishment and 
 maintenance of free institutions can ever be fully realized. 
 
CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 275 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XXVIL 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JUSTICE CURTIS, OP MASSACHU- 
 SETTS; REVERDY JOHNSON, OF MARYLAND; GEORGE £ BAD- 
 (JER, OP NORTH CAROLINA — CHARACTERISTICS OF THESE 
 DISTINGUISHED STATESMEN. 
 
 When Mr. Curtis, of Massachusetts, was appointed to 
 a seat on the hench of the Supreme Court of the Union, 
 I recollect that his elevation to a position to which he 
 was so admirably adapted gave very general satisfaction to 
 the country. II is high rank at the bar as a man of strong, 
 astute, and scrutinizing mind, his spotless moral character, 
 and his known exemption from all the extreme opinions 
 and prejudices of party and section were well calculated to 
 give repose to the public mind, and to assure those who had 
 previously doubted the stability of our institutions that, at 
 least, one additional safeguard had been now added to the 
 frame-work of our National Union. 
 
 Not knowing the newyl-created judge myself, 1 inquired 
 ol* Mr. Webster what sort of a man precisely Mr. Curtis 
 was, when he answered me in substance thus: "Mr. 
 Curtis [ have long known most intimately, lie is a man 
 of sterling integrity; his mind is one of great vigor and 
 activity; he has not a particle of sectional prejudice; he 
 is unswervingly devoted to the cause of the Union, and is, 
 in my judgment, the best common law lawyer now in 
 Massachusetts." All this was exceedingly agreeable to 
 me to learn, and upon such very high authority, too. 1 
 remember that I was v^vy near asking ol' Mr. Webster on 
 this occasion whether he thought MrT Curtis superior in 
 legal learning and in general ability to Reverdy Johnson, 
 of Maryland, or George &, Badger, of North Carolina, as 
 
276 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 for both these gentlemen I had long; cherished very high 
 esteem, as I knew Mr. Webster to do also. I did not 
 propound this interesting inquiry simply because I 
 thought that Mr. Webster might himself feel a little un- 
 willing to pass upon the comparative merits of these ner- 
 sonages, all of whom stood so high in his regard, and 
 toward each of whom lie probably cherished feelings of 
 about equal kindness. 
 
 This colloquial interview with the illustrious sage of 
 Marsh«field was brought very vividly to my mind the other 
 day on a visit which I made to the hall of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States, where I had the unexpected 
 pleasure of seeing the venerated Nestor of the Maryland 
 bar engaged in the argument of a cause of some complex- 
 ity, involving the doctrine of the world-renowned "rule 
 in Shelley's case.'' I was a little surprised at finding Mr. 
 Johnson thus occupied, as I had been several weeks before 
 informed that he had of late undergone a complete obscura- 
 tion of the power of vision. But here was mine ancient 
 friend, now almost an octogenarian, standing nearly as 
 erect as ever, apparently in most robust health, and with 
 an appearance of cheerfulness and animation seldom to be 
 seen in any one whatever of his advanced years. 1 listened 
 to the whole of Mr. Johnson's argument, and I have no 
 hesitation in declaring that it seemed to me to be most 
 complete in all its parts; being clear, methodical, and 
 convincing, and delivered in a manner so graceful and 
 impressive as to show that the last twenty years have 
 fallen upon the physical and mental faculties of this re- 
 markable man with an influence so gentle and innocuous 
 as hardly to be perceptible in its effects, even to the most 
 scrutinizing observer. Mr. Johnson's voice is almost as 
 strong and penetrating in its tones, when he chooses to 
 elevate it a little, as it ever was; his gesticulation is 
 yet graceful and significant, and on this occasion he in- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 277 
 
 dulged in one or two facetious allusions which awakened 
 a quiet smile upon more than one of the visages of the 
 grave dispensers of justice whom he was addressing. I 
 could hardly believe him to be blind while he yet contin- 
 ued to speak, but when his remarks had drawn to a close 
 and he proceeded to walk in the direction of his hat, this 
 sad deprivation became painful ly evident. I approached 
 him and gave my hand, whispering at the same time my 
 own name in his ear, when he greeted me with all his cus- 
 tomary cordiality, and, referring to his loss of sight, said, 
 pleasantly enough, that he lamented not to be able to dis- 
 cover in my appearance those evidences of health which he 
 did not doubt would have been otherwise perceptible to 
 him. He then, for a moment or two, referred to the cotem- 
 po raucous topics of the day, and made several inquiries 
 as to [>articular public men of a nature clearly indicating 
 that he was yet feeling a deep interest in what was going 
 on in different parts of the Republic. 
 
 I embrace this opportunity of offering one or two ob- 
 servations upon this noted personage and upon some of the 
 most memorable scenes of his long public career. 
 
 The father of Reverdy Johnson was a distinguished 
 member of the bar of Maryland for many years, and is 
 acknowledged to have been one of the most learned and 
 able judges which that State, so prolific in men of intel- 
 lect, power, and culture, has ever had. His distin- 
 guished son was born on the 21st of May, 179G, at 
 Annapolis, obtained license to practice when he was not 
 yet 21 years old, and located in Upper Marlboro', in Prince 
 George's county, where he remained for two years, during 
 which period he acted as Deputy Attorney General in 
 what was then known as the first judicial district of the 
 State. He removed to the city of Baltimore in the au- 
 tumn of 1817, and has resided in that city or in its im- 
 mediate neighborhood ever since. His first argument in 
 
278 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 the Supreme Court of the United States will be found re- 
 ported in 12th Wheaton, and was made in the case of 
 Brown vs. Maryland. 
 
 His mind is one of uncommon strength and acuteness ; 
 his temperament is ardent and generous ; his heart is kind 
 and sympathizing to an extent not often known among 
 those intensely devoted to the harrassing and irritating 
 duties of the calling in which he has spent so many years 
 of his laborious and eventful life. He is personally brave 
 almost to a fault, and is distinguished above most of his 
 cotemporaries for a polish and high-bred courtesy of de- 
 meanor and an ever-flowing geniality of spirit which have 
 made him, if possible, even more an object of general love 
 and sympathy than of admiration and confidence. Dur- 
 ing his long service in the National Senate I feel confident 
 that he never made an enemy, and in his numberless con- 
 flicts at the bar I .judge him to have been equally fortu- 
 nate. 'No one, I am sure, doubts that lie is a man of most 
 abundant legal learning, and his extraordinary success in 
 the argument of the most difficult causes lias for the last 
 thirty years commanded for him a very high place in the 
 estimation of all the admirers of juridical erudition and 
 consummate argumentative power. 
 
 Asa politician Rcvcrdy Johnson has never (at least since 
 I knew him) been for a moment what is known as a 
 thorough-going party man. He has always been remarka- 
 ble for that true manliness and independence, both of 
 thought and action, which no mere servitor of faction has 
 ever been known conspicuously to display. He has ever 
 thought it quite possible that the best organized and most 
 honest political party may be occasionally involved in 
 errors of opinion, and be seduced also into serious abuses 
 of [tower; and when the particular party with which he 
 chanced to stand associated has seemed to him at any 
 time to be pursuing a course detrimental to the vital in- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 279 
 
 terests of the country, ho has never heen slow in express- 
 ing his decided dissent. When opposing the measures of 
 an administration with which he had no political affili- 
 ation, and to whose further continuance in power he was 
 altogether averse, he has heen always fair and liberal, and 
 on no occasion has he heen known to indulge in petty 
 malevolence or low-bred chicane. I remember with much 
 pleasure that in the winter of 1847-'8 he yielded a manly 
 and efficient support to the war policy of President Polk ; 
 and, did I choose to do so, I could easily specify numerous 
 other occasions where his conduct, under circumstances 
 peculiarly trying, was as notably upright and independent 
 as in the instance just referred to. I believe that there is 
 no doubt that Reverdy Johnson was in the early stages of 
 his political career a decided and zealous Democrat, and 
 that he afterward became an equally decided and zealous 
 Whig, lie always openly avowed the opinion that slav- 
 ery was an evil, but opposed in the most strenuous man- 
 ner the efforts of extreme abolitionists to overthrow it 
 by unjust and unconstitutional means. He was alike op- 
 posed to consolidation and to secession. lie was a warm 
 supporter of the Compromise measures of 1850, but sus- 
 tained Mr. Douglas' Kansas-Nebraska bill, and opposed with 
 the utmost earnestness that gigantic fraud, the Lecomp- 
 ton bill. Wf had no hand in bringing on the late un- 
 happy war; "nut while it was in progress he gave a firm 
 and steady support to those measures which he judged 
 necessary to the defense of the Government against armed 
 rebellion, and to the maintenance of the Federal Union 
 against all the attempts made for its overthrow. He re_ 
 joiced at the return of peace, and gave his sanction to the 
 efforts of the Andrew Johnson administration to carry info 
 effect his well-known reconstructive policy — so far, at least, 
 as he thought his recommendations judicious and author- 
 ised by the Constitution. Upon the whole, perhaps no 
 
280 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 American statesman can be mentioned whose general 
 course Las evinced less of servility to party, or a willing- 
 ness to sacrifice principle to the temporary purposes of 
 faction, than the venerable individual of whom I am now 
 speaking. In reviewing the checkered political career 
 which Reverdy Johnson has run I have been able to find 
 no instance in which he has seemed to have been even for a 
 single instant forgetful of the dignity of his own charac- 
 ter, or regardless of his country's welfare and honor. If 
 he has often felt compelled to modify hisown attitude to- 
 ward the leading statesmen of the Republic, or toward 
 the political parties of which they seemed to be the recog- 
 nized exponents for the time being, the circumstances at- 
 tendant upon such change of position on his part have 
 always been such as to leave his public integrity unques- 
 tioned, and to vindicate the absolute purity of his mo- 
 tives. I have not had the happiness to be always in 
 harmony with him touching the great public questions 
 which have commanded the attention of the country dur- 
 ing the last twenty-live years ; but from my earliest ac- 
 quaintance with Mr. Johnson my esteem for his abilities 
 and my confidence in his integrity have been constantly 
 on the increase. 
 
 Those who have read with attention the pages of Ma- 
 caulay will not fail to recognize some similitude between 
 the characters of Reverdy Johnson, as I have endeavored 
 to portray it, and that of the celebrated Lord Halifax in 
 England, who is known at different stages of his splendid 
 and useful career to have co-operated sometimes with one 
 of the great political parties of his day, and sometimes 
 with the opposing one, according to his own conscientious 
 convictions of duty at the moment, and to have evinced 
 no sensitiveness whatever as to the charges to which he 
 was constantly exposing himself of inconsistency and fickle- 
 ness^ and which fastened upon him the appellation of "The 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 281 
 
 Trimmer." "Instead of quarreling with hi* nickname,'' 
 says Macau! ay, " he assumed it asa title of honor, and vin- 
 dicated, with great vivacity, the dignity of the appellation. 
 Every thing good, he said, trimmed between extremes. The 
 
 temperate zone trims between the climate in which men 
 are roasted and the climate in which they are frozen. 
 The English Church trims between the Anabaptist mad- 
 ness and the Papist lethargy. The English Constitution 
 trims between Turkish despotism and Polish anarchy. 
 Virtue is nothing but a just temper between propensities 
 any one of which, if indulged to excess, becomes vice. 
 Nay, the perfection of the Supreme Being himself con- 
 sists in the exact equilibrium of attributes, none of which 
 could preponderate without disturbing the whole moral 
 and physical order of the universe." 
 
 In concluding what I have here ventured to say of Mr. 
 Johnson — whose exemption from extreme party bias has 
 greatly distinguished him for many years among the illus- 
 trious public men of the country— I shall take the liberty 
 of repeating here what I have already published in a dif- 
 ferent form as to this very interesting matter: " Those fa- 
 miliar with the public career of Cicero — who was unques- 
 tionably the ablest and most politic statesman of ancient 
 times, and if not the first of orators, ancient or modern, 
 only inferior to Demosthenes — will remember that there 
 was much in his conduct at different periods which indi- 
 cated that he too had learned that it was neither wise nor 
 safe for a public man of great eminence and of extended 
 influence to suffer any political faction, struggling fiercely 
 for ascendency, to appropriate to itself exclusively his 
 whole weight and influence. Accordingly, we find him 
 now the champion of the Knights, now the vindicator of 
 the Senate, and now again the zealous advocate of popular 
 rights. While it seemed possible to effect a reconcilement 
 between Pompey-and Caesar he joined the faction of neither, 
 
282 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 professing friendship and respect for both, and striving to 
 prevent such a collision between them as would be likely 
 to bring on civil war When, in spite of his efforts to 
 the contrary, war between these celebrated chieftains com- 
 menced, it is known that Cicero hesitated long whether 
 to join one or the other of them or to remain neutral — 
 as his friend Atticus so warmly advised him to do, and 
 when, finally, he withdrew from Rome and sought refuse 
 in Pompey's camp, he found it so utterly impossible for 
 himself to play the part of a servile adherent of faction 
 that he was once or twice exposed to the greatest personal 
 danger from the insane violence of those who, forgetful 
 of the cause of freedom, had become the willing slaves 
 of him whose ruin was soon to be consummated at Phar- 
 salia. Even Cato is known to have condemned him for 
 not remaining upon neutral ground, so as to have it in his 
 power to interpose effectively, should some favorable op- 
 portunity of doing so present itself, for the restoration of 
 domestic peace; and long after. Pompey had perished, 
 Cicero himself more than once expressed doubt whether 
 it would not have been better for Rome and the 
 general interests of freedom for Caesar to have been tri- 
 umphant than that he should have been compelled to suc- 
 cumb to his more selfish and less magnanimous rival." 
 Such a man as this could hardly have been expected to 
 a give up to party what was meant for mankind, 1 ' and 
 when the acrid prejudices engendered by our unhappy 
 civil war shall have completely passed away, few, I am 
 confident, will at all doubt that the uniform moderation 
 and liberality which have so nobly marked the course of 
 Keverdy Johnson for the last fifteen eventful years have 
 been far more creditable both to his heart and his under- 
 standing than would have been all the fleeting Gclat ac- 
 quired by the shallow and heartless demagogues of vari- 
 
CASKET Or REMINISCENCES. 283 
 
 our hues and complexions with whom he has beeu from 
 to time more or less in contact. 
 
 Greorge ps Badger, of North Carolina has left behind 
 him a reputation for solid virtue and sound practical intel- 
 lect which will probably survive as long a: this great 
 Republic shall itself continue in existence. I knew him 
 well, both in public and in private life His heart was 
 full of kind and generous' sentiments. Through a long 
 course of laborious public exertion his integrity was never 
 called in question. For many years he was the acknowl- 
 edged bead of the bar of North Carolina, and in the Supreme 
 Court of the United States be enjoyed for a long period a 
 large and lucrative practice, and sustained a very high 
 character both for juridical learning and for general liter- 
 ary attainments. His manner as a speaker was gentle, 
 polished, and engaging. He was always perfectly familiar 
 with the eases which be undertook to argue, and never 
 failed to diseuss them with a clearness and force which 
 was sure to command the respect and admiration of 
 all who listened to him. He was always courteous and af- 
 fable, and on no occasion evinced the least irritability or 
 disrespect toward those with whom be was thrown into 
 conflict. 
 
 In the National Senate, where he long held a seat, he 
 was always a great favorite. In that body be was not a 
 very frequent speaker, but when he did participate in de- 
 bate lie was ever listened to with marked respect and 
 satisfaction. A truer patriot has never lived. He was 
 eminently conservative in all bis opinions, and had as 
 le of partisan bitterness as any man I have known. 
 He commenced public life as a Federalist of the Marshall 
 ami Webster school, and to the principles WvM avowed by 
 hi in be ever most tenaciously adhered. J le regarded the 
 dogma of secession as little less than the emanation of 
 political insanity, in which respect I am inclined to think 
 
284 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 he did not seriously err. lie objected eveu to the Consti 
 tution of the United States being called the "Federal 
 Constitution," this appellation intimating, as he conceived, 
 the idea ofafoedus or league between the States embraced 
 in the National Union. With Mr. Webster, he insisted 
 that the States of the Union were not bound together by 
 a compact between them as sovereignties, but that they, 
 and the people they contained, had been existing ever 
 since the year 1789 under a government possessing nearly 
 all the great attributes of sovereignty, and absolutely 
 supreme within the sphere of its operation. No man 
 struggled harder than Mr. Badger to ward off the evils of 
 secession, lie stood bravely up in the Senate for many 
 years as the honest and inflexible opponent of sectional 
 extremists, alike of the North and of the South. When 
 war came he could truthfully assert, that he had done 
 nothing himself to bring it on ; and all the bloody and 
 horrible scenes with which its progress was marked 
 awakened in his mind sentiments of unmitigated distress 
 and horror. I met with him at his own house in Raleigh, 
 during the second year of the war, and had much conver- 
 sation with him. lie was at that time decidedly of opin- 
 ion that the conflict of arms then in progress had origi- 
 nated in the most deplorable want of true statesmanship 
 in several distinct quarters, and that there was nothing 
 in the circumstances connected with the elevation of Mr- 
 Lincoln which at all justified Mr. Davis and bis associates 
 in commencing a contest that could not be otherwise than 
 ruinous to the South, and dangerous to public liberty 
 everywhere. The strange and unpardonable abuses of 
 [tower whir!: had already occurred in Richmond filled 
 him both with surprise and indignation. He never 
 deemed it even possible that t\ic Stales of the South could 
 succeed in establishing a separate republic; and even had 
 he thought otherwise, such a consummation would have 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 2$5 
 
 been to him anything but desirable. At the time I visited 
 him last the organic convention of North Carolina was in 
 session in Raleigh, and he was a member of that body. 
 80 decided was he in his opposition to the despotism then 
 existing in Richmond that he thought very seriously of 
 introducing resolutions as a member of the convention de- 
 nunciatory of the leading measures of the secession oli- 
 garchy then in power, and looking to a retrocession of 
 North Carolina from the Confederate alliance, in which, 
 as he supposed, she had become most unwisely entangled. 
 He seriously advised with me in regard to the expediency 
 of this proceeding, and I confess to have counseled him 
 against it — mainly though upon the ground that the 
 popular mind of the South was not then prepared to sanc- 
 tion a movement which I should otherwise have greatly 
 rejoiced to see occur. A year after this I again visited 
 this enlightened and high-spirited gentleman. A great 
 and melancholy change had then recently occurred both 
 in his mental and physical condition. Tie had been 
 stricken with paralysis, that terrible foe to intellect, and 
 his once powerful and brilliant mind had become sadly 
 obscured and enfeebled. He enunciated with much diffi- 
 culty ; his memory, both as to facts and words, had grown 
 dim and confused, and he had been forever cut off from 
 the enjoyment of that high colloquial interchange in which 
 lie bad always taken so much delight. My last interview 
 with this pure-minded and amiable man was to me most 
 sad and affecting, and I took leave of him without the 
 smallest hope of ever seeing him^agaiu on this side of the 
 grave. Hequiescat in pace ! /\^ %i*e-<- 
 
 When alluding in what has been written above to the 
 interview between Mr. Badger and myself in regard to 
 the propriety of his originating at that time a, reactionary 
 movement in the convention of which he wns a member 
 against the further submission to Confederate authorit}^ 
 
286 Casket of reminiscences. 
 
 of that Commonwealth of which he was a citizen, and my 
 advice to him not then to incur the dangers consequent 
 upon such a proceeding, I should regret to he understood 
 as being at that time at all unwilling to see such an ex- 
 periment tried had there been ground for a reasonable 
 hope of its success. I had long before this period become 
 satisfied of the absurdity as well as of the criminality of 
 all attempts to break up the Federal Union, and I had 
 always been of opinion that nothing could justify armed 
 opposition to the Government established by our fathers 
 but the actual sufferance of "intolerable oppression. " The 
 fallacious character of the extreme State-rights theory 
 had been already completely demonstrated by the open 
 assertion on the part of the Richmond authorities, both 
 in Congress and elsewhere, of the right to prevent by 
 military force, should it become necessary to resort to this 
 expedient, any one or more of the States called sovereign 
 from going back into the old Union, should they, or any 
 one of them, judge this to be desirable ; so that the boasted 
 right of secession was now virtually acknowledged, even 
 by tbose in whose plodding brains it had originated, as a 
 sham and a deception. Having seceded once, no further 
 exertion of this sovereign right was held to be allowable! 
 It is, accordingly, a well-known historic fact, which no 
 truth-loving member of the late Confederate Congress wiil 
 undertake to deny, that on one occasion the proposition 
 was warmly urged in the popular branch of that body to 
 coerce the State of North Carolina into submission to 
 Confederate authority should her people undertake to re- 
 scind the ordinance of secession, which had been previously 
 adopted, and that when I undertook to protest, as T did, 
 against the employment of military force against one of 
 the States, asserted by the Confederate Constitution itself 
 to be absolutely and unqualifiedly sovereign, the majority 
 of the House of Representatives at once voted to go into 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 287 
 
 secret session, in order to discuss this grave and delicate 
 qiaestion with closed doors, so that they might have it in 
 their power to crush alleged treason in the bud before 
 those who had become restless under the unfeeling tyranny 
 then in operation could even become aware of the danger 
 to which they were exposing themselves. 
 
 Surely this occurrence should of itself be sufficient to 
 warn our countrymen against the perilous character of 
 this secession remedy, and prevent in all coming time the 
 imitation of this most mischievous and woful example. 
 There is no safety to either States or people save under 
 the national flag, as all will assuredly find sooner or later 
 who presume to make unprovoked war against its sacred 
 authority. 
 
288 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES* 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XXVIII. 
 
 DAVIS, BENJAMIN, AND OTHERS. 
 
 It has been thought by many that one of the most im- 
 politic and censurable wars that the world has known 
 was that which owed its rise recently to the vaulting am- 
 bition of Louis Napoleon ; a war for the prevention of 
 which that cool-headed and profound statesman, M. Thiers, 
 delivered one of the most powerful, eloquent, and fearless 
 speeches of his life; but, alas! in vain. The total unpre- 
 paredness of France for such a conflict as she was now 
 precipitated into, and the masterly preparations of every 
 kind so providently made by the Prussian Government to 
 meet the unauthorized invaders of her soil, constitute one 
 of the most impressive and instructive chapters of modern 
 history. Alter such a prodigious blunder on the part of 
 a man so superior in all respects to Mr. Davis, the recent 
 President of what was called "The Confederate States of 
 America," it should excite less of wonder, perhaps, that 
 the latter personage and his aspiring confreres should have 
 so insanely urged the "cotton States" of the South into 
 a war with the wisely-framed and admirably- accoutered 
 Government, whose downfall they so foolishly thought il 
 was in their power to accomplish. The Government so 
 wantonly assailed may be set down as representing, at the 
 moment when the war was initiated by Mr. Davis, the 
 power and resources of nearly twenty-live millions of peo- 
 ple. To the cotton States alone could the plotters of re- 
 bellion look for co-operative aid ; and, making allowance 
 for the strength of the Union element existing in all the 
 States of the South from the beginning to the end of this 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 28§ 
 
 unhappy contest, and for that of the African elemenl 
 also, which all discerning men foresaw from the begin- 
 ning, should the conflict be at all prolonged, would he 
 infallibly wielded against the Southern claim to inde- 
 pendence, no one can suppose that as many as five mil- 
 lions of people could at any time have been found, during 
 the four years of terrible suffering through which it was 
 the fate of the unhappy and deluded South to pass, (in- 
 cluding men, women, and children,) whose hearts could 
 be regarded as warmly enlisted in a cause having so little 
 in it to command respect and awaken sympathy among 
 those who had no hand in- the origination of hostilities. 
 Besides, the strong-willed and resolute men whom the 
 rash and improvident Southern Senators and Representa- 
 tives had left behind them in Washington city, hencefor- 
 ward to wield all the thunders of State without serious 
 let or embarrassment from any quarter, were possessed of 
 a considerable force of regular soldiers, besides the navy, 
 and abundant resources of every kind for the purposes of 
 self-defense and for the prosecution of warlike enterprises 
 in any quarter, whether on land or water, while all the 
 States of the old world were open to them, and the sym- 
 pathizers with free government everywhere would be 
 ready to send to them the most ample supplies of all 
 kinds that might be needed — while there were millions 
 of soldiers beyond the ocean who only awaited the recep- 
 tion of a friendly invitation to fly across thedeep in order 
 to aid in defending that national emblem for the support 
 of which our fathers had nearly a century before so sol- 
 emnly pledged their " lives, their fortunes, and their sacred 
 honor." 
 
 If the disparity between the parties to this war was so 
 
 marked in the respects specified, how much must that 
 
 disparity have been aggravated by Mr. Davis'own gross and 
 
 now ascertained incompetency, and the singular and in- 
 
 19r 
 
290 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 deed almost ludicrous imbecility of nearly all those whom 
 he soon called around him as his Cabinet counselors, or 
 placed in the most responsible positions connected with 
 the military and naval movements needful to be carried 
 forward ! But Mr. Davis and his official associates had 
 no correct conception of the true character and dimen- 
 sions of the war into which they had so hastily plunged, 
 as was afterward in fact confessed in many a lugubrious 
 harangue, and in more than one whining; official docu- 
 ment. These gentlemen did not believe that the conflict 
 would endure for a twelvemonth, and they were even 
 weak enough to calculate strongly upon Northern aid, 
 Ex- President Pierce and several others, whose letters to 
 Mr. Davis have recently seen the light, having shamefully 
 plied this most gullible personage with secret promises of 
 support ; upon which he had built his hopes of one day 
 wielding an imperial scepter. As to the interposition of 
 foreign Powers in behalf of the now belligerent States of 
 the South, though many deceitful assurances were received 
 from abroad at different periods of the contest, no one of 
 sound intellect anywhere now supposes that either the 
 French or the English Government ever thought of em- 
 broiling itself in a transatlantic civic feud, a formal enlist- 
 ment in which would, in all probability, bring upon it 
 swift and assured destruction. The vain and shallow- 
 minded Davis evidently thought far otherwise as to this 
 matter when he spoke at Jackson, Miss., just before leaving 
 that place for the city of Montgomery, where he had been 
 chosen President of the Confederate States, thus: " Eng- 
 land will not allow our great staples to be dammed up 
 within our present limits. The starving thousands in 
 their midst would not allow it. We have nothing to 
 apprehend from blockade. But if they attempt invasion 
 by land we must take the war out of our territory. If war 
 must come it must be upon Northern and not upon South- 
 
CASKET OF tlEMINISCENCES. 291 
 
 era soil." So thought the boasting Napoleon the Little 
 when he dashed forth so chivalrously from Paris to be- 
 siege Berlin ! 
 
 When Mr. Davis reached Stevenson, on his way to 
 Montgomery, he said: 
 
 "Your border States will gladly come into our Southern Confed- 
 eracy in sixty days, as we will be their only friends. England will 
 recognize us, and a glorious future is before us. The grass will grow 
 in the Northern cities where the pavements have been worn off by 
 the tread of commerce. We will carry war where it is easy to advance; 
 where food for the sword and torch awaits our armies in the densely 
 populated cities; and though they (the enemy) may come and spoil our 
 Crops, we 3an raise them as before, while they can not rear the cities 
 which took years of industry and millions of money to build." 
 
 It was in this spirit that Mr. Davis' Secretary of War, 
 Mr. Walker, on the night after the storming of Fort Sum- 
 ter, declared publicly that " the Confederate flag would 
 be soon seen flying from the top of the American Capi- 
 tol." 
 
 It is not possible that I should cherish reminiscences of 
 any kind connected with the conventional or govern- 
 mental proceedings in Montgomery. I thank heaven 
 that I was not a member of that ill-assorted convention. 
 I am equally thankful that I was not among those who 
 inspired the action of the new Government of Montgom- 
 ery. Tennessee, of which State I have been a resident for 
 fifteen years past, had not then become engulfed in the 
 whirlpool of rebellion. Had Virginia remained firm she 
 never would have been. By what means Mr. Davis man- 
 aged to become President I never exactly knew, though 
 I have learned through quite a direct channel that he re- 
 ceived for this office in the convention in which he was 
 chosen a majority of one voteonly over Howell Cobb,of Geor- 
 gia. He was only elected to the place of Provisional 
 President. Had not hostilities been actually commenced 
 at once he would certainly have been beaten in the popu- 
 
292 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 lar election which afterward occurred. It was, therefore, 
 all-important to him that the war should be begun as 
 soon as possible, for nothing could be more certain than 
 that the election of a new executive chief in the midst of 
 war would not be deemed safe or prudent. Hence the 
 precipitate order to lire on Fort Sumter which was dis- 
 patched to Charleston. 
 
 And now the state of war virtual ly placed everything 
 in Mr. Davis' incompetent hands. The border States, as 
 had been so often predicted, were, one after another, with 
 oue or two exceptions, dragged into the contest. 
 
 Having no respect for Mr. Davis' capacity ; having not 
 the least confidence in his sincerity and manliness ; know- 
 ing him to be vain, selfish, overbearing, ambitious, in- 
 triguing, and a slave to his prejudices and partialities: 
 not having had the least personal intercourse with him at 
 that time for years ; knowing well that he had cherished 
 an undying hatred for me ever since I had beaten him for 
 the office of Governor of Mississippi in 1851, and had 
 thus aided in thwarting the scheme which he and others 
 had then set on foot to withdraw the Southern States from 
 the Federal Union, it may seem a little surprising to some 
 thai T should have consented to occupy for a moment a 
 seat in the Confederate Congress. But it was mainly be- 
 cause I entertained such an unfavorable opinion of Mr. 
 Davis, and because I painfully distrusted his aims and 
 purposes, that I was willing to come near to him in an 
 official capacity ; that thus I might have it in my power 
 to keep watch over all his movements, and aid as far as 
 might be possible in disappointing his projects of personal 
 ambition. I certainly intended to give a faithful and 
 true support to the Confederate cause after I had become 
 enlisted in it, as I indisputably did ; but I did not intend 
 to let Mr. Davis become an emperor if I could prevent it, 
 nor allow his servitors in Congress to organize a military 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 298 
 
 despotism in Richmond upon the false pretext that they 
 were extreme devotees to State rights and to Southern 
 independence. In point of fact I was never at the Presi 
 dential Mansion once during my four years' stay in Rich- 
 mond, and not a day passed while I occupied a seat in 
 the Confederate Congress that was not more or less sig- 
 nalized by my vehement opposition to Mr. Davis and to 
 most of the members of his infamous Cabinet, whom I 
 well knew to be absolute slaves to his will — mercenary to 
 unscrupulousness ; corrupt, and contemptible. Almost 
 every day I felt that my life was in danger; but every 
 day I was more and more zealous in my opposition to Mr. 
 Davis and his favorite measures of policy, and to the cor- 
 rupt and profligate schemes of his special friends and sup- 
 porters. It is eminently painful to me to speak of these 
 things, but the time has come when the truth must be 
 told. A great experiment of States-right secession has 
 been made, and it is important that the world should 
 know precisely what baneful consequences resulted from 
 this experiment, in order that no such insane and deplora- 
 ble attempt shall again be essayed in any part of this 
 "broad Union, and in order that all may be solemnly 
 warned not to take even the first step toward that evil 
 state of things which was soon to be realized in Rich- 
 mond. I do not believe that a more heartless and grind- 
 ing despotism has been anywhere known since the days 
 of Dionysius of Syracuse than the one there set on foot. 
 Upon the pretext of military necessity all power was con- 
 centrated in the hands of Mr. Davis and his myrmidons, 
 and not a particle of this power was intrusted to them 
 that they did not criminally and corruptly transcend and 
 abuse. By a shameful act of servility Mr. Davis was 
 given authority to suspend the great charter of liberty 
 whenever and wherever he pleased, and this was done on 
 his own earnest solicitation. A lull was passed called the 
 
294 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 " Forcible Impressment Law," which placed all the means 
 of subsistence for men and domestic animals completely 
 under the control of Mr. Davis and his official servitors, a 
 large proportion of whom were dishonest and oppressive 
 beyond anything which can be conceived of, save by those 
 who came in contact with that terrible system of fraud 
 and violence which they introduced. A conscription law 
 was passed which brought under Mr. Davis' command 
 every able-bodied man in the South between the ages of 
 sixteen and forty-five ; and all who refused to serve in the 
 Confederate army against the paternal government of 
 their lathers were subject to be shot as for desertion. 
 When the 'hill for this purpose was upon its passage I 
 offered thirteen different amendments to it intended to cor- 
 rect palable unconstitutionalities ; and all these were rapidly 
 voted down; when, together with only a small number of 
 others, I voted against the measure. This law of con- 
 scription was most rigorously and cruelly enforced, and 
 was the cause, not only of very general popular disgust, 
 but the fatal enfeeblement of the Confederate army by 
 actual desertion. A sweeping confiscation act was passed, 
 designed to take away all the property of those who any- 
 where within the limits of the Confederate States did not 
 give open countenance and support to the cause of the 
 rebellion. This law was afterward so amplified and ex- 
 tended by amendment, at the instance of Mr. Perkins, of 
 Louisiana — a special devotee and confidant of Mr. Davis — 
 as to embrace the property of men, women, and children, 
 wheresoever located, that might chance to be then absent, 
 who, holding property in the South, did not immediately 
 return within the confines of the Confederate States and 
 take an active part in the war. When this most nefa- 
 rious amendment was under consideration I earnestly pro- 
 tested against it, and brought to the attention of the 
 mover that such men as the venerable Dr. Duncan and 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 295 
 
 Leveu P. Marshal], of New York, both formerly of Mis- 
 sissippi, would be stripped by this law of the most of what 
 they were worth, though their age and other causes had 
 prevented their taking any decided interest in the war ; 
 to which Mr. Perkins responded that it was just such 
 men as these that he wished to bring within the opera- 
 tion of the law I then ventured to mention that there 
 were two most amiable and accomplished ladies of the 
 city of Nashville — Mrs. Porter, the daughter of the ven- 
 erable Felix Grundy, and Mrs. Player, the stepdaughter 
 of John Bell — who would be ruined by this law ; for one 
 of them was in Philadelphia and the other in Hartford, 
 for the education of their children respectively ; when I 
 was again answered that it was precisely such cases as 
 those described by me which it was desired to reach. 
 And so this law passed ; and had the Confederate cause 
 triumphed, and Mr. Davis been continued in power, verily 
 it would have been enforced to the letter! 
 
 At last a member from Mississippi came one morning 
 into the House of Representatives and offered a bill for 
 adoption which proposed the immediate and universal 
 establishment of martial law, and for an indefinite period of 
 time, and this movement was notoriously inspired by Mr. 
 Davis himself. I got up immediately and denounced it 
 as a cold-blooded and unprincipled attempt to establish 
 an armed despotism, at which the proposer grew affrighted. 
 He came into the House next morning and asked to be 
 allowed to withdraw it ; but, as I made stern objection 
 to this, it was not withdrawn, and now remains a perma- 
 nent monument of infamy and reproach. A slavish Con- 
 gress even went so far in its devotion to Mr. Davis as to 
 adopt a passport law, making it criminal even for a mem- 
 ber of Congress to leave Richmond except under the sign- 
 manual of Juclah P. Benjamin, Mr. Davis' Secretary of 
 State, and the known writer of his executive messages. 
 
296 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 A few months before this evil apparition of a Govern- 
 ment, built upon the basis of extreme States' rights and 
 secession, broke up, a bill or resolution was introduced 
 and passed unanimously in the Confederate Senate, pro- 
 viding for the payment of $7,000 in gold to Mr. Jefferson 
 Davis as part of his presidential salary of $25,000. This was 
 evidently intended as a preliminary step toward paying the 
 whole $25,000 in gold thereafter. The bill had been 
 under consideration in the body where it originated for 
 several days, and had been much discussed in the Rich- 
 mond newspapers, so that Mr. Davis was bound to know 
 that it was before Congress. By existing law his salary 
 was payable alone in Confederate paper, and such was the 
 distinct understanding when his second election occurred. 
 His remarkable physiognomy stood visibly impressed upon 
 every Confederate note, so that the payment of his salary 
 in anything but Confederate paper was fatally to discredit 
 the only currency we had. Mr. Davis had a dwelling- 
 house supplied to him; and furniture, fuel, and provision 
 for some six horses at the Government's expense. The 
 members of Congress were content to receive as the re- 
 compense of their legislative labors Confederate money, 
 though it was now worth only ten cents on the dollar. 
 The Confederate soldiers would have been o-]ad to get their 
 own wretched pay in the paper currency, but could not 
 even get that. The poor fellows were, most of them, in 
 rags and barefoot. When this legislative monstrum hor- 
 rendum reached the Douse, I rose in my place, and said that 
 I would move a test vote; I wished to know how many 
 men there were slavish and corrupt enough to vote for 
 so infamous a measure, and I moved to put it on the tabic, 
 calling for the yeas and nays. To the honor of the body, 
 be it spoken, only seven persons had the unblushing audae*- 
 ity to vote yea ! Some of these, I learn, are now com- 
 plaining most vehemently that the Congress of the United 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 1^>7 
 
 States recently increased the President's salary from 
 |35,000 to $50,000, though every man of sense knows 
 that $50,000 will hardly go as far as $10,000 would have 
 done, in the purchase of the necessaries of life, in the days 
 of our earlier Presidents. 
 
 I have not stated a hundredth part of the enormities 
 the enactment of which I was daily compelled to witness 
 in Richmond. I hope never to be compelled to detail all 
 I witnessed there. I shall spend no time upon Mr. Davis' 
 cruel persecution of such meritorious officers as Joe John- 
 ston, Beauregard, Gustavus Smith, Stonewall Jackson, 
 and others; nor shall I explain here how the last-men- 
 tioned personage was prevented from retiring abruptly 
 from the Confederate service, as a consecpience of the con- 
 tinued annoyances to which he w r as subjected, by the 
 special interposition of the Virginia Legislature. ^S r or 
 need I expatiate here upon Mr. Davis' unpardonable ad- 
 herence to such men as Bra*™ and Ilindman, both of 
 whom, as I repeatedly proved in Congress, by irrefutable 
 testimony, were covered thickly with the blood of inno- 
 cent men whom they had murdered deliberately and with- 
 out the least authority even of what we at that time re- 
 cognized as law. Nor shall I advert to the fact that Mr. 
 Davis had notoriously kept in the office of Commissary 
 General, in opposition to almost universal public senti- 
 ment, the infamous JNorthup, a man once confined in a 
 mad-house, and then obviously in an unsound state of 
 mind, whose administration of the commissary depart- 
 ment had been such as almost to break up the army by 
 starvation, and that in spite of all the exposures which I 
 had from time to time made of his malefactions he still held 
 on to him until he could get no respectable person to hold 
 the Secretaryship of War, except on the condition of this 
 man's removal. These are indeed most painful reminis- 
 
298 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 cences, a minute record of which would only awaken 
 profitless disgust and horror. 
 
 At length the time came when there was no longer ground 
 for rational hope that the Confederate' cause could he 
 upheld for even three months longer. On consultation 
 with several of the ablest and most worthy military com- 
 manders in and about Richmond, as to the possibility of 
 our continuing to hold out against the overwhelming 
 Union force then in the neighborhood of Richmond, these 
 gentlemen all expressed the opinion that the success of 
 the Confederate cause had become utterly hopeless. I 
 then went into the Confederate Congress, armed in full 
 proof as to this matter, and urged that Mr. Davis should 
 be at once and urgently requested to open negotiations for 
 peace. I even went so far as to show to that body that 
 if peace were then asked for it could be at once obtained, 
 and on honorable terms at the hands of Mr. Lincoln ; and 
 that should we defer action on this subject until the month 
 of March, 1865 — three months thereafter — 'the Congress 
 just elected, who would then come into power, would be 
 sure to exact terms far more harsh and rigorous than 
 those which Mr. Lincoln was then inclined to exact. I 
 urged that those who now persevered in continuing a 
 hopeless war would make themselves responsible for all 
 the precious blood that might be thereafter shed. But I 
 should have talked with about as much effect if I had 
 been addressing the dead. 
 
 In despair of obtaining peace by any other means I 
 consulted with a majority of my own colleagues in Con- 
 gress from Tennessee, and with their full sanction I deter- 
 mined to set off for Washington, in order to ascertain 
 from Mr. Lincoln's own lips what conditions of peace he 
 would be willing to accord to us. If just and honorable 
 terms should be named to me I was to bring back these 
 terms to Richmond, divulge them there, and appeal to 
 the people of the South, at their homes, and to our sol- 
 
CASKET OF KEMIN1SCENCES. 209 
 
 diers in camp, to put an end to the further effusion of 
 blood, whether Mr. Davis wished it or not. I knew that 
 this experiment would be a perilous one, but I resolved to 
 undertake it at all hazards. There was no other course 
 left, for I perfectly well knew that Mr. Davis would never 
 make peace except on the basis of Southern independence. 
 Still, if independence should at last be secured, he ex- 
 pected his temples to be encased in an imperial crown, 
 and that he, Louis Napoleon, and some Emperor on Mex- 
 ican soil acting under Napoleonic direction, would there- 
 after control the destinies of two hemispheres. As to Mr. 
 Davis' own hopes and plans, as well as the earnest wishes 
 of his admiring and confidential friends, I could not have 
 the least doubt. 
 
 How, after I left Richmond, Mr. Davis was persuaded 
 to send three commissioners down the James river to meet 
 Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward, in order to treat of peace ; 
 how Mr. Lincoln offered terms to which the South could 
 have honorably acceded — terms, embracing universal am- 
 nesty, and perhaps a good deal more; how, when these 
 commissioners returned to Richmond and were refused 
 permission to divulge the favorable language used by 
 J 'resident Lincoln in his interview with them, for fear 
 that Congress and the country might consent to peace on 
 the terms proposed ; what arts were used to blind and 
 fleceive the people of the South in regard to the scene be- 
 tween Mr. Lincoln and the peace commissioners at the 
 mouth of the James river — all with a view of keeping up 
 the war spirit ; how, after the lapse of a week or two, the 
 Confederate Congress, at last finding out Mr. Davis' true 
 character and becoming satisfied of his utter incompetency, 
 by a sort of coup d'etat, stripped him of all military power 
 and substituted for him in regard to the management of 
 all military affairs the noble and high-minded Lee, I shall 
 leave to be more fully explained by others ; the same not 
 being strictly a subject of my own personal reminiscence. 
 
300 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XXIX. 
 
 MR. LINCOLN MR. DAVIS THE PEACE COMMISSIONERS MR. 
 
 STEPHENS' DISCLOSURES. 
 
 Since the days of Sesostris no war has occurred so im- 
 portant, alike in its character and its consequences, as 
 that which was brought to an end on the soil of America 
 eight years ago; and those who won renown in that war, 
 either as sage and patriotic statesmen, or as brave, ener- 
 getic, skillful, yet upright, humane, and magnanimous 
 com m and ers of armies, may be well regarded as having, 
 by their commingled wisdom and valor, secured to them- 
 selves the respect and admiration of the present and of all 
 future generations. Surely the time will come, and I 
 would tain believe that it is even now not far distant, 
 when all those who honestly and energetically toiled in 
 this struggle — who wisely thought and boldly and elo- 
 quently spoke or wrote touching the grand questions con- 
 nected with its rise and progress — or who incurred all the 
 dangers and discomforts of a war so wasting and sanguin- 
 ary, under the undoubting conviction that they were 
 moving forward in the pathway of duty, will he univer- 
 sally recognized as entitled to the affectionate esteem and 
 reverence of all who are capable of duly estimating pure 
 and elevated motives of action, and those high-souled and 
 manly achievements to which such motives alone can 
 prompt. That there were men of high ability and of emi- 
 nent moral worth on the one side and on the other in this 
 great and memorable contest, and that there were, like- 
 wise evil-disposed and profligate monsters in human shape 
 as well among the supporters of the cause which ulti- 
 
CASKET OP REMINtSCENCKS. SOI 
 
 mately triumphed, and which ought to have triumphed, 
 
 as in the less numerous and less fortunate ranks of its ad- 
 versaries, no liberal-spirited and enlightened man hasever 
 yet doubted ; and, indeed, to deny the truth of this propo- 
 sition would be alike unjust to meritorious personages, 
 many of whom now slumber in the grave, and to the hard- 
 won honor of the American people themselves, now, thank 
 Ilea ven ! once more united by ties of mutual amity and 
 confidence which, I trust, will never be again either burst 
 asunder or seriously enfeebled. 
 
 Few can be now so blind as not to perceive that, had 
 this great Republic been permanently dissevered, perpetual 
 border wars would have been inevitable ; that large stand- 
 ing armies would have been organized on either side of 
 the line of territorial separation, and that ultimately — 
 perchance after centuries of anarchy and bloodshed — the 
 complete extinction of republican institutions in this 
 hemisphere and the establishment of several military des- 
 potisms in its stead, as grinding and oppressive as the 
 world has known, would have taken place. The bringing 
 of this fearful struggle of arms to a peaceful close, in a 
 manner consistent both with the preservation of the Fed- 
 eral Union and the continued existence of popular freedom, 
 may be therefore justly recognized as a result over which 
 the friends of constitutional liberty throughout the world 
 might be expected to rejoice. 
 
 In the summer and autumn of 1864 the absolute neces- 
 sity of an early peace began to be deeply felt throughout 
 the States of the South. Lee, after a succession of as 
 bloody and destructive battles as any on record, had been 
 driven with his gallant but almost ruined army to the 
 neighborhood of Petersburg, where he was still doing 
 what he could, with his greatly inferior forces, to hold 
 Grant in check and save Richmond from the grasp oi this 
 able and enterprising commander. Joe Johnston, for two 
 
302 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 months, at the head of one of the most gallant armies 
 that has ever contended for victory upon a field of battle, 
 had been able to retard the advance of Sherman upon 
 Atlanta. How much longer he might have succeeded in 
 doing so had not Jeff Davis, with a most stupict and blun- 
 dering audacity, removed him, can not now be determined. 
 Hood, who had been substituted for Johnston, after hav- 
 ing been signally defeated by Sherman, yielded up Atlanta, 
 retreated toward Newnan, and undertook, under the di- 
 rection of the enterprising chief of the Confederate cause, 
 his famous and most disastrous Tennessee campaign. 
 Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina all lay now 
 exposed to immediate invasion, and Sherman soon com- 
 menced his fearful march toward the sea-shore. It was 
 plain to almost eveiy man in Richmond that whenever 
 GTeneral Sherman should advance through the States just 
 mentioned, and reach, in his victorious march, the neigh- 
 borhood of Richmond, Lee would be compelled to surren- 
 der. Such innumerable blunders had been committed 
 under the management of the shallow and egotistical Da- 
 vis during the immediately preceding twelve months, in 
 the administration, both of civil and military affairs, that 
 only a few individuals, of an over-hopeful temperament, 
 then supposed it possible that the struggle could possibly 
 last beyond the first of the coming May. When General 
 Joseph E. Johnston returned from the South, after hav- 
 ing been so unwisely deprived of his command by Mr. 
 Davis, I made it my business to consult him formally in 
 regard to the possibility of continuing the war then in 
 progress, under the disadvantageous circumstances at that 
 time existing. This able and renowned commander spoke 
 with the most perfect frankness upon the subject, and de- 
 clared that the prolongation of the war would evidently 
 depend upon the rapidity or tardiness of Sherman's move- 
 ments, and that whenever he should get within the cou 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 303 
 
 fines of Virginia the fall of Richmond must necessarily 
 occur. I asked him whether he at all doubted — now that 
 the army which he had lately commanded was sent, ap- 
 parently, on an objectless mission to Tennessee — that 
 Sherman would be able to march, almost without inter- 
 ruption, through Georgia, South 'Carolina, and North 
 Carolina, to the southern boundary of Virginia. He an- 
 swered promptly that he did not. Then it was that I re- 
 solved to make a last desperate effort in the Confederate 
 Congress to obtain the adoption of a resolution asserting 
 the necessity of taking immediate steps toward securing 
 a just and honorable peace. The difficulties which I en- 
 countered on this occasion I have already heretofore suffi- 
 ciently explained. 
 
 Several months before this period, having discovered, on 
 reading the Washington newspapers, that the attempt to 
 establish an imperial government in Mexico was awaken- 
 ing great opposition in the two houses of the National 
 Legislature, and that a good deal had been said by seve- 
 ral members of that body in support of the celebrated 
 Monroe doctrine, it seemed to me that an opportunity 
 was presented of paving the way to the restoration of 
 amicable relations between the people of the North and 
 those of the South by a formal assertion in the Confed- 
 erate Congress of the great American principle which 
 constituted the leading feature of that same doctrine. 
 Accordingly I introduced a series of resolutions on this 
 subject, and delivered in support of them a long and zeal- 
 ous speech. These resolutions were referred to the Commit- 
 tee on Foreign Affairs, where they met with most serious 
 opposition from a very unexpected quarter — Mr. William 
 C. Rives, the chairman of the committee, expressing the 
 most decided objection to the proposed movement. 
 
 This action on the part of Mr. Hives was the more sur- 
 prising to me by reason of the fact that lie had formerly, 
 
304 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 when in the National House of Representatives, been a 
 very warm supporter of the Monroe doctrine. With a 
 view to counteracting his influence I got a copy of the 
 speech which he had delivered on this subject more than 
 twenty years previous, and read several extracts from it 
 in the hearing of the body of which we were both of us 
 then members. I regret to say that this conduct of mine 
 gave this worthy and accomplished gentleman some 
 offense, which I am sure was not at all intended- by me. 
 I seize the opportunity of saying here that Mr. Rives, at 
 this period of his life, was in feeble health, seemed to 
 labor under something like habitual depression of spirits, 
 and had to a great extent lost that energy of character 
 for which in earlier life he had been given so much credit. 
 lie had evidently ceased to have much confidence in his 
 own mental resources, and, greatly to the astonishment of 
 many, became in a few weeks after he had taken his seat 
 among us a thorough devotee of Mr. Davis and a sup- 
 porter of nearly all his eccentric and fanciful notions. 
 His principal speech in the House of Representatives was 
 made in support of the proposition to give Mr. Davis un- 
 limited power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus when- 
 ever and wherever he pleased. This veteran statesman 
 was immediately responded to by Colonel Baldwin, of 
 Staunton, in one of the clearest, most manly, and eloquent 
 speeches 1 ever heard, during the progress of which Mr." 
 Rives evinced a marked restlessness and chagrin which 
 it was really painful to behold. It is but just to this last- 
 named gentleman to state that about the period of the 
 arrival of the well-known Francis P. Blair in Richmond, 
 upon his most humane and patriotic mission of pacifica- 
 tion, he began to express himself much more approvingly 
 of the Monroe doctrine. Whether this was owing to Mr. 
 Blair's inspiration or to some other cause T have never 
 been able to learn. 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 305 
 
 Anterior to my own departure from Richmond in quest 
 of peace, and at the most gloomy and alarming period in 
 the history of the Confederate struggle, one or two inci- 
 dents occurred which, though perhaps not very important 
 in themselves, it will be proper here to mention. Know- 
 ing Mr. Stephens' opposition to several of the leading 
 measures recommended by Mr. Davis, and having good 
 reason to believe that he was beginning to be seriously 
 distrustful as to the result of the war, I visited him one 
 evening for the purpose of holding with him, should he 
 choose to allow it, a full and frank conference. He re- 
 ceived me with much civility, and entered into a conver- 
 sation with me, touching the existing condition of affairs, 
 which I can never forget. He did not hestitate to declare 
 his painful want of confidence in Mr. Davis' capacity, and 
 declared in very emphatic language the apprehension 
 which he began to feel that, unless more statesmanship 
 should be displayed, the war must soon terminate in dis- 
 appointment and disgrace. I then ventured to suggest to 
 him that, as Mr. Davis and his confidential advisers 
 seemed not to be at all aware of the real dangers of the 
 moment, and were evidently averse to all movements 
 looking to the restoration of peace, there was no possi- 
 bility of bringing the war to an end unless some man of 
 known character and influence would take upon himself 
 the responsibility of proceeding to Washington for the 
 purpose of ascertaining whether Mr. Lincoln and his Cab- 
 inet would not be willing to grant terms of reconcilement 
 to the Southern States and people to which they could, 
 without loss of honor, accede. I even went so far on this 
 occasion as to avow to him my conviction that he was 
 himself the man who, above all others, would be most 
 suitable to undertake this dangerous and important em- 
 bassy, adding that if he could bring back with him a 
 guarantee as to the future such as T was well satisfied 
 20 r 
 
306 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 . 
 
 Mr. Lincoln would be willing to give, I did not at all 
 doubt that the States and people of the South would at 
 once desist from the further prosecution of the war, what- 
 ever might be the views and wishes of Mr. Davis, who, it 
 was evident, would never consent to any peace which 
 would deprive him of the power and official consequence 
 which he was then enjoying. Though Mr. Stephens did 
 not in terms dissent from the views which I had deemed 
 it my duty to enunciate, yet his caution was such that he 
 did not by any means so far commit himself as to author- 
 ize anything like a confident hope that he would himself 
 undertake the high and perilous task to which I had in- 
 vited him ; so I took my leave of this sagacious, upright, 
 and over-fastidious statesman ; nor did I see him again 
 until the war was over, when I found him in Washing- 
 ton as a Senator-elect from Georgia, seeking admission to 
 a position which he would doubtless have much adorned 
 had he been once firmly seated as a member of that dig- 
 nified body, where there are so many and such powerful 
 incentives constantly supplied to the pursuance of a calm, 
 dignified, and truly conservative course. 
 
 It was early in the month of January, 1865, that the 
 venerable Francis P. Blair reached the city of Richmond. 
 A man better suited in all respects than this gentleman 
 for the delicate and difficult duty which he had so gen- 
 erously assumed could not well be imagined. He was, 
 and is yet, a person of most active and vigorous intellect; 
 of long and varied public experience, possessing a pro- 
 found knowledge of human nature, and capable in an 
 eminent degree of adapting himself to the peculiar tem- 
 pers and tastes of those with whom he may be thrown 
 into contact. He knew Jefferson Davis well, perhaps no 
 man knew him better, and was, of course, cognizant of 
 his extreme selfishness of character, his insatiable ambi- 
 tion, his surpassing vanity, and his extreme tenacity of 
 
OASKKT Otf KKMlNrSCKNCES. -WH 
 
 power. Mr. Blair hoped that in the then almost ruined 
 condition of Confederate affairs lie might tind it possible 
 to win Mr. Davis over to the side of peace by opening to 
 him an opportunity of ending the war with credit to 
 himself and his associates, and of taking a conspicuous 
 part in the acquisition of the vast territorial domain then 
 in the lawless occupancy of the imperial autocrat, Maxi- 
 milian, who had been foisted by the criminal machina- 
 tions of Louis Napoleon upon a, reluctant but powerless 
 people. Had Mr. Blair known at the time how deeply 
 and irretrievably committed Mr. Davis and his especial ser- 
 vitors in Eichmond were to the ambitious schemes of the 
 French Emperor, and that our executive chief was him- 
 self confidently expecting that the time would yet arrive 
 when .Napoleon the Little, Maximilian the Unfortunate, 
 and Jefferson Davis the Equivocator, would, by conjoint 
 and consociated rule, control the destiny of two hemis- 
 pheres, he would hardly have expected to succeed in his 
 noble and well-planned mission. Mr. Stephens, in the 
 second volume of that very remarkable book which he 
 has lately given to the public, reveals many particulars 
 connected with this epoch, of which, before its appear- 
 ance, but few had become authentically advised. He 
 says, in relation to the appearance of Mr. Blair in Rich- 
 mond at the time referred to: 
 
 The arrival of this distinguished personage, who was unquestionably 
 
 the real J J \irwick of the party then in power at Washington, caused no 
 little sensation. What could have brought him there? and what was 
 his business:' These were the inquiries of almost every one. He was 
 immediately in close and private conversation with Mr. Davis. After 
 remaining a few days he returned. Nothing, however, touching the 
 object of his visit escaped from the Executive closet, or got to the pub- 
 lic in any way. The surprise occasioned by his first visit was even 
 increased by a second a tew days afterward. He was again in consul- 
 tation with Mr. Davis, and again returned. The same mystery con- 
 tinued to hung over the object of his mission. 
 
 Mr. Stephens then goes on to say that it was." in these 
 
308 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 interviews between Mr. Davis and Mr. Blair that the 
 Hampton Roads conference originated." He further 
 states that " on the day after Mr. Blair's final departure 
 he was himself sent for by Mr. Davis, with a request to 
 meet him at a stated hour, on special and important busi- 
 ness." This message " came through Mr. Hunter,"' as Mr. 
 Stephens says, who was doubtless Mr. Davis' sole confi- 
 dential adviser at this juncture, and who was as much 
 averse as Mr. Davis himself to any pacification with the 
 Government of the United States which should be based 
 upon a frank and loyal submission to the constituted au- 
 thorities of the Republic. Neither of these gentlemen 
 intended, before they should be forced to do so, to yield 
 up the chimerical and fantastic project of a separate and 
 independent republic, founded upon the absurd and im- 
 practicable dogma of secession. Neither of them had the 
 least idea of confessing the grievous political errors which 
 they had been committing, and abandoning the execution 
 of a scheme of separate empire for which they had been 
 both active and insidiously plotting for some twenty 
 years or more. How could they be expected to give their 
 adhesion to the Monroe doctrine, when this would bring 
 the Confederate armies into collision with those of Maxi- 
 milian and Napoleon, for whose ultimate aid they were 
 confidently looking in the struggle which was then going 
 on with the wise and paternal Government of Washing- 
 ton? 
 
 In the interview between Mr. Stephens and Mr. Davis, 
 which afterward occurred, as Mr. Stephens tells us, Mr. 
 Davis made known to him that "Mr. Blair, in a verbal 
 and most confidential manner, had suggested to him a 
 course by which a suspension of hostilities might be 
 effected. This was to be done by a secret military conven- 
 tion, between the belligerents, embracing another object, 
 which was the maintenance of the Monroe doctrine, in 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 309 
 
 the prevention of the establishment of the then projected 
 empire in Mexico by France. Mr. Davis stated that Mr. 
 Blair had given it as his opinion that the result of what 
 he proposed would be the ultimate restoration of the 
 Union, which he greatly desired, and that it was much 
 more in accordance with his wishes that it should be 
 effected in this way than by a continued prosecution of 
 the war to its extreme results." 
 
 No one can read Mr. Stephens 1 account of this inter- 
 view without coming to the conclusion that Mr. Davis' 
 only object in pursuing the course adopted by him at this 
 juncture was to secure a cessation of hostilities until he 
 could in some way replenish the Confederate armies, and 
 obtain military aid from France, also through Mexico, 
 concerning which there was much talk at the time in 
 Richmond, as well as of obtaining the aid of thirty thou- 
 sand Poles, for whose co-operation active negotiations had 
 been for some time going on. Whether Mr. Stephens 
 supposed that Mr. Davis was himself sincere in entering 
 into the discussions with Mr. Blair which have been 
 referred to it is difficult at present to. determine. But 
 that Mr. Davis, when he agreed to send commissioners to 
 the Hampton Roads meeting, had no idea that any result 
 would be attained beyond the temporary armistice which 
 he so much desired, is made evident by various facts, 
 among which may be mentioned the following: First, 
 the letter of Mr. Davis of the 12th of January, 1865, to 
 Mr. Blair, (which was to be shown to Mr. Lincoln on his 
 return to Washington,) concludes with this remarkable 
 sentence: " Notwithstanding the rejection of our former 
 offers, I would, if you could promise that a commission, 
 minister, or other agent would be received, appoint one 
 immediately, and renew the effort to enter into a confer- 
 ence with a view to secure peace to the two countries." 
 
 This is, perhaps, one of the most puerile and contempti- 
 
310 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 ble devices ever resorted to, even by this Prince of Man- 
 agers, in order to delude an honest and confiding Chief 
 Magistrate. Could he have secured a letter or declara- 
 tion from Mr. Lincoln recognizing the existence of " two 
 countries,'' instead of one undivided and indivisible Re- 
 public, why then he would have obtained for the Confed- 
 erate Government just such an attitude before the civil- 
 ized Powers of the world as would have justified him in 
 asking immediate recognition at their hands. To have 
 supposed it possible to entrap two such astute personages 
 as Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward by so clumsy an expe- 
 dient argues a want of discernment calculated to awaken 
 both pity and contempt. Mr. Lincoln's response to this 
 (addressed also to Mr. Blair) is truly a masterpiece. 
 Here it is : 
 
 Washington, January, 1865. 
 F. P. Blair, Esq.: 
 
 Sir : You having shown me Mr. Davis' letter to you of the 12th in- 
 stant, you may say to han that I have constantly been, am now, and 
 shall continue ready to receive anyagenl whom he or any other person 
 now resisting the national authority may informally send inc. with a 
 view of securing peace to our common conn try. 
 
 Second. The second conclusive proof that Mr. Davis 
 was not expecting or desiring peace on the basis of a 
 restoration of the Union is supplied by the characteristic 
 letter of instruction given to the three commissioners dis- 
 patched by him to Hampton Roads. It runneth thus: 
 
 Richmond, January 28, tsfio. 
 
 In conformity with the letter of Mr. Lincoln, of which the foregoing 
 is a copy, yon are to proceed to Washington city for an informal con- 
 ference with him upon the issues involved in the existing war, and tor 
 the purpose of securing peace to the two countries. 
 
 "Still harping on my daughter!" Now, Mr. Davis 
 knew perfectly well when he sent bis three commissioners 
 to Hampton Roads that there was no possibility of peace 
 except on the basis of submission to the authority of the 
 Federal Government. He knew that Mr. Lincoln had 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 311 
 
 put his foot firmly down on that important point. He 
 knew further that were Mr. Lincoln even to violate his 
 oath of office, and abnegate all his antecedent declarations 
 on this subject, it would not be in his power to liberate 
 the people of the South from the obligation of obedience 
 to the Constitution and laws of the Union ; and yet did 
 Mr. Davis deliberately tie up the hands of his commis- 
 sioners in regard to this all vital matter. He gave them 
 no power to treat except upon the basis of Southern inde- 
 pendence. It is really wonderful how it happened that 
 two such high-minded and enlightened statesmen as Mr. 
 Stephens and Judge Campbell accepted so humiliating a 
 position at the hands of a cold-blooded and unscrupulous 
 political hypocrite. The conduct of Mr. Hunter was in. 
 deed in character. He had been a secessionist- of the most 
 extreme type from the days of early manhood. He had 
 foisted Davis upon the Pierce administration with a view 
 to strengthening the secession faction of the South by the 
 bestowal upon them of official patronage. He had never 
 ventured to think for himself in opposition to Mr. 
 Davis from the beginning of the war up to that very mo- 
 ment. He was, indeed, a man of considerable accomplish- 
 ments, not at all deficient, it must be confessed, in strength 
 of understanding, though without a particle of genius. 
 He was tardy and sluggish in his movements, full of am- 
 bition, though without the boldness to sustain his lofty 
 aspirations; selfish, crafty, and contriving beyond any 
 man of his native capacity whom I have known. It is 
 most manifest that he went to Hampton Roads, not to 
 facilitate a just and honorable peace such as Mr. Blair 
 had proposed, but to obstruct it ; not to give renewed 
 sanction and binding force to the Monroe doctrine, but to 
 undermine and overthrow it. In other words, he went, 
 as the only one of the peace commissioners enjoying the 
 
312 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 full confidence of Mr. Davis, as a ■" marplot " and a mis- 
 chief-maker. 
 
 All the particulars reported by Mr. Stephens, in his ac- 
 count of the Hampton Roads negotiations, are in perfect 
 accord with the view here presented. 
 
 There was one other purpose held in view by Mr. Davis 
 in sending commissioners to Hampton Roads. The people 
 of the Confederate States were getting heartily sick of the 
 war. Alarming movements had taken place in various 
 localities indicating a determination to abandon a scheme 
 of armed opposition to the Government wdiich seemed to 
 promise no earthly benefit to any human being save to 
 Jeff. Davis and his special allies and supporters. Deser- 
 tions from the Confederate armies were to be counted by 
 thousands and tens of thousands. Resolutions looking to 
 peace had been introduced in Congress by myself and 
 others, which had been advocated with much zeal and 
 eloquence. Davis had himself to pretend that he too de- 
 sired peace. He had to do more ; it had become necessary 
 that he should have it in his power to assert with seem- 
 ing truth that he had made strenuous efforts lor peace, 
 and had found Mr. Lincoln unwilling to grant it except 
 on terms alike ruinous and degrading to the South. He 
 would then have it in his power to " fire the Southern 
 heart " anew, and induce still greater efforts on the part 
 of a generous and heroic people to save themselves and 
 their families from the worst horrors that wait upon war 
 in its most ferocious and destructive character. 
 
 I shall not attempt to follow Mr. Stephens' interesting 
 narrative in all its minuter details. It is sufficient to say 
 here that every facility was afforded by General Grant 
 and his subordinates to the Peace Commissioners seeking 
 an interview with Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward at Hamp- 
 ton Roads. They stopped at General Grant's headquar- 
 ters several days, where he says they were most kindly 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 313 
 
 treated. "He provided us," says Mr. Stephens, " with 
 comfortable quarters on hoard of one of his dispatch boats. 
 The more I became acquainted with him the more I he- 
 came thoroughly impressed with the very extraordinary 
 combination of rare elements of character which he exhib- 
 ited. During this time he met us frequently, and con- 
 versed freely upon various subjects — not much upon our 
 mission. I saw, however, very clearly, that he was very 
 anxious for the proposed conference to take place, and 
 from all that was said I inferred — whether correctly or 
 not I do not know — that he was fully apprised of the pro- 
 posed object. He was, without doubt, exceedingly anxious 
 for a termination of the war and the return of peace and 
 harmony throughout the country. It was through his 
 instrumentality mainly that Mr. Lincoln tinally consented 
 to meet us at Fortress Monroe, as the correspondence re- 
 ferred to shows." 
 
 This statement does, indeed, present General Grant to 
 view in a. most amiable and interesting light. A more 
 trustworthy witness of his virtues than Mr. Stephens the 
 Republic would be incapable of supplying, and it can not 
 hut be gratifying to every true-spirited American patriot 
 that the high personage thus lauded has done nothing 
 since which is not fully in unison with the noble example 
 set by him on this most grave and interesting occasion. 
 
 The interview between Messrs. Lincoln and Seward 
 on the one side and the Confederate Peace Commissioners 
 on the other took place " in the saloon of the steamer, on 
 board of which were Mr. Lincoln and Seward, and which 
 lay at anchor at Fortress Monroe." Mr. Stephens con- 
 tinues: u The Commissioners were conducted into the 
 saloon first. Soon after, Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward en- 
 tered.*" Now commenced the interchange of views, con- 
 cerning which it is only important now to notice the 
 principal points of discussion. 
 
314 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Upon Mr. Lincoln's being asked the question by Mr. 
 Stephens whether there was " no way of putting an end to 
 present trouble, and bringing about a restoration of gene- 
 ral good feeing and harmony," he answered " that there 
 was but one way that he knew of, and that was for those 
 who were resisting the laws of the Union to cease that 
 resistance. All the trouble came from an armed resistance 
 against the national authority." 
 
 In the further progress of the conversation Mr. Lincoln 
 said that " no arrangement could be made on the line sug- 
 gested by Mr. Blair without a previous assurance that 
 the Union was to be ultimately restored ; in other words, 
 that the armistice desired would be granted, and a com- 
 pact be entered into by both parties for the maintenance 
 of the Monroe policy, provided a " previous pledge " 
 should be given " that the Union was to be ultimately re- 
 stored." 
 
 Upon Mr. Stephens urging that a suspension of hostili- 
 ties should take place with a view to the enforcement of 
 the Monroe policy, without any previous pledge of the 
 ultimate restoration of the Union, trusting to the proba- 
 bility existing that such a result might, in the process of 
 time, be attained, Mr. Lincoln replied "with considerable 
 earnestness that he could entertain no proposition for 
 ceasing active military operations which was not based 
 upon a pledge first given for the ultimate restoration of 
 the Union. He had considered the question of an armi- 
 stice fully, and could not give his consent to any proposi- 
 tion of that sort on the basis suggested. The settlement 
 of our existing difficulties was a question now of supreme 
 importance, and the only basis on which he would enter- 
 tain a proposition for a settlement was the recognition 
 and re-establishment of the national authority throughout 
 the land." 
 
 After a good deal of general discussion between Mr. 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 315 
 
 Stephens and Mr. Seward, in which I do not perceive any 
 new ideas to have been advanced on either side, and after 
 some little allusion to the modus operandi of an armistice, 
 in case one should be agreed upon, Mr. Hunter seems to 
 have considered that the time had come for him to throw 
 a little cold water upon the idea of co-operation for the 
 enforcement of the Monroe doctrine, and Mi'. Stephens 
 reports him accordingly as saying that "there was not 
 unanimity in the South upon the subject of undertaking 
 the maintenance of the Monroe doctrine, and it was not 
 probable that any arrangement could be made by which 
 the Confederates would agree to send any portion of their 
 army into Mexico." 
 
 Mr. Stephens tells us that " Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Sew- 
 ard stated that the feeling in the North was very strong 
 for maintaining the Monroe doctrine." I undertake now 
 to say very deliberately that there never was a time when 
 the people of the South would not have been ready to arm 
 almost unanimously in support of the great American 
 principle embodied therein, Mr. Davis and Mr. Hunter to 
 the contrary notwithstanding. 
 
 It was several times during this interview very emphati- 
 cally declared by Mr. Lincoln that the Southern States 
 and people could obtain peace "by disbanding their armies 
 and permitting the National authorities to resume their 
 functions." 
 
 Mr. Seward declared on this occasion that if the Con- 
 federate armies were disbanded, " as to all questions in- 
 volving rights of property the courts would determine, 
 and that Congress would, no doubt, be liberal in making 
 restitution of confiscated property, or providing indemnity 
 after the excitement of the times had passed off." 
 
 Mr. Stephens says : " I asked Mr. Lincoln what would 
 be the status of the slave population in the Confederate 
 States which had not then become free under his procla- 
 
316 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 mation ; or, in other words, what effect that proclamation 
 would have upon the entire black population ? Would it 
 be held to emancipate the whole, or only those who had 
 at the time the war ended become actually free under it ? 
 
 " Mr. Lincoln said that was a judicial question. How 
 the courts would decide it he did not know and could 
 give no answer. His own opinion was that as the procla- 
 mation was a war measure, and would have effect only 
 from its being an exercise of the war power, as soon as the 
 war ceased it would be inoperative for the future. It 
 would be held to apply only to such slaves as had come 
 under its operation while it wits in active exercise. * * 
 
 " Mr. Seward said there were only about two hundred 
 thousand slaves who, up to that time, had come under the 
 actual operation of the proclamation, and who were then 
 in the enjoyment of freedom under it ; so if the war should 
 then cease the status of much the larger portion of the 
 States would be subject to judicial construction. Mr. Lin- 
 coln sustained Mr. Seward as to the number of slaves who 
 were then in the actual enjoyment of their freedom under 
 the proclamation." 
 
 Mr. Seward likewise produced a copy of what is now so 
 well known as the thirteenth Constitutional amendment, 
 adopted by Congress a day or two before this interview, 
 which he significantly suggested, being a war measure, 
 should the war then cease, might not be adopted by a 
 sufficient number of States to make it a part of the Con- 
 stitution. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln, according to Mr. Stephens' statement, ex- 
 pressed the opinion that all the States of the South then 
 engaged in war would, should the war cease at once, be 
 immediately taken back into the Union upon their orig- 
 inal footing. 
 
 Toward the close of this remarkable scene Mr. Hunter 
 interposed, and avowed the opinion that, should the South 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 317 
 
 submit to such terms as were now proposed, it would 
 amount to u nothing but an unconditional surrender." To 
 this Mr. Seward promptly responded, says Mr. Stephens, 
 by " insisting that no words like unconditional surrender 
 had been used, or any importing, or justly implying deg- 
 radation, or humiliation even, of the Confederate States. 
 He wished this to be borne in mind." Mr. Hunter re- 
 peated his view of the subject and asserted that " uncon- 
 ditional submission was demanded of the Southern States 
 to the mercy of the conquerors." 
 
 " Mr. Seward replied that they were not conquerors 
 further than that they required submission to the laws," 
 and afterward added, that " the Southern people and the 
 Southern States would be under the Constitution of the 
 United States, with all their rights secured thereby in 
 the same way, and through the same instrumentalities as 
 the similar rights of other States were. 
 
 " Mr. Hunter said : But you make no agreement that 
 these rights will be so held and secured. 
 
 " Mr. Lincoln said that so far as the confiscation acts 
 and other penal acts were concerned, their enforcement 
 was left entirely with him, and on that point he was per- 
 fectly willing to be free and explicit, and on his assurance 
 perfect reliance might be placed. He should exercise the 
 power of the Executive with the utmost liberality. He 
 went on to say that he would be willing to be taxed to 
 remunerate the Southern people for their slaves. He be- 
 lieved the people of the North were as responsible for 
 slavery as the people of the South, and if the war should 
 then cease, with the voluntary abolition of slavery by the 
 States, lie should be in favor individually of the Govern- 
 ment paying a fair indemnity for the loss to the owners. 
 He said he believed this feeling had an extensive exist- 
 ence at the North. He knew some who were in favor of 
 
818 CASKET OF RBMlfrlSCENCEs. 
 
 an appropriation as high as four hundred millions of dol- 
 lars for this purpose." 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 " Mr. Seward said that the people of the North were 
 weary of the war. They desired peace and a restoration 
 of harmony, and he believed they would be willing to 
 pay as an indemnity for the slaves what would be re- 
 quired to conduct the war, but named no amount." 
 
 Just before the conference came to a close Mr. Stephens, 
 as he states, urged upon Mr. Lincoln the propriety of re- 
 considering the subject of an armistice; which lie promised 
 to do. 
 
 On the arrival of the commissioners at Richmond they 
 reported all these particulars, and much more besides of 
 the same tenor, to Mr. Davis ; in the face of which he 
 had the unparalleled audacity to send a special message 
 to the Confederate Congress, declaring in terms that u the 
 enemy refused to enter into negotiations with the Confed- 
 erate States, or any one of them separately, or to give to 
 our people any other terms or guarantees than those 
 which a conqueror may grant, or to permit us to have 
 peace on any other basis than our unconditional submis- 
 sion to their rule," &c. He also convoked a public meet- 
 ing in the African Church at Richmond, to which meet- 
 ing he addressed one of his characteristic specimens of 
 rhodomontade, and, by the most shameless false state- 
 ments as to all that had occurred between Mr. Lincoln 
 and his commissioners at Hampton Roads, procured the 
 adoption of resolutions pledging the people of the South 
 to a further prosecution of hostilities, which resolutions 
 would never have received the popular approval in any 
 nook or corner of the South upon a full knowledge of all 
 the extraordinary facts which Mr. Stephens has himself 
 set forth in the book, from the pages of which I have been 
 quoting so freely. No doubt can be now left upon the 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCED 319 
 
 mind of any one that, by pursuing the course which has 
 been described, Messrs. Davis, Hunter, and Benjamin, the 
 chief actors in this abominable scene of falsehood and cruel 
 deception, made themselves responsible for all the inno- 
 cent blood afterward shed in this terrible war, for all the 
 discredit connected with the formal military surrenders to 
 which Generals Lee, Joe Johnston, Kirby Smith, and 
 others were compelled to submit, and to all the evils of 
 every kind of which the unfortunate South has had such 
 bitter experience in the last eight years. With these ex- 
 traordinary particulars now presented to the consideration 
 of an impartial public, who will blame me for urging a 
 cessation of hostilities on the part of the Confederate 
 States and people in the winter of 1864-'5, and a prompt 
 submission to the Constitution and laws of the land ? 
 
 Will any portion of the Southern people ever again con- 
 sent to trust their dearest rights and interests in the 
 hands of the men who have thus so cruelly and unpardon- 
 ably betrayed them ? 
 
320 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XXX. 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS — A RESUME 
 OF THE FACTS — WHERE THE BLAME BELONGS. 
 
 No one, I am persuaded, can take a fair and candid 
 view of the important conference at Hampton Roads be- 
 tween Mr. Lincoln and the commissioners sent by Mr. 
 Davis to hold intercourse with him touching the grave 
 and delicate matters discussed on that occasion, and avoid 
 being deeply impressed with the moderation and forbear- 
 ance manifested by that eminent personage, who was des- 
 tined in a few weeks to fall a victim to lawless and un- 
 provoked violence, nor can such an one fail to be pleased 
 also with the manly and amiable commiseration mani- 
 fested by him for the sufferings of his unfortunate 
 brethren of the South. His whole demeanor throughout 
 this memorable scene was courteous, urbane, and affec- 
 tionate.* He uttered not a word which could give reasou 
 able offense to the proudest and most morbidly sensitive 
 man to whom the sunny regions so ably, represented be- 
 fore him had ever given birth. He stated terms or' settle- 
 ment which, had they been accepted, would at once have 
 brought back all the States then in insurrection to their 
 original footing as compeers and co-ordinate members of 
 that sublime assemblage of free and happy Common- 
 wealths, from whose communion they had so causelessly 
 departed. All confiscation* were to be set aside or in- 
 demnified ; all other penalties which had been incurred 
 were to be remitted. The number of slaves set free by 
 Mr. Lincoln's proclamation, as was satisfactorily shown, 
 would not probably amount to more than the number of 
 two hundred thousand, and the slaveholders of the South 
 
CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 82 1 
 
 were presently to receive as much as four hundred millions 
 of dollars in exchange for property now become almost ab- 
 solutely valueless, provided their own good sense and 
 philanthropic feelings should prompt them voluntarily to 
 release from bondage all the remainder of those yet pining 
 in servitude. And these liberal terms were offered by 
 those whose influence was such as to give the fullest as- 
 surance that whatever stipulations they might enter into 
 would be promptly and fairly carried into operation, and 
 tendered, too, be it remembered, to those who had not the 
 least reason to hope that they could remain unconquered 
 even for sixty daj's longer. There is scarcely another 
 such instance of magnanimity as this to be found any- 
 where recorded in history. Mr. Lincoln on this occasion 
 did everything that he could possibly do to avert the evils 
 which he saw were about to fall upon his unhappy fellow- 
 citizens of the South, except uniting with them in the 
 subversion of that Union which he had solemnly sworn 
 to support. 
 
 When, a few weeks after, he was in the city of Rich- 
 mond, at a time subsequent to the memorable surrender 
 of Lee, his conduct was so benignant and compassionate 
 as to provoke the criminatory complaints of him who was 
 soon to be his successor, and whose whole soul was now 
 most unhappily on fire to " make treason odious." 
 
 Nobody can at this time doubt that if President Lin- 
 coln had been permitted to live long enough he would 
 have granted universal pardon to those of the South who 
 had been engaged in this most deplorable war ; he would 
 have done what he could, in addition, to heal all the 
 wounds which the war had inflicted, with a view to the 
 restoration of that general prosperity and happiness which 
 had been in days past so richly enjoyed. Mr. Lincoln 
 seems,, indeed, to have been a man of most kindly and 
 sympathizing temper, free from all groveling selfishness, 
 21 r " 
 
322 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 not at all addicted to the degrading arts of demagogism, 
 and devoted most intensely to his country and his whole 
 country. He was doubtless familiar with all the most 
 shining examples of clemency and magnanimity which 
 have at different periods adorned the annals of civilized 
 nations, alike of ancient and of modern times, and he re- 
 coiled instinctively from all that could seriously involve 
 his own personal dignity or compromise the honor of the 
 great nation of which he was the chosen chief. Xever 
 could he have consented to do an act of wanton cruelty or 
 to trifle with the sensibilities of any class of his country- 
 men. Had he been once fairly placed in the situation 
 afterward occupied by his immediate successor he would 
 assuredly have given to the world the fullest, evidence 
 that he cordially concurred in all that has been so nobly 
 expressed by the immortal bard of Avon when he said : 
 
 The quality of mercy i- not strained; 
 
 it falleth like the gentle rain from heaven 
 
 Upon the earth beneath ; it is twice Messed ; 
 
 It blesseth him that gives and him that takes : 
 
 "Tis mightiest in the mighty ; it becomes 
 
 The throned monarch better that his crown; 
 
 The scepter shows the force of temporal power; 
 
 The attribute to awe ami majesty. 
 
 Wherein doth s'r, the dread and fear of kings; 
 
 Bnt mercy is above this sceptered sway ; 
 
 It is enthroned in the lieart of kings; 
 
 It is an attribute to God Himself. 
 
 And earthly power doth then show Lkest God's 
 
 When mercy season s justice. 
 
 That such a person as this should have been so cruelly 
 thwarted as he was fated to be (by the extraordinary 
 Course adopted by Mr. Davis and his political advisers) in 
 the execution of his generous purposes toward the States 
 and people of the South is one of the most melancholy 
 instances of political fatuity that have ever occurred : 
 and no means of expiation are now left to those who com- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 6Z-j 
 
 knitted this grievous malefaction by which the criminality 
 of these men can be fully atoned for. Had Mr. Davis 
 dared to let the people of the South know what terms of 
 pacification Mr. Lincoln had really ottered to them, 
 twenty days could not possibly have elapsed ere their own 
 good sense and their yet unextinguished love of country 
 would have forced the civil agents whom they had chosen 
 to administer their affairs, and who had shamefully mis- 
 represented them, to make peace at once upon the gene- 
 rous conditions propounded. Could the Confederate Con- 
 gress in. some way have become apprised of the true state 
 of things then existing, they would certainly have im- 
 peached and deposed Mr. Davis for daring to expose so 
 recklessly the people whom they represented to the mul- 
 tiplied evils which they could not but perceive would 
 very soon come upon them. 
 
 By evary constitution of government in this country 
 the pardoning power is recognized as the chief attribute 
 of the Executive Department, and it is in the honest and 
 manly exercise of this power that more true glory is to 
 be acquired than in any other mode that can be specified. 
 The executive chief who formally abnegates this high at- 
 tribute of sovereignty — who fails to put it in exercise on 
 all suitable occasions, or who signally abuses it in any 
 way, may be justly denounced as a monstrous offender 
 against the dignity and welfare of the community. The 
 legislative department of such a government as ours 
 which obstinately refuses for an over-long period of 
 time to restore such of its citizens as may have rebelled 
 against its authority, but who, afterward, in a seasonable 
 manner, shall have voluntarily placed themselves under 
 the control of the violated law, can not but be held seri- 
 ously reprehensible ;— though this unhappy state of things 
 has, in point of fact, repeatedly occurred heretofore on 
 both sides of the Atlantic. 
 
324 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 The experience of our country as to this deeply interesting 
 matter has been both fortunate and unfortunate, credita- 
 ble and discreditable. In regard to the exercise of the 
 pardoning power, all our Chief Magistrates up to the ac- 
 cidental elevation to the Presidential dignity of Andrew 
 Johnson have seemed to entertain exceedingly correct 
 views touching the true nature and use of this exalted 
 prerogative. This personage seemed to understand that 
 the pardoning power was to be employed by him simply 
 as a means of conciliating persons of known influence, 
 and of securing the increase of his own individual popu- 
 larity. His first grand experiment in its exercise was the 
 calling to Washington from the South as many of its cit- 
 izens as owned twenty thousand dollars' worth of prop- 
 erty, by pardoning whom he hoped ultimately to control 
 the political action of the whole mass of the humbler in- 
 habitants of that region. Though he had it in his power, 
 through the wise provision of Congress, to issue a general 
 proclamation of amnesty to those lately found in a state 
 of rebellion, he ungraciously declined to do so, and even 
 made no attempt whatever in this direction until Con- 
 gress at last came to the conclusion that he was an unsafe 
 depository of this grand attribute. 
 
 The Congress of the United States has itself initi- 
 ated the good work of governmental clemency, and a 
 legislative enactment has been signed by an upright 
 and truly humane President, which has diffused a senti- 
 ment of gladness and gratitude throughout the whole 
 land. There is no instance in all history of a more sage 
 and magnanimous exercise of the pardoning power than 
 this, and already the good effects resulting therefrom are 
 beginning to display themselves in every part of the Re- 
 public. We shall, indeed, soon be one people in sentiment, 
 opinion, and interest, as we were when the foundations of 
 our noble Government were laid. The policy of forgive- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 325 
 
 ness and reconcilement will doubtless in a month or two 
 more be made universal, as it ought to be, so as even to 
 embrace certain classes not even yet reconstructed in tem- 
 per, in thought, and demeanor. This great Government 
 can afford even to shower its benignity upon the discon- 
 tented, the factious, and the complaining, as God sends 
 His rains upon the just and the unjust. Its own unsul- 
 lied honor requires that it should do so. The sublime 
 work of national pacification, I am confident, will not be 
 done by the American Congress by halves, or in a stint- 
 ing and parsimonious manner. The coming Congress will 
 advance heroically up to the thrice-glorious duty which 
 lies before them for performance, and then indeed shall 
 we have peace and amity and affectionate brotherhood 
 throughout this broad and Heaven-blessed continent. 
 And when this state of things shall have been once fully 
 realized, should it become needful to call into practical 
 exercise the long-cherished Monroe doctrine, either upon 
 terra firma or amid the beauteous and attractive islands 
 which so providentially shut in our own Mare Glausum 
 to the south, we shall behold a spectacle which, in true 
 glory, will eclipse all that the world's history has hereto- 
 fore depictured. I do not at all doubt that there are men 
 now living who will see the sacred emblem of American 
 freedom and power borne onward and aloft over the 
 whole extent of North America, carrying with it every- 
 where, over the land and over the circumambient seas, 
 the majestic charter of our liberties, even in its present 
 amplified and amended form, and, through its sublime 
 instrumentality, giving protection, encouragement, and 
 constantly increasing hope of the highest social and moral 
 advancement to all who may be so fortunate as to be lo- 
 cated under its auspicious and ennobling influence. 
 
 I hope to be excused for here citing what I ventured to 
 say in a letter to Mr. Lincoln in the year 1865, and which 
 
826 CASKET OF REmNISCENCES. 
 
 has been long since printed, every word of which will be 
 found in unison with what I have on this occasion enun- 
 ciated. I then said, and I am not ashamed of having 
 then said, honestly, and for the great purpose which I 
 had at that time in view, what follows: 
 
 I have, in the course of the present correspondence, once or twice 
 incidentally alluded to the celebrated Monroe doctrine as presenting 
 alike to the States of the North and those of the South a means of cor- 
 dial reconcilement and of future prosperity and strength. Let me say 
 here, in addition, that I deem it one of the most fortunate circum_ 
 stances which could be possibly imagined that such an opportunity of 
 doing. away forever with sectional distrust and animosity, and of con- 
 solidating the National Union, should have been thus seasonably afforded, 
 as this same Monroe doctrine has so remarkably supplied. Just recol- 
 lect, if you please, that the favorite idea of all the venerated fathers of 
 American liberty, in the earlier days of the Republic, was that the 
 moral ascendency as well as physical domination of the Anglo-Ameri- 
 can race, their peculiar institutions of government, and their social 
 morals, were to be ultimately coextensive with the great continent it- 
 self where it is our fortune to be located. Bear in mind also that it is 
 essential to the progress of liberal sentiment in this hemisphere, the 
 healthful and beneficial advancement of science, and all the useful and 
 elevating arts of civilized existence, that a cordial consociation and co- 
 operation of energies of every kind should be in some way effectually 
 secured, with a view to the attainment of the great end in contempla- 
 tion ; and I can not at all doubt that you will fully agree with me in 
 the opinion that it is indeed the voice of true wisdom and of enlight- 
 ened patriotism also, which invokes, which entreats you, with an earn- 
 estness not known to the selfish votaries of faction, to seize at once the 
 golden opportunity which an all-bounteous Providence has so fortun- 
 ately presented to 3'ou of becoming not only the restorer of your coun- 
 try's happiness, but the vindicator also of the principles of civil and 
 religious freedom in our own favored hemisphere. 
 
 Doubt not, I pray you, that the chivalrous sons of the South will, if 
 justly and liberally treated in this the day of their sore travail and suf- 
 fering, second you in all your exertions to maintain the Monroe doc- 
 trine in all its primeval scope and vigor. They know the history of 
 that doctrine well, and it stands associated with many of their proud- 
 est and most inspiring recollections. They remember that though in 
 theory originating in the generous bosom and expanded and far-reach- 
 ing intellect of a renowned British statesman, the lamented George 
 
CASKET 0I n REMINISCENCES. 327 
 
 Cmiuing,* (sustained, if my memory serve me faithfully, in this the 
 most glorious movement of Iris public life, by such men as a Brougham 
 and a Mcintosh,') yet that it is alike true that from the year JS2:j up to 
 the breaking out of the present unhappy war in 1861, every adminis- 
 tration of the Government of which you are now the 1 chief executive 
 
 * Those who have made themselves familiar with the parliamentary life of 
 Mr. Canning will not regard me as at all overstating his conduct on this im- 
 portant subject. Hansard's "Parliamentary Debates" show that this truly 
 upright and courageous British statesman not only acted the part attributed 
 to him above, but that he, more than once, on very striking occasions, 
 warmly felicitated himself upon having done so. His' memorable declara- 
 tion in Parliament, that he Had called into existence new States in the West- 
 ern hemisphere, ' ' in order to redress the balance of power disturbed in the 
 East," is of course remembered by all the admirers of this great master of 
 speech. It is, perhaps, not known to all that, as early as the month of Au- 
 gust, 18-2.S, Mr Canning, in an interview with Mr. Hush, the American Min- 
 ister near the Court of St. James at that period, urged that the United States 
 should unite with Great Britain in a formal declaration against any of the 
 continental Powers of Europe being allowed to take possession of any por- 
 tion of tli". territory of the American continent thui recently rescued, from 
 Spain . Referring to the designs suspected at that time to be entertained by 
 France in particular, he stated to Mr. Rush that he "was satisfied that the 
 knowledge that the United States would be opposed to it as well as England 
 could not fail to have a decisive influence in checking it " In a letter to 
 Mr. Rush, written a few days after this noted interview, he said, referring 
 to th" apprehended transfer of Mexico to France, that Great Britain, while 
 unwilling to interfere with any efforts on the part of Spain to repossess her- 
 self of her ancient colonial possessions, J,' could not see the transfer of any 
 portion to any other Power with Indifference." In several other letters 
 this view of the subject was earnestly presented by Mr. Canning to Mr. 
 Rush, who was at last persuaded to concur with him, and to bring the sub- 
 ject, as he did in a very fqrcible manner, to the consideration of Mr. Monroe 
 and his Cabinet. The promulgation of what is known as "the Monroe doc- 
 trine " was the result. Mr. Monroe, in a message to Congress, expressed 
 himself as follows: "With the existing colonies or dependencies of any 
 European Power we have not interfered ana shall not interfere; but with 
 the governments who have declared their independence, and maintained 
 ir, and whose independence Ave have, on great consideration and on just 
 principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the pur- 
 pose of oppressing them or controlling their destiny, by any European 
 Power, in any other light than as a manifestation of an unfriendly disposi- 
 tion toward the United States." Referring to this very mes-age, Lord 
 Brougham, then a member of the House of Commons, said : "The question 
 with regard to South America now was, he believed, disposed of, or nearly 
 so; for an event had recently happened, than which no event had ever dis- 
 persed greater joy, exultation, and gratitude over all the free men of 
 Europe; that event, which was decisive on the subject, was the language 
 held with respect to Spanish America in the speech or message of the Presi- 
 dent of the United States to Congress." Sir James Mcintosh, in one of his 
 noblest speeches, alluding to the same message of Mr. Monroe, said: "This 
 wise Government, in grave but determined language, and with that reason- 
 able but deliberate tone that becomes true courage, proclaims the principles 
 other policy, and makes known the cases in which the care of herownsatety 
 will compel her to take up arms for the defense or other States. I have 
 already observed its coincidence with the declarations of England, which, 
 indeed, is perfect, if allowance be made for the deeper, or at least more im- 
 mediate interest in the independence of South America which near neigh- 
 borhood gives to the United States. This coincidence of the two g.eat 
 English commonwealths (for so I delight to call them, and I heartily pray 
 that they may be forever united in the cause of justice and liberty) can not 
 be contemplated without the utmost pleasure bv every enlightened citizen 
 of the earth. " It is a very clear proposition that, if the Great Britain of 
 to-dav is the Great Britain of Mr. Canning's time, (and who can doubt it?) 
 that this same Monroe doctrine may yet become the nucleus of union and 
 manly, efficient, co-operative energy among all who speak the English lan- 
 guage in both hemispheres, and who cherish a true regard for the tree insti- 
 tutions derived from a common ancestry. So mote it be !— H. S. F. 
 
328 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 functionary has uniformly asserted and maintained this magna charta 
 of the Western hemisphere with a steady firmness and with undimin- 
 ished zeal. John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Lewis Cass, Millard 
 Fillmore, James Buchanan, President Pierce, and Edward Everett, of 
 the North ; James Monroe, John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, William 
 II. Crawford, Andrew Jackson, John Tyler, and James K. Polk, of the 
 South, at different periods and in different modes, are well known to 
 have signalized their devotion to the great xVmerican principle embo- 
 died in the far-famed Monroe doctrine ; and it is a little too late now 
 to expect any considerable portion of the descendants of those great 
 men, some of whom have gone down to the grave with so much honor, 
 to relinquish those muniments of national safety and freedom which 
 have been thus far so nobly maintained. 
 
 I venture to predict, Mr. President, that if such just and gracious 
 treatment shall be now accorded to the South as her people have a clear 
 right to demand in the adjustment of the terms upon which peace and 
 union shall be once more restored, this same Monroe doctrine is des- 
 tined shortly to become the effectual healer of sectional distempcratures — 
 the sovereign uniter of hearts which should never have been divided — 
 the veritable Macedonian sword itself, which, skillfully wielded, will 
 yet be seen to cut asunder that Gordianknot of discord which has here- 
 tofore so fearfully puzzled and perplexed even the most gifted of our 
 statesmen. 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 329 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XXXI. 
 
 THOMAS II. BENTON— GENERAL TAYLOR — JOHN M. CLAYTON — 
 MEXICAN TREATY — COLONEL FREMONT. 
 
 I do not feel that thesa reminiscences would have any 
 claim to be recognized as complete were I to exclude 
 therefrom all notice of the very remarkable man upon 
 whose life and character I propose at this time to offer a 
 few observations. 
 
 Thomas II. Benton was born in the State of North 
 Carolina. He was of respectable origin, and stood con- 
 nected with many families, both in his native State and 
 elsewhere, of very creditable standing. The course of his 
 education at college was disagreeably interrupted by a 
 very sad occurrence, upon which I shall not here ex- 
 patiate, but in reference to which I once felt bound to 
 make very distinct allusions in the United States Senate, 
 in presence of Mr. Benton himself. On leaving North 
 Carolina, before he was yet entirely grown, Colonel Ben- 
 ton located in the State of Tennessee, and taught school 
 upon the classic Duck river for a year or two ; during 
 which time he is reported to have been a diligent student 
 of law, and a general reader of books calculated to im- 
 prove his intellect and lit him for the career which he 
 expected soon to run. As a lawyer he located, more than 
 sixty years ago, in the respectable village of Eranklin, the 
 county seat of Williamson county, and about twenty 
 miles from Nashville. The small brick tenement which 
 he occupied as a professional office is still pointed out by 
 the good citizens of Franklin to those at all curious in 
 relation to the early incidents in Colonel Benton's bustling 
 
330 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 and variegated life. He represented for a year or two 
 the rich and intelligent county of Williamson in the Sen- 
 ate of Tennessee ; but I do not learn that at this stage of 
 his career he gave evidence of any remarkable ability 
 either as a lawyer or as a legislator. During the war of 
 1812-1815, he, from various causes, became known quite 
 extensively, and his celebrated conflict with General 
 Jackson in the streets of Nashville imparted to him a 
 celebrity not easy to be extinguished. A year or two 
 after this be attracted some attention in Missouri as the 
 editor of a newspaper, and an active and influential politi- 
 cal partisan. In relation to his bitter personal 'quarrels in 
 Missouri at this period 1 have nothing to say,, as [did not 
 then know him personally. He took his seat in the Con- 
 gress of the United Slates as one of the first Senators from 
 Missouri on the admission of that State, more than a halt' 
 century ago. For several years he attained no considera- 
 ble prominence as a Senator, but this period seems to 
 have been occupied by him in a dost' and unremitting 
 study of the volumes of science and of general literature. 
 I formed my first personal acquaintance with him about 
 the year 1837, but had been a, very close observer of his 
 public acts and speeches for a good while before. I had 
 in general agreed with him upon the public questions 
 then under discussion, hut I had never read his speeches 
 with much gratification, nor was I an admirer of his im- 
 perious, self-important manner in debate, or oi' his coarse 
 and ferocious dogmatism. On meeting him face to face 
 my first unfavorable impressions of him were greatly 
 strengthened, and the excessive vanity and egotism con- 
 stantly displayed by him, both in conversational scenes 
 and in the Senate, inspired me with feelings of disgust 
 and aversion which I have seldom experienced. Several 
 well-known occurrences had taken place before my en- 
 trance into the Senate in December, 1847, which had 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 331 
 
 • 
 
 awakened in my mind certain sentiments toward Mr. 
 Benton, bordering, I must confess, upon feelings of posi- 
 tive dislike and detestation, among which I may mention 
 his fierce collision with my friend, Robert J. Walker, in 
 the winter of 1836— '37, upon the currency question then 
 pending; his bitter denunciations of Mr. Calhoun and 
 others for whom I cherished at that time a tender and 
 profound regard, and his habitually overbearing demeanor 
 in the Senate toward all, even of his own party, who did 
 not slavishly submit to his authority. His aspirations to 
 the office of Lieutenant General during the Mexican war, 
 the arts which he practiced to obtain this appointment, 
 and his subsequent hostility to Mr. Polk because of his 
 unwillingness to send him to Mexico to take command of 
 our noble army there — by the unjust and ungenerous 
 supersession of that gallant and patriotic officer, General 
 Wintield Scott — -established in my mind sentiments of 
 solid and irremovable opposition to Colonel Benton such 
 as I have seldom felt for any public man whatever. 
 
 I do not deem it proper to refer to the almost number- 
 loss scenes which afterward had their progress in the Sen- 
 ate, in which I felt called upon to resist Mr. Benton's ty- 
 rannic insolence of demeanor, or to defend against his 
 unjust and cruel assailment some of the most worthy and 
 unoffending citizens 1 have ever known— the bare men- 
 tion of whose names would be sufficient with all who 
 knew them to justify me in the estimation of all just- 
 minded and patriotic citizens for coming forward as their 
 zealous defender. I prefer passing all this by, and com- 
 ing to matters of still higher dignity. Paulo majora cana- 
 mus ! 
 
 One morning; a «-entleman of remarkable astuteness and 
 penetration, who had been a short time before a member 
 of Congress, and who, I am glad to know, is still living, 
 called upon me at my committee-room in the Capitol, and 
 
332 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 laid before me facts showing very conclusively that Colo- 
 nel Benton was then in collusion with the Mexican Min- 
 ister at that time resident in Washington for the purpose 
 of procuring, if he could, the rescission of the important 
 treaty then recently entered into with Mexico by means 
 of which vast territories had been acquired of almost in- 
 calculable value. I learned from the individual referred 
 to that Mr. Benton and the Mexican Minister were con- 
 stantly interchanging visits, and that official letters 
 signed by the Mexican Ministers had been received at the 
 Department of State, where Mr. Buchanan was then offi- 
 ciating, urging with singular ingenuity and force that 
 the important treaty alluded to was of no earthly 
 , validity whatever, by reason of the fact that a certain 
 paper, somewhat loosely called a protocol^ which had been 
 signed by the ministers of the United States who had 
 previously negotiated the treaty, after the date of that 
 instrument, was so palpably repugnant to the provisions 
 thereof as necessarily, should it be allowed to have effect, 
 to operate its abrogation. I was further advised that Mr. 
 Benton would very soon propound this important matter 
 in the Senate while that body should be in executive session, 
 and would offer a resolution for adoption correspondent 
 with the views set forth in the letters of the Mexican 
 Minister to the Secretary of State, which have been 
 already mentioned. This extraordinary disclosure, forti- 
 fied, as I saw it to be, by various surrounding circum- 
 stances, awakened in my bosom mingled feelings of indig- 
 nation and alarm. Great national interests seemed to be 
 in the most serious jeopardy. Mr. Benton's peculiar posi- 
 tion at the time (that gentleman not having then lost all 
 his power and influence in the Senate and with the Demo- 
 cratic party, and having done much of late, as I bore in 
 mind, of a nature to soften down and conciliate his former 
 party adversaries, the Whigs) furnished, as I thought at 
 
CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 3S3 
 
 the time, and as I do yet think, ground for the greatest 
 solicitude and anxiety. After consulting with several 
 considerate friends — recollecting that noted test to which 
 Hamlet is described as subjecting his usurping uncle, by 
 having presented to his view an extemporized dramatic 
 entertainment fitted to develop aught of " rottenness," 
 which might be perchance lurking " in the State of Den- 
 mark" — I delivered one morning in the Senate a short 
 but very animated address, (which may be yet found in 
 the Congressional Globe of that period,) accompanying the 
 enunciation of the same, as far as it was in my power to 
 do so, with significant glances and gestures, so as at least 
 to adumbrate to any guilty conscience which might be in 
 presence the painful and harrowing suspicions wmich I 
 had conceived, and even to " probe it " also, if possible, 
 a to the very quick." This address, which six or eight 
 surviving Senators do doubtless well recollect, concluded 
 with that well-known couplet of Pope : 
 
 Who would not smile, if such a man there be? 
 
 Who would not blush, if Attica s were he"? 
 
 Whether there was real blenching in the distrusted quar- 
 ter I shall leave to those then present to decide. I was, 
 I confess, very desirous that the experienced Senator from 
 Missouri should desist from his scheme of territorial spoli- 
 ation, could he be induced to do so either by his own fears 
 of personal disgrace, or by the persuasions of his friends ; 
 and I awaited the result with patience, though certainly 
 not without carrying forward diligently the scrutiny 
 which I had already commenced. In a day or two after 
 this Mr. Polk ceased to be President, and General Taylor 
 became domiciliated at the White House. 
 
 Having unlimited confidence in that pure and fervent 
 love of country which I knew to glow in the bosom of 
 this war-worn veteran, and entertaining a warm personal 
 esteem for the members of his Cabinet, I resolved to make 
 
334 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 an early appeal to those then in power to aid, with what- 
 ever of influence they possessed, in defeating any proposi- 
 tion which Mr. Benton might bring forward in the Senate 
 looking to the doing away of the Mexican treaty. Before 
 this intention could he fully executed two Senators from 
 the State of Iowa, Messrs. Dodge and Jones, (both of 
 whom are yet living,) came to me at the Capitol, directly 
 from an interview with Mr. Buchanan, and hearing to 
 me a message from that gentleman, requesting me to 
 come to see him immediately, for the purpose of learning 
 from his own lips all the particulars connected with the 
 correspondence which had several weeks before taken 
 place between himself, as Secretary of State under Mr. 
 Polk, and the Mexican Minister. I should here mention 
 that Mr. Buchanan yet occupied the State Department, 
 having been requested by General Taylor to continue 
 therein until it should become convenient for Mr. Clayton, 
 then elsewhere much occupied, to relieve him. I will 
 here mention an additional fact, which I could not con- 
 sifter altogether immaterial. The t wo Senators who had thus 
 summoned me to the presence of Mr. Buchanan had been 
 up to that time (and possibly may be yet) warm admirers 
 of Mr. Benton, and had frankly declared in this very in- 
 terview with me that they had before that time been often 
 disposed to find fault with what they deemed my own 
 over-censorious course toward him. The interview thus 
 solicited by Mr. Buchanan did in point of fact take place, 
 but barely in time to prevent mischievous consequences in 
 the Senate. The adroit and skillful engineer had already 
 commenced his work in that body with all the artistic 
 skill which his great parliamentary experience could sup- 
 ply, and it had now become an exceedingly interesting 
 question whether this same engineer could or could not 
 be " hoist on his own petard." Mr. Buchanan gave me 
 his views in full upon the question raised by Mr. Benton 
 
CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 335 
 
 in the Senate, and he explained all the circumstances con- 
 nected with the " protocol," just as I heard them from 
 the lips of that able and incorruptible officer, Judge Clif- 
 ford, in an interview I had with him about three months 
 since, and who knows better than any one else all the 
 facts of the ease by reason of his having been one of the 
 Ministers to Mexico already referred to. Mr. Buchanan 
 further gave me assurance that he had good reason to 
 believe that General Taylor and his Cabinet entertained 
 in regard to the protocol the same views that he did, and 
 that they would sustain the position heretofore taken on 
 the subject by the Administration of Mr. Polk. He sug- 
 gested, also, that he and I should visit the White House 
 on the morning anterior to the meeting of the Senate, 
 (then in special session,) and before Mr. Benton's resolu- 
 tion could lie acted upon, and procure, if we could, some- 
 thing like a formal official declaration from President 
 Taylor himself, or his expected Premier, Mr. Clayton, 
 which, when shown to the Whig members of the Senate, 
 would open their eyes to the dangers of the moment, and 
 advise them fully of the views and wishes of the existing 
 Administration. Early on the following morning, there- 
 fore, before yet the hour of 10 o'clock had arrived, Mr. 
 Buchanan and myself were on our way to the Presiden- 
 tial Mansion. J mst as the carriage which was conveying us 
 thither reached a point opposite the Department of State, 
 Colonel J. Watson Webb, former editor of the New York , 
 Courier and Eftqairer, made his appearance, told us that / 
 he knew what was taking us to the presence of General; 
 Taylor, and asked to be allowed to accompany us thitheA 
 upon our patriotic mission. To this we cheerfully a/c- 
 ceded, and all three of us proceeded without delay to out- 
 place of destination. On reaching the White House/ye 
 learned that the Cabinet was then in session. We jfeent 
 our names to Mr. Clayton, and asked for an immediate 
 
336 CASKET OF REMINISCENCE^. 
 
 interview, which having been accorded us we laid the 
 matter so near our hearts before this courteous and accom- 
 plished personage. His conduct on the occasion was most 
 manly and becoming. He told us that the subject of the 
 treaty and protocol had been considered fully by the Presi- 
 dent and his Cabinet ; that they could see no repugnance 
 between these two documents, and that they would cer- 
 tainly maintain the position heretofore taken in regard to 
 this matter by the administration of Mr. Polk. Mr. Clay- 
 ton also said, emphatically, that he had thoroughly exam- 
 ined the official correspondence which had been held be- 
 tween Mr. Buchanan and the Mexican Minister, and that 
 he was prepared to indorse every line and sentence which 
 his predecessor, Mr. Buchanan, had heretofore addressed 
 to the latter personage touching this grave and interest- 
 ing affair. After this manly and patriotic assurance 
 had been given, I asked Mr. Clayton to embody, or cause 
 to be embodied, in a short resolution or statement, the 
 views just expressed by him, winch he did accordingly; 
 that is to say, he dictated it to one of our company, who 
 took the same down in pencil marks, from Mr. Clayton's 
 own lips on the spot. This resolution I took with me to 
 the Senate,a#u laid it before several Whig members of 
 that body, who declared their warm approval of the same. 
 To make " assurance double sure " as to a concern so im- 
 portant, Reverdy Johnson, the then Attorney General — 
 as able and patriotic a man as is now living — was re- 
 quested by General Taylor to go to the .Senate and declare 
 ^o the Whi^ members there the action which had been 
 ilr id at the White House ; so, some time before Mr. Ben- 
 t0v i had closed his prosj' and labored speech in support of 
 his own nullifying resolution, it was well known to all but 
 nim self what the result would be. When he brought his 
 rem %rks to a close and sent his resolution to the Clerk's 
 desk, j rose alu j S p ]£ e \ n reply for about an hour in Ian- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 guage of great explicitness, in which I inveighed as 
 strongly as I could against Mr. Benton's movement, de- 
 nounced it as alike unpatriotic and mischievous, and 
 pointed out the unworthy personal motives by which he 
 was evidently influenced. After this his resolution was 
 voted down unanimously, with the exception, indeed, of 
 his own vote, and he left the hall full of amrcr and ('ha- 
 
 lt will surprise no one now, I presume, to learn that I 
 considered myself justified by such facts as I have been 
 relating, and which all the members of the Senate now 
 surviving would be douhtless ready to attest, in doing 
 what I could legitimately and fairly to weaken Mr. Ben- 
 ton's influence in the country, and to circumscribe his 
 capacity for mischief. Hence my assail ment of him in 
 the newspapers in the summer of 1849, and other acts, 
 needless now to be mentioned, indicating my opinion of 
 his character and the danger which I apprehended from 
 his being intrusted with too larcre an amount of civic 
 power. T determined to deal him in addition a decisive 
 blow, which, should the Democratic members of the Sen- 
 ate prove as mindful of the honor of the country, as well 
 as of their own individual dignity, as I hoped they would, 
 could not but be fatal to Mr. Benton's hopes of ascendency 
 in the future. On the first day of the approaching session 
 of Congress I entered the Democratic caucus which had 
 been convoked for that day, and moved that Thomas H. 
 Benton, upon charges which I was prepared to array 
 against him, should be discontinued as chairman of the 
 Committee on Foreign Affairs, well knowing that if this 
 movement should be successful in caucus, the Democratic 
 party having a decided majority in the Senate, Mr. Ben- 
 ton would be inevitably ousted from the high position 
 referred to, and that William R. King, of Alabama, would 
 be chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in his 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCE! 
 
 stead, which motion, after two mornings spent in its dis- 
 cussion, was carried by one vote ; soon after which Mr. 
 teuton resigned his membership of 
 
 Mr. Benton was certainly a man of considerable native 
 strength of intellect, and of a most capacious and retentive 
 memory. lie possessed much knowledge of various kinds, 
 and as a writer of pure and nervous English had but few 
 equals. He was exceedingly deficient in extemporaneous 
 oratorical power, had a bad voice, a forbidding and un- 
 conciliatory manner — showed but little respect for the feel- 
 ings of those whom he met in debate, and as a politician 
 was little regardful of the means which he employed for 
 the attainment of his ends. He never spoke in the Senate 
 except upon the most labored preparation, and then always 
 from copious notes, and his principal speeches were 
 always fully written out before their delivery. 
 
 A scene occurred in the Senate between Mr. Benton and 
 myself which I should here briefly explain. In the sum- 
 mer of 1850, while Mr. Calhoun's remains were being 
 transported from Washington to South Carolina, but be- 
 fore they had left Washington, Mr. .Benton rose up one 
 morning and made, as I understood them, some very dis- 
 respectful allusions to the illustrious deceased. I stepped 
 to the chair of Mr. Butler, Mr. Calhoun's. own Senatorial 
 colleague, and urged him to say something in response. 
 He seemed not exactly to understand the import of Mr. 
 Benton's words, and therefore responded to him in a very 
 confused and ineffective manner. I rose up to subjoin one 
 or two observations in a style, as I am willing to acknowl- 
 edge, not a little, animated and indignant. Mr. Benton 
 got up suddenly from his chair, which was some distance 
 from mine, making at the time a prodigious noise, and 
 advanced rapidly in the direction of my position, which 
 was on the outer circle of seats, not far from the central 
 door of the chamber, and seemed to be aiming to get 
 
CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 
 
 behind me whilst I was speaking, in order to strike me 
 when in this unprotected attitude. I had been warned 
 by Senator Pratt only a day or two before that he had 
 publicly threatened to do me violence in the Senate if I 
 ever undertook to allude to him again, and I had deemed 
 it expedient to put on arms for my own defense. I was 
 wearing at the. moment a Colt's revolver, which I cer- 
 tainly intended to use should it become necessary. On 
 drawing it, I took a step or two to the right, which car- 
 ried me to the central aisle of the Senate. I then turned 
 toward the central door of the chamber, intending cer- 
 tainly if Mr. Benton should pass the corner near my seat 
 and advance a single step down the aisle I was standing 
 in, after having warned him of my intention, to fire upon 
 him at once, conceiving that in shooting in the direction 
 of the central door I should be able to avoid doing injury 
 to any one else; for I undoubtedly did not intend to suc- 
 cumb to his violence while in the decorous performance of 
 my Senatorial duties. When Mr. Benton saw I was 
 armed, he paused, and in a second or two allowed Gov- 
 ernor Dodge, the venerable Senator from Wisconsin, to 
 conduct him to his chair. Before he had fairly reseated 
 himself, Mr. Dickinson, of ^New York, asked me for my 
 pistol, which I willingly handed him. Then it was that 
 Mr. Benton broke out again vociferously, exclaiming, 
 " Let the assassin shoot!" at the same time theatrically 
 tearing open his vest. I made a short explanation of my 
 conduct to the Senate, after which the affair was referred 
 to a special committee, whose report and the evidence 
 annexed thereto occupy one large printed volume, in 
 which future generations will find a hucre and somewhat 
 incongruous mass of facts of a very ludicrous and inter- 
 esting character. 
 
 I will close this reminiscence with a somewhat curious 
 anecdote: A few days after the two Senators from (Jali 
 

 340 Basket of reminiscences. 
 
 fomia, Messrs. Gwin and Fremont, were admitted to the 
 seats which they had been quietly claiming for several 
 months, the latter, Mr. Fremont, introduced several bills, 
 evidently drawn by Mr. Benton, his father-in-law, having 
 relation to important local concerns in California, and of 
 a nature, as I thought, if allowed to pass, to do very 
 great detriment to valuable national interests in that 
 quarter. Several old and valued friends of mine in Cali- 
 fornia, and among these Judge Shattuck, had warned me 
 in a very serious "manner against these very movements. 
 Before taking any decided step in the matter, I counseled 
 with my old and valued friend, Dr. William M. Gwin, 
 who I knew from more than twenty yean' acquaintance 
 and familiar intercourse would be-sure to give me correct 
 information. The Doctor, in very concise and decided 
 language, confirmed all that Judge Shattuck had said on 
 this" subject, and stated that he should himself be disposed 
 tod-) what he could to defeat these schemes of Colonel 
 Fremont, but for the fact that he was his colleague, and 
 he was desirous of cultivating harmony with him as far 
 as he honorably could. I opposed each of these bills, .and 
 they were defeated. On the last night of the Senatorial 
 session, when the general appropriation bill was on its 
 passage, a renewed attempt was made on the part of Col- 
 onel Fremont, by an amendment to this bill which he 
 introduced, to attain the very objects, or a portion thereof, 
 for the purpose of realizing which his separate bills had 
 been introduced. Amid the excitement and confusion of 
 the moment this amendment was very near passing. No 
 one had presented as yet any opposition to it when I got 
 up and explained its true character, and urged Senators 
 to aid me in defeating it. The amendment was voted 
 down, and presently afterward the general appropriation 
 bill passed ; after which a motion was made to go into 
 executive session, which was carried. Just as I was 
 

 BASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 put lug my papers back into my drawer Colonel Fremont 
 approached, and said, in a very quiet manner, that he 
 wished to speak with me outside the Senate. I knew 
 very well what this meant; for before this time I had 
 never been even introduced to this < 
 I never have yet been. I replied to him that I would 
 join him immediately ; which I did. When we got 
 together, outside the cen' ral door of the hall, he turned to 
 me and said, " Colonel Benton is not at all pleased with 
 your conduct this evening.' "Ah !" said I ; " this is truly 
 unfortunate, as I have been laboring assiduoualy to con- 
 
 ciliate this father-in-law of yours for several years." Upon 
 which, growing a little excited, he said ? " I do not my- 
 self like the manner in which you have been intermed- 
 dling with my California affairs." "I should like to 
 know," (I responded,) " what California affairs you can 
 possibly have to attend to here which I, as a Senator from 
 the State of Mississippi, may not properly meddle with." 
 I continued thus, substantially : " Colonel Fremont, I beg 
 to say to you that you have waked up the wrong passen- 
 ger. AVhilst I am in the Senate, I shall act a fearless and 
 independent part, regardless whom it may offend save my 
 own constituents." To this he answered: "You are not 
 a gentleman." So soon as these words were uttered I 
 struck him. Just as he was apparently proceeding to 
 return the blow, Senators Clarke and Mangum came 
 hastily through the folding-doors of the Senate, and pre- 
 vented any further hostilities. 
 
 In about an hour a gentleman from New Jersey,, who 
 was afterward Governor of that State, brought me rather 
 a strangely worded note from Colonel Fremont, which I 
 recognized as virtually a challenge to the field of honor. 
 I wrote a reply immediately that I would proceed to Bal- 
 timore early in the morning and send an acceptance from 
 that place. Before the Senate adjourned Messrs. Gwin, 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Jones, and Dodge, of that body, waited upon me and in- 
 formed me that they were just from Colonel Benton's res- 
 idence, where they had demanded that this affair should 
 proceed no further, and urged that I should consent to 
 withdraw my note in order that Colonel Fremont might 
 be able to withdraw his. To this I very promptly con- 
 sented. I proceeded to the State of Mississippi next morn- 
 ing. In a few days thereafter my honored and truly chi- 
 valrous friend, the Hon. Reverdy Johnson, transmitted 
 me a copy of a very denunciatory hand-bill just issued by 
 Colonel Fremont, of which Colonel. Benton was himself 
 undoubtedly the author, and urged me under all the cir- 
 cumstances existing to take no notice whatever thereof. 
 I followed his advice. 
 
 Several years thereafter, when Colonel Fremont was in 
 a manner so extraordinary put in nomination for the 
 Presidency, I chanced to be a resident of San Francisco, 
 in California. One morning, when seated in my profes- 
 sional office in that city, several worthy gentlemen came 
 in. They were political friends of Colonel Fremont, but 
 very good personal friends of my own. They called my 
 attention to an article recently printed in, the Cleveland 
 Plaindealer, in which their Presidential candidate had 
 been fiercely assailed, and in which he was accused, dur- 
 ing his occupancy of a seat in the Senate, of having made 
 a violent and cruel assault upon a very aged and decrepit. 
 brother member of that body, (meaning myself,) and it 
 was insisted that a man of such ferocious manners was 
 wholly unworthy of Presidential promotion. These gen- 
 tlemen asked me to read the article, which I did, and 
 then inquired of me as to the truth of its statements. I 
 was happy at having it in my power to say to them that 
 their Presidential candidate had received great injustice 
 at the hands of the Plaindealer. They then inquired of 
 me whether I would make a certificate to that effect, to 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 6^6 
 
 ) 
 
 be used in the canvass, to which I assented, and formally 
 certified that it was not true that Colonel Fremont had 
 ever stricken me in his life, and subjoined that, had he 
 done so, I was quite competent to defend myself against 
 any assault which lie could possibly have made, and so 
 ended this remarkable affair. Vive la banc 
 humbug ! 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XXXII 
 
 JOHN A. QUITMAN 
 
 I have had occasion to speak heretofore more than once 
 of a gentleman whom [ knew long and well, and whose 
 distinguished career, both in peace and in war, seems t<> 
 claim a more formal notice at my hands than he has yet 
 received. No citizen of the South ean he mentioned whose 
 character and acts have a closer or more important con- 
 nection with the great historic events which have been 
 occurring during the last twenty wars in the State of 
 Mississippi, and in several adjoining States, as w 
 with the remarkable consequences which have 1.- 
 therefrom, than those of the subject, of the present remi- 
 
 I do not propose to write the life of General John A. 
 Quitman. This I learn has been done. in a very satis- 
 factory manner already by some writer, judged by the 
 admirers of General Quitman to be altogether competent 
 
 to this task. My present intention is to bring as tar as 
 I can into a distinct and luminous view a few of the more 
 salient points in his busy and troublous history, and to 
 give a more explicit account than has heretofore been pub- 
 lished of the peculiar relations subsisting between that 
 gentleman and myself. 
 
 John A. Quitman was a native of the State of New 
 
 John A. Quitman was a native of the State of New 
 York, and was of German extraction. lie received an 
 excellent collegiate education, and is said to have been 
 intended for the Christian ministry. When he reached 
 mature years, though, lie declined this vocation and re- 
 solved to devote himself to the profession of the law. He 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 had scarcely attained the age of twenty-one when lie 
 ' rrated to the State of Ohio. There he did not remain 
 loner, but somewhere between L820 and 1825 descended 
 the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and readied the city of 
 Natchez, where he located permanently. His person was 
 real i repressiveness, his manners were those of a 
 modest, well-bred gentleman, and his habits of life were 
 such as were well calculated to commend him to general 
 esteem and confidence in that rich and refined commu- 
 nity, lie was fortunate enough very soon to attract the 
 attention of Mr. Griffith, who had become eminent as a 
 lawyer at Natchez, had married a daughter of the late 
 Chief -I nst ice Edward Turner, of Mississippi, and obtained 
 by this connubial association with a most beautiful and 
 accomplished lady quite a competent fortune. I may he 
 excused for mentioning here, in passing, that Judge Tur- 
 ner, as I have heard from his own lips, was a native of 
 Fairfax county, Virginia, and was nephew to that par- 
 ticular Mr. Payne who is represented in Weems' "Life of 
 Washington," as having knocked down General Wash- 
 ington, at Fairfax Court-house, in a quarrel which acci- 
 dentally occurred between them at that place. This 
 curious incident is set forth by Mr. Weems in a very 
 graphic and interesting manner. The descendants of this 
 Mr. Payne are now scattered through Kentucky, Tennes- 
 see, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana, many of whom 
 1 have known personally in former years. 
 
 Soon after the partnership just mentioned was formed 
 between Griffith and Quitman, the latter married a Miss 
 Turner, a very wealthy and accomplished lady, who was 
 ronsin-geniian to the wife of Mr. Griffith. During the 
 continuance of the partnership, which was only termi- 
 nated, at the end of four years, hy the decease of Mr. Grif- 
 fith, -the tirm divided $54,000 of net profits, as I have 
 several times heard mentioned by General Quitman him- 
 
 ianv of whom 
 
 former years. 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 self. Quitman then formed a partnership with Mr. John 
 L. McMurrun, whieh lasted until the former was made 
 Chancellor of Mississippi, which last event occurred about 
 two years before I first saw the subject of this notice. 
 
 Mr. McMurran married, also, a Miss Turner, the sister 
 of Mr. Griffith's wife, took a very high position at the 
 bar, and lived for many years, beloved and honored by 
 the whole community. He was my intimate friend for 
 many years, and in the fierce political contest of 1851 
 sustained me for the office of Governor against Genera! 
 Quitman himself, mainly, of course, in consequence of his 
 intense devotion to the Union cause. 
 
 General Quitman, when placed upon the chancery 
 bench, was one of the youngest men that had ever been 
 raised to a judicial office of such high dignity in any part 
 of the Republic. He sustained himself well in this very 
 responsible position, and continued to act as chancellor to 
 the entire satisfaction of intelligent men of all parties, 
 until he at last voluntarily resigned his office, and re- 
 turned to the practice of the law. Meanwhile he had be- 
 come one of the wealthiest men in Mississippi, and was 
 understood to live in a style of almost princely elegance. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact, and certainly one very credita- 
 ble to General Quitman, that though he had opposed with 
 more than ordinary zeal and strenuousness the incorpora- 
 tion of the principle of popular suffrage in the election of 
 judicial officers ; and though the new constitution, with 
 this feature embodied in it-, had been almost unanimously 
 adopted, yet when a new chancellor had to be elected un- 
 der the amended constitution, he was re-elected to this 
 dignified post without opposition from any quarter. T 
 had the honor to act as one of a committee of three (of 
 whom the late John I. Guion and Hon. William A. Bod- 
 ely, of Louisville, Ky., were the other Uvo members) ap- 
 pointed to solicit General Quitman to be a candidate for 
 
CASKET OK REMINISCENCES. 
 
 re-election. I may be allowed to mention here, as rather 
 i curious fact, that the proposition to elect judges by the 
 people — a thing which had never at that time been known 
 in this country, save in Connecticut in early colonial 
 times — was first made by this Reminiscent in a newspaper 
 published in the citv of Vicksbu'rs:, over the signature of 
 'Thomas .Jefferson," more than forty years ago; and my 
 lumbers on this subject purporting to have been written 
 ipon the authority of this eminent Democratic statesman, 
 a ho had very forcibly recommended this mode of election 
 n his celebrated letter to Mr. Ivercheval, to be found in 
 he fourth volume of Mr. Jefferson's works. These num- 
 •cis of mine were responded to with much spirit and 
 ibility by Judge Bodely — the gentleman already men- 
 ioned — and will be recollected to have brought on a pro- 
 lacted and excited discussion at the court-house in 
 Ucksburg, over which the Hon. William L. Sharkey 
 •resided. The connection which I chanced to have with 
 
 his interesting question prompted a popular call upon 
 lie to be a candidate to represent in the convention, which 
 i ad then already been convoked, the large, Senatorial dis- 
 trict extending along the bank of the Mississippi river 
 or about two hundred miles from the then northern 
 ►oundary of the State to a point about ninety miles 
 outh of Vicksburg: and I moved as rapidly as I could 
 ►etween the two remote points mentioned in the summer 
 >f 1832, in a common dug-out, calling on all the voters 
 raiding upon the bank of the "Father of Waters," 
 Irinking for the most part the muddy water of the river, 
 nd subsisting on cheese and smoked venison, with an 
 •ccasional small supply of very indifferent bread. When 
 reached the lower terminus of the district I found my- 
 elf in the hands of the aoue and fever, and before I £0t 
 entirely well the canvass had closed, and I found myself 
 lefeated by a majority of about forty votes. I had this 
 

 64:$ 'CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 consolation only over the disappointment of my ambitious 
 hopes: A very able man, the late Eugene MeGehee, was 
 elected over me, who, abandoning his opposition to the 
 popular elective principle in the midst of the canvass, 
 openly pledged himself to support it in the convention if 
 elected. This i 
 
 burg, and an able an 
 preferred to a young 
 loiiir enough in Mise 
 
 was very 
 
 who had 
 
 I undertake to say that the constitution of Mississippi 
 embodied the popular suffrage idea, in connection with 
 judicial elections, earlier than was done elsewhere since 
 the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. I 
 was induced to propose it in the manner mentioned in 
 consecpience of a then recent perusal of Mr. Jefferson's 
 writings, in which this mode of election is so hir** 1 " 
 
 ommended, especially 
 
 o a Mr. Kerch 
 
 ire ranid diffu: 
 
 is scarcely an 
 
 :>litical notion 
 dished, public 
 
 nion. I take 
 
 instance 01 a more rapid diffusion of any political notion 
 whatever so directly in opposition to established public 
 sentiment than now occurred all over the Union. I take 
 no particular credit to myself for first suggesting this 
 idea in Mississippi ; and it would be indeed yvvy ridicu- 
 lous for me to do so, for I hold that experience has plainly 
 shown this change in the mode of election to have been a 
 great and most deplorable error, since for many years past 
 it has, as I think, been found altogether impossible to 
 keep politics out of the judicial elections; and hence a 
 great and constantly-increasing deterioration of the judi- 
 cial department of our system has been observable. 
 
 I now return to my theme. General Quitman, to the 
 surprise of all who knew him in Mississippi, in 1833, be- 
 came an ardent State-rights man or nullifier, and took a 
 leading part in getting up -a convention in the city of 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Jackson, Mississippi, for the purpose of indoctrinating 
 this State with this dangerous theory. I witnessed the 
 discussions in this body, and immediately reviewed the 
 same in the columns of the Mississippian, and with so 
 much plainness and severity that General Quitman took 
 ie thereat, so that, in truth, we did not speak 
 jars. When he subsequently ran for a seat in 
 Congress against Mr. Gholson we accidentally .met one 
 uiffht at a Theater in Jackson, and became cordially recon- 
 
 The Mexican war was in active progress when he ap- 
 plied to me to recommend him to Mr. Polk for the com- 
 mission of a brigadier general, he evidently supposing 
 that my recommendation would be of some avail to him 
 in the matter, on the ground that I then had the honor 
 to be a member of the United States Senate for the State 
 of Mississippi, though I had not yet taken my seat in 
 that body. I complied with this request most cheerfully, 
 and the more so perhaps because of the recent disappoint- 
 ment of the General's aspirations in the Senatorial elec- 
 tion heretofore described, in which Governor McKutthad 
 been so disastrously overthrown. 
 
 General Quitman's conduct in Mexico was eminently 
 creditable to him. He fought Hrst under General Taylor 
 in the region of the Rio Grande, and afterward under 
 General Scott in that memorable campaign marked with 
 the conquest of the City of Mexico, of which place Gen- 
 eral Quitman will be remembered to have been for several 
 months military governor. 
 
 During his sojourn in Mexico he frequently wrote to 
 me, and in more than one letter besought me to see to his 
 promotion, declaring that he had no other friend then in 
 Congress from Mississippi upon whose support he could 
 confidently rely. Meanwhile, Mr. Davis, whose conduct 
 in Mexico had been mentioned favorably by General Tay- 
 lor in his official reports, had, at the earnest instance of 
 
CASKET 01' REMINISCENCES. 
 
 myself and a few others, been appointed by Governor A. 
 G. Brown to the Senatorial position which had then re- 
 cently become vacant in consequence of the sudden decease 
 of my very worthy colleague in that body, the Hon. Jess* 
 D. Speight. Mr. Davis was a Democrat: a planter ; and 
 supposed to be possessed of somewhat more than ordinary 
 intelligence, who we thought might be expected to get 
 along very well In the Senate after he should have had 
 the advantage of a little official experience. Unfor- 
 tunately he and General Quitman had never been able to 
 harmonize at all in military service, and Davis, as [ per- 
 sonally know to be a fact, and as was very well and pain- 
 fully known to General Quitman also, had been much in 
 the habit, both in Mexico and elsewhere, of ridiculing the 
 General's claims to military respectability. 
 
 Out of this state of things consequences soon arose of a 
 highly disagreeable character. President Polk had be- 
 stowed upon General Quitman a brevet nomination for 
 the dignity of major general on account of distinguished 
 military Bervices at Monterey. This nomination, for some 
 reason or other, had lingered in the Committee on Mili- 
 tary Affairs of the Senate for some time, though it was 
 known that so soon as it should he reported back to the 
 body it would be favorably acted upon. Mr. Benton, the 
 chairman of the Military Committee, had been absent for 
 some time, and it was not known when he would return. 
 Meanwhile Mr. Davis was acting chairman of the com- 
 mittee, On the very day before the volunteer forces of 
 the United States who had been on service in Mexico 
 were to be discharged General Quitman came to my house, 
 on the Georgetown Heights, and laid the above facts be- 
 fore me for consideration, saying to me, wi My dear friend, 
 my military reputation is in great -danger. You know 
 well Colonel Davis' unappeasable animosity to me. He 
 has a thousand times traduced me while we were in ser- 
 vice together in Mexico ; was more than once openly in- 
 
OASk'ET OF REMlKTSCENCES. 
 
 subordinate, relying, as he did, upon General Taylor's 
 known partiality for him, and did all in his power to un- 
 dermine my fame and impair my popularity, both with 
 the troops that I commanded and with my fellow-citizen* 
 at home. I fear that he has me at last completely in his 
 power, being, as I learn to be the fact, the present acting 
 chairman of the Military Committee in the Senate, before 
 which my brevet nomination for gallant conduct at Mon- 
 - : ~ now pending. This is the last day on which this 
 nom nation can be continued, for the forces which I com- 
 manded in Mexico will be to-morrow discharged. He, 
 Davis, must be made to report back the nomination to the 
 nate to-day, or I shall be a deeply-dishonored man. He 
 pretends to have a technical objection to the confirmation 
 of all such nominations in the volunteer branch of the ser- 
 vice ; but this is wholly untenable, as I will in a moment 
 show you. [He then handed me a brief of the legal points 
 involved, which I at once examined carefully and he then 
 resumed.] Now I wish you this morning to move for an 
 executive session of the Senate and demand of Mr. Davis 
 his report upon my nomination. I care not whether it is 
 favoraWe or unfavorable. I am satisfied that your appeal 
 to the Senate in my behalf will be successful. " He added: 
 " I do not doubt Unit the performance of this duty of 
 friendship will involve you in personal difficulty with 
 Mr. Davis; but I am asking of yon only to do for me 
 what I feel I would cheerfully do for yon were our posi- 
 tions exchanged." I at once answered that I would take 
 pride in complying with his request. [ accompanied him 
 to the Capitol ; moved for an executive session of the 
 Senate: and on this being accorded I demanded of the 
 chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs his report 
 upon General Quitman's nomination. Mr. Douglas aided 
 me in the movement on account of the fact that his friend, 
 (Jeneral Shields, occupied a position similar to that of 
 
 his report 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 General Quitman. Mr. Davis for some time hesitated to 
 make his report. When he did so it was an unfavorable 
 one. Mr. Douglas and myself then attacked his report, 
 succeeded in overthrowing its reasonings, and got both 
 Quitman and Shields confirmed almost unanimously. 
 Very bitter words were spoken on this occasion between 
 Mr. Davis and myself in the hearing of our brother Sena- 
 tors, and I did not hesitate to charge him with illiberally 
 and injustice toward a meritorious comrade in arms, and 
 I even menaced him with the exposition of his unworthy 
 conduct to our constituents in Mississippi. 
 
 General Quitman, when the result was reported to him, 
 was full of rejoicing and gratitude. This g entleman was 
 nominated, not long after, to the office of Governor of 
 Mississippi, and he was elected, also, chiefly by force of 
 his military popularity. He was holding the office of 
 Governor when the famous compromise, struggle of 1850 
 occurred. My own position was such in Washington 
 that I stood greatly in need of some generous and devoted 
 friend at the capital of Mississippi, and I fondly looked 
 in the direction of General Quitman for sympathy and 
 support. All my five colleagues from Mississippi were 
 
 warmly opposed to the compromise measures of 1850, and 
 became much offended with me because of my support <»l 
 them. I intend no offense to any one when I state that 
 they secretly combined 'against me in Washington and 
 used what influence they possessed in Mississippi for my 
 political ruin. General Quitman, 1 grieve to say, acted 
 with them. The Legislature of the State was induced to 
 censure me in resolutions of a particularly disrespectful 
 and acrimonious character. Mv five colleagues went home. 
 
 and in connection with Governor Quitman called a large 
 public meeting at the city of Jackson, and set. on foot a 
 new political party to be called the State-Bights party of 
 Mississippi, of which all were invited to become members 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 60 6 
 
 who were opposed to the Compromise and my course in 
 support of the measures embodied therein without regard 
 to previous party names or antecedents. 
 
 I got home aboul a month afterward. T found almost 
 the whole Legislature arrayed against me, the Executive 
 department, and nearly all thejudicial officers of the State. 
 The newspapers were nearly all of the secession stamp. 
 Under these circumstances T plainly saw there was only 
 one course to pursue, and 1 adopted it. T immediately 
 Challenged Governor Quitman to public discussion of the 
 fending questions at the State capital. He accepted the 
 challenge, but was suddenly taken sick, and did not come 
 to the iield of expected conflict, i went to the capital 
 myself and addressed the large crowd assembled, in lan- 
 guage of the utmost warmth and plainness, and announced 
 my determination at once to go over the State and person- 
 ally urge the people to assemble in convention at Jackson 
 on the very day upon which the Legislature had been 
 summoned to reassemble. T went forth accordingly, trav- 
 eled night and day, made some forty public addresses, 
 and on the day that the Legislature Came together the in- 
 dividuals composing it learned with affright that a popu- 
 lar convention of fifteen hundred members was then sit- 
 ting iii the City Hall, and was proceeding to rebuke their 
 own treasonable action, and to censure the censurers. Our 
 convention was indeed a noble body, ami \ shall ever re- 
 gard it as the proudest occasion of my lite when [ ad- 
 dressed this numerous assemblage of upright and intelli- 
 gent citizens, standing in the opening made by the re- 
 moval of a large window in the City Flail, and address- 
 ing those assembled both within the house and on the 
 outside. The resolutions adopted by this worthy body were 
 soon printed and cast abroad, and 1 then proceeded to the 
 hall i»t* the I Louse of Representatives in the State Legis- 
 lature, and demanded a hearing from that body. The 
 23 r 
 
354 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 House adjourned and yielded to me the hall, and I devoted 
 full two hours to the task of explaining to those assem- 
 bled the dangers of the hour. After this I proceeded to 
 Washington. 
 
 When the next summer came the struggle so fiercely 
 waged in Mississippi had to be brought to a termination. 
 A convention had been called by the Legislature of the 
 State to assemble in Jackson in the succeeding autumn, 
 to determine this precise question : " Will Mississippi join 
 South Carolina in the act of secession from the Federal 
 Union, proposed by the latter State?" This question 
 was to be settled by the election of delegates to the con- 
 vention. Some one was to be elected Governor to carry 
 the project of secession into effect, provided co-operation 
 with South Carolina should be determined on. Quitman 
 was nominated as secession candidate for Governor. I 
 was nominated as the candidate of the Union party, 
 called into existence in the preceding year. We took the 
 field as opposing candidates, and confronted each other 
 first at the Capitol in Jackson. Before either of us spoke 
 I said to him in a low but very distinct tone , " General, 
 in looking over the past, it seems to me a little strange 
 that I should now find you in combination with Davis 
 for my overthrow. Have you forgotten my contest with 
 him in the United States Senate, when he was seeking to 
 destroy your well-earned military fame ? Have you for- 
 gotten your assurances then of future friendship?" 
 u Surely," be said, pretty sternly, "you do not intend to 
 discuss that matter to-day. " "Certainly not," I replied, 
 "but still I can not help painfully remembering this part 
 of our past history." We addressed the people at some 
 length in Jackson that day. We met on about seven or 
 eight occasions afterward, when he found his cause utterly 
 indefensible, and resolved to break up our joint appoint- 
 ments. For this purpose he insulted me grossly at a place 
 
OASKKT OK REMINISCENCES. 
 
 called Sledgeville. I resented it; we fought, and he im- 
 mediately published separate appointments. I went 
 through the State alone, warning the people everywhere 
 of the perils of the crisis. By the time we both got back 
 to Jackson the election of conventional delegates, which 
 preceded by a mouth the election of Governor ,was over, and 
 my respectable opponent found that the very convention, 
 the calling of which he had himself recommended, would, 
 when it should assemble, declare almost unanimously 
 against the breaking up of the Federal Union. Not being- 
 willing to encounter the actual defeat of his gubernato- 
 rial claims, which he saw plainly menaced, he at once 
 withdrew from the canvass, resigned the office of Gover- 
 nor, and went home. Mr. Davis, who had till then re- 
 mained pretty much perdu, was brought forth as a candi- 
 date, with the hope that by adroitly putting this bril- 
 liant military chieftain upon a regular Democratic plat- 
 form, and declaring that all further thoughts of breaking 
 up the Union were renounced, they would be able to cajole 
 the people into supporting him. But in a- few weeks he 
 was seen wending his way to " Briarfield," on the bank 
 of the Mississippi, where he would have slumbered in de- 
 served obscurity up to the present moment but for Mr, 
 Pierce's calling him forth to give him another chance to 
 ruin his country. 
 
 General Quitman afterward came to Congress as a Rep- 
 resentative from a district where lie was personally well 
 known and much loved. He found the national House 
 of Representatives a very unfavorable theater for the ex- 
 hibition of his particular species of ability, and when I 
 last saw him in Washington he professed to be greatly 
 disgusted with the conduct of some of those with whom 
 he found himself politically associated, and even talked 
 seriously about resigning his seat. A few months after 
 this he died, and was, as I think, exceedingly fortunate 
 
356 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Iji doing so before all the terrible evils brought upon the 
 country by secession had been realized. 
 
 Let me do General Quitman justice. He was truthful, 
 honest, brave, of a slow and plodding intellect, but in re- 
 gard to ordinary matters, sound and practical in his views. 
 He was over ambitious, fond of taking the lead in all 
 things, somewhat given to selfishness, and was altogether 
 the dullest and most prosy speaker I have ever known 
 who could speak at all. With a good deal more of solid 
 intellect than Mr. Davis, and a far truer heart, and sur- 
 passing him also much in information, he was inferior to 
 him in what is called flippancy of expression, and he was 
 certainly far behind him also in impudent, effrontery, in 
 low and vulgar cunning, and in a capacity for bringing 
 into advantageous and effective use the multiplied arts of 
 deception. 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 857 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XXXIII. 
 
 ELIAB KINGMAN — GENERAL HENRY A. WISE— INTERNAL IM- 
 PROVEMENTS IN VIRGINIA — POLITICAL BOURBONISM. 
 
 I propose to say something here of two individual, as 
 striki ugly contrasted to each other almost as it is possi- 
 ble that members of the same race could well be, at least 
 in temper and habits of life, as well as : _n the careers that 
 they have severally run — albeit there is much in the char- 
 acter and example of each of them quite worthy of respeel , 
 of love, and even of a certain sort of admiration. 
 
 When I was in the twelfth year of my age, E was occu- 
 pied in front of my quiet paternal home, in the lower part 
 of the famed county of Fauquier, in Virginia, in some 
 trivial employment, on a fine autumnal evening, when f 
 saw riding up to the gate which opened into the green 
 and shaded yard a tall, good-looking young gentleman, 
 who, after having inquired whether my father was in the 
 house, and having learned that lie was, descended from his 
 horse, and approached the mansion, at the door of which he 
 was met by my loved and venerated parent, who saluted 
 him cordially, and invited him to enter his ever-hospitable 
 abode. It was but natural that I should myself feel some 
 curiosity as to what might turn out to be the cause of 
 this unexpected visit. This was soon made known, tor 
 the stranger, before seating himself, handed my father a 
 letter, which informed him that the name of the bearer 
 thereof was Eliab Kingman; that he had recently grad- 
 uated at some celebrated New England university or col- 
 lege, and that he had now come South to obtain employ- 
 ment, if he could do so, as a teacher of the Latin and 
 Greek languages, and of the ordinary branches of an Eai- 
 
358 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 glish education. I saw at once that the young and mod- 
 est stranger had made a fine impression upon my paternal 
 protector and guide, and that the long-desired opportunity 
 would now be afforded me of moving forward in a course 
 of intellectual culture which I had been always taught to 
 regard as indispensable to the character of a refined and 
 well-bred gentleman, as well as of a patriotic and useful 
 citizen. The school was soon organized, and Mr. King- 
 man, in a week or two, saw around him some fifteen or 
 twenty boys, all of whom were intent upon acquiring, as 
 rapidly as possible, all that he was capable of teaching 
 them, and of fitting themselves in this way for the multi- 
 plied duties of the life which lay before them. It must 
 be confessed that though the members of this school were 
 in general assiduous and well-behaved, yet that there were 
 a number of scenes occurring during the year indicating a 
 little more than the customary vivacity of restless boy- 
 hood, and it is certain that all the rules of decorum pre- 
 scribed by our youthful magister were not always duly 
 respected; and I suspect that he must have been often a 
 good deal annoyed by ebullitions of exuberant gayety and 
 frolicksomeness which he was compelled to witness. But 
 never did I see a frown upon Mr. Kingman's visage dur- 
 ing the year that he was sojourning among us. He was 
 always cheerful, civil, and even affectionate, and seemed 
 to take the greatest delight in giving such aid to the 
 pupils under his charge as he supposed them to need at his 
 hands. He lived for nearly a year in the house which 
 had given me birth, was uniformly treated as if lie had 
 been one of the family, and when he left us for a more 
 profitable school ottered to him elsewhere there was not 
 one of my father's family who did not painfully regret 
 the loss of his pleasant and instructive society. 
 
 Some years after this Mr. Kingman married an aruia. 
 ble and accomplished Virginia lady, a very near relative 
 
CASKET OF REHTNISGENO] 359 
 
 of the late distinguished and most meritorious Confeder- 
 ate officer, General Ewell, and located himself in that 
 portion of the city of Washington where he now resides. 
 He very early purchased here a considerable quantity of 
 land, then cultivated as a field, which is at this moment 
 overspread with some of the most costly and tasteful edi- 
 fices anywhere to be found in this splendid metropolitan 
 city. Here he continued his literary studies, which he 
 had in fact never much pretermitted ; and, while thus 
 becoming a man of large and varied attainments, he occu- 
 pied himself for many years with the preparation of va- 
 rious well-written articles for the National Intelligencer and 
 other newspapers of eminent standing and influence, which 
 very soon won for him much reputation, and which, as I 
 suppose, were also a source of considerable pecuniary 
 profit. While I had the honor of holding a seat in Con- 
 gress, Mr. Kingman was an occasional contributor to sev- 
 eral well-known newspapers ; but the letters from his 
 facile pen which every morning appeared in the Balti- 
 more Sun, over the signature of " Ion," possessed an attrac- 
 tiveness altogether unequaled at that period in this class 
 of writing. They were generally short, never extending 
 over more than three-quarters of a column of that widely- 
 circulating gazette, but were always smoothly and beau- 
 tifully written, in a neat, polished, and sometimes very 
 pointed style, ever supplying some new and interesting 
 intelligence touching current Congressional events not to 
 be found elsewhere, aud very often presenting graphic and 
 racy descriptions of eminent public men then upon the 
 stage. These articles evinced the greatest astuteness of 
 mind, and were of practical utility to many understand- 
 ings not much inclined to receive instruction in forms 
 grosser and less attractive. I have long thought that the 
 letters of " Ion," if collected and published at this time in 
 one connected whole would prove alike entertaining and 
 
360 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 edifying to those who did nut have an opportunity of 
 perusing them at the time of their first appearance. 
 
 Mr. Kingman is now, as I suppose, somewhere about 
 seventy-five years of age. lie is yet vigorous and active 
 in mind and body ; is as cheerful and sociable as he was 
 when I first knew him, more than a half-century since ; 
 and his remarkable memory seems to have retained with- 
 out either loss or discoloration from the influence of time 
 and the varied accidents of life, all that he lias ever here- 
 tofore learned, either of men or things, as well as all that 
 the calm and patient study of a lifetime could accumu- 
 late amid the treasure-houses of science and scholastic lit- 
 er;! lure. I lis ordinary conversation, which is never 
 marked with the smallest tincture of bitterness or envy, 
 is of far more value to a person of taste and discernment 
 than would prove the boasted volumes of many professed 
 authors of considerable celebrity. He is, indeed, as pure 
 a model as I have ever known of domestic and social 
 excellence, and has so passed his life as never to have 
 made a single enemy, or to have been accused of perform- 
 ing a, single act of which an Atticus himself would have 
 been ashamed. It is obvious that had such a man as I 
 have described been ambitious of political preferment, 
 there are but few civil stations to which he might not 
 have aspired without justly incurring the charge of pre- 
 sumption ; but it is hardly possible that he could ever 
 have been tempted to resort to those expedients which 
 experience has shown to be almost indispensable to politi- 
 cal advancement in a republic like ours. I doubt not 
 that it is for him, upon the whole, better that he should 
 have lived, a life of quietude and repose, and have been 
 thus able to preserve to old age the feelings of philosophic 
 serenity and unbroken contentedness, the enjoyment of 
 which the golden treasures of earth are not of power to 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 361 
 
 guarantee, nor all the efforts of the unjust and malevo- 
 lent of this world capable of taking away. 
 
 Integer vitae seelerisque purus 
 Non eget Mauri jaculis, ueque arcu, 
 NTec venenaMs gravida sagittis, 
 Fusee, pharetra ; 
 
 Sive per Syrtes iter aestuosas, 
 Sive tacturus per inliospitalem 
 Caucasian, vel quae loca fabulosus 
 Lambit Hydaspes. 
 
 I shall venture to express the opinion, though to all this 
 opinion may not appear well founded, that within a scope 
 of territory not more than a hundred miles square on the 
 Virginia side of the Potomac a larger number of splendid 
 and useful public men has appeared in the course of a 
 single century than any other country can claim to have 
 produced in the same space of time as the natives of a 
 lauded region of no greater extent and inhabited by a 
 population not more numerous. I would fix the begin- 
 ning of (his hundred years on the 1st day of January, 
 1720, and close it on the last of December, 1819. Persons 
 whose attention has not been specially turned to this 
 matter will be a little surprised to see the number of 
 illustrious names which adorn this list of the great and 
 good men of the Old Dominion who belonged to the cat- 
 egory specified, a small portion of whom only will be here 
 specified: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James 
 Madison, James Monroe, Patrick Henry, John Marshall, 
 Richard Henry Lee and several brothers, all nearly of 
 equal distinction with himself; Light-horse Harry Lee, 
 ;is he was called; George Wythe, George Mason, Chan- 
 cellor Pendleton, Spencer Roane, Edmund Randolph, John 
 Randolph of Roanoke, Littleton Walter Tazewell, Henry 
 
362 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Clay, Chapman Johnson, Benjamin Watkins Leigh, Wil- 
 liam H. Crawford, John Forsyth, William B. Giles, James 
 and Philip P. Barbour, General Scott, General Taylor, 
 General Harrison, General Gaines, General Robert E. Lee, 
 Stonewall Jackson, William C. Preston, James Brown, 
 General Joseph E. Johnston, with numerous others of a 
 grade only a little inferior to these. I certainly intend 
 to do no wrong to my loved native State when I confess 
 that, from the operation of causes a little difficult to ex- 
 plain, she does not seem fco have been altogether as pro- 
 lific of illustrious men of late as she was when her pop- 
 ulation was tar less. I would not undertake to assert 
 that she is not even at the present time nearly equal in 
 her number of distinguished citizens to several other States 
 whose origin was very nearly cotemporaneous with her 
 her own ; and on this disagreeable topic I prefer to say 
 no more on this occasion lest I should tempt some one to 
 apply to me the well-known words of Horace : 
 
 Difficilis, querulus, laudator teraporis acti 
 IV puero, censor castigatorque minoruui. 
 
 A few of those of the present generation whom I have 
 more or less known, and who may, therefore, be classed 
 as coming within the circle of my reminiscence, may de- 
 serve at least a passing notice. 
 
 There is a very conspicuous citizen of Virginia whom, 
 for a hundred various reasons,! have always regretted not 
 to have known better. Some have charged him with be- 
 ing eccentric, ;is most men of genius have been by the 
 dull-headed and plodding sons of obscurity, whose intel- 
 lectual pinions were not of sufficient vigor and pliancy to 
 lift them to the regions of the upper air; for, as Byron 
 very justly says : 
 
 llr who ascends to mountain-topi; shall find 
 The loftiesl peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow ; 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 363 
 
 He who surpasses or'subdues mankind 
 Must look down on the hate of those below. 
 
 Though high above the sun of glory glow, 
 Aim! far beneath the earth and ocean spread, 
 
 Round him are iey rocks, and loudly blow 
 Contending tempests on his naked head, 
 And thus reward the toi.'s which to those summits led. 
 
 My earliest recollection of General Wise stands associ- 
 ated with the duel between himself and Mr. Coke, his 
 first opponent for Congress, with whom I have heard that 
 he had very fiercely discussed the question of nullification, 
 then broached by visionary politicians for the first time, 
 at least in any grave and formal manner. The General 
 was then, if I remember aright, a champion of the Union 
 cause, and a supporter of General Jackson's famous pro- 
 clamation against South Carolina. 
 
 I am not certain that T ever heard of Henry A. Wise 
 until about the time he first became a candidate for Con- 
 gress, though with his previous career I must of necessity 
 have since become familiar, since for nearly sixteen years 
 past I have resided in the vicinage where his public 
 career was commenced ; and concerning his early life I 
 have heard a thousand anecdotes from the lips of that 
 genial, high-souled gentleman, Bailie Peyton, and from 
 others. Besides, General Wise has, within a year or two 
 past, published a brilliant and interesting volume, called, 
 I believe, "The Seven Decades," in which he has told the 
 world almost as much of the particular period of his life 
 referred to as he was able to do without some appearance 
 of egotism ; to which book I have really only one objec- 
 tion, which twill specify: I think that lie has been 
 tempted by the fervor of genius to make too harsh and 
 too unkind a portrayal of his old friend and political 
 leader, Mr. Clay, for whose character I have far more both 
 of respect and affection than he would seem now to cher- 
 ish. 
 
364 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 I have been a very close and interested observer of Gen- 
 eral Wise's political course in later years. Of many of his 
 public acts and speeches I have very warmly approved ; 
 others of them I have very decidedly condemned. I have 
 never ceased, though, to sympathize kindly with him on 
 account of some very generous and striking traits of char- 
 acter tor which I felt bound to give him credit. His per- 
 sonal bravery is as undisputed as that of the Chevalier 
 Bayard hi nisei i*. His integrity and truth have well nigh 
 passed into a proverb, and his complete exemption from 
 what Virgil calls the auri sacra fames has been creditably 
 conspicuous in every stage of his long and somewhat tem- 
 pestuous career. His temperament is a remarkably mer- 
 curial one; he is far more excitable than ordinary men, 
 and phrenologists would upon I he slightest examination 
 of his well-formed cranium pronounce his organ of com- 
 bativeness to be developed in a manner very remarkable; 
 to which circumstance, I doubt not, he is in a great de- 
 gree indebted for the manly and persevering efficiency 
 which he has manifested in every good cause in whose 
 furtherance his energies have at different times become 
 enlisted. That Mr. Wise is richly endowed with those 
 qualities which tend most to give suecess and celebrity in 
 the field of popular discussion, is a proposition which no 
 man who is at all acquainted with him would think for a 
 moment of denying, lie writes also with great facility, 
 and when he chooses to do so, is capable of expressing 
 himself in a spirited, vigorous, and exceedingly pointed 
 style, such, in fact, as would do credit to any of the more 
 distinguished authors that our country has yet produced. 
 He has occasionally written at great length upon subjects 
 not very interesting to the more numerous class of Amer- 
 ican readers, and has, therefore, in such instances, failed 
 to secure such uniform approval of the deliberate emana- 
 tions of his genius as would, perhaps, have been accorded 
 
CASKET <>F REMINISCMCES. 365 
 
 him. But I have seen some specimens of his power as a 
 writer which conclusively demonstrate that lie lacked 
 only a little more care lor hisown literary reputation, and 
 a somewhat more painstaking spirit, to command uni- 
 versal recognition as a hold, original thinker, and as one 
 of the most vigorous, persuasive, and eloquent writers 
 that has appeared in this generation. I exceeding doubt 
 whether Virginia has given birth, in the present century, to 
 a man of more genius than Henry A. Wise; and T have 
 observed with much satisfaction of late that he is giving 
 close attention to works of science and to the develop- 
 ment of great economical truths — truths which have a 
 real and almost inappreciable value to all the States of the 
 South and to Virginia in particular, at the present trying 
 period of her history. The last of the more deliberate 
 productions of General Wise, in the line just mentioned, 
 is an address delivered by him recently "before the 
 Literary Societies of Roanoke College, in Salem, A"ir- 
 ginia." The important subject discussed by him is very 
 distinctly presented on the first page of his admirable lec- 
 ture, and in the following striking words: 
 
 North America is yet new, and, God he praised! is yet hopeful. My 
 theme, then, is : 
 
 "The physical structure of the domain of the United States, and its 
 effect in the past and the present, and its probable effect in the future, 
 upon their progress, power, peace, commerce^ ami constitutions of gov- 
 ernment." 
 
 A more comprehensive and inspiring subject than that 
 herein indicated has never engaged the attention of men 
 of thoughtful and scrutinizing minds in any age of the 
 world. To say that General Wise has done justice to this 
 grand and important theme would he hut moderate praise, 
 as all discerning and fair-minded men will say who may 
 read his interesting and edifying address. As a specimen 
 of the calm and philosophical style in which his views are 
 
366 CASKET <>F REMINISCENCES. 
 
 enunciated T extract, almost at random, the following 
 paragraph : 
 
 Prior to the year 1803 the United States were comparatively eon- 
 strained in their limits, but the epoch of that date determined the na- 
 tional supremacy of' North America at least, if not eventually of the 
 world. Mr. Jefferson solved the problem by acquiring a territory 
 which conjoined the physical geography of the continent with the 
 powers which governed its settlements. The Missouri and Mississippi 
 river- were both made ours; the mouth of the latter was joined politi- 
 cally with its head; outlets were opened; conflicting riparian rights 
 no longer obstructed internal or foreign trade; mountain ranges and 
 water-sheds and quays of commerce were put under the same sov- 
 ereignty, and the New World was spanned to the Pacific by an empire 
 of the United States. This policy was completed in the acquisition of 
 Florida in 1819 with her barricade of the Gulf stream, and nature was 
 followed in her plan of a whole and compact country. Then the Gov- 
 ernment of the United States was conjoined to the physical powers and 
 causes which control the continent and its destinies. 
 
 The following additional extract will be read with in- 
 terest : 
 
 The junction of the physical geography of the country, with its po- 
 litical powers, by the acquisition of Louisiana and Florida, was the 
 first epoch, of internal trade; and the second commenced with the arti- 
 ficial lines from the coast to the interior, by roads and canal-, trans- 
 verse to the natural lines of valleys and rivers. George Washington, 
 in this, as in everything else, was foremost in conceiving and com- 
 mencing the tirst and most important artificial lines. With that almost 
 preternatural prescience which was to be looked for only from such 
 vvisc'om and virtue as Gou gave him. pre-eminently he foresaw the 
 necessity of connecting the month of the Ohio midway the valley of 
 the Mississippi, and midway between the lakes and the Gulf of Mexico, 
 with the month of the Chesapeake hay. midway the Atlantic coast, on 
 the same parallel of latitude. We can hardly imagine that then he 
 contemplated the great artificial belt of transit which is now begun be- 
 tween the Pacific and Atlantic coast, passing through the whole inte- 
 rior of the continent. But he did foresee the true eastern terminus of 
 that belt, and projected the Chesapeake and Ohio and the James River 
 and Kanawha canals, and they are now the most important works in 
 this country yet to be constructed, to reach the great interior by the 
 shortest and cheapest routes of trade, and to bind the extremest parts 
 of this vast country together by the strongest bands of union. 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 36? 
 
 1 wish I had space to set forth here what General Wise 
 so nobly and perspicuously says in support of the proposi- 
 tion that — 
 
 The Mississippi river, by its flow in the center from north to south, 
 proved the surest cordon of the [Jnion of these States, the North with 
 the South. 
 
 I can not refrain from citing what he afterward enun- 
 ciates so impressively as to the effect of the late civil war 
 in bringing about the extinction of slavery : 
 
 That cause alone (slavery) made the Southern States stagnant. The 
 globe would not be habitable if its oceans were not agitated by storms, 
 evaporated by the sun, congealed by frost, and cleansed by perpetual 
 currents. And as of the currents of air and of the waters it may be 
 said that they often conflict with each other, yet their very cyclones 
 and whirlpools are made by God's providence to give motion and puri- 
 fication and life ; so of our civil war it may be said, I hope, in time to 
 come, that it gave a new life to the country and all its parts, which 
 may atone for the many precious lives which were taken away by its 
 ''lire and sword.*' Nothing but infra-territorial war could have given 
 this new life : and it was sent by God, not only because the exodus of 
 slavery had come, but to make the motion of commerce and arts and 
 migra ion southward. The two Virginias will now be filled with pop- 
 ulation from abroad and from other States at home, and the whole 
 South will soon be strong enough to do a great moral duty on their 
 part. 
 
 If these views be sound, (and who will now contest 
 them?) how can any reasonable man doubt the justice 
 and wisdom of the constitutional amendments which se- 
 cured to the Hieaven-emaneipated colored race those civil 
 rights without which freedom would be but the most 
 cruel of mockeries ? I shall not willingly believe that a 
 man of General Wise's sagacity could fail to perceive that 
 the communication of the right of suffrage to the freed- 
 men of the South was the natural and indispensable ac- 
 companiment of universal amnesty to those of the white 
 race recently in rebellion. Had this important safeguard 
 been promptly and voluntarily accorded by the ancient 
 white residents themselves of the South, immediately after 
 
368 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 the war bad closed, so that the colored inhabitants of 
 that section might not have been thrown upon thecarpet- 
 bag gentry for protection, it must now be most manifest 
 to all that this most docile and affectionate race would 
 long since have become thoroughly assimilated in feeling, 
 as they doubtless are in interest^ with those who had pre- 
 viously held them in servitude ; and this Republic would 
 some time ago have enjoyed that repose and prosperity 
 which General Wise himself seerns so ardently to covet. 
 It is to be hoped that a man of General Wise's abilities 
 and popularity will not be inactive at this important mo- 
 ment in our history as a people in reconciling nil good 
 and true men to each other upon the only possible basis 
 of permanent concord and prosperity: " The Constitution 
 as it />•, and the laws enacted for the enforcement thereof" 
 I trust to be excused for saying that such a man as Gene- 
 ral Henry A. Wise has no right to hide his light under a 
 bushel now when the country seems so much to need its 
 guiding influence, more especially as 1 see from the news, 
 paper reports that ex-Senator Hunter, who was so active, 
 in his own peculiar mode, in bringing on the late civil 
 war, and who is, next to deli". Davis, personally responsi- 
 ble for all its dire consequences, is iow pursuing a course 
 well calculated to revive and perpetuate agitation, and 
 place the whole colored population of the South in a 
 state of never-ending antagonism to the white inhabitants 
 of that region. Senator Hunter is the best specimen now 
 extant of the American political Bourbonite, or that pe- 
 culiar class of worthies who never forget anything and 
 never learn anything; audit' it is true, as I am told is 
 the case, that he is now every day insulting the whole 
 colored population of Virginia by asserting that " expe- 
 rience has shown that they are not true Virginians, 
 although they be native born, and that they are aliens in 
 feeling and sentiment, in sympathy and in sensibilities," 
 
CASKKT OK REMINISCENCES'. S63 
 
 it is high time that some such bold cava Her as General 
 Wise should gird on his armor to prevent the building 
 up anew of the carpet-hag interest, which I repeat owes 
 
 its origin and eontinued existence alone to sneli madness 
 as is now being perpetrated by those in Virginia and else- 
 where who utter such unpractical nonsense as is daily 
 reported to the public from Mr. Hunter's lips. It really 
 seems to me surprising that a high-bred Virginia gentle- 
 man like Mr. Hunter, after having sought so earnestly 
 the restoration of his political rights at the hands of Con- 
 gress, as he is known to have done, and after having had 
 bis disabilities so magnanimously relieved by that body, 
 should thus seize the earliest opportunity presented to 
 him of making known to the world that he feels not a 
 particle of gratitude for the favor extended him. I have 
 a very painful recollection of the course pursued by this 
 distinguished gentleman and bis late colleague, Mr. Ma- 
 son, in the Virginia Democratic Convention of 1860, held 
 at Charlottesville. The latter I then saw for the last 
 time at a very numerous assemblage of the people who 
 constitute the celebrated Tenth Legion in the valley of 
 Virginia. Mr. Mason addressed that meeting in a very, 
 plain and frank manner, and in language not deticient in' 
 distinctness, avowed the fell purpose which the faction 
 represented by him bad then in view. When he closed 
 bis speech, and [ rose to respond, he became much agi- 
 tated, (though I certainly violated no rule of courtesy.) 
 and as [proceeded to unfold the whole scheme of seditious 
 resistance then on foot, and to warn my fellow-country- 
 men of the dangers impending, hundreds yet livingsaw this 
 gentleman leap from the back window of the court-house 
 where Ave were speaking, evidently for the purpose of 
 getting as quickly as be could beyond the sounds of popu- 
 lar indignation then tbunderingly breaking forth. I 
 have never yet seen one of the prominent fomenters of 
 24r ° 
 
370 CASKET QV REMINISCENCES. 
 
 sedition that was able calmly to stand fire, and T should 
 myself willingly travel several hundred miles to hear 
 General Wise respond to one of Mr. Hunter's drowsy, 
 phlegmatic, and over-crammed political discourses. 
 
 My first personal acquaintance with General Wise was 
 formed under very peculiar circumstances, lie had fought 
 for a long time in support of the Confederate cause most 
 valiantly and faithfully. He had for several years in suc- 
 cession been compelled to go through as man}' trials and 
 sufferings as any man who participated in that struggle.' 
 A cold-hearted and obstinate executive chief, for reasons 
 which I could never precisely divine, had kept him in an 
 official position far beneath the grade of his abilities and 
 the value of his actual services. He had still fought on, 
 at the head of his noble legion, with uncomplaining pa- 
 tience, while he saw daily and hourly men of far inferior 
 capacity, and with no real claims to special consideration 
 and respect, placed abone him on the roll of. promotion. 
 At length the disastrous affair of Roanoke Esland occurred, 
 at which fatal spot he lost a valiant and accomplished son, 
 whose budding merits had already awakened expectations 
 of early and brilliant distinction. Just about this time 
 illiberal and unjust rumors were set afloat by persons 
 envious of General Wise's growing fame, which gave him 
 peculiar annoyance. A report which he made of his own 
 military conduct on a mosl important occasion was sent 
 to the War Department in Richmond, where Mr. Judah 
 P. Benjamin was playing the part of the old Old Man of 
 the Sea whom Sinbad describes. Mr. Benjamin would 
 not acknowledge officially the reception of General Wise's 
 report unless lie would consent to let it pass through the 
 hands of General, linger, his superior in command, an 
 individual whom he well knew to be deeply inimical to 
 him. and who was directly interested in shifting a most 
 crushing military responsibility from his own shoulders 
 
CASKET OF REMltflSCEKCES. Bf1 
 
 to those of General Wise ; so that the latter was left 
 without any adequate means of vindicating his own con- 
 duct as an officer. 
 
 It was precisely under these circumstances that that 
 courteous and high-bred gentleman, Colonel James Lyons, 
 General Wise's brother-in-law, came to me and urged 
 that 1 should in the House of Representatives offer a res- 
 olution demanding of the Secretary of War that he should 
 send to that body a copy of General Wise's report, with 
 a view to its examination there, and its eventual publica- 
 tion. This act of mere justice to a meritorious officer who, 
 I was satisfied, was undergoing cruel persecution, I could 
 not in honor refuse to perform. 1 succeeded in attaining 
 the object of the resolution, upon which I was asked by 
 Mr. Lyons to go over to his own professional office, where 
 I was told that General Wise was, for the purpose of 
 enabling this gentleman to tender to me his thanks for 
 the kindness exercised toward him. This he soon did in 
 a manner most knightly and impressive ; since which 
 time I have not had the honor of meeting him or of hold- 
 ing a*iy direct intercourse with him whatever. 
 
872 i ASKKT OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XXXIV. 
 
 VICKSBURG SENTINEL — DR. HAG AN — GENERAL ADAMS — GOV- 
 ERNOR A. G. M'NUTT. 
 
 Great and imperishable is the fame of Vicksburg! Re- 
 nowned alike in peace and in war ! I beheld it when in 
 point of population and trade it was little more than an 
 ordinary village. I resided there when many persons yet 
 survived who mentioned to me, as a matter within their 
 own personal knowledge, the fact that the beautiful and 
 romantic site which has since been the theater of so many 
 great and memorable events had been exchanged bv its un- 
 prophetic owner for a pitiful horse, not worth a single hun- 
 dred dollars. It was my fortune to move through the 
 streets of Vicksburg not many years after my eyes Lad 
 first rested upon her primeval, cottage-like residences, 
 when her thronged thoroughfares had become the resorl 
 and permanent abode of wealth, refinement, and intelli- 
 gence, and when her steep, alluvial hills had been over- 
 spread with splendid edifices, which the nobles of the 
 earth might have been content to inhabit; when learned 
 and upright judges were peacefully and satisfactorily ad- 
 ministering the justice of the land in well-constructed 
 court-houses, and eloquent and accomplished barristers 
 were almost every day making speeches, such as would 
 have done honor to any people under the sun. I have 
 heard political discussions in Vicksburg, continued from 
 day to day, in thv hearing of such assemblages as even 
 Cicero or Demosthenes would not have scorned toaddress, 
 and upon questions of greater dignity and importance 
 than either the populace of Home or Athens ever had 
 submitted to them. Nearly all of those with whom I once 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 373 
 
 delighted to hold free and fraternal commune in Vicks- 
 burg, forty years ago, have either passed to the grave or 
 have migrated to distant regions. Were I now to visit 
 this scene of my early exertions, it is possible that I would 
 not meet a do/en faces that I should recognize, and I am 
 quite certain that I might go there and spend a week in 
 some frequented public house without awakening any 
 very marked sensation in any segment of that bustling 
 and rapidly improving metropolis. 
 
 It is not probable that I shall ever again survey those 
 loved localities once so familiar to me. I have little in- 
 clination to institute minute inquiries now as to Iioav 
 many of rny acquaintances and cherished friends of a 
 former day are yet lingering where I last encountered 
 them ; but yet are there incidents which occurred in my 
 young days of hopefulness and vigor of which I yet eher- 
 ish recollections alike pleasant and mournful. 
 
 hi 1832 I established, in connection with an esteemed 
 friend and brother-in-law, Mr. R. P. (Jatlett, the newspa- 
 per known as The Mississvppian, for many years reeog- 
 nized, in subsequent years, and in the hands of several 
 sueeessive editors, as the faithful and efficient organ of 
 what was known as the Democratie party of Mississippi. 
 Caesar, when falling before the violence of infuriate con- 
 spirators, is said to have exclaimed : " Et tit Brute, mi 
 jili !" The dying eagle has been poetically depictured as 
 doubly bewailing his own death-wound when he found 
 the arrow which had pierced his vitals had. been feathered 
 with the plumage of his own wing. And so I, if at all 
 given to lamentation over the past, might, perhaps, with 
 some reason, complain that the most unsparing assailment 
 with which I have been visited at several noted periods 
 of my bustling career has originated in the columns of 
 that far-famed journal, in relation to which Governor 
 MeXut t is said to have ejaculated, in the very latest mo- 
 
374 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 ■ 
 
 ments of his checkered life : " Where is the Mississippian ?' 
 I lived long enough in Mississippi to find the time-honored 
 Democratic party there resolved into a mere Secession tac- 
 tion, and to have painful assurance given me that no man 
 could any longer support his long-cherished principles 
 upon the soil of Mississippi, in opposition to the behests 
 of shallow and selfish factionists, without finding himself 
 denounced as a political changeling, an eccentric, a mad- 
 man, and a dotard ; and in the face of all this I could well 
 have smiled, had I not feared that those by whom such 
 epithets were so unkindly applied would themselves in 
 the end be fated to suffer almost beyond human tolerance 
 as the natural consequence of their own delusion and folly. 
 No man, I assert confidently, has ever loved the people of 
 the State of Mississippi more than I have done. They are, 
 in the main, an intelligent, high-spirited, and liberty-lov- 
 ing people. My heart has often bled over the sufferings 
 they have been compelled to endure since last I had an 
 opportunity of raising a warning voice in their midst in 
 reference to the manifold and perhaps remediless evils into 
 which the maniacal counsels of others have so wofully be- 
 trayed them; of men who have nearly all already gone 
 down to dishonorable graves, or who survive as wretched 
 monuments of public contempt and ridicule. I trust not 
 to be suspected of insincerity when I declare that I yet 
 love the Mississippi of to-day, dressed as she is, in the 
 sight of the whole world, in the garments of humiliation 
 and sorrow, far more than I did the same Mississippi in 
 the days of her palmy prosperity and power. I do most 
 profoundly commiserate those troubles which, alas ! it is 
 not. at all in my power to alleviate. My mind often re- 
 verts to scenes which had their progress in that far-off 
 sunny region in former years, and a few more of these I 
 now propose to call up for the consideration of those who 
 shall honor these Reminiscences with a transient notice 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 375 
 
 In the year 1881 the somewhat memorable administra- 
 tion of Governor A. G. McNutt reached its termination. 
 He was succeeded in the office which he had for four years 
 occupied by an individual of very different temper and 
 character. I allude to Governor Tucker, who was a man 
 of sound and vigorous intellect, of a chastened and 
 moderate ambition, and of a lofty independence worthy 
 of ;ill praise. The discussions which had taken place in 
 the canvass preceding Governor Tucker's election had 
 been of a nature calculated not a little to gall the sensi- 
 bilities of Governor MeNutt, and mortify his pride. Gov- 
 ernor Tucker had taken the ground that his immediate 
 predecessor, in subscribing and causing to be sold the 
 bonds of the State for the purpose of bringing the Union 
 Bank into existence, had exceeded his constitutional au- 
 thority, and made himself responsible for evils under the 
 experience of which the people of the State were even 
 then audibly groaning. Without goin^; at this moment 
 into the merits of a question at that time much antl 
 warmly controverted on both sides of the Atlantic, it is 
 sufficient to say that Governor McNutt, though himself 
 vehemently opposed to the payment of these same bonds, 
 and ambitious to enhance his popularity as much as possi- 
 ble by the agitation of the question of their repudiation, 
 was yet by no means pleased with the frank and out- 
 spoken manner in which Governor Tucker had under- 
 taken to allude to the facts which lixed upon him the 
 chief responsibility of their issue and negotiation. Gov- 
 ernor Tucker, therefore, on coming into office, very soon 
 found Governor McNutt exceedingly hostile to him, and 
 inclined to cast as many impediments as he could in the 
 way of his administration. This was truly an embarrass- 
 ing state of affairs ; for Governor McNutt, who was one 
 of the best haters I ever knew, and who, I am sure, was 
 never known to forgive any human being that had ever 
 
376 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 done him injury of any kind, very soon made it evident 
 that he was far from intending to confine his opposition 
 to unkind and sneerful remarks upon his official acts, and 
 that he had resolved to do what he could to array against 
 him and his administration several leading Democratic 
 newspapers, the conductors of which had long recognized 
 him as a sort of political oracle. It is needless now to 
 speculate as to what precise motives influenced Governor 
 McNutt in pursuing the course which has just heen de- 
 scribed. It may have been in part owing to his desire to 
 hold under his permanent control the parry machinery of 
 every kind which he had been for several years permitted 
 to wield with unresisted sway, together with the fear 
 which he entertained that Governor Tucker could not he 
 induced to favor his election to the United States Senate, 
 which position it was already well known he was confi- 
 dently expecting to reach. It is probable that he was, at 
 least in part, actuated by feelings of personal ill-will to- 
 ward the just-minded and truly patriotic man who had 
 now succeeded him. Certain it is, that Governor Tucker 
 had hardly been inaugurated before the storm of persecu- 
 tion began to rage. A dozen little newspapers, known to 
 be completely under Governor McNutt's influence, were 
 perpetually pouring forth their ill-natured complaints 
 against the Governor then in office, and endeavoring in 
 every way effectually to break down his public character. 
 ^or did his private reputation altogether escape their ani- 
 madversion ; and, indeed, all persons officially connected 
 with him, or who presumed in a public manner to express 
 their disapproval of this wholly unprovoked warfare, 
 had to come in for their share of opprobrium and ridicule. 
 By far the most intellectual and accomplished of those 
 who had enlisted in this terrible war of defamation was 
 an individual who was then resident in Vicksbu rg, and 
 who was there occupying the editorial tripod of a, paper 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 377 
 
 called The Sentinel. This gentleman 1 had known quite 
 familiarly long before he had located in the Stale of Mis- 
 sissippi, and my relations with him, though not those of 
 close andcontidential intimacy, had been uniformly marked 
 with mutual civility and kindness. Dr. James Flagan 
 was in many respects a very remarkable man. lie was 
 horn in Ireland, had been thoroughly educated at the 
 University of Dublin, and, after attaining manhood, had 
 been an unremitted reader of books, so as to have become 
 a man of great and varied knowledge. His pen had been 
 kept in almost constant exercise for many years, in conse- 
 quence of which he had acquired a style of composition 
 at once clear, polished, vigorous, and flowing. Ila chiefly 
 delighted in satire and ridicule, and in both of these he 
 was most potential. He was exceedingly ambitious of 
 notoriety, and a little reckless of truth and justice when 
 he thought he had it in his power to exercise his powers 
 of detraction upon some individual of established repu- 
 tation and of known influence, whom less aspiring con- 
 tributors to the newspaper press did not deem it altogether 
 prudent to assail, lie located himself, about the year 
 1829 or 1830, in the little village of Occoquan, in the 
 State of Virginia, and here, I believe, had for some time 
 practiced the profession of medicine. While thus sojourn- 
 ing at a point only a few miles distant from the residenoe 
 of one of the most celebrated and accomplished men that 
 Virginia has ever produced — Judge Alexander (1. Dade - 
 be, in some way, got knowledge of the fact that this gen- 
 tleman, and several of the judges of the general court of 
 the State besides, had been in the habit for several years 
 of making their annual journey to Richmond by water, 
 instead of proceeding thither by a much shorter land 
 route, and of charging mileage for the whole number of 
 miles which they had to travel along the Potomac, the 
 Chesapeake bay, and the river James. Dr. ilagan re- 
 
378 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 solved to ventilate this matter, and he did so in a series 
 of the most cutting article I ever read. Judge Dade at- 
 tempted to respond to his objurgatory criticisms, but, not- 
 withstanding his high abilities, was most decidedly worsted 
 in the conflict. This affair gave Dr. Hagan much eclat, 
 and he resolved to seek a wider theater for the display of 
 his extraordinary powers. I saw him myself for the first 
 time in the summer of 183(3, at one of the hotels in Wash- 
 ington, lie sought my acquaintance, and we soon fell' 
 into an animated conversation upon the questions involved 
 in the Presidential election of that period. The Doctor 
 then professed a warm admiration of Mr. Calhoun, and of 
 the extreme State-rights theory, of which Mr. Calhoun 
 was the most prominent expounder. lie was bitterly op- 
 posed to Mr. Van Buren, and assailed him with much se- 
 verity in this interview. We talked for several hours 
 with much heat and acrimony on both sides, but without 
 any decided approach to a personal quarrel. When I next 
 met with him he had taken up his residence in Vicks- 
 burg, where he soon after assumed that vocation to which 
 a few years subsequent he unfortunately fell a victim. 
 
 Xo such editorial writer as Doctor Hagan had ever before 
 a pi "eared in the State of Mississippi, and Governor McN"utt 
 was shrewd enough to discern at once that it might fa- 
 cilitate the accomplishment of his own views of individ- 
 ual ambition very much if he could in someway manage 
 to conciliate this rising genius. What he did tor this 
 purpose I have never precisely ascertained, but it is cer- 
 tain that Dr. Hagan, despite some noted differences be- 
 tween himself and Governor McNutt, upon several polit- 
 ical questions of great importance, became in process of 
 time completely devoted to that personage, and the Senti- 
 nel was by all recognized as Governor McNutt's veritable 
 political organ. The manifold corruptions of the bank- 
 ing system then existing in Mississippi opened to Doctor 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 379 
 
 Hagan a rich and inviting field lor the exercise of his 
 peculiar talents. For several years he attacked with great 
 bitterness the acts and characters of those whom hejudged 
 to be chiefly responsible Tor the financial evils then sorely 
 oppressing all classes of the people. Every now and then 
 he issued a bulletin against Centralism, of which he 
 seemed to stand in the greatest dread. His strictures 
 upon the conduct of individuals in conspicuous social po- 
 sition attracted remarkable attention, and the withering 
 severity of his satiric allusions to persons whose apparent 
 prosperity was calculated of itself to awaken anvy in ig- 
 noble bosoms naturally constituted him a very Corypheus 
 of the suffering population. I do not think that any 
 other editor that this country has produced has been 
 known with impunity to indulge, for so long a space of 
 time, as freely as Dr. Hagan, in language of the harshest 
 personal invective. His newspaper had actually become 
 an object of mingled dread and hatred to large numbers 
 of peace-loving and law-respecting people all over the 
 Southwestern States, [t was sought for every where with 
 eagerness, and was read with the utmost interest by thou- 
 sands and tens of thousands all over the country. I had 
 been in constant apprehension for several months anterior 
 to his tragic ^\u\ that the patient forbearance with which 
 his terrible diatribes had been so long tolerated would 
 soon give place to feelings of fiery resentment on the part 
 of some high-spirited citizen, and perhaps to some attempt 
 at a desperate and bloody revenge. I therefore visited 
 Vicksburg just ten days before Dr. I lagan's demise, and 
 remonstrated with him in the most solemn and earnest 
 manner against the further pursuance of that course of 
 sweeping revilement in which he bad been for several years 
 engaged, and which I ventured to assure him could only be 
 productive in the end of great mischief, as well to the 
 public as to himself. I brought to his attention the fact 
 
380 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 that his abilities were of so hiajh a east that he could 
 have no difficulty whatever in reaching the loftiest posi- 
 tion of civil dignity if lie would but pay more regard 
 to the rules of social decorum and the laws of a hijrh- 
 bred courtesy, lie confessed very frankly the soundness 
 of ray admonitory suggestion, and declared to me with 
 much apparent feeling that he had several times resolved 
 upon conducting his paper in a manner more civil and 
 kindly, but that he had found the outside pressure upon 
 him for the preparation of articles of a fiercely denuncia- 
 tory character too strong to be resisted. 
 
 After this interview I saw him no more. When Gov- 
 ernor Tucker had been nominated for the high executive 
 
 o 
 
 office which he afterward so worthily filled, an individual 
 was associated with him upon the State Democratic ticket 
 as a candidate for the responsible office of Treasurer, in 
 support of whom I found myself not able to vote with- 
 out incurring the loss of my own self-respect. His name 
 was Graves. I had long known him as an unscrupulous 
 demagogue, and I was satisfied that, if elected to the 
 position of Treasurer, some great act of official treachery 
 would infallibly ensue. I was, indeed, so fully persuaded 
 of the danger of electing this miscreant that I did not hes- 
 itate to warn my neighbors and fellow-citizens, and in the 
 plainest language, of the mischief likely to arise from their 
 giving him their support in opposition to the worthy 
 individual, Dr. Curtis, (now a respected citizen of 
 California,) whom the Whigs had nominated on their 
 party ticket. Party allegiance, though, was too strong 
 to be overcome by reason or considerations of patriotism, 
 so Mr. Graves was foisted upon the State treasury. There 
 he had not been 'more than a week or two before he was 
 able to project a scheme of fraud of which there are 
 but few parallels in the history of any country. A large 
 amount of the money of the State, deposited in his keep- 
 
CASKET Of REMINISCENCES. 381 
 
 ing, was dexterously abstracted and applied to his own 
 use. So soon as the discovery of his misconduct in this 
 affair was made, Governor Tucker took the most prompt 
 measures, alike to save the State from further pecuniary 
 loss and to bring this enormous malefactor to justice. An 
 accomplished and venerable jurist, the late George W. 
 Adams, was employed to aid the Attorney General in 
 the institution of a suit in chancery, and, at the instance 
 of certain public-spirited citizens, I agreed to co-operate 
 with the same officer in the commencement of appropri- 
 ate criminal proceedings. The dignity of the case was 
 such that we determined to demand of the Chief Justice 
 of the State, the lion. William L. Sharkey, to act as a 
 Court of Inquiry, and before this learned and upright 
 officer for several days we were diligently arraying the 
 testimony against the accused, when, on a certain Sab- 
 bath day, (the court having adjourned over until Mon- 
 day,) the wife of the accused having been humanely al- 
 lowed to visit him, he adroitly exchanged vestments with 
 her, and made his escape to parts unknown. 
 
 Meanwhile the chancery suit spoken of was in active 
 progress. Governor Tucker had paid Judge Adams for 
 his invaluable services therein out of the contingent fund 
 of the State the very moderate fee of five hundred dol- 
 lars. 
 
 So soon as this transaction became known at Vieksburg, 
 where Governor McKutt chanced to be at the moment, 
 an article appeared in the columns of the Sentinel, headed 
 "More Stealing in Jackson," in which both Governor 
 'fucker and Judge Adams were mentioned in terms of 
 the coarsest and most insulting crimination. It is not 
 probable that either of these upright personages would 
 have felt called upon to notice this attack, which in truth 
 could not possibly have done either of them the smallest 
 permanent detriment. But it happened that Daniel W. 
 
382 CASKET OF RBMINISCEKCES. 
 
 Adams, a young and high-spirited son of Judge Adams, 
 who had returned home from college only a day or two 
 previously, got sight of this article in the Sentinel before 
 its appearance had become known to his father, and ex- 
 cited, as it was hut natural he should be, to the highest 
 pitch of indignation, he proceeded at once to Vicksburg 
 in order to seek atonement for the outrage which had 
 been perpetrated. He did not know Dr. Hagan person- 
 ally, but lie had heard that he was a singularly brave and 
 determined man ; that lie generally went armed, and that 
 he had before that time been uniformly successful in the 
 various conflicts in which he had been engaged. On 
 reaching Vicksburg this deeply-aggrieved and highly-en- 
 raged young man went immediately in pursuit of Dr. 
 Hagan. He found him returning from a dinner-party, 
 owing to which tact, most probably, lie was for the mo- 
 ment unarmed; of which state of things, though, it was 
 impossible that Adams should have been apprised. He 
 accosted Hagan, and inquired of him whether he was the 
 editor of the Sentinel, which paper he then held in his 
 hand. On being answered in the affirmative he called his 
 attention to the offensive article in relation to his father, 
 and demanded an immediate retraxit of it, Dr. Hagan 
 made no reply, but rushed upon young Adams, seized him 
 strongly by the waist, and quickly prostrated him upon 
 the earth. Adams could not but then regard his situa- 
 tion as one of great peril. He had been overcome in the 
 struggle which had just taken place. In falling violently 
 to the ground his eyes had been rilled with dust, and he 
 had every reason to apprehend that Hagan, who yet held 
 him firmly in his grasp, would, in a second or two, either 
 cut his throat or blow out his brains. Under these cir- 
 cumstances he did just what I presume every man of 
 adequate presence of mind would do if similarly situated : 
 he drew one of his own pistols from his bosom, reached 
 
CASKET OF ftEMlfflSCENCES. 383 
 
 up to the back part of Hagan's bead, placed in contact 
 with it the muzzle of the pistol, and tired. Hagan re- 
 ceived the contents of the pistol in the cerebellum, and 
 immediately expired. 
 
 When Adams had succeeded in releasing himself from 
 the grasp of his now exanimate antagonist and had risen 
 to his feet, he found himself surrounded by a very excited 
 crowd. When asked who had slain Hagan he replied at 
 once that he had done so, alleging that he had only used 
 violence in defense of his own person and life, and pro- 
 ceeded to deliver himself up for judicial examination. 
 When this examination took place he was allowed to give 
 bail for his appearance at the next Circuit Court of War- 
 ren county; where an indictment for murder having been 
 found against him he demanded, through his counsel, a 
 change of venue to the county of Hinds ; and, in a month 
 or two after, he was tried in presence of a vast assemblage 
 of citizens, and honorably acquitted of the charge which 
 had been brought against him. I must necessarily have 
 been familiar with all the facts in this extraordinary case, 
 as I was one of the attorneys engaged in Adams' defense. 
 1 was aided on the occasion by two very distinguished 
 advocates — the late George Yerger and the late John L 
 Guion. The district attorney did not prosecute alone, 
 two lawyers of some standing having been employed to 
 assist him. It is rather a curious fact that one of these 
 last-mentioned attorneys, whose name was Brennan, about 
 a year afterward, came to my office one day in order to 
 obtain my professional services in a case of his own which 
 had just arisen for judicial cognizance. He had slain an 
 aged negro man whom he had in his employment, and 
 under circumstances of the most aggravated character. 
 Much local excitement had been engendered, and, from 
 his own account of the matter, I was satisfied that, if 
 tried, nothing could save him from the scaffold but per- 
 
384 CASKET OF REMINISCENCE,^. 
 
 jury in the jury box. I at once told AFr. Brennan frankly 
 that his case was beyond remedy ; that no lawyer could 
 defend him successfully without resorting to expedients 
 altogether outside of ray own professional experience. He 
 readily took the hint, and at once fled from that part of 
 the world ; since which time I have never heard of him. 
 
 Young Adams, in a few months after the termination 
 of his trial, commenced a most brilliant and successful 
 career as a lawyer in the city of Jackson, whence he after- 
 ward removed to New Orleans. While yet in Mississippi, 
 though, he became a member of the State Senate, and 
 took a very leading part in connection with the present 
 distinguished Governor Alcorn ami others in defeating 
 the scheme of secession, then in active progress. I Low it 
 happened, and at what precise period it was, that he was 
 persuaded to take part in the late civil war on the side 
 <>!' the Confederate States I am not prepared to explain. 
 But I can confidently avouch that a braver, moi" honor- 
 able, and generous-hearted gentleman I have never known, 
 and that he possessed intellectual gifts which, had he 
 lived long enough, under circumstances at all propitious, 
 must have inevitably secured to him the highest honors 
 of his profession. After receiving man}' and grievous 
 wounds in fiercely-contested battles during the late war, 
 at its termination General Adams located for a short 
 period in the city of New r York, where lie is understood 
 to have made a highly-favorable impression. He subse- 
 quently returned to his old domicil in the city of New 
 Orleans, where a, year or two since he deceased v^ry sud- 
 denly, and, as I have been told, while engaged in drafting 
 some important judicial paper. 
 
 After having been employed in the defense of General 
 Adams I had the honor to be invited to deliver a funeral 
 eulogy upon Or. Ilagan, and I agreed to do so should 
 the performance of this duty be insisted on, but took 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 385 
 
 the occasion to allege that my position as counsel in 
 opposition to the prosecution then pending I thought 
 would make it proper that the task proposed should he 
 devolved on some one else. # I do not know what after- 
 ward occurred in this matter. 
 
 T have never heard of a newspaper other than the Sen- 
 tinel which stood so connected with tragic occurrences of 
 one kind or another. After the decease of Dr. Hagan, a 
 Mr. Rian became its editor. lie was, in a few months, 
 slain in a duel by Mr. Ilammet, of the Vicksburg Whig. 
 A third editor, Captain Ilickey, slew Dr. Maclin in a 
 street-fight, growing out of some newspaper publication. 
 Dr. James Fall, while superintending the management of 
 the same paper, had to draw trigger twice in vindication, 
 as lie supposed, of his right of free thought and speech. 
 Mr. Jenkins, who was the editor of the Sentinel in 1848, 
 and whom I had known most favorably from the days of 
 his early boyhood, fell in deadly conflict with Mr. Crabb, 
 (also known to me for many years and highly respected,) 
 as the result of a political quarrel which had occurred the 
 night before at a public meeting, where I chanced to be 
 one of the speakers. A Mr. Roy experienced a similar 
 fate while engaged in an exciting editorial career in the 
 same city, and not long after his paper had come forth 
 as a furious advocate of the reopening of the African 
 slave trade! 
 
 The Mr. Crabb of whom I have spoken was the only 
 son of that eminent jurist, Judge Crabb, of Tennessee, 
 who, before he was thirty years of age, had become recog- 
 nized as a lawyer of most remarkable learning and ability, 
 and who, although he died in his thirty-fourth year, left 
 behind him a, reputation for judicial ability and upright- 
 ness seldom acquired even in a long lifetime of unremit- 
 ting study and labor. Of his remarkable son, who, by a 
 singular coincidence, died also in his thirty-fourth year, I 
 25 r 
 
386 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 have a few special remarks now to make. After the un- 
 fortunate conflict with Mr. Jenkins, already mentioned, 
 had become the subject of judicial examination, and he 
 had been honorably discharged, he removed to the State 
 of California. There I found him on my arrival in that 
 far-off region in the year 1854, a prominent member of 
 the State Senate. His reputation for political ability was 
 very high, and he had acquired a general popularity to 
 which few men besides could justly lay claim. He mar- 
 ried an amiable and accomplished Mexican lady, who had 
 been born in the State of Sonora, and whose father and 
 other relatives possessed large estates there of which they 
 had been unjustly and cruelly deprived by the tyranny of 
 a political faction bearing rule then in Sonora, from 
 whose violence they had been forced to take refuge in 
 California. Under these circumstances it was but natural 
 that a man of Colonel Crabb's bold and enterprising tem- 
 per should seek to reinstate his friends and relatives in 
 the enjoyment of the rights of which they had been so 
 lawlessly despoiled. 
 
 In point of fact, he got up an association of young gen- 
 tlemen in California, with a view to making an armed 
 descent upon the State of Sonora, which was very near 
 being completely successful. He had previously visited 
 that region and effected an alliance with a strong body of 
 the native inhabitants there, which would have been able 
 to effect a complete civil revolution, but for the happen- 
 ing of one or two events presently to be narrated. Col- 
 onel Crabb, who was one of the Fillmore electors in 
 California, in the year 1856, lingered so long in this in- 
 teresting field of operations that his allies in Sonora, 
 despairing of his coming, beeame reconciled to the Mex- 
 ican Government. It smiis that in order to secure their 
 own impunity they had to promise that if Colonel Crabb 
 and his California associates should thereafter reach So- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 387 
 
 nora they would manage to betray them into the hands 
 of the Government, and thus aid in making them the 
 subjects of exemplary vengeance. Of this state of things 
 Colonel Crabb and his confiding friends — most of whom 
 I knew personally — had no intimation. I saw the Colo- 
 nel only a few days before he left California for the thea- 
 ter of his expected operations. He was in fine spirits, full 
 of hope as to the future, and in the enjoyment of almost 
 exuberant, physical health. When he reached the fron- 
 tiers of Sonora he was deluded into a conference with his 
 former confederates which he had every reason to sup- 
 pose to be one of a perfectly amicable character. He and 
 his whole party were, in a few minutes, seized upon and 
 mercilessly put to death ! Sorresco referent I The agoniz- 
 ing news soon reached California not only that this once 
 promising expedition had signally failed, but that the 
 head of the lamented Crabb had been amputated after 
 death and placed in a large glass vessel filled with spirits 
 of wine, with the intention of exhibiting it to the rep- 
 resentatives of the Mexican Government, in proof that 
 this nefarious scheme of treachery had been consummated, 
 and that his diabolical murderers had thus faithfully ex- 
 ecuted their hideous compact of perfidy! 
 
 It can not but be viewed as a somewhat curious and 
 impressive coincidence that the celebrated William 
 Walker, whose extraordinary career awakened so much 
 interest at one time in every part of the civilized world 
 as u The Grey-eyed Man of Destiny," and who underwent 
 so dreadful a fate afterward in Honduras, was, like Crabb, 
 a native of the " City of Rocks," Nashville, where, by 
 many worthy people, both of these famous personages are 
 yet held in high esteem, and over whose sad end many 
 sincere tears have been shed. Walker and Crabb were 
 for many years intimate and devoted friends, though in 
 some important points of character they were wholly 
 unlike. Peace to the ashes of both these young heroes ! 
 
388 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XXXV. 
 
 DAVIS — BRAGG — NEPOTISM — HINDMAN's BRUTALITIES. 
 
 I feel called upon to recite one or two miscellaneous 
 facts not heretofore recorded. These particulars would 
 have been passed by bat for certain recent indiscreet 
 movements of Mr. Davis, which have been already alluded 
 to. 
 
 It is not only surprising, but is even not a little ridicu- 
 lous that this personage should now attempt to revive the 
 feelings of rancor arising from the late war in the manner 
 which has been heretofore noticed, when it is a well- 
 known and undeniable fact that the Confederate Congress 
 was compelled, several weeks before Mr. Davis' precipitate 
 and inglorious flight from Richmond, to strip him of all 
 his control of the military forces then warring for South- 
 ern independence, and to deposit the exclusive management 
 of its armies in the hands of that able, patriotic, and high- 
 souled commander, General Robert E. Lee. Mr. Davis' 
 silly and blustering attempt to nullify, by his usurping 
 manifesto from Danville, a few days after the surrender 
 of General Lee, that needed and judiciously-concluded ar- 
 rangement, though quite in character, was perhaps the 
 most disgusting specimen of official rhodomontade to 
 which even the American Don Quixote and his meek and 
 obedient squire, Sancho Panza Benjamin, had ever given 
 vent. There is really nothing more gravely amusing in 
 any of the scenes of adventure which marked the roman- 
 tic career of the " Knight of the Rueful Countenance " than 
 this same Parthian missive, dispatched by the ex-Presi- 
 dent and his scampering Secretary of State, when prepar- 
 ing to resume that ominous flight beyond the great 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 339 
 
 " Father of Waters," especially considering the fact that 
 by the fiat of a once over-observant Congress he had been 
 fixed in a state of most disgraceful politieal " Coventry," 
 at least so far as all future military movements were con- 
 cerned. Mr. Davis certainly acted far more in conformity 
 with his then politically emasculated condition when, a few 
 days thereafter, he so adroitly donned the traveling gar- 
 ments of some one of the gentler sex, and attempted to 
 make his escape from the military pursuers, then close 
 upon his heels, with bonnet on head and huge India-rubber 
 wrapper investing his slender and wire-drawn membral 
 appendages, almost reminding one of Falstaff's grotesque 
 simulation of the now world-renowned nurse of Brentford. 
 This puny effort at the Montgomery White Sulphur 
 Springs to set afloat the absurd idea that General Lee and 
 Joe Johnston were " cheated " into a dishonorable sur- 
 render by the two over-cunning Union commanders with 
 whom they had to deal, is obviously designed not only to 
 bring discredit upon these two valiant and efficient Con- 
 federate officers, but to suggest the idea in addition that, 
 had he not been so injudiciously deprived of his executive 
 chieftainship, the Confederate States would long since 
 have attained the objects for which they had for four dis- 
 astrous and blood-marked years so energetically contended. 
 In this point of view Mr. Davis' maniacal outpouring at 
 the Montgomery White Sulphur Springs the other day 
 may be well regarded as a sort of long-withheld protest 
 against the Congressional act which stripped him of his 
 military insignia and turned him out plumeless upon the 
 world, somewhat after the manner of the jackdaw when 
 deprived of the peacock's feathers in which he had so os- 
 tentatiously arrayed himself. 
 
 There are many things which were done and said by 
 Mr. Davis in Richmond during his memorable career 
 there which have, for certain reasons, not been heretofore 
 
390 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 ventilated, but of which his present efforts to disturb the 
 public quiet and drag the South into a renewed experience 
 of evils from which she is now just beginning to recover 
 seems to me to demand a frank and full exposure, in order 
 to the counteraction of his yet cherished ambitious de- 
 signs, and of opening even the eyes of all those of the 
 feminine gender in the South who chance, as he boasts, to 
 remain yet " unreconstructed." Seven years ago, in a 
 hastily-written but strictly impartial work upon the events 
 of the late civil war, I thus forbearingly spoke of Mr. Da- 
 vis, and of others particularly connected with him, while 
 he was playing the part of self-constituted Dictator in 
 Richmond : 
 
 "In reference to the proceedings of the Confederate Government, 
 after my unhappy and tempestuous connection with it was formed, I 
 should have very much to say under different circumstances from those 
 which now exist, all of which may be -aid hereafter if it shall become 
 apparent that the public mind has attained a condition in which it will 
 be able to profit by the painful revelations which it will be in my power 
 to make. But President Davis and his Cabinet are at this moment 
 either in exile or in imprisonment ; his multitudinous official servitors 
 have retired to private life, or are gloomy wanderers in foreign lands. 
 Those who, in despite of what a few independent and high-spirited 
 men could do to prevent the passage of certain baleful measures, suc- 
 ceeded in enacting laws for the suspension of the great writ of liberty ; 
 for the confiscation of the estates of all who could not conscientiously 
 range themselves in opposition to the flag of their fathers ; for the con- 
 scription of all male citizens capable of bearing arms, whether in 
 friendly or hostile relations to the Confederate cause ; for the forcible 
 impressment of private property, wheresoever situated, at the discre- 
 tion of men temporarily endowed with military authority; for the 
 declaration and enforcement of martial law ; and a number of acts be- 
 sides of almost equal enormity ; those who sustained Mr. Davis in the 
 appointment of inefficient and mischievous officials, to the exclusion Of 
 the capable and the virtuous; who sanctioned the impolitic atid ungen- 
 erous displacement of able and high-smiled military commanders, in 
 order to make way for others whom the army despised, and the citizens 
 at large both distrusted and hated— these persons, the valueless 
 ephemera of an age fertile in inanities have nearly all disappeared from 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 391 
 
 the jostling, chaotic stage whereupon they were severally enacting their 
 parts, and 
 
 u ' Like the baseless fabric of a vision, 
 
 Left not a wreck behind.' 
 
 "As to Mr. Davis, I must say that I regard him mainly as the un- 
 fortunate victim of dark and dangerous political heresies, for which he 
 is by no means primarily responsible, a victim, likewise, of the intrigu- 
 ing machinations of cunning and unscrupulous managers, whose true 
 character he w;is not capable of penetrating; as the dupe of adulation 
 and false promises from abroad which might perchance have deceived 
 men far more sagacious than himself; in fine, as the almost involun- 
 tary instrument of dark and potential influences generated in the womb 
 of revolution, which led him to claim andexercise powers, the employ- 
 ment of winch, though utterly subversive of freedom, he may possibly 
 have believed to be indispensable to the successful execution of the 
 grand scheme of secession and Csesarism to which he had for so many 
 years devoted the best energies of his soul and understanding. Far be 
 it from me to wish evil to the late President of the Confederate States- 
 He has been unfortunate, and T condole with him ; he has committed 
 great and grievous errors, and I make all just allowance for them ; he 
 is unhappy, and L sympathize with him ; he is in prison, and 1 pray 
 night and day for his enlargement. Though he permitted his heartless 
 Secretary of War last winter to deprive me of my own personal liberty 
 and to retain me in ' durance vile ' until I was discharged on habeas 
 rnr/)ii.s. alone on account of my struggling for pacification when I found 
 both Congress and himself bent on the further prosecution of a war 
 which they had themselves already rendered hopeless ; yet, so far from 
 feeling resentment or unkindness on this account, I can say with truth 
 that, having myself thrice suffered the loss of personal liberty within 
 the last twelve months, i can, in reference to Mr. Davis' present for- 
 lorn and suffering condition, painfully and sorrowingly exclaim (with 
 a slight change of the immortal words of Virgil) in the language of 
 Queen Dido to .Lucas, 
 
 ' Non ignarus mali. miseris succurrere disco.' '' 
 
 I should have been glad had Mr. Davis left those who 
 sincerely condemned his conduct in Richmond an oppor- 
 tunity of being silent over many of his short-comings and 
 shameless violations of principle. But as he has chosen 
 again to bring himself forward as a fomenter of mischief, 
 and as all his silly and slavish adulators seem not yet to 
 have become ashamed of their former close affiliation 
 
392 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 with him, I shall now drag into distinct notice several 
 dishonoring particulars which it would be but a foolish 
 liberality to allow longer to remain in concealment. 
 
 Only a day or two before I left Richmond, in the au- 
 tumn of 1864, Mr. Fowle, a considerable merchant there, 
 visited me for the purpose of calling attention to a matter 
 which he conceived to be of the greatest importance. He 
 assured me that for some months past it had been the 
 practice of the Naval Department to send out of the ports 
 of the Confederate States large orders to commereial cities 
 abroad for the best wines, brandies, silks, and other things 
 needful for the supply of persons of luxurious taste ; that 
 these commodities were purchased with the money of the 
 public treasury, along with supplies for the Confederate 
 soldiery, and that whenever a fresh supply of the articles 
 came in there was a formal assemblage in the Naval De- 
 partment of the female heads of certain official families, 
 including that of Mr. Davis himself, among whom, and 
 their special friends and favorites, all these nice things 
 were apportioned, and at the very low prices which had 
 been paid for them abroad. 
 
 Mr. Fowle assured me that this evil practice was greatly 
 injuring the merchants of Richmond, and besought me 
 to bring it at once to the notice of the Confederate Con- 
 gress. A day or two subsequent, Colonel Orr, a Congres- 
 sional Representative from Mississippi, (a brother of the 
 late worthy Minister to Russia, and a gentleman of as 
 much honor and intelligence as was then in Richmond,) 
 came to my seat in the House of Representatives and be- 
 sought me to introduce a resolution of inquiry on this 
 subject, lie assured me that he had himself looked care- 
 fully into the matter, and had found the facts above 
 stated to be true to the letter. I consented to introduce 
 a resolution of inquiry in regard to this affair, provided 
 Colonel Orr would put his statement in writing, which he 
 did. 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 393 
 
 I chanced not to remain long enough thereafter in Rich- 
 mond to prosecute the investigation of this matter to a 
 close, but I have never doubted that the information given 
 me by Mr. Fowle and Colonel Or was in all respects cor- 
 rect. If so, what are men to think of Mr. Davis' boasted 
 disinterestedness and integrity, and of those of his Cabinet 
 counselors ? 
 
 About twelve months before the fall of Richmond Con- 
 gress passed a bill raising each of the adjutants in attend- 
 ance upon major generals in service to the dignity of 
 major. The subject had 'been much considered and most 
 deliberately acted on. 80 soon as Congress adjourned Mr. 
 Davis, imitating the well-known example of James II of 
 England, suspended the operation of the law, thus com- 
 mitting precisely such an act of tyrannic usurpation as 
 cost the King of England referred to the loss of his throne. 
 There has never been a time when such a proceeding as 
 this would not have caused the immediate impeachment 
 of a President of the United States. What made the 
 conduct of Mr. Davis in regard to this matter still more 
 disgusting was the fact that, Sunday after Sunday, a son 
 of our august Confederate Imperator, not above fourteen 
 years of age, appeared in Mr. Davis' pew at church, by 
 the paternal side, dressed up in a Confederate major's uni- 
 form, without his ever having seen a single day or hour 
 of military service in his life. 
 
 There has been much rather silly talk at one time in 
 this country on the subject of nepotism. I assert that the 
 grossest and most shameless acts of nepotism that the world 
 has ever seen were constantly occurring during the short 
 and stormy reign of Jefferson the First in Richmond. I do 
 not think that there was a single male relative, either of 
 Mr. Davis or his wife, to be found in any part of the Con- 
 federate States, that was not given official advancement 
 of some kind or other, and in some instances under cir- 
 
394 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 cumstances of the grossest indelicacy and injustice. But 
 this theme is really too nauseating to he dwelt upon. 
 
 It was formally proposed during the first year of the 
 war that the cotton of the Confederate States in private 
 ownership should be bought by the Government. Every 
 bale of it was then purchasable at ten or twelve cents per 
 pound, payable in Confederate paper. This proposition 
 was scoffingly rejected by Mr. Davis and that profound 
 fiscal economist, Memminger, his Secretary of the Treas- 
 ury, on the ridiculous and untenable ground that this sort 
 of traffic would transform the awful government at Rich- 
 mond into a wretched broker's office. At the end of about 
 two years these gentlemen came to their senses on this 
 all-important subject, and commenced buying cotton all 
 over the land, for which they had to pay, at least, a dol- 
 lar a pound. Thereby hangs a tale of enormous illicit 
 profits, which the public is not likely to hear told very 
 shortly. 
 
 The insane project of burning all the cotton of the 
 South, in order to keep it out of the hands of the enemy, 
 is understood to have originated in Mr. Davis' own teem- 
 ing cranium. It is a little remarkable, though, that while 
 so many suffered so ruinously by the destruction of their 
 cotton in this way, the crops of Mr. Jefferson Davis and 
 of his brother Joseph are understood, in some mysterious 
 way, to have escaped the devouring flames. 
 
 I have heretofore brought to notice the fact that large 
 proceeds arising from the sales of the cotton of the Con- 
 federate Government were understood to be in the city of 
 Liverpool when the war was brought to an end. I hope 
 that Mr. Davis and the historiographer, whoever he may 
 be, that had the honor to be seleeted the other day to 
 compose the first truthful and impartial history of the 
 war "from Southern material,'' will condescend to give to 
 the world some explanation of what has become of this 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 395 
 
 large amount of money, and also what became of the 
 $200,000 in gold which I assert, and can prove, to have 
 been taken across the ocean from Canada after the end of 
 the war by Jacob Thompson, Mr. Davis' once-accredited 
 agent. Did Mr. Thompson keep the whole of this money, 
 or did the yet " unreconstructed " ex-Emperor of the South 
 get his share? And is it in this way that we arc to ac- 
 count for the mysterious suspension of that generous pro- 
 ject set on foot in the city of Richmond a few years ago 
 for raising a large sum of money from the distressed and 
 ruined people of the South for the purpose of rewarding 
 Mr. Davis for his Washington-like services to a generous- 
 minded but, I fear, a too easily deluded people? 
 
 Perhaps the most cruel and atrocious conduct perpe- 
 trated by any of President Davis' military servitors during 
 the war was that practiced by his especial favorite, General 
 Hindman, in the State of Arkansas. I have formerly as- 
 serted, and my assertion has never yet been denied, nor can 
 it be, that "this person, as his own formal report to the War 
 Department evidenced, finding, as he said, that the very 
 comprehensive provisions of the conscription law were 
 not (juite comprehensive enough to suit his purposes, de- 
 liberately amplified them by proclamation ; declared mar- 
 tial law throughout Arkansas and the northern portion 
 of Texas, and demanded the services of all whom he had 
 thus lawlessly embraced in his wide-sweeping conscription 
 list. All who refused to obey his mandate, as he in 
 terms confesses, were apprehended, subjected to trial by 
 a military court, appointed by Hindman himself; and 
 when convicted, as a good many of them were, of an 
 offense which he himself unblushingly acknowledges in 
 this same official report was wholly unknown to the law 
 of the land, he had them all executed ; and going even 
 beyond the example of the infernal Jeffreys himself in 
 barbarity, he (as he also most ostentatiously declares, in 
 
396 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 the same report) took care to be personally present, that 
 he might witness the dying agonies of his unfortunate 
 victims. This man seized upon all the cotton and other 
 property for which he had use, (as he boldly avows,) burned 
 some, retained some, and appropriated a third portion to 
 such purposes as he pleased. His cruelties were so enor- 
 mous in Arkansas that it became unsafe that he should 
 remain there longer, when he was brought across the 
 Mississippi river under order of the Confederate War De- 
 partment, made president of a court of inquiry for the 
 trial of General Lovell, and, after having made such a 
 report as was deemed to be necessary to the shielding of 
 certain officials in Richmond from blame in connection 
 with the capture of ^New Orleans, was immediately there- 
 after put in command of one of the largest divisions in 
 the army of Tennessee, where he remained snug and com- 
 fortable until, running into collision with a more poten 
 tial presidential favorite, the well-beloved Bragg, he was 
 quietly relieved from command. I exposed all the enor- 
 mity of this fiend in human form in open session of the 
 Confederate Congress on more than one occasion, and took 
 pains to have my exposition put in print, and yet I could 
 not persuade Mr. Davis or Air. Seddon to take the slightest 
 notice of these outrageous enormities. 
 
 This is the proper place to give some special attention 
 to this same General Bragg. This military commander 
 first set the example of proclaiming martial law, which 
 he did repeatedly and upon the most flimsy pretexts. I 
 assert what I know to be true, and what I charged to be 
 true on more than one occasion, and what I stand now 
 fully prepared to establish on proof, that General Bragg 
 did deliberately put to death on repeated occasions, with- 
 out a shadow even of Confederate legal authority, as meri- 
 torious soldiers as he had under his command, and for one 
 of the most revolting instances of this kind which oc- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. ,597 
 
 curred I can confidently rely upon the authority of Gen- 
 eral Buckner, from whose own lips I learned the particu- 
 lars, lie evinced on all occasions while he commanded the 
 army of Tennessee an utter disregard of all the established 
 principles of constitutional freedom, committed such ex- 
 cesses as a Sylla or a Marius would almost have recoiled 
 from, and yet, in spite of all that could be done, his re- 
 moval from command could not be effected until the Con- 
 federate cause had become well-nigh hopeless. On one oc- 
 casion, in company with a majority of the Tennessee Sen- 
 ators and Representatives, I joined in demanding the re- 
 moval of General Bragg, and the substitution in his place 
 of General Joseph E.Johnston. A written communication 
 had been addressed to the Confederate President request- 
 ing an interview with him, and asking that it might be a 
 private one. Mr. Davis had consented to see us at a par- 
 ticular hour at his office. We were received with suffi- 
 cient politeness, but we presently perceived that Mr. Hun- 
 ter, of Virginia, and Mr. Barnwell, of South Carolina, 
 were also present. I addressed these gentlemen civilly, 
 and suggested to them that as they seemed to have pre- 
 cedence over us we would withdraw until their particular 
 business should be dispatched. To this they answered : 
 " No, it is unnecessary," and took their seats, between a 
 large table and the wall, near enough to hear all that 
 might go on. Our interview was a very brief one. Mr. 
 Davis gave us to understand that the change which we 
 demanded should be made, and he even went so far as to 
 present to our view a book purporting to contain a copy 
 of the telegrams he had sent off that day, from which it 
 appeared that he had already issued the order for which 
 we asked. This, by-the-by, was not done ; and from sub- 
 sequent facts I am satisfied that he had never entertained 
 the least thought of parting with Bragg at all. I recol- 
 lect that Major Gustavus Henry, one of the Tennessee 
 
398 CASKET or REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Senators, inquired of me, as we left the room, if I thought 
 Mr. Hunter and Mr. Barnwell had been requested by Mr. 
 Davis to remain in order to bear witness thereafter to 
 what might occur. To this I answered that I could not 
 undertake to decide so nice a point as this, but I con- 
 sidered that we had all been treated most disrespectfully, 
 and that it was the last official visit I should ever pay to 
 Mr. Davis. This surely needs no comment. 
 
 And now, with such facts as these staring us in the 
 face, will any portion of our Southern people desire the 
 restoration of Mr. Davis' tyrannic rule ? Does any one 
 wish to see renewed in any part of the laud the reign of 
 secession? Is it indeed true that any portion of the fair 
 ladies of the South yet sympathize with this unscrupulous 
 and daring adventurer? Do not all my long-suffering 
 countrymen and countrywomen of the South at last see 
 the necessity of their becoming at once cordially recon- 
 ciled to the Government of their fathers ? Will they not 
 afford to that paternal Government a fair opportunity of 
 exercising that magnanimity which belongs to its charac- 
 ter? Or will they still maniacally cling to the accursed 
 " flesh-pots of Egypt ?" 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 399 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XXXVI. 
 
 UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE AND UNIVERSAL AMNESTY — HON. WIL- 
 LIAM M. STEWART ANDREW JOHNSON GOVERNOR SHARKEY 
 
 — ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS. 
 
 When the recent four years' civil war was brought to 
 a close one fact was exceedingly obvious to all mankind — 
 African slavery in North America was dead, dead, dead, 
 beyond all possibility of being resuscitated in all time to 
 come! This overthrow of a system of unmixed evil had 
 been long before and often thundered into the ears of dull- 
 sighted and bigoted secession leaders by such men as Clay 
 and Webster as the certain and inevitable result of the 
 surrender of those constitutional guarantees which had 
 alone and almost for a century protected slavery against 
 the indignant hostility of an uprisen world. So far, in- 
 deed, were such one-idea men as John C. Calhoun, Jeff 
 Davis, et /'</ omne genus, from comprehending this,. that 
 they verily believed, and often ostentatiously announced 
 in Congress and elsewhere, that the system of labor then 
 existing in the South would never find itself established 
 upon solid and irremovable foundations until a constitu- 
 tion for a separate Southern republic should be formed in 
 which slavery would be made the chief and predominat- 
 ing ingredient. This constitution, as I have more than 
 once mentioned, Mr. Calhoun professed to have already 
 drawn up, and was ready to supervise its being put in 
 happy and beneficent operation. But so far, in truth, was 
 slavery from being strengthened and solidified by the war, 
 projected and carried on in the begining for its extension 
 and perpetuation, that even Mr. Davis was driven, during 
 
400 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 the last year of that war, to recommend throwing all the 
 able-bodied sons of Africa into the Confederate armies for 
 the maintenance of those chains which four millions of 
 men, women, and children were then wearing — on condi- 
 tion, though, that the happy few who were to be suddenly 
 transformed into soldiers should be allowed to win their 
 own emancipation by lighting for the permanent subju- 
 gation of all who should not take up arms. These notions 
 seem all now to be so surpassingly stupid and impracti- 
 cable that even those of us who had ocular and auricular 
 evidence of the facts just stated must almost feel incredu- 
 lous of what we distinctly recollect to be true. 
 
 When slavery was at last seen by all to be "in the tomb 
 of the Capulets," it became necessary to determine with- 
 out delay what should become of those who had been just 
 redeemed from bondage. A far-sighted sagacity would 
 long before have provided for this state of things by a 
 system of gradual emancipation, accompanied by a suitable 
 and well-digested system of general education. To have 
 among us four millions of people nominally five, but in 
 all the higher advantages of a state of freedom on an equal- 
 ity with the members of the brute creation, was mani- 
 festly to ordain the ultimate degradation and ruin of our 
 whole forty millions of citizens. The moral and intel- 
 lectual culture of the race so long held in subjection had 
 become a great national necessity, perhaps even more im- 
 portant to the white race themselves than to those among 
 whom the seeds of knowledge and refinement had now to 
 be sown. If we desired to have social tranquillity, peace- 
 able and friendly neighbors and fellow-Christians, instead 
 of living in a state of perpetual proximity to ignorance 
 and barbarism, to want and degraded profligacy — always 
 on the increase — we had to provide for the emancipation 
 of our former bondmen and bondwomen from a condition 
 of mental and spiritual slavery far more torturing than 
 
(JASKEt OF REMINISCENCES. 401 
 
 mere physical enthrallment. We had to do more. The 
 necessity had come upon us of the South, springing from 
 the eternal principles of justice, as well as a sound, states- 
 manlike policy, of doing all this ourselves for the safety 
 and future advancement of a long-oppressed and suffering 
 race, in order to conciliate them toward their former mas- 
 ters and mistresses, and keep these helpless ones out of 
 the hands of a body of selfish and contriving managers 
 with whom they were even then in daily and hourly con- 
 tact, and who, if allowed to do so, would infallibly use 
 them for their own selfish purposes, and set them perma- 
 nently against those to whose control they had so long, 
 under far different circumstances, quietly and unmurmur- 
 ingly submitted. Carpet-bagism then was not an actual 
 entity, but men of clear insight distinctly saw that there 
 was, even at that time, a possibility of its future exist- 
 ence with all the unnamable horrors that wait thereupon. 
 The grave question was now immediately to arise : Are 
 Southern men sufficiently relieved from the prejudices be- 
 longing to a system which has now forever passed away 
 calmly and impartially to consider these matters, and cor- 
 dially and without reserve to accept all the legitimate 
 results of the war ? There was one great difficulty in the 
 way of their coming to sound conclusions concerning this 
 momentous matter. It is time that the truth should be 
 spoken boldly. There was an ancient party organization 
 in the States of the North yet exhibiting some feeble 
 signs of vitality, which Mr. Jefferson and others had 
 always claimed to be the "natural ally of the South," and 
 which in former days had rendered good service as the 
 upholder of what were called Democratic principles, and 
 as the supporter of that healthful spirit of progress then 
 associated with the Democratic name and what yet re- 
 mained of its primeval creed. Many of the leaders of this 
 party in the North, it was known, had deeply sympa- 
 26 R 
 
402 CASKET OE REMINISCENCES. 
 
 tbi zed with the South in the struggle for independence 
 which had just terminated. Some had even generously 
 rushed to the sunny plains of the South, and fought there 
 against the Union soldiers. This party had generally 
 manifested its opposition to Mr. Lincoln's proclamation 
 decreeing universal freedom. Though deeply discredited 
 and demoralized, that party, then plainly degenerated 
 into a mere spoils-loving faction, was yet unwilling to 
 die. The newspapers of that party everywhere were un- 
 willing to give up an organization which had in times 
 past proved so profitable to them, and which, could it be 
 thoroughly redintegrated, would, as they hoped, be yet 
 equally prolific of the advantages of every kind which 
 had been formerly enjoyed. Local demagogues, too, every- 
 where, depending alone upon part} T organization and a 
 vicious system of party nomination for prospective power 
 and dignity, still held on with tenacious grip to the rotten 
 and shattered hull of the besmirched and shivered craft 
 in which they had so long been navigating. With what 
 face could such Democrats as I have been describing ask 
 for admission into the Republican party of that time and 
 become the open supporters of the principles of progress to 
 which the war and its successful administration had given 
 rise ? 
 
 Such was the precise state of things when that wise and 
 pure-minded patriot, Llorace Greeley, startled the whole 
 country by the enunciation of the sublime and all-compre- 
 hending proposition — universal suffrage, coupled with uni- 
 versal amnesty. Light seemed suddenly to break in upon 
 the public mind, and to scatter in an instant the clouds 
 of passion and prejudice which had so long enveloped it. 
 Here was the restoration of that civic equality existing 
 in the days of our fathers tendered to all the unhappy 
 victims of the war; and that civic equality also which 
 had been solemnly pledged in the season of war by the 
 
CASKET? OF ftEMlttlSCENCES. 40S 
 
 Government itself to those from whose hands the shackles 
 of serfdom had just been broken. The equity of this du- 
 plex proposition was just as obvious as was its expediency. 
 But these words of wisdom and of true philanthropy 
 spoken by the lamented Greeley had come first from the 
 lips of a Republican leader. Other Republican leaders — 
 Gerrit Smith ; the then Governor of Massachusetts ; and 
 others who might be mentioned — had cordially welcomed 
 Mr. Greeley's soul-cheering enunciation, and nothing 
 could be plainer than that if universal amnesty and uni- 
 versal suffrage should, under such circumstances, be ac- 
 corded by the North and accepted by the South, and thus 
 the great work of national pacification be seen to go on 
 under Republican auspices, there was an end forever of 
 Democratic dignity and of Democratic influence, and a 
 " new era of good feeling " and of general amity and 
 brotherhood would be ushered in, to last for a few years 
 at least; during which party strife and rancor would 
 cease to inflame and irritate the whole popular mind of 
 America. 
 
 It was in the spring of 1866 that I chanced to visit 
 Washington city. Congress was in session, and the topics 
 adverted to above were undergoing everywhere a free and 
 animated discussion. One morning, on calling at the room 
 of Mr. Stewart, one of the Senators from Nevada, he and 
 I fell into conversation on this subject. I had several 
 months before published a letter in the New York Tribune 
 urging warmly upon the people of the South their prompt 
 and cordial accession to Mr. Greeley's proposition. Sev- 
 eral newspapers in that region of a decidedly conservative 
 cast had republished my letter and given to it their ap- 
 proval. The Bourbon-Democratic presses of the South 
 were as yet holding back, waiting for advice from the 
 accredited organs of the Democratic party in New York 
 and elsewhere before they ventured to say pro or con in 
 
404 dAstcET of Reminiscences. 
 
 regard to a measure which they feared might disrupt the 
 organization of that party which was so much dearer to 
 them than their bleeding and distressed country. 
 
 Mr. Stewart asked me if I thought the States and peo- 
 ple of the South would willingly accept the conditions of 
 settlement tendered by Mr. Greeley. I answered that I 
 was satisfied they ought to do so ; that universal amnesty, 
 coupled with universal suffrage, was all they were entitled 
 to demand, and more than I had hoped for a month or 
 two before. But I promptly expressed my opinion that 
 party thraldom in the South was then so complete, and 
 there was so much deference paid there to narrow-minded 
 and ignorant partisan scribblers, and to the commands of 
 selfish and unscrupulous party-managers, that unless the 
 Democratic press in the North could be in some way lib- 
 eralized and rendered more national and patriotic in its 
 tone, it was to be feared that for the present, at least, my 
 unhappy fellow-countrymen of the South would regard 
 negro suffrage as a thing to which they ought never to 
 think of submitting. I suo*o;ested, further, that there 
 
 O OS 7 7 
 
 might be some difficulty on this point yet in the mind of 
 President Johnson, who was evidently bent on carrying 
 into operation, and by any means which he might find 
 necessary to that end, his own peculiar policy of recon- 
 struction, and I reminded Mr. Stewart also of the remark- 
 able conversation which had occurred some time before 
 between President Johnson and Frederick Douglass, in 
 which the former had very scornfully declared that what 
 he had always meant by making the slave free was the 
 making him. free to labor — urging at the same time that, 
 should civil equality be given to the blacks, it would, as 
 he believed, initiate a war of races — a shallow and unau- 
 thorized notion, altogether repugnant to the teachings of 
 history. Mr. Stewart, said that he had some hope that, 
 if proper efforts were made, President Johnson could be 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. t05 
 
 induced to co-operate cordially in the new movement, 
 and told me that if I would remain in Washington one 
 day more he would introduce a resolution on this subject 
 in the Senate. He further told me he had reason to 
 believe that Mr. Sumner would unite with him in support 
 of such a resolution iis that above alluded to, and that a 
 telegram had been just received from the Governor of 
 Massachusetts which committed that worthy and influ- 
 ential personage most fully in regard to this grave and 
 interesting matter. 
 
 All this was highly encouraging to me, and I told Mr. 
 Stewart that if he would draw up and offer his resolution 
 that very day, I would see certain Senators, recently 
 elected in the South, who were at that moment in Wash- 
 ington with a hope of being admitted in a day or two 
 to their seats, but who thus far had not been permitted 
 to qualify ; naming of these gentlemen, particularly, 
 Messrs. Stephens, Graham, and Sharkey ; all of whom I 
 told Mr. Stewart I thought would be willing to join in an 
 assurance that his resolution, if adopted in Congress, 
 would prove ultimately satisfactory to the people of their 
 respective States. Mr. Stewart sat down to draft his res- 
 olution, and I went at once to call on Mr. Stephens and 
 Judge Sharkey, both of whom I saw ; and I regretted to 
 And that Governor Graham, of North Carolina, had left 
 town. J udge Sharkey told me at once that he warmly 
 approved of what I was doing, and that if, on calling to 
 see President Johnson and conversing with him, he should 
 find things propitious in that quarter, he would at once 
 declare, in a public and formal manner, his sanction of 
 Mr. Stewart's resolution, and give it his hearty support, 
 also, after his return to Mississippi. Judge Sharkey went 
 at once to the White House, had an interview with 
 President Johnson, and returned to the hotel, where I 
 was impatiently awaiting his arrival. He told me that 
 
406 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 he deeply regretted to find Mr. Johnson utterly opposed 
 to endowing the negro with the right of suffrage, he in- 
 sisting that it would inevitably result in a war of races, 
 and added that he felt bound to adhere to Mr. Johnson, 
 even in opposition to his own convictions, inasmuch as he 
 had, as he thought, greatly risked himself for the relief of 
 the South in her present suffering condition. I was exceed- 
 ingly distressed to learn these facts, and I saw very plainly 
 that there was not much probability of Mr. Stewart's 
 pacificatory resolution being adopted while President 
 Johnson continued to occupy his present attitude. Judge 
 Sharkey several years after visited my own residence in 
 Nashville , and took occasion to condemn President John- 
 son very strongly on account of the absurd and unaccom- 
 modating spirit displaj^ed by him on that occasion, which 
 he tfoen agreed with me had been deeply prejudicial to 
 the South and to the whole country. 
 
 My interview with Mr. Stephens was a very extraordi- 
 nary one indeed. I placed before him the substance of 
 the resolution which Mr. Stewart was about to offer. He 
 told me frankly that he did not approve it ; that he could 
 never give his assent to negro suffrage; and he even called 
 in question the validity of Mr. Lincoln's proclamation of 
 freedom. I urged upon him the proposition that the 
 measure of emancipation had been adopted as a war meas- 
 ure, and in that point of view I thought should be held 
 valid. This he very politely but very vehemently denied, 
 and I soon after left his lodgings fully persuaded that 
 neither he nor his brother Senators from the South who 
 had been knocking for admission at the doors of the 
 Senate would ever be admitted until Congress should 
 have guaranteed, in some effectual mode, the future safety 
 and happiness of those whom they had so solemnly and 
 repeatedly encouraged to look to them for protection and 
 supjiort. 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 407 
 
 ' The conduct of President Johnson in this instance was 
 the more remarkable because he had a year before sent a 
 telegram to Judge Sharkey, when this gentleman was 
 acting in the capacity of Provisional Governor of Missis- 
 sippi, in which he recommended, in the most emphatic 
 manner, that the organic convention of that State should, 
 in the new constitution which that body was about to 
 frame, insert a clause providing for universal anmesty 
 and universal suffrage, basing the latter, though, upon 
 the standard of intelligence. " In this way," said this 
 notable telegram, a you will take the wind out of the 
 sails of your adversaries." 
 
 Mr. Stewart brought forward his resolution in the 
 Senate, as he had agreed to do, and had the satisfaction, 
 in a day or two, of finding himself most unkindly attacked 
 by the editors of the New York World, who denounced 
 the proposition offered by him as unjust and illiberal to- 
 ward the South, and characterized Mr. Stewart himself 
 as a bitter Radical on account of his having thus presumed 
 to bring it forward. 
 
 Both the great political parties lately contending for 
 ascendency in the Presidential election placed themselves 
 upon the platform of universal amnesty and universal 
 suffrage ; the whole South acquiesced therein, and no one 
 now deems it safe or politic to deny the civil equality 
 of the races. And yet still is there some secret dissatis- 
 faction fermenting in a few bosoms in regard to this once 
 painfully disputed point ; and it is evident, from the 
 movements of certain political Bourbonites of the Demo- 
 cratic party (so called) in several of the populous States 
 of the West, that if a particular class of antediluvian 
 politicians, who are neither capable of learning anything 
 new nor of forgetting anything old, are allowed to have 
 their own way about this matter, they will yet throw us 
 back at least six years in the history of the past ; and 
 
408 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 the men of progress will have to tight over again once 
 more the great battle of principle which has so often already 
 been fought and won. 
 
 How long will it be before our countrymen will every- 
 where learn that party does not mean country, and that a 
 man may be a most spry and dextrous party leader with- 
 out the smallest claim to be recognized as an enlightened 
 and incorruptible patriot ? How long shall men of sound 
 sense and extended experience in the States of the South 
 continue to look with something of an idolatrous rever- 
 ence to the teachings of distant editors, who are directly 
 interested in deceiving them, and whose innumerable 
 blunders and inconsistencies have long since deprived them 
 of all just claim to respect and consideration ? How long- 
 will it continue to be the case that men of ability, of up- 
 rightness, and of known patriotism shall be distrusted 
 and hated because of the falsehood and deceptious plausi- 
 bility of those who smile but to betray, and who make 
 professions of undying friendship only the more effec- 
 tually to delude and injure those who are silly enough to 
 seek their counsels and to give heed to their deceitful 
 admonitions? 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 409 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XXXVII. 
 
 CHIEF JUSTICE CHASE — JUSTICE SWAYNE. 
 
 A few days since, after having taken dinner at the 
 house of a hospitable and valued friend, who dwells amid 
 the cool and shadj r heights of Georgetown, I was easily 
 persuaded to stroll during the cool and quiet hours of a 
 Saturday afternoon through the grounds of the beauti- 
 ful cemetery in that vicinage, where wealth and a deli- 
 cate and refined taste have done so much to soften the in- 
 evitable horrors, of death, and to impart needed consola- 
 tion to the hearts of bereaved friends and relatives. I 
 soon found myself standing in view of the freshly-made 
 grave of one whom I had long and familiarly known in 
 life, and between whom and myself the most unvarying 
 harmony and friendship had ever subsisted, despite certain 
 differences of opinion betwixt us upon questions once 
 deemed of essential and vital import. While I was thus 
 surveying the last resting-place of a man whose career 
 had been so eminently marked with ability and virtue, 
 and saw the flowers with which the hand of affection had 
 so profusely bestrewn the earth which covered the mortal 
 remains of Salmon P. Chase, now fast withering under 
 the influence of a warm summer's sun, I could not but 
 feel touchingly impressed with the vain and transitory 
 character of all sublunary grandeur, and I inwardly re- 
 peated the memorable words of Mr. Burke: " What shad- 
 ows we are, and what shadows we pursue ! " 
 
 It will appear, I am sure, surprising to none that, after 
 leaving this sequestered and suggestive scene and return- 
 ing to my own lonely lodgings, my mind fell into a train 
 
410 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 of rumination, and became conscious of reminiscences 
 which sought expression in such language as that which 
 follows ; in which will be found allusions to past occur- 
 rences, not altogether unmingled with speculations as to 
 what may perchance take place hereafter, such as I hope 
 may not prove altogether unentertaining to such as may 
 honor these humble lucubrations with a cursory perusal. 
 All will admit that the office of Chief Justice of the 
 Supreme Court of the United States is one of the greatest 
 dignity and importance, and that the manifold and ar- 
 duous duties connected therewith demand for their suc- 
 cessful performance powers of intellect and traits of char- 
 acter rarely found united in any one individual. Surely 
 no man could be judged worthy to occupy this exalted 
 position who is not possessed of various and extended 
 learning; — .who is not a vigorous and correct thinker — 
 who is not as free as human nature can be expected to 
 be from the domination of prejudice and passion of every 
 kind — who is not a man of spotless and unquestioned 
 integrity — whose habits of life are not marked with in- 
 dustry, sobriety, and a profound sense of responsibility to 
 the Constitution and the laws, and to the people, for the 
 promotion of whose welfare and happiness this Constitu- 
 tion and these laws have been ordained and established. 
 Far be it from me to suggest that no man should be ele- 
 vated to the office of Chief Justice of the United States 
 who has never taken part in the scenes of political con. 
 troversy, or whose opinions in regard to the gravest con- 
 stitutional questions are wholly unknown. Under our 
 system of government, it would be egregiously absurd to 
 suppose that any individual will ever be found who shall 
 at the same time have given satisfactory evidence of su- 
 perior ability, and yet have avoided altogether the dis- 
 cussion of those questions which involve the prosperity 
 and safety of the wdiole Republic. I am, moreover, free 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 411 
 
 to say that, in my opinion, any President of the United 
 States would be justly held amenable to censure who 
 should call to the office of Chief Justice a man whose con- 
 stitutional opinions were not fully known to him ; and I 
 should vehemently doubt the sincerity of any Chief Mag- 
 istrate who should nominate any man to a seat upon the 
 Supreme Bench of the Union whose views of constitu- 
 tional law were not in unison with those openly avowed 
 by himself. Nobody now blames the elder Adams for 
 calling John Marshall to preside over the deliberations 
 of the highest judicial tribunal existing under Federal 
 authority ; nor is Jackson at this time complained of for 
 nominating for the office of Chief Justice the lamented 
 Roger B. Taney ; and yet were both of these eminent per- 
 sonages zealous, outspoken, and influential partisan lead- 
 ers anterior to their elevation to the Bench. 
 
 There is one proposition, the correctness of which I feel 
 certain that no reasonable man will ever be heard to dis- 
 pute, which is, that any given President is bound to do 
 all in his power to find out the most suitable person in 
 all respects to receive this high honor at his hands ; and 
 that when he shall have deliberately resolved to select 
 such an individual for the place of Chief Justice, he is 
 equally bound to send in his nomination to the Senate 
 without the smallest regard to the illiberal scoffing or 
 ridicule, either of those politically opposed to him, or to 
 the protestations of selfish and intriguing factionists of 
 his own particular party. 
 
 With these preliminary suggestions I will now proceed 
 to the principal task which lies before me. 
 
 It was my fortune to come into social life in the bosom 
 of a singularly virtuous and well-ordered community, and 
 to have my first lessons of experience amid many of those 
 who had been the immediate friends and neighbors of the 
 venerated Washington and his illustrious compeers of 
 
412 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Revolutionary renown. The first American statesman 
 who became familiarly known to me in early life was 
 Chief Justice John Marshall, whose gravely benignant 
 aspect, and whose simple and unaffected manners, are yet 
 vividly pictured on my memory. Whilst a student of 
 law in the well-known town of Warrenton, distant only 
 about fifty miles from the city in which I write, I saw this 
 remarkable man repeatedly. For many years of his event- 
 ful and most useful life he was accustomed to pay an an- 
 nual visit to his native county of Fauquier, where he was 
 the owner of a considerable landed estate, and where he 
 had a numerous body of kinsmen and friends, in whose 
 society he liked to unbend himself and freshen his re- 
 membrance of years gone by. Often do I recreate my 
 own fancy by bringing this truly great and good man be- 
 fore my mental vision just as he was when I gazed upon 
 him fifty years ago placidly loitering along the streets of 
 our county town, on court days, exchanging kindly 
 greetings with the friends of his youth of all classes, hear- 
 ing from their own lips all of good or of evil which might 
 perchance have befallen either themselves or their fami 
 lies since he had last encountered them, and seeming to 
 take a real and affectionate interest in everything con- 
 nected with their welfare and happiness. Well do Ire 
 member that this gratifying spectacle was sometimes sur- 
 veyed by one who stood to me ,at the time in relations of 
 tender and confidential companionship ; whose extraordi- 
 nary intellectual promise, associated with all the moral 
 graces that can' adorn young, energetic manhood, had al- 
 ready called forth the most favorable prognostics of his 
 future fame and usefulness from a host of 'loving and ad- 
 miring friends ; prognostics which have been since most 
 abundantly realized : for that friend of my early years 
 has, in the half century that has rolled away since he and 
 I were fellow-students in our native State and poring 
 
CASKF/f OF REMlttlSCENCiEg. 413 
 
 over together the pages of Coke and Blackstone, has ac- 
 quired a high reputation, both as a jurist and advocate, 
 in one of the largest and most populous States of the 
 Union ; has accumulated a large estate chiefly by his la- 
 bors as a barrister, and is now honorably occupying a seat 
 upon the Bench of that high tribunal of which John 
 Marshall was himself the chief ornament, when he and I, 
 full fifty years ago, were surveying with an affectionate 
 admiration — not unmixed perchance with a certain sense 
 of awe — the serene glories which encircled this illustri. 
 ous personage. Will that friend of my youth forgive me 
 if I remind him here of certain mystic colloquies held 
 between two students of law at a period in the dim past, 
 now so remote, touching the expediency of selecting be- 
 times some well-known model of intellectual excellence for 
 imitation, in order to keep alive our hopes and preserve 
 our energies in full vigor until those lofty heights of re- 
 nown should be at last reached to which a generous and 
 all-potential ambition was even then prompting us both 
 to aspire ? Will he forgive me if I take a still greater 
 liberty, and suggest that even at the time to which I have 
 alluded, whilst contemplating the grave splendors associ- 
 ated with the name of Marshall, it was not in his own 
 noble nature to remain altogether unconscious of some 
 such inspiring glow of magnanimous rivalry as once 
 warmed the bosom of the youthful Themistocles, and 
 which impelled him to heave a sigh over the hard-earned 
 V -lories of the great Miltiades? 
 
 It will be, at least, regarded by -some as a remarkable 
 fact, that when, some eighty years ago, at a time when 
 J udge Taney's early demise or resignation was confidently 
 expected in a few days to occur, the office of Chief Jus- 
 tice, in the event of a vacancy arising as described, was 
 tendered by Mr. Lincoln to Judge Swayne ; so that if he 
 is not now occupying this high place, it is not because 
 
414 Casket of reminiscences. 
 
 the lamented Lincoln did not deem him worthy to hold 
 it. Had President Lincoln's original intentions touching 
 this matter been carried into effect, then, within (compar- 
 atively speaking) a veiw limited period of time, the Amer 
 ican people would have seen two Chief Justices of the Su- 
 preme Court of the Union selected from the same county in the 
 bosom of the Ancient Dominion ! 
 
 A short statement of facts will render this matter a 
 little plainer. President Lincoln did formally tender the 
 place of Chief Justice to Mr. Justice Swayne. He, as 
 formally, did accept the proffered honor. But this chanced 
 to take place in the year 1864, when a dire civil war was 
 yet raging, and when a long protraction of hostilities was 
 to be apprehended if perfect harmony and concord should 
 not be preserved in the non-seceding States of the Union. 
 Chief Justice Chase had been spoken of very freely as a 
 probable candidate for the Presidency in opposition to 
 Mr. Lincoln, whose re-election was by many deemed 
 essential to the ultimate success of the Union cause. Now, 
 though at the time of Judge Taney's actual decease Mr. 
 Lincoln had been nominated, yet his name continued to 
 be mentioned freely in connection with the Presidency, 
 and it was by many deemed possible that Mr. Chase might 
 be eventually persuaded to run as an independent candi- 
 date. Whether there was any reason to expect that he 
 would thus yield to the outspoken wishes of some of his 
 political and personal friends I have no adequate means 
 of deciding. But the following facts are certain : Patriots 
 became everywhere anxious to prevent any conflict in the 
 bosom of the Republican party, which, it was feared, 
 might bring about the election of General McClellan. 
 Under these circumstances a number of enlightened and 
 well-intentioned citizens favorable to the election of Mr. 
 Chase called upon Mr. Lincoln, and urged him to consent 
 to the elevation of this gentleman to the position of Chief 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 415 
 
 Justice ; in consideration of which they proffered to 
 withdraw him altogether from the field of contest. 
 This was a sore trial to President Lincoln. He did not 
 at all doubt the competency of Mr. Chase, and he was a 
 warm admirer of his character and abilities. But he had 
 already tendered the Chief Justiceship to his friend, Judge 
 Swayne. Then it was that the magnanimity and elevated 
 disinterestedness of Justice Swayne were made nobly 
 manifest. When President Lincoln approached him on 
 the subject in the most delicate and decorous manner, and 
 informed him of the perplexing dilemma in which he 
 had become involved, he did not hesitate one instant to 
 release his loved and honored friend from the pledge which 
 he had voluntarily given him; and he cheerfully con- 
 sented to sacrifice his own claims to official promotion 
 upon the altar of his country's happiness. 
 
 There is another curious fact which I deem it proper 
 to relate, an account of which I gave in a volume pub- 
 lished by me six years ago. Judge Chase is known to 
 have been for many years a Democrat in principle. He 
 was from the days of early manhood a zealous and fear- 
 less opponent of domestic slavery, and had often signal- 
 ized his devotion to principle by strenuous opposition as 
 an advocate to what was called the fugitive slave law. He 
 was no secessionist, in the ordinary sense of that term, but 
 he was conscientiously regardful of what he recognized as 
 the reserved rigbts of the States, and he was clearly of 
 opinion that the fugitive slave law was a serious infrac- 
 tion of these rights. When he was acting in the office 
 of Governor of Ohio he resolved to briiiff this matter to 
 a test in the courts of the State. The manner in which 
 the question as to the validity of the law was raised is 
 familiar to all. When the matter was under examination 
 in the Supreme Court of Ohio there were three judges 
 there presiding. One of these was known to regard the 
 
416 CASKET OF HEMlNlSCE&CES. 
 
 law as constitutional ; another was ready to express an 
 opposite opinion ; whilst the third, Judge Swan, was sup- 
 posed not to have made up his mind upon the subject. 
 President Buchanan had employed Judge Swayne, then a 
 practicing lawyer in Columbus, to make an argument in 
 support of the right of the Federal Government to enforce 
 the fugitive slave law upon the soil of Ohio. It was per- 
 fectly well known that if the State Supreme Court should 
 decide against the validity of the law, and Mr. Buchanan 
 should still persist in enforcing it, the Governor of the 
 State would feel it to be his duty to resist the attempt in 
 arms; and that he had accordingly made all necessary ar- 
 rangements to carry his views into effect. It was evident, 
 therefore, that it depended essentially upon the action of 
 -Judge Swan whether domestic peace should be maintained 
 or a bloody civil war be initiated. I arrived in Columbus 
 on the very day that this controversy was brought to a 
 conclusion, and immediately on reaching the hotel where 
 I put up, I heard that Judge Swayne had made the ablest 
 speech ot his life in support of the law, and that the Su- 
 preme Court had decided the question at issue in favor of 
 the United States. Thus was civil war prevented. How 
 a conflict between the State of Ohio and the Government 
 upon this most appalling question would have resulted it 
 is difficult now to say ; but no one can deny that Judge 
 Swayne acquired more true glory on this occasion than 
 twenty years' service as Chief Justice would be likely to 
 procure him. 
 
GASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 417 
 
 REMWISCEN"CE No. XXXVIII. 
 
 CHTEF JUSTICE CHASE — GOVERNOR BROWNLOW — JEFF DAVIS. 
 
 A very unexpected and exceedingly welcome letter from 
 my valued friend, Senator Brownlow, reminds me of a 
 duty which I had intended sometime since to perform in 
 reference to a distinguished personage, now no longer 
 among the living, but for whom I have for many years 
 cherished a very elevated esteem and a very cordial friend- 
 ship. I allude to the late Chief Justice Chase. I made 
 some allusions to this gentleman several days since — 
 certainly, as my heart avouches, in a most kindly and 
 respectful spirit ; but I soon found myself grossly misun- 
 derstood in reference to this matter by some injudicious 
 and superserviceable friend of his, by reason of whose ob- 
 jurgatory criticisms I was compelled to stand so promptly 
 and earnestly upon my own defense that the duty which 
 I felt to be owing to the illustrious dead was for the time 
 left but in part discharged. Senator Brownlow, having 
 seen the somewhat embarrassing predicament in which 
 the unknown writer just referred to had placed me, and 
 concurring with me in the main, as will be presently seen, 
 touching the Chief Justice's character and qualifications, 
 as well as in regard to his undeniable preference for the 
 performance of official functions other than those of a 
 strictly judicial nature, lias been good enough by the last 
 mail to send me some evidence illustrative of this delicate 
 and interesting point, to the present adduction of which 
 I suppose that no dispassionate and sound-thinking friend 
 of the late Chief Justice will be at all inclined to object. 
 
 Before presenting Senator Brownlow's letter tome, just 
 27 R 
 
418 CAsREt OE REMINISCENCES, 
 
 received, and that of Judge Chase, which comes inclosed 
 therein, I have one or two remarks to make, which I trust 
 will not have the ill-fortune to give offense in any quarter. 
 I have long thought the office of President of the United 
 States one of more dignity than any other whatever, and 
 requiring for the proper and creditable discharge of the 
 functions annexed thereto the highest powers of intellect 
 and the most commanding qualities of soul. To give to a 
 country like ours a four years' administration uniformly 
 marked with wisdom and virtue equals my highest ideas 
 of human glory, and a man like Chief Justice Chase, who 
 had every reason to regard himself as capable of occupy- 
 ing the Presidential office with credit to himself and with 
 honor to the Republic, was more than justified in being 
 willing to enter upon a field of duty so much more exten- 
 sive and variegated than that which is presented to the 
 view of any man whatever whose moral and intellectual 
 energies are confined within the, comparatively speaking, 
 very limited compass of Chief Justice of the Supreme 
 Court of the Union. I do not at all doubt that if any 
 Chief Justice that the country lias known had at any 
 time found the Presidential office clearly within his reach 
 he would cheerfully have submitted to his name's being 
 used as a candidate for this elevated position. Nor do I 
 at all question that if Chief Justice Chase had been elected 
 to the Presidency he would have shown himself to be 
 possessed of all the capability demanded for the hon- 
 orable discharge of the duties annexed thereto, nor that 
 he would have been able thereby to establish many addi- 
 tional claims to the gratitude and admiration of his coun- 
 try men, both now and hereafter. That he was a sound 
 and well-informed lawyer no one, so far as I am informed, 
 has ever yet denied: that he was honest, diligent, and 
 courteous in the discharge of his judicial functions is uni- 
 versally admitted ; but I am, and always have been, well 
 
I AsKET OF REMitilSdfettCES. 419 
 
 satisfied that he would have made a much abler President 
 than iud^e; and that if chosen President, with his very 
 liberal, progressive, yet conservative views, he would have 
 given to the country such an administration as all good and 
 patriotic men would have approved and commended. The 
 only objection which has ever suggested itself to my mind 
 in regard to Judge Chase's complete success in the per- 
 formance of the duties which the Chief Executive Magis- 
 trate of the Republic is expected to take upon himself 
 consists in the fact that he is well known to have had 
 rather extreme views in favor of what are called State 
 rights and State sovereignty, and I should always have 
 feared that he would have been found, in certain exigen- 
 cies easy to be imagined, unduly averse to the exercise of 
 the coercive powers of the General Government, as Mr. 
 Buchanan is known to have been. This same objection, 
 I suppose, would always have applied with equal, and per- 
 haps with superior, force to the renowned political leader 
 of Georgia, Alexander H. Stephens, a man of great virtue 
 and of unquestionably high abilities, but whose devotion 
 to the dogma of secession, it seems to me, might, if raised 
 to the Presidential station, turn out, under certain cir- 
 cumstances possible to occur, to be a most prolific source 
 of mischief. I will here mention, in passing, a curious 
 fact, not, I think, generally known. I heard Stephen A. 
 Douglas, in a speech delivered by him in the city of At- 
 lanta, Ga., in the year 1860, declare that his friends in 
 the Charleston Democratic Convention of that period from 
 the State of Illinois had been requested by him, if they 
 should find his own nomination for President by that 
 body impossible, to do all in their power to secure this 
 honor to his friend Mr. Stephens. In thus incidentally 
 mentioning this distinguished son of Georgia I seize the 
 opportunity of saying that, though I differ from him very 
 seriously upon many public questions which might be 
 
4'20 I AsKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 mentioned, there is no man now in the cotton-growing 
 region of the Republic at all equal, in my judgment, to 
 him, in strength and clearness of mind, in general mental 
 culture, and in capacity for the industrious, earnest, and 
 persevering examination of difficult and perplexing public 
 questions. His honesty and nobleness of spirit are be- 
 yond praise ; no man is more perfectly independent in his 
 opinions and sentiments than he is ; no man is more in- 
 dined to do full and perfect justice to political adversaries 
 of every cast, and despite his abstract devotion to the 
 strange and impracticable theory of secession, the Repub- 
 lic does not hold within its limits a man of more en- 
 larged and disinterested patriotism, and of a more ex- 
 panded Christian charitj 7 , than Alexander H. Stephens. 
 
 So much of the letter of Senator Brownlow as does not 
 relate to matter strictly private will now be set forth, to- 
 gether with the whole letter of Chief Justice Chase to 
 him, in disregard of his own request that the portion 
 commendatory of himself should be excluded. I take 
 this course because (with all due deference) I do not 
 think Mr. Brownlow has a right to conceal from the 
 world the opinion entertained by such a person as Judge 
 ('base in relation to the character of a public servant so 
 cruelly traduced as I hold my friend Mr. Brownlow for 
 man} 7 years past to have been : 
 
 Knoxvikle. August 28, 1S7H. 
 Hon. H. S. Foo/r ; 
 
 My Dear GOVERNOR : I am very grateful for the kindly, generous 
 words you have written of me in the Chronicle. When, in 1865, I took 
 up my residence in Nashville as Governor of this State, you were one 
 of the very few men of character and influence who had been identified 
 with the defeated Confederacy who did not meet me with denunciation 
 of the loyal State government inaugurated. And you were the only 
 citizen of Tennessee of prominent position in the government of the 
 rebel confederacy in its civil or military departments who had the 
 courage openh to accept the results of the war, acknowledge the over- 
 throw of the doctrine of secession, and favor the protection, education, 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 421 
 
 and amelioration of the recently emancipated colored population of the 
 State, [f other men in Middle and West Tennessee who held seats in 
 the rebel Congress, or occupied high military station, had acted in the 
 spirit which governed your conduct, instead of meeting the friends of 
 the Union in a spirit of hatred and factious opposition, they would not 
 have had so much complaint to make against what they termed 
 "Brownlow's disfranchising despotism. " 
 
 I am rejoiced to see that yon are handling without gloves that cold- 
 blooded conspirator and heartless demagogue, Colonel Jefferson Davis, 
 of Memphis. He is, and has always been, one of the worst men in the 
 South. When bearing aloft the old flag of the Union you defeated him 
 for Governor of Mississippi you gave the only check to the mad ambi- 
 tion of this modern Cataline which he ever received, except when 
 Wilson's cavalry nabbed him in the petticoats, hoops, and bonnet of 
 one of those old women who are to aid him in his new campaign against 
 the Union. From defiantly preaching treason in Virginia I believe 
 that you can drive him into retirement, and the country will never 
 more hear of Jeff., or be menaced with his petticoat brigade. 
 
 l( he had as much self-respect as Judas he would go out and hang 
 himself; or if he were capable of realizing his deep disgrace, and the 
 contempt in which good men hold him and his puny efforts at a new 
 revolt against the Federal Union, he would feel like exclaiming, as did 
 a baffled conspirator of ancient times, but a wiser one, 
 
 Let me live unseen, unknown, 
 
 And unlamented let me die ; 
 Nor mound, nor monument, nor stone. 
 
 Tell where I lie. 
 
 < >n one condition I would be glad to see old Jeff, continue his speak- 
 ing campaign just inaugurated at White Sulphur Springs. I under- 
 stand that some of the Rip Van Winkle Democrats, who have not yet 
 learned that slavery is abolished and the Democratic party dead, desire 
 to rim Colonel Jefferson Davis, of Memphis, for Governor of Tennessee. 
 I hope they will do so, and I believe Davis wants to make the race. In 
 that event I hope to see you take the field as a candidate. 
 
 For several years I regularly corresponded with the late Chief Justice 
 Chase. I was personally much attached to him, had the honor of fre- 
 quently being made the recipient of his esteem, and while, in the latter 
 years of his life, I was compelled to dissent from some of his views, I 
 regarded him as a Wry able and patriotic citizen. 
 
 Since reading your Reminiseences I have accidentally found one of 
 several letters he wrote to me on reconstruction. I inclose it, that 
 you may copy and publish, if you see fit, that portion referring to the 
 
422 GASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Fourteenth Amendment and its adoption by Tennessee. You can 
 publish all of it except his allusions to myself, of a personal and com- 
 plimentary character. 
 
 ******** 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 W. G. BROWNX.OW. 
 
 And here is the interesting letter of Chief Justice Chase 
 in totidem verbis : 
 
 Washington,' June 14, I860. 
 
 Dear Governor : This is the first time I have addressed you since 
 I was Secretary of the Treasury and you a special agent of the Depart- 
 ment. Each of us is in a different position now. You have been made 
 Governor of Tennessee, and so called to duties which require the 
 clearest of heads and the bravest of hearts, and have been found compe- 
 tent and faithful. T have become a judge, in which office I confess 
 myself less at home than when a co-operator with the friends of union 
 and freedom in the grand cause of human progress. But both as a judge 
 and as a citizen I feel a profound interest in the complete restoration 
 of the Union and the perfect re-establishuient of civil order. 
 
 There now seems to be a way open. Congress has proposed an 
 amendment of the Constitution which, it seems to me, must be, on the 
 whole, acceptable to all loyal men, and if it can be adopted at once by 
 Tennessee, its adoption by all the States— or at least the necessary 
 three-fourths— seems reasonably certain. Besides this, its adoption by 
 Tennessee will secure the immediate admission of the Senators and 
 Representatives from that State to their seats in Congress, which the 
 whole country seem anxiously to desire. I verily think no event could 
 be more auspicious to the general welfare of the States than this. 
 
 I dare say this letter is only one of hundreds prompted by the same 
 feeling. You will do yourself a great honor, and the country a most 
 important service, if you will immediately convoke the Legislature and 
 submit the amendment to its action. That action, if it be ratification — 
 prompt ratification, so that the Senators and members may take their 
 seats before Congress adjourns — will fill the hearts of patriotic men 
 throughout the land with joy. 
 
 I shall be glad to have a letter from you, but beg you not to consider 
 yourself under any obligation to take the time from other subjects for 
 an answer. 
 
 Sincerely your friend. * 
 
 S. P. CHASE. 
 
 His Excellency W, G, Brownia>\\ , 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 423 
 
 It is impossible to read over, ever so cursorily, this judi- 
 cious and patriotic letter of Judge Chase without per- 
 ceiving the intense solicitude which he felt, at the time of 
 the writing thereof, for the earliest possible ratification of 
 that most important constitutional amendment, which, 
 by giving the fullest protection to the new-found rights of 
 the unfortunate and long-oppressed children of Africa, 
 opened the way also to the speedy restoration of the 
 whites of the South, then but recently emerged from the 
 fires of the rebellion, to the sacred and invaluable politi- 
 cal rights which they had been so deplorably persuaded to 
 repudiate. I have several times had occasion to lament 
 that this act of long-deferred justice to those so cruelly 
 held in slavery for centuries had not been voluntarily per- 
 formed by the ancient white inhabitants of the South 
 themselves, without having to be prompted thereto from 
 any outside quarter. But as the crust of that obstinate 
 bigotry which would still seem to bedarken the intellects 
 of some of the Bourbonites of the South had not yet been 
 even partially broken, there was no mode left of accom- 
 plishing the great object specified except the one carried 
 into operation by the enlightened friends of progress and 
 civil concord in the various parts of the Republic. And 
 now that this good work has been consummated, we may 
 well look back to those whose prescience and unwavering 
 patriotism accomplished it with gratitude and respect. 
 That the part which Judge Chase performed at this fear- 
 ful crisis has been generally approved by his countrymen, 
 as it certainly will be still more emphatically by posterity, 
 no one will be inclined to doubt who considers the fact 
 that a very large portion of the Southern Democrats, so- 
 called, in 1868 struggled hard to get this eminent states- 
 man nominated for the office of President of the United 
 States ; and it is really one of the most melancholy in- 
 stances of moral dereliction which has ever yet occurred 
 
424 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 that there are now a very large number of these very per- 
 sons, including such men as Jeff. Davis, R. M. T. Hunter, 
 et id omne genus, who are apparently desirous of undoing, 
 as far as it may be in their power, the goodly work of 
 national reconstruction, of which this same fourteenth 
 amendment is the chief corner-stone. 
 
 In reference to what my friend Senator Brownlow says 
 so generously about his desire that I should take the field 
 as a candidate for governor in Tennessee, should Jeff. 
 Davis be so stupid as to allow himself to be announced as 
 an aspirant to this dignity, I have at this time but little 
 to say. I do not think that he is yet quite madman 
 enough to attempt such an experiment, though it has been 
 said : 
 
 Ferrupit Acheronta Hereuleus labor ; 
 Ml mortalibus arduum est; 
 Coelum ipsurn petimus stulfcitia, neque 
 Per nostrum patimnr scoelus 
 Iracunda Jovem ponere fulmina. 
 
 Should I be disappointed, though, in regard to this par- 
 ticular, and my old Mississippi rival should hereafter be 
 seen attempting to move through Tennessee as a solicitant 
 of the suffrages of that high-minded and patriotic people 
 as a gubernatorial candidate, I will not say that I may 
 not be persuaded to render him all fitting attention ; for 
 such a deep and damning disgrace as the election of this 
 grand architect of mischief to the high position referred 
 to would be indeed recognized as an evil by me and by 
 all honest and patriotic men in Tennessee, of a nature pos- 
 itively unendurable. Though, in all gravity, I beg leave 
 to assure my friend, Senator Brownlow, and all others 
 participating in his present expectations as to Mr. Davis 5 
 intention to become a gubernatorial candidate, that I 
 know him far too well to suppose it even possible that he 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 425 
 
 should ever become willing to traverse the hills and val- 
 leys of oar noble old Commonwealth upon an errand so 
 utterly hopeless ; nor do I see how any one can consider 
 such a presumptuous effort for the renovation of his faded 
 o-lories at all possible who bears in recollection the curious 
 and edifying fact that, according to accounts bearing evi- 
 dent tokens of credibility, the late imperial despot of 
 Richmond has, within the last twelve months, or some 
 such space of time, on at least one notable occasion, found 
 it impracticable to travel, even on a well-arranged railroad 
 car, from Memphis to Huntsville, without finding him- 
 self inextricably involved in a predicament exceedingly 
 similar to the one so glowingly described by Homer, who 
 tells us that Mars was found at one time, and exhibited 
 to the view of the Celestials, by Vulcan, in an ingenious 
 wire-constructed cage, which he had managed, amid the 
 sweet hours of nocturnal slumber, to cast about the tierce 
 God of War and Venus, his luckless consociate in bliss : 
 at sight of which sadly ludicrous spectacle all Olympus 
 was stirred to its foundations, 
 
 And unextinguished Laughter shook the skie.s. 
 
 I must say to my excellent friend, Senator BrOwnlow, 
 with unaffected sincerity, that I have lost all that desire 
 of official advancement of any kind which I have once, 
 perhaps, felt too fervently, and that though the good peo- 
 ple of Mississippi, of California, and of Tennessee have 
 severally, in former years, done me far more than justice 
 in their estimate of my limited personal deserts, I have no 
 disposition whatever further to trouble the people or their 
 representatives anywhere with my own claims to official 
 advancement. At present I am enjoying in the most 
 ample manner the luxury of individual independence. I 
 think, speak, and write exactly as I please, either in con- 
 
42H CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 demnation of the wicked or in commendation of the 
 good, whether in places of authority or in private life ; 
 and this to me is as near an approach to heavenly beati- 
 tude as one yet in the vale of mortality should dare to 
 aspire to. In truth, I have of late, more from an observa- 
 tion of the experience of others than on account of any- 
 thing which has ever happened to myself personally, been 
 much inclined to apply the beautiful language of the 
 famed Archbishop of Cambrai descriptive of the arts ne- 
 cessary to be used in order to conciliate the favor of the 
 crowned potentates of earth, to the case of such as seek 
 the affection and support of the sovereign people of our 
 own age and country, and to say with him : 
 
 Oh ! que on est malhereux, quand on est au dessus du reste des 
 lioinmes! souvent on ne pent voir la verite par ses propres yeux ; on 
 est environne de gens qui l'empechent d'arriver jusqu 'a celui qui com- 
 mande; chacun est interesse ale troniper ; eliaeun, sous une apparence 
 de zele cache son ambition. On fait seinblant d'aimer le roi, et on 
 n'aime que les richesses qu'il clonne ; on l'aime sipeu, que pour obtenir 
 ses faveurs on le rtatte et on le trahit. 
 
CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 127 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XNXIX. 
 
 THE DUELLO — LIFE IN THE SOUTH PERSONAL COMBAT — THE 
 
 ROB ROY OF THE MISSISSIPPI A THRILLING NARRATIVE — 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF SARGENT S. PRENTISS, ALEXANDER K. 
 m'clung, AND OTHERS. 
 
 In the winter of 1830-'31 I left Tuscumbia, Alabama, 
 after a residence in that qniet and pleasant village of live 
 years, and migrated to the State of Mississippi. Having 
 very foolishly violated the provisions of the legislative 
 act of the former State prohibitory of dueling, and hav- 
 ing been disqualified thereby for the practice of my pro- 
 fession for more than three years, and the business of the 
 courts in that particular locality having meanwhile 
 greatly diminished, I had some months before prepared 
 myself as well as I could for the exercise of my profession 
 in the city of New Orleans, and was, in point of fact, ac- 
 tually on my way there to join the celebrated Seth Bar- 
 ton as a co-partner in the duties of a calling in which I 
 had always felt the deepest interest, when, stopping for a 
 few days in the town of Natchez, on my way to the re- 
 nowned Crescent City, circumstances" soon arose there 
 which brought me to the conclusion to remain in the 
 young and rising State where I then was, which was, 
 upon the whole, perhaps the very best thing I could possi- 
 bly have done. 
 
 Natchez was *it that time an eminently nourishing 
 commercial city, and was the abode of a refined, intelli- 
 gent, prosperous, and hospitable population. The Su- 
 preme Court of the State was then in session there, and 
 various other courts of subordinate jurisdiction were sit- 
 
428 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 ting from time to time daring my sojourn in that vicin- 
 age. I heard a number if cases argued with great learn- 
 ing and ability, and found the judges of the courts and 
 the members of the bar all exceedingly polite and accom- 
 modating. I formed there many pleasant and valuable 
 acquaintances, every individual of whom I believe has 
 since deceased. It was now that I saw the renowned 
 Sargent 8. Prentiss for the first time. He had just been 
 admitted to the bar, and was awakening great expecta- 
 tions of future distinction and usefulness. About two 
 years before Mr. Prentiss had landed in Natchez, as I re- 
 peatedly heard from his own lips, with a single dime in 
 his pocket. He had no acquaintance there, and had as 
 yet not studied a profession. His college course had just 
 been completed at an excellent institution in New En- 
 gland, and being quite proficient in the branches of learn- 
 ing to which he had been giving his attention, he de- 
 termined to make an effort to obtain a small private 
 school. In this he succeeded, and he followed this re- 
 spectable vocation for a year or two, during which period 
 he was applying himself with extreme diligence to the 
 study of law. The distinguished Robert J. Walker, then 
 a lawyer in full practice, was kind enough to open his 
 library to his eager and inquiring mind, and he was soon 
 able to obtain license to practice in all the courts of the 
 State of Mississippi. Immediately on making his debut at 
 the bar he was invited by General Felix Huston to enter 
 his office as a full partner, and some two or three months 
 after this I had the honor of seing him, as I have men- 
 tioned. 
 
 There w r as much that was remarkable in the appear- 
 ance and bearing of Mr. Prentiss at this time. He was 
 not more, I think, than live feet six-and-a-half inches in 
 height ; was very stoutly built, and well proportioned. 
 His head was somewhat large when compared with hie 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 429 
 
 body ; it was one that a Grecian artist might well desire 
 to copy. His forehead was wide, high, and almost semi- 
 circular in its outline — so admirably were all the more 
 important phrenological organs developed. His eye- 
 brows were full, but not bushy, and were gently arched. 
 His eyes were large, bright, and of an expression in which 
 the absolute fearlessness of his nature was very happily 
 blended with the rarest geniality of spirit and the keenest 
 relish for the ludicrous. He had but a moderate beard, 
 and always kept his face cleanly shaven. His chest was 
 one of greatest expansiveness, and, though perfectly 
 straight between the shoulders, a stranger approaching him 
 from the rear could not avoid being struck with the sin- 
 gular breadth and fullness of the whole tergal superficies. 
 His nose was Grecian, and was both beautiful in its shape 
 and highly expressive. His upper lip was a little shorter 
 than is customary, and of a flexibility*! have never seen 
 equaled. Often was he seen to curl it up, both in mirth 
 and anger, displaying to view a set of strong, well set, 
 and beautifully white teeth. He had all his life suffered 
 from a lameness in one of his feet, and was said to have a 
 o-ood deal of sensitiveness in regard to its malformation, 
 though this I never was able to discover. He hobbled, of 
 course, very perceptibly in his gait, and would, I suppose, 
 have found it difficult to walk at all without the aid of 
 the large stick which was his perpetual attendant. When 
 I was introduced to him forty-two years ago, Natchez 
 was already full of his fame. He had delivered several 
 speeches at the bar, which all admitted had never been 
 equaled there, either in vigor of argument, brilliancy of 
 expression, or rich and flowing facetiousness. Though 
 very modest by nature, yet he had already had such 
 proofs of his own mental superiority to all with whom he 
 was thrown in competition that he had naturally acquired 
 a noble confidence in his own powers, which could not. 
 
430 CASkEf OF kEMlNtSCENCESi 
 
 but be more or less apparent, both in his aspect and de- 
 meanor, and alike in the discussions of the forum and 
 in ordinary converse. I was talking last week with that 
 man of exalted genius and discriminating judgment, the 
 Hon. Joseph Holt, in reference to his former illustrious 
 rival in oratory at the Mississippi bar, and I was glad to 
 find that his opinion of Mr. Prentiss' extraordinary powers 
 was fully in unison with my own. I have been long satis- 
 fied that in reference to all. the faculties and graces which 
 constitute the orator Sargent S. Prentiss was equal to al- 
 most any man of modern times, and such is my estimate 
 of him in this respect that my admiration of any man's 
 mind would very much abate whom I knew to have ex- 
 pressed a different opinion after once listening to him in 
 a case calculated to draw his remarkable powers into full 
 display. At times he was indeed most electrical in his 
 utterances, reminding one forcibly of the soul-thrilling 
 strains of an Isaiah or an Ezekiel, of the majestic thun- 
 derings of a Pericles or a Patrick Henry, or of the tender 
 heart-melting pathos of a Somerfield or a Maffit. I was 
 not at all surprised to see it published in the newspapers of 
 Boston many years ago, on the occasion of Mr. Prentiss' 
 visit to that city for the first time, that even in the midst 
 of the memorable dinner speech which he there delivered, 
 Mr. Webster and Mr. Everett, with eyes overflowing un- 
 der his wondrous enunciations, were heard generously 
 whispering to each other: "We have never heard such 
 eloquence as this before." 
 
 That Mr. Prentiss was a man of fearless temper, almost 
 sometimes bordering upon audacity, nobody could possi- 
 bly know better than this reminiscent ; that he was kind 
 of nature, generous, honorable, truthful, and intensely pa- 
 triotic all the world believes ; that he was a faithful 
 friend, a tender husband, and an obedient and devoted 
 son the fullest evidence has been long since given to the 
 
dASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 431 
 
 public. Were I to say anything which could at all de. 
 tract from the picture already drawn of this estimable 
 person, I could only say that it seemed to me that in his 
 atter years — not having sufficient leisure, perhaps, to de- 
 vote to books of science and the volumes of varied litera- 
 ture — his intellectual culture did not exactly keep pace 
 with his native faculties. 
 
 It is gratifying to me to remember that I once voted 
 for S. S. Prentiss when he was a candidate for Congress, 
 against the regularly nominated ticket of my own party, 
 just as now I should rejoice to recollect that I had co-op- 
 erated in elevating to the Presidency of the Union two 
 such noble-spirited and gifted American statesmen as 
 Henry Clay and Daniel Webster ; whose names, could 
 they be inscribed on the Presidential scroll in lieu of two 
 others that I could specify, would transmit our loved Re- 
 public to the men of other ages invested with a grand and 
 imperishable luster that all the vain and heartless tri- 
 umphs of faction, devoted to the ingathering of the vul- 
 gar and perishable spoils of office, can never compensate. 
 
 I heard nearly all of Mr. Prentiss' most renowned ora- 
 torical efforts at the bar, in legislative assemblies, and in 
 presence of the pe ople. I should say that his speech in 
 prosecution of Alonzo Phelps, " the Rob Roy of the Mis- 
 sissippi, (as he himself felicitously entitled him ;) the one 
 he made in prosecution of Mercer Byrd ; his much-talked- 
 of effort at Nashville in the summer of 1840, during the 
 Presidential campaign of that period, and that oft-com- 
 mended address before the House of Representatives in 
 Congress in vindication of his claim to a seat in that 
 body, were his master-pieces. I chanced to be enlisted in 
 the defense both of Phelps and Byrd, and had therefore 
 a most favorable opportunity of appreciating the power 
 exhibited on the part of the prosecution. Alonzo Phelps 
 was a native of ~New England. According to his own 
 
432 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 autobiographical confession, (drawn up chiefly by himself, 
 but in my own presence, a few days before his death, 
 while detained as a prisoner,) he had, in a fit of jealousy, 
 slain a rival lover in his native vicinage, secreted the 
 body of his victim in a neighboring mill-pond, and fled to 
 the valley of the Mississippi. He had here been a wan- 
 derer for many years, seldom entering a human habitation, 
 and subsisting altogether on the raw meat of squirrels and 
 other wild animals which he had captured in the chase. 
 He had long infested the banks of the Mississippi, had 
 committed eight murders and more than sixty robberies, 
 and had a dozen times broken jail and escaped the pun 
 ishment of the law. Strange to say, he was a ripe and ac- 
 curate scholar, and when taken prisoner, a few weeks 
 subsequent to the perpetration of his last murder, had, as 
 I personally know, a pocket copy of Horace in his posses- 
 sion, which he read with great facility and with far more 
 relish for the rare beauties of the poetic friend and protege 
 of the great Mecamas than Lord Byron reports himself 
 to have at any time done. The trial of Phelps took place 
 about four weeks after my last hostile meeting with Pren- 
 tiss, and when I defended him I was still hobbling on 
 crutches. A vast crowd was in attendance on the day of 
 trial at the court-house in Vicksburg. Judge Montgom- 
 ery, a learned and able functionary, who, I am glad to 
 know, is still living, presided on the occasion. I was aided 
 in the defense by two very accomplished gentlemen, Mr. 
 John Gildart, of Woodville, Miss., and Mr. Pelton, then a 
 resident of Natchez, now a wealthy sugar planter of Louis- 
 iana, and a most worthy and interesting gentleman. General 
 Felix Houston and several other attorneys of rank co-op- 
 erated with Mr. Prentiss in the prosecution. This gen- 
 tleman on that occasion delivered by far the most elo- 
 quent and effective speech I ever heard at the bar. It 
 would have given increased fame to Erskine, to Mcintosh, 
 
CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 433 
 
 or to Curran. His delineation of the character of the ac- 
 cused was most masterly, in the course of which he be- 
 stowed upon him the imperishable cognomen of " The 
 Rob Roy of the Mississippi," in allusion to his habitually 
 levying " black mail " upon the travelers whom he, from 
 time to time, encountered on the highways along the 
 banks of the Mississippi ; hundreds of whom he had rob- 
 bed, and some of them under truly romantic and ludicrous 
 circumstances. Phelps had been, of course, relieved from 
 his irons before being brought into court for trial ; but it 
 had been deemed expedient to surround him with an 
 armed guard. His appearance on the occasion was very 
 striking and impressive. He was a muscular, well-shaped 
 man, about five feet eleven inches in height, and evidently 
 possessed of great physical vigor and activity. He had 
 a particularly fair complexion, a good deal freckled from 
 constant exposure to the air. His hair was blood-red, 
 was much inclined to curl, and his crispy, snake-like locks 
 stood stiffly up over and about his cranium with a singu- 
 larly fierce and menacing aspect. His keen, gray eyes 
 exhibited a curious blending of audacity and furtiveness. 
 Prentiss' speech galled and irritated him greatly. When 
 the inspired orator looked round upon the prisoner with a 
 most withering glance of scorn and indignation, Phelps, in 
 the desperate agony of the moment, stooped and whis- 
 pered in my ear the following terrific words: "Tell me 
 whether I stand any chance of acquittal, and tell me 
 frankly ; if my case is hopeless I will snatch a gun 
 from the guard nearest me and send Mr. Prentiss to hell 
 before I shall myself go there." Never was I so much 
 embarrassed in my life. I saw that my robbing and mur- 
 dering client was in dead earnest. I did not doubt that 
 Mr. Prentiss was at this moment completely in his power. 
 If he should slay him he would deprive of life one whom 
 I could not help loving and admiring much, despite the 
 28 r 
 
484 CASKET OF REMINISCENCED 
 
 unkind relations then existing between ns. Were Pren- 
 tiss slain by the hands of this fiendish ruffian immedi- 
 ately after this whispering intercourse with me, who of 
 all that crowd would hold me guiltless? I may have 
 done wrong, but frankness constrains me to confess that I 
 said to this wretch, " You are not in the least danger ; 
 we will make a motion in arrest of judgment after a 
 while, or for a new trial, which will save you from all 
 further annoyance." Prentiss concluded his speech ; the 
 jury returned a prompt verdict of "guilty," and Phelps 
 was remanded to his cell, there to await the execution of 
 the sentence passed upon him. Meanwhile I was again 
 summoned to the prison to aid this man in the prepara- 
 tion of his confession, a document afterward published as 
 his "Autobiography." Before the writing of it was com- 
 pleted I had to leave Vicksburg for one of the courts in 
 the interior of the State. I left on the table where I had 
 been writing a leaden inkstand for Phelps' use, out of 
 which I had been myself writing. After scribbling some 
 twenty or thirty pages of manuscript in addition, he 
 closed by the declaration that he did not intend to be 
 hung; that he had once been .a soldier, and he intended 
 to die the death of a soldier. After this he asked that a 
 preacher of the Gospel should be sent for to minister to 
 
 him the last spiritual consolation. Rev. Mi\^M!!r?hall, 
 then, as now, a resident of Vicksburg, was sent for and 
 came. In the meantime Phelps had prepared himself for 
 the performance of an extraordinary feat. He had con- 
 trived in some way to saw the manacles which bound his 
 hands almost in two, so that with a strong effort heeould 
 burst them asunder. He had enveloped the leaden ink- 
 stand in a stocking, and stood with it grasped in both 
 hands behind the door when Mr. Anding, the jailor, 
 opened it and conducted in Mr. Marshall. With a single 
 blow lie knocked down the jailor. Mr. Marshall had time 
 
CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 
 
 435 
 
 to fly into another room, which he saw open, and had suf- 
 ficient presence of mind to lock himself therein securely. 
 By this time Phelps, having made an unsuccessful effort 
 to disencumber his hands, snatched a large knife from 
 the belt of Mr. Anding, walked out of the door of 
 his own cell, closing the door behind him, and ad- 
 vanced to the outer door of the jail. By this time the 
 alarm had been given, and Mr. Howard, the sheriff, came 
 to the jail yard with a number of attendants, many of 
 whom were armed. The outer door was forced open, by 
 order of the sheriff", by the use of axes. The first man 
 that entered saw blazing before his face the uplifted knife 
 of Mr. Anding, which Phelps held firmly in both of his 
 fettered hands. The door-opener recoiled, and Phelps 
 marched forth. The crowd incontinently gave way be- 
 fore him. He strode a few steps toward the gate of the 
 prison yard. The sheriff struck him a severe blow over 
 the head with a heavy gun which he held in his hands, 
 which slightly stunned him. He still strode forward, got 
 without the gate, and was rapidly descending the hill to- 
 ward the river, when brickbats, sticks, and other mis- 
 siles were hurled at him in great number. One of the 
 brickbats struck him in the small of the back and seri- 
 ously disabled him. Upon this, he turned suddenly round 
 to the sheriff, who was pursuing him with a loaded gun, 
 and demanded death at his hands. He fired, and there 
 was an end to the earthly career of " The Rob Roy of the 
 Mississippi." 
 
 In the case of Mercer Byrd, already mentioned, Mr. 
 Prentiss was employed to prosecute by Alexander Gr. 
 McNutt, afterward G-overnor of the State. His fee for 
 prosecution was $4,000. The prisoner was charged with 
 being accessory after the fact to the murder of a Mr. 
 Cameron, McNutt's copartner in a cotton plantation. 
 Four other negroes had been previously charged with the 
 
436 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 commission of this murder, whom I had myself prosecuted 
 to conviction, at the instance of the County Court of 
 Warren county. Judge Sharkey, Judge Coulter, and 
 myself were employed to defend Byrd. Twice was he 
 convicted, and twice did he get his sentence reversed b} T 
 the decision of the Supreme Court of the State. A third 
 trial now occurred. Byrd had now to meet dangers far 
 greater than those he had been previously compelled to 
 encounter. Stewart's famous book prognosticating the 
 general insurrection of the slaves of the South against 
 their owners had just gained circulation, and the popular 
 mind in Mississippi was in a state of excitement difficult 
 to be conceived by those who were not witnesses thereof. 
 It may be well conjectured that Mr. Prentiss made the 
 most of this state of things. Never shall I forget his ter- 
 rible delineation, in his concluding speech, of Mercer 
 Byrd on horseback, at the head of an army of infuriated 
 blacks, burning, slaying, and destroying all that, they 
 encountered in their "fiery and desolating career. Mercer 
 Byrd, being a .freeman of color, of uncommon intelligence 
 and of most commanding aspect, was a fine subject for 
 the display of Mr. Prentiss' rare powers of delineation. 
 The jury almost convicted him in the box, but several of 
 them often told me afterward that they deeply regretted 
 the verdict, for they then thought Byrd innocent, though 
 Mr. Prentiss' irresistible eloquence had driven them to 
 the verdict which had taken away his life. 
 
 There are tacts connected with Mercer Byrd's subse- 
 quent confession of a singularly startling and distressful 
 character, which I may notice hereafter, but which, for 
 particular reasons, I shall not mention here. 
 
 Of Alexander K. McCluiig I have promised to give 
 some account. He was born in my own native county of 
 Fauquier, in Virginia, but was reared in Kentucky. He 
 was nephew to Chief Justice Marshall, his mother being 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 437 
 
 sister to that eminent personage. I never met with Colo- 
 nel McClung until some time in the autumn of 1832. He 
 was then only about twenty-three years of age, was ex- 
 ceedingly good-looking, and of most modest and gentle- 
 manly manners. He was said to have inherited a hand- 
 some patrimony, but to have pretty well gotten through 
 with it before his arrival in Mississippi. He had been 
 educated for the navy, and had been on several interesting 
 expeditions as a midshipman before I met him first. He 
 had already fought several duels, information of which 
 preceded his advent to the State of Mississippi. His first 
 affair of honor was with a brother midshipman, whom I 
 afterward knew well as Commodore Hinton, of the Texan 
 navy. This duel had been fought on the coast of South 
 America, and in it McClung had been wounded in one 
 of his arms. His second affair of honor was with a first 
 cousin of his, a young Mr. Marshall. McClung was the 
 challenged party, had quietly received the fire of his ad- 
 versary, and had then fired in the air, after which the 
 parties had been reconciled. He reached Mississippi just 
 before my second fight with Mr. Prentiss occurred, and 
 he acted as my second. This affair accidentally brought 
 him into collision with a young gentleman of about the 
 same age, known as General Allen. The precise particu- 
 lars of their misunderstanding I never knew distinctly, 
 and if I did I should not here detail them, These young 
 gentlemen soon after became bitter foes. Allen passed 
 one morning through the town of Clinton, where I was 
 then residing, declaring that he was on his way to Jack- 
 son, where McClung was located, in order to bring this 
 gentleman to a full responsibility for all the grievances 
 which he considered himself to have received at his hands. 
 Not being willing to have one to whom I was so much 
 indebted taken by surprise, I mounted on horseback and 
 pushed across the country by a road much shorter than 
 
438 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 the one commonly traveled, and notified McClung of the 
 impending danger. The parties in an hour or two met on 
 the street-side, both thoroughly armed, and after discuss- 
 ing the matters in dispute between them for some time in 
 a very tempestuous manner withdrew to their respective 
 boarding-houses. I had hoped that this painful affair 
 was over, and became engaged in some urgent professional 
 ' business, when I heard that a duel was about to occur 
 between them on the verge of the town of a very despe- 
 rate character. The parties did, in point of fact, meet 
 about sunset that evening on the bank of Pearl river, in 
 presence of a numerous concourse of citizens, each armed 
 with six pistols. They were stationed by the seconds at 
 the distance of sixty yards from each other ; the word of 
 command was given, and both the antagonists advanced. 
 Allen moved forward rapidly, exclaiming: " Now we will 
 see who of us is a d — d coward I" McClung, after having 
 taken a single step, stopped, saying in response, with great 
 coolness: "Yes, we shall see." At the same time he 
 raised his pistol and fired. At the distance of thirty 
 paces Allen was shot through the mouth ; several of the 
 poor fellow's teeth were torn away, and part of his tongue 
 amputated. He died in great torture a few hours there- 
 after. This duel should never have been allowed to occur. 
 I have never doubted that the difficulty between these 
 two very promising and brilliant young men would have 
 proved easy of adjustment had proper and seasonable in- 
 terposition occurred. My own relations with the parties 
 were unfortunately such as to disqualify me altogether 
 for the part of a peacemaker, else I certainly should not 
 have been slow to perform this duty. I had, a year or 
 two before, by interfering between General Allen and a 
 particular friend of mine, Mr. Philips, been able to suc- 
 ceed in preventing a fatal meeting, after the parties had 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 439 
 
 traveled sixty miles for the purpose of shedding each 
 other's blood upon a mere punctilio. 
 
 Colonel McClung was afterward engaged in a duel with 
 Mr. Menifee, which terminated fatally to the latter. Of 
 this affair I have only to say that I never met with any 
 one who supposed that Colonel McClung had been seri- 
 ously to blame. 
 
 He was a lawyer by profession, and had doubtless mas- 
 tered the legal science very thoroughly, but he had never 
 been much concerned in practice. He was a man of high 
 literary culture, and was, perhaps, the ablest and most 
 polished writer that Mississippi ever contained. About 
 the year 1844 he established a newspaper in the city 
 of Jackson, called The True Issue, the numbers of 
 which attracted great notice at the time, and impressed 
 all who read them with the fullest conviction as to the 
 powers and attainments of the author. He explored the 
 questions of a national bank and a protective tariff with 
 a display of originality and logical power which greatly 
 extended his fame. In illustration of the merits of these 
 productions of his gifted pen I may be permitted to relate 
 a rather curious anecdote. Mr. Prentiss was invited to 
 visit the Northern States in the summer of that year for 
 the purpose of discussing the questions involved in the 
 Presidential canvass. He accepted the invitation thus 
 extended, and in the course of a few weeks delivered a 
 series of harangues which brought upon him much and 
 deserved commendation. Some of the readers of the 
 newspapers about Jackson called Colonel McClung's at- 
 tention to the fact that Mr. Prentiss had incorporated into 
 his addresses considerable portions of the editorial arti- 
 cles which had previously appeared in The True Issue, 
 without giving to that paper the proper credit therefor. 
 Colonel McClung felt somewhat aggrieved by this conduct 
 of Mr. Prentiss (though for this gentleman he certainly 
 
440 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 had much esteem and friendship) and he determined to 
 hold a special interview with him on the subject. This 
 interview afterward took place at the celebrated restaura- 
 teur in Jackson known as " Spangler's," where the follow- 
 ing dialogue substantially occurred : 
 
 Mr, McClung. Mr. Prentiss, I have seen that you had 
 repeated verbatim in the speeches recently delivered by 
 you in the North copious extracts from articles previously 
 emanating from my pen, and without giving me any credit 
 therefor. Pray, how did this occur ? 
 
 Prentiss. I will explain with the greatest pleasure. I 
 was called so very suddenly to the North that I had no 
 time to make adequate preparation for the delivery of 
 the speeches claimed from me by our party. I was some- 
 what embarrassed about the matter ; but I fortunately 
 recollected that you, my excellent and accomplished friend, 
 had written upon the questions upon which I was ex- 
 pected to descant with singular power and eloquence ; 
 and knowing your devotion to the Whig cause, and your 
 friendship for me personally, as well as the peculiar gen- 
 erosity of your nature, I had no hesitancy about appro- 
 priating what you had thus so ably written in the man- 
 ner reported to you. Had I known where to find matter 
 better than that which you had thus supplied perhaps I 
 might have been a borrower elsewhere. Had I formally 
 given you credit at the time for what I was so effectively 
 using, I should have incurred the risk of greatly impair- 
 ing the influence of your noble utterances and of dimin- 
 ishing the eclat which I was myself acquiring by your 
 help. I borrowed ideas from you freely and unceremoni- 
 ously, just as I should expect you to use my purse at any 
 time should your own become temporarily exhausted. 
 
 It is almost unnecessary to state that this explanation 
 was most satisfactory, and that the two friends were only 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 441 
 
 additionally endeared to each other by this felicitous 
 eclaircissement 
 
 When the death of Mr. Clay occurred, the Legislature 
 of Mississippi invited Colonel McClung to deliver an ora- 
 tion at the State Capitol in honor of the illustrious de- 
 parted. This oration I had the satisfaction of hearing, 
 and I afterward read it with attention, and more than 
 once. It is perhaps the very best of all the eulogies de- 
 livered about this time upon the august statesman and or- 
 ator of Kentucky, and our Legislature ordered live thou- 
 sand copies of it to be printed for distribution. 
 
 Colonel McClung greatly distinguished himself in the 
 Mexican War, and in the celebrated charge upon the fort 
 at Monterey had been the foremost man, thus covering 
 himself with immortal honor. He was lieutenant colo- 
 to the 1st Mississippi regiment, of which. Jefferson Davis 
 was full col onel. 
 
 W^heu certain new regiments were raised during the 
 Administration of Mr. Pierce for frontier service this war. 
 worn veteran had hoped, as his numerous friends had also 
 done, that he would receive some respectable commission 
 from President Pierce, or rather from the Department of 
 War, which had full control of this matter. This noble 
 scion of a noble stock was very much reduced in his pecu- 
 niary circumstances at the time, and had been repeatedly 
 compelled to tax the generosity of his friends in a manner 
 painfully humiliating to his own proud and sensitive feel- 
 ings. For some weeks he had reason to believe that his 
 merits and sufferings would not be wholly overlooked by 
 the Administration. But he had taken a veiy active and 
 zealous part against secessionism in the memorable Missis- 
 sippi campaign of 1851, and it appeared in the sequel 
 that there was no official favor in store for him in Wash- 
 ington city. On the morning that his last spark of hope 
 became extinct, this noble-spirited and gifted man sought 
 
442 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 relief from all the cares and disappointments of life in sui- 
 cide ! 
 
 Early in the year 1836 the Hon. Charles Lynch was in- 
 augurated Governor of Mississippi. lie gave a levee at 
 his office to his fellow-citizens generally. Among other 
 guests, the celebrated George Poindexter was present. He 
 was then a candidate for re-election to the United States 
 Senate, and the Democrats of the Legislature had nomi- 
 nated Robert J. Walker as a candidate in opposition to 
 him. There was pretty free circulation of stimulating 
 liquids of one kind or another at Governor Lynch's party, 
 and Mr. Poindexter (a thing not very unusual with him 
 in those days) had imbibed very freely. At the instance 
 of some of his admiring friends lie mounted a table and 
 delivered a furious political address, in which General 
 Jackson, whom he mortally hated, was most unmercifully 
 abused and ridiculed in connection with certain official 
 appointments which he had then recently made in the 
 State of Mississippi, including that of Colonel Samuel 
 Guinn to the position of register of public hinds, at the 
 town of Clinton. Guinn chanced to be present, and, upon 
 the impulse of the moniont, hissed the distinguished ora- 
 tor. This greatly excited several of Mr. Poindexter's 
 friends, and, among others, Judge Isaac Caldwell, a 
 former partner of E'oindexter "in the practice of the law. 
 Much unkind language was interchanged between gentle- 
 men on either side. Guinn, who was a particular friend of 
 mine, and one whom I greatly admired and loved, sent to 
 Clinton for me in order to take my advice as to what was 
 to be done in the case. I advised him not to challenge 
 Caldwell, but to leave matters as they were for the pre- 
 sent. The election for United States Senator came off the 
 very day that I reached Jackson, and Mr. Walker was 
 elected. This result embittered Mr. Poindexter and his 
 friends very much. The clay after this defeat a challenge, 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 443 
 
 drawn up in the handwriting of Poindexter, was dis- 
 patched by Caldwell to Guinn. He accepted, to light next 
 morning at daylight, just outside the limits of the village. 
 Guinn selected me as his second. We proceeded to the 
 ground at the time agreed on, and found the adverse 
 party already there and a vast concourse of citizens in at- 
 tendance. All the neighboring villages had [toured out 
 the tide of population to take a view of the expected 
 combat. The parties were each of them armed with six 
 pistols. They were, upon receiving the word, to move 
 upon each other and fire at pleasure. I won the word, 
 and gave it in the usual manner. Never did I see more 
 valor displayed than by these combatants. They mutu 
 ally advanced, tiring, exchanging the first shot without 
 effect. Caldwell's second shot took effect upon Guin's left 
 breast. He braced himself immediately in the most com- 
 posed and majestic maimer and fired a third time. His 
 third ball struck Caldwell in the very center of the abdo- 
 men. Both of these heroic men fell to the ground ; their 
 friends gathered around them; they were quickly stripped 
 of their upper vestments, and each of them seemed to be 
 mortally wounded. Poor Caldwell died that very da}^ ; 
 Guinn survived for a twelvemonth, but was never after- 
 ward a sound and healthy man. 
 
 In two or three years the beautiful, accomplished, and 
 opulent widow of Caldwell was persuaded to marry a sec- 
 ond time. Her second husband was a young man from 
 _"N"ew York, but little known in Mississippi. In about 
 two years the village of Clinton w T as violently agitated by 
 reports of the sudden and bloody death of Mrs. Caldwell, 
 from violence in her own house, by some unknown hand. 
 Circumstances existed which begot painful suspicions 
 that her death had been the result of a painful and sud- 
 den dispute between herself and the man with whom she 
 had so surprisingly intermarried, and in a manner most 
 
444 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 disgraceful to the latter. Colonel Robertson, her ex- 
 cellent brother-in-law, a man of the most elevated 
 standing, visited me one morning for personal con- 
 sultation in reference to these melancholly facts, 
 and wished to have a criminal prosecution instituted 
 Before this was positively determined on, the individual 
 suspected had departed the vicinage, no longer perhaps to 
 be heard of on this side of the grave. Such details as 
 these might well nauseate any one with the whole busi- 
 ness of dueling. 
 
 I could relate several more such scenes almost equally 
 agonizing- ; but I forbear. 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 445 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XL. 
 
 ELOQUENCE — A REMARKABLE MAN — SKETCH OF JOHN NEWLAND 
 MAFFIT — AN ELECTRIFYING SPEAKER. 
 
 One of the most remarkable men in several respects 
 that I have ever seen was the Rev. John Newland Maffit. 
 I met him first in the year 1835. Several times did I 
 hear him preach, and I had the happiness of entertaining 
 him for a few days at my own residence in the town of 
 Clinton, Mississippi. He has been at different times the 
 subject of much praise, and it was not his fortune alto- 
 gether to escape decrial. As I had a pretty good oppor- 
 tunity of learning his true character, and of estimating 
 his abilities, I propose to state my own present recollec- 
 tions of this famous individual. 
 
 Mr. Maffit was an Irishman by birth, and, as I suppose, 
 could by no means boast an aristocratic descent. His 
 early education had been very limited, and nearly all that 
 he ever knew of books had been obtained in a very 
 irregular manner. I do not suppose that he had ever fully 
 mastered any important department of science. He was 
 but slightly acquainted with any language but that which 
 he spoke ; but I have met very few men indeed of any 
 profession who seemed to have at their command a larger 
 stock of pure and well-chosen English words in which to 
 express their thoughts and sentiments in an impressive 
 and captivating manner. He had evidently seen much 
 of the world, and was very familiar with the usages pre- 
 vailing in the various classes of our population. He was 
 of rather low stature — not being, as I should conjecture, 
 
446 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 more than live feet five inches in height. He was of ad- 
 mirable proportions ; his movements were easy and grace- 
 ful, and he might justly have been called a handsome man. 
 He had a well-shaped head ; a smooth and commanding 
 forehead ; a profuse suit of coal-black, glossy hair ; large 
 and lustrous eyes; a handsome nose, mouth, and chin; 
 and his countenance was one of the most bright and 
 attractive I ever gazed upon. His voice was naturally 
 strong and full, and he had evidently added much to 
 its power by the most diligent and persevering culture. 
 Some of its tones seemed to me to be the sweetest and 
 most persuasive I had ever heard. His whole manner 
 was in fact such that no one who listened to him for a 
 single half hour could be at all inclined afterward to crit- 
 icize any part of his most magical and soul-moving de- 
 livery. I do not remember to have listened at any time 
 to a public speaker who, in regard to everything under- 
 stood to be embraced in the word action, at all equaled 
 this warm-hearted and impassioned son of the Emerald 
 Isle. I have known him to produce such effects upon 
 large and intelligent audiences as I have never seen 
 awakened by any other public speaker. There was a 
 mystery about his rhetorical utterances that I was never 
 able fully to comprehend, though so often exposed to 
 their influence. Whilst speaking he really seemed to 
 exert a sort of electrical power which it was almost im- 
 possible to resist, and yet must it be confessed that I 
 never heard from him a single discourse which was either 
 very instructive or which left behind it useful and per- 
 manent impressions of any kind whatever. His printed 
 sermons were singularly cold and unimpressive, and it 
 would have been difficult to find a single sentence in any 
 of them upon which a person of refined aud discrimin- 
 ating taste would have been disposed to lavish commend- 
 ation on account either of the weight and value of the 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 447 
 
 thoughts embodied therein, or the unusual beauty and 
 polish of the diction employed. I have been long satisfied 
 that Mr. Mam't possessed histrionic talents which would 
 have won for him the most imperishable renown upon the 
 stage, and I could not be easily persuaded that I have 
 ever met a public speaker on either side of the Atlantic 
 who was so thoroughly versed in all that appertains to the 
 human voice as the grand instrument of persuasion. I 
 have frequently said, in former years, what I now repeat, 
 that, in my opinion, could he have been induced to deliver 
 a course of lectures on elocution, accompanied with such 
 practical illustrations as he would have found it easy to 
 supply, the younger speakers of the country might have 
 greatly profited by listening to them. 
 
 Mr. Maffit was a man of very brilliant colloquial pow- 
 ers. He was exceedingly kind and affable in social life, 
 and, so far as I was able to judge, he was altogether free 
 from envy and .personal malevolence. Many spoke of him 
 in terms of decrial and ridicule who really knew but little 
 either of his real character or history; and there were 
 some circumstances with which he was fated to come into 
 contact which should claim for him a most liberal allow- 
 ance in regard to certain weaknesses and indiscretions which 
 have been so freely imputed to him. His heart was warm 
 and generous, his personal attachments were strong and 
 lasting, and he ever cherished an ardent admiration for 
 all that was lofty and heroic either in sentiment or in 
 action. He was intensely devoted to his calling, and was 
 doubtless as accessible as even Cicero himself to the voice 
 of adulation. While he was electrifying multitudes by 
 his inspiring eloquence, it is certain that he sometimes 
 forgot the rules of moderation and forbearance, and grew 
 impatient when artificial impediments of any kind were 
 thrown in the waj T of his all-conquering powers of persua- 
 sion, and that he was sometimes provoked both to com- 
 
448 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 plain and denounce aggressors upon his domain in lan- 
 guage neither politic nor becoming. In illustration of 
 the correctness of what has just been said I will here men- 
 tion an occurrence to which general publicity has not, I 
 think, heretofore been given. 
 
 Iu the summer of 1836 I chanced to visit the town of 
 Tuscambia, in the Tennessee valley, where I had at one 
 time resided, and where I was still very well known. I 
 found that Mr. Maffit had been there for several weeks, 
 and that his extraordinary potentiality as a religious re- 
 vivalist had been put in exercise in a truly wonderful 
 manner. Day after day and night after night he had been 
 preaching to large and enraptured audiences of ladies and 
 gentlemen, and the interesting work in which he was so 
 earnestly engaged was every moment deepening. Just at 
 this time the young gentlemen of the vicinage made ar- 
 rangements for a large and fashionable ball at one of the 
 hotels of the town, of which due notice was given through 
 all customary channels of communication. As the night 
 for the coming off of this festive scene approached it was 
 observed that Mr. Maffit began to exhibit striking signs 
 of discontent. He went so far at length as openly to com- 
 plain that this ball was intended to interfere with his 
 protracted meeting, and he used on one occasion language 
 of a most cutting and disparaging character in reference 
 to those with whom a scheme of sinful enjoyment, so well 
 calculated to operate as an impediment to his labors, had 
 originated. The insulting terms employed by him in 
 reprehension of the persons referred to were doubtless 
 armed with special force and severity by his peculiar 
 manner of enunciating them. It was hardly to have been 
 expected that the worldlings of the vicinage would be 
 altogether patient under this sort of assailment. In point 
 of fact Mr. Maffit soon found that he had awakened a 
 social combustion in Tuscumbia not at all likely to end 
 
CASKET OF REMIKISCMCFA 449 
 
 in mere retaliatory invective. Very insulting and crimi- 
 nating handbills were posted up in every part of the town, 
 in which Mr. MaHit's character and alleged previous his- 
 tory were most mercilessly dealt with. Caricatures of an 
 exceedingly ingenious and suggestive nature were like- 
 wise sent forth, such, in truth, as I dare not describe here. 
 Formal notice, too, was given to Mr. Maffit that if he 
 presumed again to preach in that settlement, certain spe- 
 cified personal indignities of an unnamable kind would 
 be inflicted upon his person. He still continued to hold 
 forth to large audiences. At length warning was given 
 him that if he spoke again in the church where he had 
 previously ministered even his life would be taken. That 
 this was a serious menace, and one likely to be executed, 
 is sufficiently attested by the fact that a carriage which 
 was proceeding from Tuscumbia one evening to the house 
 of some hospitable gentleman in the country, and in which 
 it was supposed Mr. Maffit was riding, was forcibly broken 
 open by a masked and armed crowed, this gentleman hav- 
 ing evidently escaped the fate intended for him by de- 
 clining to ride in the carriage in question, which he did 
 alone in consequence of his having been fortunately ap- 
 prized of the scheme of violence which had been projected 
 in time to save his life, or at least to avoid insulting treat- 
 ment of the most extreme character. So intense and gen- 
 eral was the excitement then raging that pious members 
 of the Church, of both sexes, went often to the place of 
 worship armed with pistols and daggers for the protection 
 alike of their loved minister and for the vindication of 
 their own religious rights. It was precisely at this criti- 
 cal period of the affair that a committee of Methodist 
 gentlemen very unexpectedly visited me for the purpose 
 of asking my advice in regard to the course proper to be 
 pursued in order to avoid the collision then apprehended. 
 These gentlemen placed before me all the facts just related, 
 29 r 
 
450 CASfeET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 and requested me to accompany them to the Female Acad- 
 emy, where Mr. Maffit was then being hospitably enter- 
 tained, for the purpose of conferring with this gentleman 
 in person as to the steps proper to be taken in his behalf. 
 I at once complied with their desire; and I did so the 
 more readily by reason of the fact that I knew Mr. Maffit 
 to be at the. time a valued citizen of the State of Missis- 
 sippi, and also the editor of a most interesting and useful 
 newspaper then published in the city of Natchez. When 
 we reached the academy a full and frank consultation was 
 immediately had, the result of which was an arrangement 
 that I should proceed to the Methodist church that very 
 evening, and that, on being formally invited to address 
 the assembled multitude in vindication of my Mississippi 
 friend, I should ascend the pulpit for that purpose, and 
 do what I could to assuage the fearful commotion then in 
 progress. Perhaps I should here state that I could not 
 but know that my interposition had not been sought be- 
 cause of any opinion formed that I would be able to bring 
 on this occasion any powers of persuasion of an extraor- 
 dinary character, but simply because of the fact that 1 
 had been, as heretofore mentioned, the editor of a some- 
 what popular newspaper in Tuscumbia several years ante- 
 cedent, and was therefore given credit for more influence 
 over the younger members of society in the vicinage than 
 I should ever have thought of claiming to possess. 
 
 At the time specified I made my appearance at the 
 church, according to arrangement, where I found Mr. 
 Maffitt had already arrived. He had come to the place 
 of trial in company with Mr. Robinson, the minister who 
 ordinarily officiated there, with whom he was then seated 
 in the pulpit. A profound stillness prevailed. Presently 
 Mr. Robinson rose and announced to the audience that an 
 old acquaintance and friend of theirs from the State of 
 Mississippi was then present, (mentioning my name,) who, 
 
OA^KET OF REMINISCENCES. 451 
 
 with their consent, would address them very briefly. 
 After waiting a little while, in order to find out how this 
 proposition was received by the crowd in attendance — 
 having been invited a second time to come into the pul- 
 pit — I did so, and proceeded at once in the kindest and 
 most conciliatory manner at my command to perform the 
 task allotted to me. I am certain that what I said would 
 have failed to effect the pacification desired had I not, in 
 the outset, declared that Mr. Maffit had expressly commis- 
 sioned me to declare the deep regret which he felt at what 
 had heretofore occurred ; and, also, in his name, formally to 
 withdraw all the offensive language theretofore uttered 
 by him. I need hardly say that, in my short address, I 
 explained as well as I could Mr. Maffit's merits as a citi- 
 zen, and extolled, according to my opinion of his deserts, 
 both his extraordinary powers as a public speaker and his 
 great usefulness as a minister of the church with which 
 he was associated, as well as to the community in general, 
 as an efficient and indefatigable champion and advocate 
 of the great and sacred cause of Christian reform. Never 
 in my life was I treated more kindly and respectfully 
 than by that very numerous concourse of gentlemen and 
 ladies. When my frank and unpretending remarks had 
 been drawn to a close, Mr. Maffit rose up with a most 
 modest and subdued aspect, and, after having uttered 
 several sentences of a singularly kind and propitiatory 
 character, delivered a discourse of about an hour's length, 
 which in point of graceful and soul-stirring eloquence was 
 equal to any oratorical effort I have at any time wit- 
 nessed. The conflict which had been so tempestuously 
 raging for more than a week was now at an end. So 
 soon as the audience was dismissed a new scene had to 
 be encountered : a committee came to invite me to accom- 
 pany Mr. Maffit to the Female Academy, where, as was 
 made known to us, a large concourse of the gentler sex 
 
452 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 would be found assembled, who desired to express their 
 gratitude to me for the manner in which I had aided in 
 the prevention of social violence, and in the restoration 
 of general amicable feeling. On reaching the Academy 
 I beheld a spectacle which I shall ever bear in pleasant 
 recollection. A very large number of beautiful and well- 
 dressed ladies, all dressed in white vestments, presented 
 themselves by the clear light of the unclouded moon, 
 bearing flowers in their hands, which might well have 
 been mistaken for branches of palm. One of their number 
 accosted me and poured forth one of the most glowing 
 and beautiful addresses possible to be conceived of, in 
 which I was more than once referred to in language of 
 kind commendation which I was far from 'feeling that I 
 deserved, but which was perhaps none the less welcome 
 to me on that account. After this Mr. Mafnt and myself 
 were conducted into the house, where Ave found a rich 
 banquet spread, such as even the lords and princes of the 
 earth might have been glad to partake of. On the next 
 day I took leave of Mr. Maffit, and returned to my own 
 home in Mississippi, after which I never had the pleasure 
 of meeting him ; for in a few years from this remarkable 
 occurrence the brilliant and gifted rhetorician, the genial 
 and kind-hearted gentleman, the far famed religious revi- 
 valist, ceased to tread that "green earth" to which I 
 have often heard him allude in words of ecstatic affection, 
 but upon Avhose surface there is much reason to fear he 
 spent but few days of unalloyed and serene happiness. 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 453 
 
 REMINISCENCE No. XLI. 
 
 C^ESARISM — GENERAL GRANT — SENSATIONAL NEWSPAPER AR- 
 TICLES. 
 
 This Reminiscent will close the series of numbers writ- 
 ten for the Chronicle — for the purpose alone of contribut- 
 ing so far as it may lay in his power to do so, to the pres- 
 ent pacification of our country, and to a revival of for- 
 mer fraternal sentiments among our people of all classes 
 and sections— by submitting his own deliberate views up- 
 on the subject of "Cresarism," now so vehemently agitated 
 in certain sensational journals of a very extended circula- 
 tion. Though I find it a little difficult to be serious in 
 regard to a matter so egregiously fantastical in all its 
 bearings, yet as I have been requested in several highly 
 respectable quarters to present such views as I chance to 
 entertain touching the dangers that some are now affect- 
 ing to descry in the political firmament I do not feel at 
 liberty to be silent. What I have to say at this time upon 
 the topic alluded to will be found, I Hatter myself, in 
 complete harmony with all that has heretofore emanated 
 from me since the Reminiscences, now to be suspended for 
 a time, were commenced, several weeks ago. 
 
 Did I entertain the dismal apprehensions to which a 
 certain class of political writers have of late given such 
 free expression, I should be indeed one of the most un- 
 happy of men. I have ever loved liberty with an earnest- 
 ness of affection which no man can adequately set forth 
 in words ; and I have always admired our peculiar form 
 of government, almost' to the point of idolatry. I am not 
 ashamed to avow the opinion, which I do most de- 
 
454 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 voutly entertain, that the political experiment which we 
 are making in this country originated under the direct 
 inspiration of that Divine Being from whom all good 
 things emanate, and that its solution has heen thus far 
 conducted under His all-wise and all-benevolent guidance. 
 I have ever thought, and think at this moment, if possi- 
 ble, more strongly than I ever heretofore have done, 
 that the hopes of liberty throughout the world depend, 
 in a great degree, upon our example and the degree of 
 success which may seem to accompany it, as well as upon 
 the sage and active fidelity of our counsels to others, not 
 so happily situated as ourselves, touching the means proper 
 to be used for the attainment of a true and orderly liberty, 
 and for its steady and durable maintenance after it shall 
 have been once acquired. 'Not the smallest doubt does 
 my mind feel that the Constitution of the United States 
 is by far the wisest and most securely guarded compact 
 of government that the human intellect has ever been 
 able to frame ; and I do devoutly believe that the recent 
 amendments of that instrument have greatly added to its 
 value and strengthened its claims to our affectionate re- 
 gard. The more often I compare our civil institutions 
 with those existing elsewhere the more fully am I con- 
 firmed in the favorable opinion I have always cherished 
 of that government under which we live. Everv time I 
 have read over anew the debates which occurred in the 
 Federal Convention while the Constitution was gradually 
 assuming that beautiful organic form which it still so 
 happily preserves, my gratitude to the wise and patriotic 
 statesmen who nourished in that golden period of our 
 history has been freshly warmed up and solidified. When 
 I reperuse the immortal numbers of the Federalist, which 
 I never fail to do at least once while our planet is moving 
 through its orbit around the great source and center of 
 heat and light, my swelling bosom never fails to confess, 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 455 
 
 with a deep-drawn, but self-gratulating sigh, its intense, 
 but speechless thankfulness to Him who sent oh earth 
 three such men as Hamilton, Madison, and Jay to ex- 
 pound its provisions and fix the interpretation of its vague 
 or doubtful clauses. 
 
 The well-known articles of confederation proposed to 
 establish a "perpetual union" between these States; the 
 Constitution, afterward accepted in lieu of these articles, 
 asserts for itself that it has made this Union a " more; per- 
 fect" one. Now, if, after all, the frame-work of our 
 boasted Government shall turn out not to have been so 
 providently constructed as to secure the continuance of its 
 own vitality for even a single century, then, indeed, will 
 it appear that our venerated forefathers have failed to at- 
 tain one of the prime objects of their exertions, and the 
 glories which have seemed heretofore to emblazon their 
 temples must fade away into the dimness of nothingness. 
 
 In regard to the amendments recently engrafted upon 
 the Constitution I will here say, in addition to what I 
 have heretofore said on this subject, that the effect of 
 adopting them (which has been, in the estimation of some, 
 to weaken the bond of our political alliance) has been ex- 
 actly the opposite. I have been long of opinion that all 
 three of these same amendments were wisely and season- 
 ably superadded, and that they are all of them just such 
 emendations, both in form and in substance, as the origi- 
 nal draftsmen of the instrument would themselves have 
 incorporated therein had they foreseen eighty -four years 
 ago the grave and perilous conjunctures through which 
 their descendants of the generation now passing away have 
 been compelled to pass. My own warm approval of all 
 these amendments was publicly avowed in writing in the 
 city of Nashville, full two years before the celebrated 
 "New .Departure " of Mr. Vallandigham beamed upon 
 the country ; and since that period I have never had trie 
 
456 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 least reason to regret the assumption thus early of the 
 only position which, in my opinion, can be held in har- 
 mony with the general peace and tranquillity of the Re- 
 public. So far am I from supposing that the late amend- 
 ments have enfeebled the vinculum of the Constitution, or 
 diminished the chances of its extended duration, that if 
 really seems to my mind to be quite manifest that they 
 were absolutely needed at the moment of their adoption 
 as buttresses to the governmental fabric to which they 
 were then annexed. We are all much in the habit of 
 prayerfully uttering in regard to our unequaled institu- 
 tions an exclamation which has now become a little trite: 
 JEsto perpetua I Yet I suppose no one has supposed that 
 even the Constitution of the United States was destined 
 to last as long as the planet itself which we inhabit ; but 
 it w T ould be indeed a most cruel disappointment of appa- 
 rently well-founded hopes to see Gesarism, as it has been 
 called, triumphing over it almost before all the sages who 
 united in giving it form and consistence had passed from 
 the stage of earthly existence ; yea, even at the very mo- 
 ment when all the stragglers for freedom throughout the 
 world are recognizing its wisdom and priceless value. 
 
 So much for the Constitution itself and the chances of 
 its permanent endurance. There are one or two circum- 
 stances which have of late much increased my confidence 
 in the long continuance of our present form of government 
 and that union of States upon which it was primarily 
 based. I will briefly state a few of these. The long- 
 menaced experiment of secession has been at last formally 
 tested in practice. This experiment has undeniably 
 proved a signal and even a ridiculous failure, despite all 
 the heroic blood poured forth so generously in homage of 
 what was to prove at last a fanciful and contemptible 
 ignusfatuus. The Federal Government, without any un- 
 authorized or very dangerous expansion of its own legiti- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCKS U)7 
 
 mate powers, has proved itself in the last thirteen years 
 capable not only of defending its own existence agafnsl 
 
 all the attacks of insurrectionary violence, but has also 
 been eventually able to subject to deserved punishment 
 the most powerful government beyond the ocean for dar- 
 ing openly to countenance the efforts made for its over- 
 throw. This double victory is eminently calculated to 
 discourage similar attempts to disrupt the Federal Union 
 in future, and to impart to the true friends of the repub- 
 lican principle everywhere increased confidence in the 
 durability of our particular scheme of government. The 
 absurd and utterly untenable dogma of secession has be- 
 come at last "a sounding brass and a tinkling symbol."., 
 Its sulphuro-phosphorescent upholders may be now safely 
 allowed to expound in whatever lofty and high-sounding 
 phraseology their own tastes may approve the superhu- 
 man glories which they may fancy to have marked its 
 descent below the horizon of practical existence, to such 
 infatuated men and women as may still cling with fool- 
 ish pertinacity to the rotten and decaying fragments of 
 their vainly cherished idol. 
 
 It is an equally encouraging consideration that the 
 brief and troublesome career of the so-called Southern 
 Confederacy has triumphantly demonstrated the truth of 
 the following propositions : That secession in the United 
 States, if ever it shall be anywhere apparently successful 
 for a time, will ever be found in the end have held in to 
 its bosom the seeds of sell-destruction ; for no one can 
 now doubt that wherever a half dozen or more of the 
 States of which the Republic is composed shall have suc- 
 ceeded, by whatever mode, in placing themselves beyond 
 the controlling authority of the Federal Union, they will 
 not be many months in getting up a squabble among them- 
 selves for ascendency, or fall into bitter conflict upon 
 some cpuestiou of local interest; and when thai shall have 
 
 7f- <^>vtj 
 
458 CASKET OP REMINISCENCE. 
 
 • 
 
 occurred, the brilliant example of setting up a separate 
 national flag already consummated in their sight will be 
 assuredly imitated. Either the non-coercive theory of 
 Mr. Buchanan will be applied, or the opposite one; in 
 either of which events no result is likely to be achieved 
 over which a reasonable mind would be inclined to rejoice. 
 But experience has shown, in multiplied instances, the 
 probability that whenever a line shall be drawn, in any 
 direction, over the territorial surface of a country once 
 composing a single nation, border wars will be sure to 
 ensue. Border wars will of necessity bring about the 
 creation of standing armies, and standing armies of any 
 considerable strength are sure to eventuate in the down- 
 fall of republican institutions. 
 
 I now confidently assert that there has never been a 
 time in the history of this Republic when the great body 
 of the American people, North and South, East and West, 
 were more firmly and inseparably attached to the free in- 
 stitutions under which" we are living than at present. I 
 shall venture on an additional assertion, the truth of 
 which I am sure that a grave and dispassionate examina- 
 tion will not fail to impress upon any sound and well con- 
 stituted mind ; and that is, that at no former period of 
 our history, not even during the administrations of Wash- 
 ington and Jackson, were the Constitution and laws of 
 the land more firmly and successfully maintained and en- 
 forced than at the present moment. Never was more of 
 moderation and forbearance put in exercise by the Execu- 
 tive Department of the Government than we are daily 
 and hourly witnessing. Never w T ere the blessings of civil 
 and religious liberty more fully enjoyed by all classes of 
 our people. At no former time have more multiplied 
 evidences been furnished in all parts of this extended 
 country of a pure and exalted love of liberty, and of a de- 
 termination to maintain our republican form of govern 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 459 
 
 meut against every influence which might he brought 
 into conflict with it. Never was there, save in a few well- 
 known localities, more of social and individual virtue, and 
 of all those things which experience has shown most to 
 aid in the maintenance of a healthful public spirit, and to 
 keep alive a sage and wholesome watchfulness over those 
 intrusted with power. . In the extended rural districts of 
 our country this happy state of things is well known to 
 prevail to an extent almost unprecedented. 
 
 Never, I am sure, were our people less inclined to wel- 
 come the establishment among them of anything in the 
 form of an imperial despotism. The institutions of free- 
 dom have been additionally endeared to millions of heroic 
 hearts by the precious blood of late so lavishly poured 
 forth in their defense. I do not believe that there are ten 
 thousand men anywhere to be found on the surface of our 
 country who would be willing to yield up our present 
 form of government for any other whatever. We have 
 facilities for the maintenance of free institutions such as 
 the ancients never conjectured of, and of which our hon- 
 ored forefathers themselves could have had but an imper- 
 fect conception. Behold our representative form of gov- 
 ernment ! Our partition of all governmental power among 
 three distinct yet co-ordinate departments ; our distribu- 
 tion of the law-making power, between two legislative 
 branches of coequal dignity and power, operating con- 
 stantly as checks and counter-checks upon each other ; 
 our numerous local governments, all of them complete in 
 their machinery, and of an organization similar in certain 
 essential features, alike to each other and to that govern- 
 mental establishment at the grand center of political at- 
 traction ; our wide-spread and constantly expanding edu- 
 cational institutions, carrying the lights of learning and 
 relinement to every nook and corner of the nation ; our 
 admirably organized judicial system, so wisely yet so en- 
 
-460 CASKET OF REMINISCENCE?. 
 
 ergetically administered, except perhaps in a few isolated 
 instances, all over the land ; the inestimable trial by jury ; 
 the habeas corpus ; the newspaper press ; the telegram : 
 railroads ; steamboats ; the public mail, andall the other fa- 
 cilities for interchanging ideas ; for multiplying knowledge 
 of every kiud ; for concentrating at any given point, in a 
 few hours or days at most, the means of defense against 
 all attempts of whatever kind to assail freedom or to vio- 
 late the essential rights of the citizen I Who can take 
 even the most superficial and cursory survey of these 
 things without coming to the conclusion that the people 
 of our own much-favored land and country do indeed possess 
 such a capacity for self-government as never was possessed 
 before by any people that the sun of heaven has yet shone 
 upon ? 
 
 It can not be denied that the late most deplorable civil 
 war did leave behind it, in various forms, and in various 
 localities, a good deal of demoralization and crime. This, 
 though, is the well-known result of all wars and especially 
 of all civil wars. The same demoralization, and from the 
 operation of precisely the same causes, has been often ex- 
 perienced in England in the course of her bloody and ex- 
 hausting wars upon her own soil between hostile factions 
 of English people. Other countries could be likewise 
 cited, but it is not necessary. 
 
 There is, in my opinion, not the least analogy between 
 the condition of the Roman people in the days of either 
 the first or second Caesar and that of the people of the 
 United States at the present moment, and no inferences 
 drawn from this remote source can be made at all availa- 
 ble for the elucidation of the probable future of our own 
 loved country. The populus Eomanus never, in point of 
 fact, embraced, even in the days of Rome's greatest free- 
 dom and prosperity, the Roman plebs. Rome never was a 
 .Democracy ; she never attempted to make herself a rep re- 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 461 
 
 sentativo Democracy or Republic. Rome was, from the 
 days of the expiration of monarchical rule, in the time of 
 Tarquinms Superbus, up even to the time of Marius' sev- 
 enth consulship, nothing more nor less than a selfish and 
 tyrannical aristocracy, beneath whose see] iters the great 
 mass of the Roman populace groaned in continual servi- 
 tude. The city of Rome was virtually the whole Repub- 
 lic, if such a word as Republic might be in a certain loose 
 s ense applied to it. A violent war of almost ever-raging 
 factions constituted the almost unchanging history of the 
 Roman people for nearly three centuries. The aristocratic 
 or patrician rulers of Rome were selfish, unfeeling, and 
 oppressive. The populace were little more than a wretched, 
 undisciplined, unlettered, and unteachable mob. Outside 
 of Rome there was naught besides a disgusting, squalid, 
 brutifying servitude. What wonder, then, that Marius 
 was able to force himself upon a seventh consulship by 
 the aid of "only a few thousand wretched military ruffians ? 
 Who can feel surprised to learn that Sylla, by a similar 
 armed force, and hardly more numerous, was able to es- 
 tablish himself almost unresisted in the office of perpetual 
 dictator, amidst scenes of sweeping confiscation and butch- 
 ery that sicken and nauseate the soul ? Caesar, Pompe}-, 
 and Crassus were quietly allowed, in the sight of all Rome, 
 to erect a triumviral despotism which for the time domi- 
 nated over all things, either in Rome itself or in the des- 
 olated provinces. When Ca?sar got ready to pass the 
 Rubicon the Roman Senate declared that there was no 
 hope even for temporary tranquillity and safety in the 
 great city, except under the power of Pompey as sole con- 
 sul. Cicero tells us that no matter how the great civil 
 war might have terminated the same scenes of general 
 carnage and confiscation would inevitably have ensued ; 
 and he adduced evidence of the truth of this melancholy 
 statement, drawn from the unblushing declarations of the 
 
4t>2 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Pompeian leaders antecedent to* the decisive Pharsalian 
 battle. The Roman people were indeed no longer fit for 
 freedom, if they ever had been ; they were capable neither 
 of appreciating it, nor of maintaining it. He, indeed, 
 must have a strangely organized mind who imagines that 
 he can see any points of similitude between the Roman 
 people two thousand years ago and the forty millions 
 of free American citizens who dwell in power and pros- 
 perity between the two great oceans which bound this 
 continent. 
 
 But where are any indications to be seen of a design on 
 the part of the existing President of the United States to 
 despoil his native country of its dearly-bought freedom ? 
 Where is the large mercenary army which he has assem- 
 bed for the execution of his own fell enterprise ? Where 
 lias he located a military force large enough to be wielded 
 for the carrying into effect of this alarming coup d'etat? 
 Which one of our rich and populous cities is he first to 
 occupy with his invading army ? But let me ask, with 
 all gravity, when did this much reviled public servant 
 seriouslj T transcend the limits of his official power, either 
 in war or in peace? When did he fail on any proper oc- 
 casion to show that he was resolved to keep the military 
 subordinate to the civil power? When did he play the 
 part of tyrant or oppressor toward any man whatever, 
 either in war or peace ? On what precise day in the cal- 
 endar was it that he marched a military force to the 
 American Capitol, in imitation of the noted examples of 
 a Cromwell or a Napoleon the First, and forcibly expelled 
 the American Senators and Representatives of the nation 
 from the seats of legislation ? 
 
 I did not vote for General Grant in the late Presiden- 
 tial election. I have but a slight personal acquaintance 
 with him. It is, I think, quite probable that we shall 
 never know each other much better than we now do. I 
 
O/VSKKT <>V REMINISCENCE^. 463 
 
 am as little authorized, therefore, to speak for him on this 
 subject as any other man now in Washington city. But 
 I have lived a good while, and I sometimes natter myself 
 that I have not lived altogether in vain. I know some- 
 thing of men and of their probable motives of action. I 
 have mingled freely with the public men of my genera- 
 tion, and have not, perhaps, been oftener wrong in my 
 estimation of human character than some others of whom 
 T could make mention. I have been stationed for three 
 months past in Washington city, and have been a diligent 
 observer of all the " signs of the times " here displayed to 
 view ; and I now declare my firm and rooted conviction 
 that there is not a man to be found upon the soil of 
 America more averse to Ca^sarism, as it is called, than 
 the present much-denounced President of the United 
 States. I am confident that if he had a thousand 
 lives he would freely risk them all in defense of 
 our republican institutions. I am quite as confident, 
 too, that no American patriot now living has more respect 
 for the example and character of Washington than has 
 this eminent personage. As to running for the Presi- 
 dency a third time, I am well satisfied that he has neither 
 said nor done aught to justify a suspicion that he has the 
 least wish to be elected to the Presidency for an addi- 
 tional term. This cry of Cresarism is not now raised for 
 the first time. The ears of the " Father of his Country " 
 were assailed with the same insulting sounds, and so were 
 those of Andrew Jackson. But the enemies of the prin- 
 ciples of progress and the foes of reconstruction should 
 bear in mind that there is no clause of the Constitution 
 forbidding any President running and being elected for a 
 third term ; that the important and striking fact that the 
 framers of the Constitution inserted in that instrument 
 no prohibitory clause as to this matter is pretty conclu. 
 sive proof that they were of opinion that it was at least 
 
4()4 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 possible that an exigency might thereafter arise in which 
 it would become needful that a President, already twice 
 elected, should allow his name to be used a third time in 
 order to defeat the advancement to power of some man of 
 dangerous purposes and principles; that even the exam- 
 ple of the venerated Washington can be hardly regarded 
 as more sacred than the Constitution itself, which he 
 several times swore to support ; and that no man who 
 properly estimates the character of this great and good 
 man can at all doubt that he would himself have run as 
 a Presidential candidate again had he supposed that his 
 submitting to such a patriotic sacrifice was necessary in 
 order to defeat the aspirations of some wily demagogue 
 of his own time, known to be in close alliance with the 
 Jacobinical faction then reigning in France, and which 
 he had himself seen so menacingly represented in the per- 
 son of the notorious G-enet. 
 
 If the enemies of reconstruction and the constitutional 
 amendments wish not to encounter General Grant's here- 
 tofore invincible popularity in the Presidential field, com- 
 mon prudence should teach them to change their present 
 political attitude. Let them cease their endeavors to re- 
 organize the rickety and discredited Democratic party for 
 the next Presidential contest. Let them openly and 
 frankly accept the results of the war. Let them cease 
 that constant bickering about trilies, that ill-natured 
 snarling over the ordinary and necessary exercises of 
 power on the part of the Government. Let them make 
 a manly and liberal allowance for results which no com- 
 mingled, wisdom and virtue could possibly have averted. 
 Let them rise up above the arts of low decrial and cal- 
 umny. Let them evince a proper regard for the honor of 
 their country and the dignity of free institutions as rep- 
 resented by those into whose hands the people themselves 
 have committed for a short term the symbols of official 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 46§ 
 
 power. Let them assume a position with prompt and 
 manly frankness which will at once extinguish the suspi- 
 cions which their own indiscreet conduct has engendered 
 that a secret alliance is now existing between the open 
 supporters of secession in the South and the now reor- 
 ganizing Northern Democracy for the prosecution of 
 another joint struggle for the reins of Federal power. 
 Let all the opponents of the Administration, among 
 whom there are doubtless many honest and patri- 
 otic men, for decency's sake, as well as for reasons 
 of commendable policy, discourage those who were 
 notoriously the most prominent instigators of the 
 late civil war from taking a leading and conspicuous part 
 in upholding what they choose to call the Conservative 
 cause. But above all things, let Jeff Davis be kept at 
 home for a year or two so that he no more play the part 
 of a blustering Goliath, which he is now doing, to the re- 
 gret of all patriotic men, and to the alarm of some of the 
 friends of the Union. While I am now writing the news 
 is confirmed to the friends of the peace and tranquillity 
 of the National Union that this political maniac has again 
 broken loose from his accustomed keepers and is moving 
 through the land with all the dangerous fury of the 
 canine species at this fearful period of the year. That 
 voice which no popular assemblage east or west of the 
 Cumberland mountains in Tennessee would be pleased to 
 hear has been provoked to new utterances on Virginia 
 soil, and has been heard to reverberate among the hills 
 and valleys of a region heretofore noted for its quietude 
 and decency. How majestically must this persecutor of 
 Stonewall Jackson and Joe Johnston have thundered at 
 Montgomery White Sulphur Springs last week, ac- 
 cording to the account which has reached us, while 
 he was crying havoc ! and letting loose the dogs of war 
 once more upon a blood-stained and devastated land, 
 30 R 
 
466 CASKET OP REMINiSCENCES. 
 
 eructating his factious nonsense amid the torrid fumes 
 of ill-distilled whisky rising up thick and foggily 
 from scorched and blistered stomachs and the 
 dark and ominous clouds of tobacco smoke ascending 
 cheerily from aristocratic cigar and plebeian cornhusk 
 pipe! How murkily did he manage to mourn over a 
 cause which he had murdered in cold blood ! How chiv- 
 alrously did he reassert his right again to war upon his 
 country's peace and happiness whenever his self-love and 
 insatiable ambition shall again prompt him to put on 
 the habiliments of war! How mellifiuously did he chant 
 the glories of those " unreconstructed" ladies of the South 
 upon whose influence he seems chiefly to rely for putting 
 in movement a new scheme of rebellion ! Well, really, if 
 this foolish game is forever to be played by simpletons 
 and unappeasable factionists, and if a new war cry is to 
 be raised upon the sacred soil of Virginia, it seems to be 
 hiffh time that the friends of the Union and the Consti- 
 tution should everywhere unite to put down by one glo- 
 rious and patriotic effort all who seek to bring upon us 
 again the unnameable horrors of a bloody civil war. 
 
 However serious may be the misconstruction to which 
 Mr. Davis' present conduct, and that of those with whom 
 he is apparently in combination, may expose many of the 
 long-suffering citizens of the South, it is, nevertheless, 
 absolutely true that he is at this moment the representa- 
 tive of no considerable class of our Southern people ; and 
 it would therefore be alike cruel and unjust to hold others 
 responsible for his unseemly and incoherent ravings. 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 467 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 CJ]SARISM 
 
 There Lave been so many allusions made in the preced 
 ing Reminiscences to Ccesarism, that it has been judged 
 proper to publish in this form a review of Napoleon's 
 "Caesar," which made its first appearance about a year 
 before the commencement of the Reminiscences them- 
 selves.— H. 8. F. 
 
 HISTORY OF JULIUS (AESAR, BY LOUIS NAPOLEON 
 BUONAPARTE. 
 
 HENRY S. FOOTE. 
 
 Ten years have now run their varied course of good 
 and evil since something like a formal notification was 
 o'iven to the world that a new Life of Julius Csesar would 
 soon emanate from the French Imperial press ; this work 
 was to be dignified with the name of History — the ear- 
 liest copies of which, adorned with all suitable emblazon- 
 ry, were to be transmitted to the crowned potentates of 
 earth, respectively, after which the untitled multitudes 
 of all countries under the sun would be graciously 
 allowed to read, to admire, and to do fitting homage to 
 the lessons of genuiue Napoleonic wisdom which were ex- 
 pected to be embodied in the volumes that were now al- 
 most ready to take their place in the select libraries of the 
 
463 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 learned and the tasteful. An announcement so unusual 
 was doubtless productive of some effect in certain quar- 
 ters, and it is probable that many individuals, both in 
 Europe and in America, felt more or less of a certain 
 curiosity touching the contents of a work whose advent 
 had been so pompously heralded. 
 
 Caesar and his achievements — his daring and unscru- 
 pulous ambition — his criminal and vaulting aspirations, 
 and his bloody, but deserved death, had constituted for 
 nearly nineteen centuries a favorite subject of dissertation 
 and comment. These matters had, indeed, to some extent 
 become of late years a little trite and unsavory to many, 
 and under ordinary circumstances would not have been 
 likely to provoke to a renewed discussion of them any 
 mind at all original in its cast, and capable of grappling 
 with a healthful and effective energy the great questions 
 of every kind daily rising to view in this age of progress 
 and enlightenment. Yet it can not be justly denied that 
 there is much in the example of Caesar and his bloodily 
 triumphant career as a destroyer of civil liberty to enkindle 
 something of a peculiar sympathy in the bosom of such as 
 distrust the capacity of man for self-government, and who 
 regard it as in the order of Providence to commission cer- 
 tain persons, supposed to be embued with a wisdom far 
 beyond the reach of all ordinary mortals, to take imperial 
 charge of all the concerns of municipal government, and 
 to guide and regulate the whole body of the untaught and 
 unteachable rabble of mankind for their own happiness 
 and advancement. It is quite certain that no civil tyrant 
 who has yet figured upon the page of history, since Caesar 
 ceased to live, has failed to select him as his idolized ex- 
 emplar; and it seems quite probable that in all future 
 ages the Cromwells, the Napoleons, and the rest, will be 
 found, as it has been in the past, so far, at least, as it may 
 chance to be in their power, to follow most trustingly 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 469 
 
 in the footsteps of their grand prototype, expecting, of 
 course, to shelter themselves from deserved odium under 
 the authority of one whom they are themselves so much 
 interested in exalting beyond the reach of criticism or 
 censure, and in surrounding him with an adscititious 
 splendor in which they may be understood as more or 
 less participating. 
 
 But the Life of Julius Caesar had been already written 
 more than once, and in a manner altogether satisfactory, 
 by authors of acknowledged distinction ; and all that 
 remained to us of his writings had undergone repeated 
 translation, so that it was not clearly seen what more was 
 capable of being said or written in illustration of such vir- 
 tues as he might be supposed to have possessed, or in ex- 
 position of such crimes as he was understood to have per- 
 petrated. It could not but be well known to many, also, 
 that the celebrated Charles V, who took Caesar for his 
 model, had left behind him a copy of the famous Com- 
 mentaries, lavishly bespread with many characteristic 
 marginal notes ; that the Sultan Soliman, his cotemporary, 
 had caused Europe to be ransacked for all the copies of 
 the Commentaries then extant, with a view to the careful 
 collection of them, and the publication of a corrected copy 
 in the Turkish language ; that Henry IV of France had 
 himself o;iven a French version to the two first books of 
 the Commentaries ; that Louis XIII had translated the 
 two last, and that these four, having been tacked together, 
 had undergone publication at the Louvre in 1630. Nor 
 had it been yet forgotten that Louis XIV had, with a 
 view to giving evidence of his own scholarship, translated 
 anew the first book of the Commentaries, (in rather clumsy 
 French, it must be confessed ;) that the great Conde, him- 
 self of royal extraction, was well known to be a diligent 
 student of the campaigns recorded in the Commentaries, 
 and had been the special patron of a new edition of the 
 
470 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 whole work, presented in a French dress b}^ Nicholas 
 Perrot d'Ablanconrt ; that the eccentric Christina, Queen 
 of Sweden, had sought immortality by coupling her name 
 with that of the renowned " veni, vidi, vici " conqueror in 
 a singular treatise entitled " Reflections on the Life and 
 Actions of Caesar ; " and, to close this splendid catalogue 
 of illustrious names, that the First Napoleon, when at 
 St. Helena, had done homage to the genius of his acknowl- 
 edged prototype by dictating a volume, afterward pub- 
 lished in Paris, under the name of " Precis des guerres de 
 Cesar." 
 
 Now, considering these facts and others of a kindred 
 character, there would seem really not to have been any 
 special literary necessity for the laborious preparation and 
 industrious promulgation of the two cumbrous volumes 
 which we now hold under critical examination — to be 
 followed, it may be, hereafter, by another brace of them 
 of a similar complexion and character. 
 
 We do not hesitate to say, and we say it with much 
 deliberation, too, that the first of these boasted volumes 
 is, in a mere historic point of view, little more than a loose 
 and indigested compendium of facts connected with the 
 rise and progress of the Roman State and people, the most 
 important of which are to be found set forth in works far 
 less voluminous, and in a style far more attractive ; while 
 the second volume is occupied almost entirely with a very 
 free and oftentimes a highly inaccurate translation of cer- 
 tain books of the Commentaries ; except that the imperial 
 author has condescended, here and there, to favor us with 
 his own opinion upon certain disputed facts, with the 
 reasons upon which these opinions purport to be bottomed, 
 most of which opinions are manifestly overstrained and 
 ludicrously fanciful. 
 
 If there be any who are at a loss to understand what 
 precise objects the celebrated ex-Emperor of the French had 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 471 
 
 in view in the publication of this work, they will see these 
 very distinctly presented in the singular preface with 
 which it is accompanied ; an extract or two from which 
 will be here brought forward : 
 
 " When extraordinary acts attest an eminent genius, 
 what is more contrary to good sense than to ascribe to 
 him all the passions and sentiments of mediocrity f What 
 more erroneous than not to recognize the pre-eminence of 
 those privileged beings who appear in history from time to 
 time, like luminous beacons, dissipating the darkness of 
 their epoch, and throwing light upon the future ? To 
 deny this pre-eminence would, indeed, be to insult human- 
 ity, by believing it capable of submitting, long and vol- 
 untarily, to a domination which did not rest on true 
 greatness and incontestible utility. Let us be logical 
 and we shall be just." 
 
 It is not at all difficult to see that the sort of logic here 
 so commendingly alluded to is nothing but the odious jus 
 divinum in a somewhat new and beguiling form ; such 
 logic as may be conveniently applied to all the systems 
 of despotism heretofore existing on earth; for but few of 
 these can be mentioned in which time had not lent its 
 hollow and unmeaning sanction to usurped, power, or in 
 which oft-repeated but unsuccessful attempts to overthrow 
 a hated tyranny had not taught long-oppressed and soul- 
 tprpified millions the policy of apparent acquiescence. 
 
 Let us return to this bold and out-spoken preface: "But 
 by what sign," continues the author, " are we to recognize 
 a man's greatness ? By the empire of his ideas, when his 
 principles and his system triumph in spite of defeat. Is it 
 not, in fact, the peculiarity of genius to survive destruc- 
 tion and to extend its empire over future generations ? 
 Caesar disappeared, and his influence predominates even 
 more than during his life." 
 
 Who can, after reading the above extracts, doubt that 
 
472 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 the prime object of the imperial author was to aid, so far 
 as it might be in his power to do so, the diffusion and eter- 
 nization of what he understood to be the principles and sys- 
 tem of Caesar ? With Caesar's name is embodied indissolubly 
 the idea of usurpation and the destruction of republican 
 freedom. Caesar was the most adroit and successful dem- 
 agogue or adulator of the people that the world has known. 
 Caesar believed implicitly that he was horn to rule over 
 the credulous and confiding multitude, and regarded it as 
 justifiable, on his part, to employ any means whatever 
 which might seem most likely to attain the gratification 
 of his ambition. Caesar did succeed in the establishment 
 of an irresponsible despotism. When he was taken off by 
 assassination, he had thoroughly concentrated all civil 
 and military power in his own hands. There was no 
 longer freedom of speech, or freedom of action in any part 
 of the earth held under Roman authority. It seems to us 
 to be about the easiest thing in the world to understand 
 what was Caesar's " system," and what were his "princi- 
 ples ;" and it would be quite as easy to define the " sys- 
 tems " and " principles " of those who have attempted to 
 tread the pathway, first blazed out by him, to imperial 
 domination at the expense of popular liberty!! 
 
 In further illustration of this matter, we cite the follow- 
 ing additional extract : " The preceding remarks suffi- 
 ciently explain the aim I have in view in writing this 
 history. This aim is to prove that when Providence raises 
 up such men as Caesar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon it is 
 to trace out to peoples the path they ought to follow ; to stamp 
 with the seal of their genius a new era ; and to accom- 
 plish, in a few years, the labor of centuries. Happy the 
 people who comprehend and follow them ! woe to those 
 who misunderstand them ! They do as the Jews did, 
 they crucify their Messiah ; they are blind and culpable ; 
 blind, for they do not see the impotence of their efforts to 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 47^ 
 
 suspend the definitive triumph of good ; culpable, for they 
 only retard progress by impeding its prompt and fruitful 
 application." 
 
 He continues : " In fact, neither the murder of Osesar, 
 nor the captivity of St. Helena, has been able to destroy 
 two popular causes overthrown by a league which dis- 
 guised itself under the mask of liberty. Brutus, by de- 
 stroying Caesar, plunged Rome into the horrors of civil 
 war ; he did not prevent the reign of Augustus, but he 
 rendered possible those of Nero and Caligula. The ostra- 
 cism of Napoleon by confederated Europe has been no 
 more successful in preyenting the empire from being resus- 
 citated; and, nevertheless, how far are we from the great 
 questions solved, the passions calmed, and the legitimate 
 satisfactions given to people by the first empire." 
 
 We would, indeed, like very much to know to what 
 peoples the legitimate satisfactions spoken of as having 
 been enjoyed under the boasted First Empire were really 
 imparted; and we are curious to know, also, the precise na- 
 ture of these same satisfactions, and whether similar 
 satisfactions of the same legitimate character accrued to 
 any people on earth from the establishment of that mon- 
 strous system of tyranny called the Second Empire, and 
 which was recently brought to an end so disastrously and 
 bloodily as the natural result of a most ill-advised and 
 unpardonable war. We opine that the melancholy exile 
 of Chiselhurst, though even not yet effectually cured of 
 the insane and selfish ambition which has cursed his 
 whole life, if he ever now ventures to glance over this 
 over-wrought and ostentatious preface of his, must blush 
 and blush deeply, too, over the evidences therein embodied 
 of his own ineffable vanity and shallowness.^ 
 
 * This article was written and publishedtibout ten days before Louis 
 Napoleon's <U\-itl». 
 
474 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Perhaps, taking all the attendant circumstances into 
 consideration, we should not be altogether justified in 
 avowing any strong feeling of surprise that the French 
 Emperor should have felt it to be a part of his special mis- 
 sion into this breathing and bustling world to write just 
 such a book as this in vindication of the cause of usurpation,. 
 He was, at the time that these volumes made their appear- 
 ance at the very zenith of his ill-gotten power. Four 
 hundred thousand men in arms — a much larger number 
 than Julius Caesar himself had ever commanded — acknowl- 
 edged him as their military chief. He was living in the 
 palaces of an ancient and once powerful dynasty, and 
 thousands of slavish, gorgeously arrayed courtiers poured 
 every moment into his ears the streams of an insincere 
 and dishonoring adulation. All Europe stood agaze at 
 the scene of grandeur which surrounded him, and some 
 who ought to have known better allowed themselves to be 
 recognized as the admirers of his wisdom, and the approv- 
 ers of his policy. Like Caesar, and the First Napoleon, he 
 had grown opulent by the pillage of the public treasury of 
 a generous and confiding people, and from the same source 
 he had enriched the whole body of his kinsmen and depen- 
 dants. He had been engaged in several great wars, and, 
 thanks to the valor of his soldiers and the ability of his 
 generals, he had come forth from each of them triumphant. 
 He was the acknowledged champion and protector of the 
 venerated head of the ancient Catholic Church. He had 
 added new dignity to the throne which he had usurped, 
 by inter-marriage with a lady of the most splendid beauty 
 and of the rarest graces and accomplishments. A son had 
 been born to him of this marriage, who was already the 
 recognized inheritor of an imperial greatness, which shal- 
 low and unthinking multitudes were everywhere predict- 
 ing would equal the domination of the Roman Caesars in 
 duration, and be far more glorious. He had by arts of 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 475 
 
 various kinds thus far managed to keep the passions of a 
 mercurial and easily-excited people in a state of compar- 
 ative quietude and repose. He bad made more than one 
 literary experiment before, ere he became the incumber 
 of a throne; and productions of his pen, once laughed at 
 for their folly, the sagacious critics of the world had at 
 last found out to be written with more than Ciceronian 
 elegance, and replete with practical wisdom. 
 
 The territorial expanse of the old world had been found 
 too narrow to supply a suitable arena for the display of 
 his enterprising and all-conquering genius ; and he had 
 sought increase of personal glory, and a new field for his 
 ideas of imperial domination beyond the rolling ocean. 
 He had just dispatched a large army to unhappy Mexico, 
 and demanded the erection there of a new imperial throne, 
 upon which was soon to be seated, under his own special 
 tutelage and control, a promising scion of the time-hon- 
 ored Hapsburg family. It has been whispered in certain 
 circles that he had already contemplated the speedy exten- 
 sion of his boasted " system and principles " to the natal 
 soil of Washington. How true this may be we shall at 
 present hazard no conjecture. If he had established 
 twenty regal governments in North America he would, 
 in doing so, have been only following the example of 
 Julius Caesar whilst he sojourned in Gaul, and that of the 
 First Napoleon whilst at the head of his conquering 
 armies. 
 
 Under the circumstances just specified, what more 
 natural occurrence could have taken place than the sending 
 forth from the French imperial press, in 1862, of such a 
 book as that which we are noticing, as a sort of avanU 
 courier of the momentous world-revolution which it was 
 expected to usher in ? 
 
 Whilst contemplating the execution of this herculean 
 task, it was doubtless regarded as a fact of no inauspicious 
 
476 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 augury that but few of the occupants of thrones had, 
 either in ancient or modern times, been known to attempt 
 authorship upon a grand scale ; for the chances of acquir- 
 ing renown in any field of human labor must of necessity 
 bear some proportion to the fewness of those who come 
 forward as competitors for the coveted prize. Besides, 
 it is undoubtedly true, as has been abundantly proved in 
 the present instance, that a writer of history, or of any 
 other literary work, if he be a royal personage, at least so 
 long as he shall be able to hold in his grasp the reins of 
 authority, will be far less exposed to the shafts of criticism 
 than would any private individual. If we have not been 
 misinformed on this subject, his Imperial Majesty, before 
 he allowed these precious historic volumes to see the light 
 in France, put in action protective machinery of a very 
 effective character to savemis own well-earned fame from 
 unjust and illiberal attack. We recollect to have heard 
 of at least one enterprising French pamphleteer who had 
 to ily with much precipitation beyond the Gallic confines 
 for having referred to this same book and its imperial 
 author in language deemed irreverent, and had this exper- 
 iment upon the patience of Majesty been once or twice 
 repeated there is no knowing what a fearful combustion 
 might have been produced among the literary coteries of 
 the Freuch capital. When the lordly inhabitant of a 
 regal palace condescends to enlighten the world upon 
 grave questions of state, it is but proper perhaps that he 
 should be listened to with more than ordinary patience. 
 Such at least has been the way of mankind in all past 
 ages. The famed tyrant of Syracuse is known to have 
 been much praised in the literary circles of Greece until 
 his noted falling out with Plato, the then chief of the 
 world of letters ; Frederic the Great, of Prussia, was recog- 
 nized as an elegant writer of French, and a profound phil- 
 osopher into the bargain, until he threw into prison his 
 
CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 477 
 
 once admired friend, Voltaire ; and the adulators who 
 thronged the golden palace of Nero, (some of whom were 
 not altogether undistinguished in the ranks of literature,) 
 pronounced him a better writer of poetry than either Vir- 
 gil or Horace, and more polished and vigorous as a com- 
 poser of prose than Livy or Tully ; and even the pure- 
 minded and erudite Quintilian, whilst he saw in the hands 
 of Domitian the uplifted scourge of imperial authority, 
 deemed it politic to say of this monster that he would cer- 
 tainly have been the greatest of poets {maximum poetarum,) 
 but that the Gods had found it necessary to burden him 
 with the cares of state. 
 
 In regard to the particular style in which the history 
 of Julius Ceesar is written, there is not a great deal either 
 to commend or censure. It is more a compilation than a 
 history ; and there is but little which can justly lay claim 
 to originality, either in phrase or sentiment. It does not 
 at all resemble the famous commentaries, either in simple 
 dignity of expression or in easy and graceful flow of dic- 
 tion. It is as an artistic production decidedly below 
 mediocrity ; its style is exceedingly rugged and cumbrous ; 
 it is remarkable for neither vigor, sprightliness, nor per- 
 spicuity ; and it exhibits a continual straining after effect 
 which is positively disgusting. It is ostentatious without 
 impressiveness ; magniloquent and high-sounding without 
 the least approach to true grandeur, either of sentiment 
 or phraseology. 
 
 But we shall not dwell upon this head ; there are mat- 
 ters of much higher moment which remain to be discussed. 
 For, be it known, that we are far from thinking that the 
 world should feel any great surprise at our imperial biog- 
 rapher's deficiencies as a writer. It would have been sim- 
 ply absurd for anyone to expect him to ecpial Thucydides, 
 Livy, or Tacitus as a delineator of grave, historic events, 
 or to place himself upon a footing with the best descrip- 
 
478 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 tive authors that France or England has produced in 
 modern times. His early education is understood not by 
 any means to have been such as was best calculated to 
 give development and expansion to the higher intellectual 
 faculties, and for many years anterior to the fall of Louis 
 Phillippe he is well known to have led a loose and ram- 
 bling life, eminently unpropitious to sound moral culture 
 or healthful mental training. 
 
 Our objections to the ex-Emperor of the French, as a 
 writer of history, are of a far graver and deeper character 
 than has yet been more than intimated. He seems to us, 
 in these same volumes of his, to have attempted the per- 
 version of truth in many important instances, and to have 
 assailed with unsparing virulence many of the noblest 
 patriots and sagest statesmen of whom antiquity can 
 boast, for the attainment of purposes merely selfish in 
 their character. He has selected Julius Caesar as the sub- 
 ject of exorbitant and unmixed commendation, and in- 
 vested him with attributes to which he never had a just, 
 claim, hoping that he would be able in this way to con- 
 ceal the hideousness of his unparalleled, usurpation, and 
 rescue from just odium also certain others who, in imita- 
 tion of his example, have attained supreme power by per- 
 fidy, by corruption, and by bloodshed ; calculating doubt- 
 less that by pursuing this course, he would have it in his 
 power to beguile the mass of mankind into a voluntary 
 and disgraceful abandonment of the most sacred rights of 
 freedom. 
 
 We do not propose here to enter into a copious citation 
 of particulars in order to establish the charges which we 
 have preferred. We have not sufficient space, nor is it at 
 all necessary that we should do so. 
 
 That Julius Caesar was one of the most intellectual men 
 that the world has yet known we have never for a moment 
 doubted. Even Cicero himself says of him, in one of his 
 
tUskE* OF REMINISCENCES. 47 ( .* 
 
 famous Philippics, when applauding Brutus and his brother 
 conspirators for having put him to death : " In that man 
 were combined genius, method, memory, literature, pru- 
 dence, deliberation, and industry. He had performed 
 exploits in war which, though calamitous for the Repub- 
 lic, were nevertheless mighty deeds. Having for man)' 
 years aimed at being a king, he had, with great labor and 
 much personal danger, accomplished what he intended. 
 He had conciliated the ignorant multitude by presents, 
 by monuments, by largesses of food, and by banquets; he 
 had bound his own party to him by rewards, his adversa- 
 ries by the appearances of clemency. Why need I say so 
 much on such a subject? He had already brought a free 
 rity, partly b y fear, partl y by suffering, int o a habit of servi - 
 tude^ 
 
 We need not refer to the celebrated declaration of Quin- 
 tilian, that "Caesar talked with the same vigor that he 
 follght.' , Nor is it important that the celebrated parallel 
 drawn by Sal lust between Caesar and Cato should be more 
 than incidentally referred to here. We freely admit that 
 nature had lavishly bestowed the choicest of her gifts 
 upon the extraordinary man of whom we are speaking. 
 Nov are we permitted to doubt that he possessed all the 
 literary and scientific accomplishments known to the age 
 in which he flourished. 
 
 As a commander of armies, it is probable that he has 
 never been equaled. As an adroit and successful party 
 leader, he has certainly never been surpassed. No one 
 was ever more profoundly skilled in the art of managing 
 men. But other questions remain to be solved. Was he 
 a patriot in the truest and fullest sense of the word ? Did 
 he prefer his country's peace and welfare to his own per- 
 sonal advancement? Was he a sincere believer in the 
 capacity of man for self-government ? Was he a true 
 respecter of popular rights and of republican institutions? 
 
480 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Was lie a man of probity and uprightness ? Did lie pos- 
 sess in an eminent degree the domestic and social virtues? 
 Did he prefer the society of virtuous and patriotic men to 
 that of the licentious and the profligate ? Did he seek 
 civil promotion only by fair and patriotic and honorable 
 expedients? Is it fortunate for the Roman government 
 and people that Ca?sar was born, and flourished, and ac- 
 quired imperishable personal renown ? Has his example 
 as a public man and as a private citizen been, on the 
 whole, advantageous to the human race in general, or the 
 reverse ? We feel confident that to none of these queries 
 can a favorable response be given without seriously vio- 
 lating the truth of history. 
 
 In support of this view of the matter, it will not be 
 necessary to go beyond those details embodied in the vol- 
 umes of his latest biographer ; from whose pages we learn 
 that Julius Caesar was born at Rome, in the six hundred 
 and fifty-fourth year of the Republic, and that he was of 
 an ancient and distinguished family. " On one side," says 
 the History, "he claimed to be descended from Anchises 
 and Venus: on the other, he was the nephew of the fa- 
 mous Caius Marius, the husband of his aunt Julia." 
 When Csesar was thirty-two years of age he delivered a 
 funeral oration in honor of his aunt, and in that oration 
 formally proclaimed this important genealogical fact, in 
 hearing of a vast concourse of the Roman people. This 
 circumstance, as unimportant as it may seem to many, 
 indicated clearly enough his own conviction that he was 
 himself born for empire, and his determination to seek 
 p ower , as Marius had done before him, by doing homage 
 to the feelings of the populace. His education was as well 
 attended to as was then possible at Rome, and before he 
 had attained to the years of manhood he enjoyed all the 
 facilities possible to be supplied for acquiring a knowledge 
 of the Creek language and literature. " He united," says 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 481 
 
 the History, " to goodness of heart a high intelligence, 
 to an invincible courage an enthralling eloquence, a won- 
 derful memory, and unbounded generosity; finally, he 
 possessed one rare quality — calmness under anger." - * 
 "His tall stature, his rounded and well proportioned limbs, 
 stamped his person with a grace that distinguished him 
 from all others. He had black eyes, a piercing look, a pale 
 complexion, a straight and high nose. His mouth small, 
 and regular, but with rather thick lips, gave. a kindly ex- 
 pression to the lower part of his face, whilst his breadth 
 of brow betokened the development of the intellectual 
 faculties. His face was full, at least in his youth ; for in 
 his busts, doubtless made toward the end of his life, his 
 features are thinner and bear marks of fatigue. He had a 
 sonorous and penetrating voice, a noble gesture, and an 
 air of dignity reigned over all his person." We learn 
 further from the History, that he '• paid special attention 
 to his person, carefully shaved, or plucked out his beard, 
 and artistically brought his hair forward to the front of 
 his head, which, in more advanced age, served to conceal 
 his bald forehead. He was reproached with the affecta- 
 tion of scratching his head with one linger only, so that 
 he should not disarrange his hair. His toilet was refined; 
 his toga was generally ornamented with a laticlavium, 
 fringed down to the hands, and fastened by a girdle care- 
 lessly tied about his loins ; a costume which distinguuished 
 the elegant and effeminate youths of the period." * * 
 * "He had a taste for pictures, statues, and jewels ; and 
 in memory of his origin always wore on his ringer a ring 
 on which was engraved the figure of an armed Venus." 
 
 "Such," continues the imperial biographer, "was Caesar 
 at the age of eighteen, when Sylla seized the dictatorship. 
 Already he attracted all eye^ at Rome by his name, Ins 
 intellect, his affable manners, which pleased men, and per- 
 haps some women, too." 
 31 R 
 
482 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 It is a little difficult to divine Low the royal bioprapher 
 of Csesar should have felt it necessary so ostentatiously to 
 parade some of these curious trivialities before the public 
 eye, unless the reason of his doing so is to be found in the 
 following extract from another page of his work: "Not 
 satisfied with conciliating the good will of the people, Ca> 
 sar won for himself the favor of the noblest dames of 
 Rome; and notwithstanding his notorious passion for 
 women, we Gan not but discover a political aim in his 
 choice of mistresses, since all held by different ties to men 
 who were then playing, or were destined to play, an im- 
 portant part, He had important relations with Tertulla, 
 the wife of Crassus ; with Mucia, wife of Pompey ; with 
 Lollia, wife of Aulus Gabinius, who was consul in 696 ; 
 with Postumia, wife of Servius Sulspicius, who was raised 
 to the consulship in 703, and persuaded to join Cesar's 
 party by her influence ; but the woman he preferred was 
 Servilia, sister of Cato, and mother of Brutus, to whom, 
 during his consulship, he gave a pearl valued at six mil- 
 lions of sesterces (1,140,000 frances,or 45,600 pounds.) 
 This connection throws an air of improbability (thinks 
 our grave and sagacious historian,) over the reports then 
 in circulation that Servilia favored an intrigue between 
 him and her daughter Tertia, Was it by the intermedia- 
 tion of Tertulla that Crassus was reconciled to Osesar? " 
 
 These are truly extraordinary details to be presented, 
 without a syllable of censure, by the imperial head of a 
 family, who boasts himself to be a true devotee to the 
 Christian faith, and from whom the world had a right to 
 to demand, in an especial manner, an example of social de- 
 cency, if not of elevated morality. If in connection with 
 such facts as those just mentioned we take into consid- 
 eration Caesar's famous dalliance in Alexandria with 
 Cleopatra; his known intimacy with Mark Antony, the 
 most profligate of mankind; with Clodius, on account of 
 
CASKET OE REMINISCENCES. 488 
 
 whose suspected intimacy with his own wife, Pompeia, 
 he had driven her from his house ; and even with the in- 
 famous Catiline himself, a fact which his present august 
 historian does not attempt to deny, we shall he prepared 
 to place a proper estimate upon certain other remarkable 
 particulars in Caesar's public career which are now to be 
 runningly alluded to. 
 
 In (380 or 681 Csesar was nominated by his friends to 
 the office of pontiff, because, as is alleged, they thought 
 it expedient that he should be "clothed with a sacred 
 character." He seems to have taken no part in the servile 
 war then raging. He was about the same period made 
 military tribune, which gave him command of a thou- 
 sand soldiers. In 676 he accompanied Aristius Vetus to 
 Ulterior Spain in the capacity of questor. There he 
 gained no marked distinction ; but it is recorded of him 
 that whilst occupied with the duties of the questorship 
 he went one day to the famous temple of Hercules, at 
 Grades, as Hannibal and Scipio had done before him. "At 
 the sight of the statue of Alexander he deplored with a 
 sigh that he had done nothing at the age when this great 
 man had conquered the world." On his return to Rome 
 he sustained, in conjunction with Cicero, the famous Ma- 
 nillian law which enabled Pompey, then in the zenith of 
 his popularity, to supplant Lucullus in the managment 
 of the Mithridatic war. He had already conceived the 
 project, afterward so adroitly executed, of winning the 
 confidence and frindship of Pompey with a view to the 
 advancement of his own fortune, in a lew years to be real- 
 ized in the formation of the first Triumvirate. In 687 he 
 was chosen curator of the Appian way. Two years sub- 
 sequent he was made curule cedile. En this last office he in- 
 curred vast expenses, and became overwhelmingly in- 
 volved in debt. It was at this precise period that lie 
 ventured to test the state of popular feeling in Rome in 
 
484 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 regard to his uncle Marius, having evidently made ap 
 his mind to run the same daring and sanguinary career 
 should it become necessary to the gratification of his ambi- 
 tion. He restored the trophies of Marius which had been 
 overturned by Sylla, and in the night time had them placed 
 in the Capitol. In 690 Ca?sar, acting in the capacity of 
 Judex questionnis, sat upon the trial of Catiline, charged 
 with the murder of M. Marius Gratidianus, and acquitted 
 him. In 691 Osesar openly supported Catiline for the 
 consulship against Cicero and others of the noblest pa- 
 triots in Rome. In explanation of his censurable conduct 
 on this occasion his present imperial laudato?- says : " In a 
 spirit of opposition he supported all that could hurt 
 his enemies and favor a change of system." How could 
 Catiline himself have done worse? Within the next 
 year or two he became the zealous supporter of an Agra- 
 rian law, and of other measures looking to the benefit of 
 the provinces; and was evidently increasing in popular- 
 ity every day. In 692 the Catiline conspirators were 
 brought to trial before the Semite, condemned and exe- 
 cuted, Caesar opposing the infliction of capital punishment 
 upon them, and making a bold and energetic speech on 
 the occasion. Suspected by the Roman Knights, who sur- 
 rounded the Capitol at the time in arms, his life was saved 
 alone by the magnanimous interposition of Cicero. At 
 this stage of his history our imperial author interposes a 
 well-known anecdote, in these words: "A singular inci- 
 dent happened, in the midst of these debates, to show to 
 what point Caesar had awakened the people's suspicions. 
 At the most animated moment of the discussion a letter 
 was brought to him. He read it with eagerness. Cato 
 and other senators, supposing it to be a message from one 
 of the conspirators, insisted upon its being read to the 
 Senate, Caesar handed the letter to Cato, who was seated 
 near him. The latter saw it was a love-letter from his 
 
GASKET OF REMINISCENCES, fc85 
 
 sister Servilia, and throw it back indignantly, crying out, 
 ' There! keep it drunkard !■'. " 
 
 In 692 Caesar was Pretor-urbanus, and during his occu- 
 pancy of that office became more and more closely allied 
 to Pompey. Scenes of great turbulence now ensued, in 
 which Caesar and Cato, as leaders of opposing parties, 
 once or twice had serious personal collisions. From 698 
 to 695 Caesar was pro-praetor to Spain. When about set- 
 ting out for his province, his creditors, whose claims 
 amounted altogether to ,£200,000, attempted to have him 
 arrested, and it seems that he would have been compelled 
 to submit to this humiliation but for the kindness of 
 Crassus, who, on being applied to, advanced to Caesar 
 enough to discharge all his pressing liabilities. 
 
 Such being the desperate condition of his fortunes, the 
 following anecdote will not at all surprise us : On Cesar's 
 journey to Spain he halted for a few hours at a wretched 
 village amid the Alps, when some of his officers having 
 inquired of him whether he thought that even in this 
 remote and sequestered place there were solicitations and 
 rivalries for office, he answered: "I would rather be the 
 first among these savages than second in Rome." Truly 
 the grand Cresaro-Napoleonic "fixed idea" of imperial 
 sovereignty was now rapidly cropping out ! 
 
 During his sojourn in Spain Cresar is stated in the His- 
 tory to have "amassed a rich booty, which enabled him 
 to reward his soldiers and to pay considerable sums into 
 the treasury without being accused of peculation or of 
 arbitrary acts." Behold him now on the way to opulence 
 and power! He returns to Rome, stands for the consul- 
 ship and is elected. This result, as our historian conh 
 was mainly owing to the secret compact then Bet on foot 
 by Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus, in accordance with the 
 terms of which the Republic was t<» he in future ruled 
 by their triple <-<>unst>ls. " The alliance," says the History, 
 
486 CASKET OF KEMINISCENCES. 
 
 " which these three persons ratified by their oaths re- 
 mained long a secret ; and it was only during Caesar's con- 
 sulship that it, became a matter of public notoriety, from 
 the unanimity they displayed in all their public resolu- 
 tions," A more profligate and unprincipled combination 
 than this is not known in history ; and yet our historian 
 has not a word of censure to bestow on it. He confesses that 
 this conspiracy was chiefly brought about by the manage- 
 ment of Caesar, of whom he says : " In the midst of con- 
 flicting opinions and interests, the presence of a man of 
 steady purpose and deeply rooted convictions, and illustrious 
 through recent victories, was without any doubt an 
 event. He did not require long to form his estimate of 
 the situation, and as he could not yet unite the masses 
 for the realization of a grand idea, he thought to unite 
 the chiefs by a common interest." Verily, this is an exceed- 
 ingly frank declaration ! 
 
 A highly significant and illustrative fact is mentioned 
 in the History in connection with the consular election 
 which has been just spoken of. "Among the candidates 
 was Caius Lucceius. Caesar was desirous of attaching to 
 his interest this person, who was distinguished alike by 
 his writings and character, and who possessed of vast 
 wealth had promised to make abundant use of it, for 
 their common profit, in order to command the majority of 
 votes in the centuries." The party opposed to Caesar, 
 embracing the greater part of the Senate, deeply distrust- 
 ing Caesar, and painfully apprehending the speedy over- 
 throw of liberty, should Caesar not only succeed in being 
 elected himself but also secure the choice of a colleague 
 sure to be subservient to all his designs, though despairing 
 of defeating the election of Csesar himself, were able b} r 
 a great and energetic effort to stive to Caesar Bibulus for 
 a colleague, who, it was known, would do all he could to 
 save the Republic from present_ruin ; and for thus post- 
 
CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 187 
 
 polling for a few yearn the realization of the grand Im- 
 perialistic Idea are soundly berated by our historian. 
 
 Before he set out as pro-consul to the new theater which 
 had been with some reluctance assigned him he took care 
 to make all safe in his rear. At his instance, his brother 
 consented to allow L. Piso, the father-in-law of Caesar, to 
 be elected to the consulship, with A. G-abinius, the de- 
 voted partisan of Pompey. " They were, in fact, desig- 
 nated consuls on the I8th of October, in spite of the op- 
 position of the Senate, and at the time of the accusation 
 of Cato against Gabinius, Caesar," says the History, "found 
 himself at the gates of Rome, invested with the imperium, 
 and, according to Cicero's letters, at the head of numer- 
 ous troops, composed apparently of veteran volunteers. 
 He even remained there more than two months, in order 
 to watch that his departure should not become the signal 
 for the overthrow of his work." 
 
 Again, says the History, " Caesar had skillfully taken 
 precautions that his influence should be felt at Rome dur- 
 ing his absence as much as the instability of the magis- 
 tracy would permit. By the aid of his daughter Julia, 
 whose charms and mental accomplishments captivated her 
 husband, Caesar retained his influence over Pompey. By 
 his favors to the son of Crass us, a young man of great 
 merit, who was appointed his lieutenant, he assured him- 
 self of his father. Cicero is removed, (by the efforts of 
 Caesar's friend Clodius,) but Caesar will soon consent to 
 his return, and will conciliate him again by taking into 
 his favor his brother Quihtus. There remains the opposi- 
 tion of Cato. Clodius undertakes to remove him under 
 the pretense of an honorable mission. Finally all the men 
 of importance who had any chance of obtaining employ- 
 ment are gained to the cause of Caesar ; some even engage 
 themselves to him in writing. lie can thus proceed to 
 his province. Destiny is about to open a new path ; innuor- 
 
t88 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 t al glory awaits him beyond the Alps, and this glory 
 reflected upon Rome will change the face of the world." 
 
 And so, indeed, it was. Every successful campaign of 
 Gsesar beyond the Alps strengthened him prodigiously at 
 Rome. Military glory, that bane of all republics, soon 
 made a single renowned chief too strong for his country's 
 liberties. What Cromwell was lono- afterward in Eng:- 
 land, what Napoleon the First was in France at a still 
 later period, Caesar was soon to become in Rome. When 
 the dangers which menaced the Roman government and 
 people began to be clearly descried it was too late to pro- 
 vide against them. Cresar, instigated by Mark Antony 
 and Curio, at last passed the -Rubicon, and Roman freedom 
 was forever lost I 
 
 Nothing could be possibly more unprofitable than 
 would prove on our part any attempt to follow our impe- 
 rial historian into the examination which he has thought 
 proper to institute between the rival claims of Pompey 
 and Gsesar to control the fate of the republic, or to find 
 out how far Caesar may have been supplied with grounds 
 of complaint, more or less plausible, against those who 
 were struggling to prevent his election to the consulship — 
 so long as he should have an army under his command 
 ready, at any moment, to place him in a position alto- 
 gether beyond civil responsibility for any unauthorized 
 acts he might perform. It may be, as urged in his behalf, 
 that Caesar had some grounds of complaint against cer- 
 tain public men in Rome, who were inimical to him and 
 his advancement. It may be that the language of distrust 
 and apprehension used by the consul Marcellusand others 
 was of a nature to irritate his sensibilities and mortify 
 his self-love. It may even be true that had he disbanded 
 his army, as he had been ordered to do, he would have 
 been subjected to trial for many of his unjustifiable acts 
 of oppression and tyranny in Gaul. But his obvious duty 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 489 
 
 as a patriotic citizen was to submit promptly and deco- 
 rously to the orders of the Roman government and peo- 
 ple, and when lie refused to do so, that instant he became 
 a great public criminal ; and when lie marched an army 
 in hostile array upon Roman soil for the purpose of put- 
 ting down by force the existing government, and establish- 
 ing in its stead an Imperial Despotism, he assumed an 
 attitude which no sound-judging and just-minded man 
 will ever think of upholding. The silly excuse set up in 
 behalf of Caesar by his latest and least reliable biographer 
 that he was " a man of fixed ideas," and that he was only 
 the minister of destiny in giving to these a grand realiza- 
 tion, is altogether too absurd to deserve formal refutation. 
 We a^ quite willing to cite in this place, and without 
 special comment thereupon, the very words employed by 
 the illustrious biographer of Ca?sar himself, in justification 
 of this part of his conduct. Here they are : 
 
 "The moment for action had arrived, Caesar was re- 
 duced to the alternative of maintaining himself at the head 
 of his army, in spite of the Senate, or surrendering him- 
 self to his enemies, who would have reserved for him the 
 fate of the accomplices of Catiline who had been con- 
 demned to death, if he were not, like the Gracchi Saturn- 
 inns, and so many others, killed in a popular tumult. 
 Here the question naturally offers itself, Ought not 
 Csesar, who had so often faced death on the battle-field. 
 have "-one to Rome to face it under another form, and to 
 have renounced his command, rather than engage in a 
 struggle which must throw the Republic into all the hor- 
 rors of civil war? Yes, if by his abnegation he could save 
 Rome from anarchy, corruption, and tyranny. Xo, if 
 his abnegation would endanger what he had most at heart, 
 the regeneration of the Republic. Csesar, like men of his 
 temper, cared little for life, and still less for power forthe 
 sake of power, but as the chief of the popular party, lie 
 
490 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 felt a great cause rise behind him, it urged him forward, 
 and obliged him to conquer in spite of legality, the impre- 
 cations of his adversaries, and the uncertain judgment of 
 posterity. Roman society, in a state of dissolution, asked 
 for a master ; oppressed Italy, for a representative of its 
 rights ; the world, bowed under a yoke, for a Savior. 
 Ought he by deserting his mission disappoint so many 
 legitimate hopes, so many noble aspirations?*' 
 
 The truth is that the course pursued by Caesar and his 
 comrades in iniquity, after Pompey and his ill-organized 
 army had fled from Brundusium to Greece, leaves not a 
 shadow of doubt upon the motives and purposes of those 
 who had now initiated that worst of all evils that can 
 assail humanity— civil war ! For, returning to Rome, be 
 broke into the public treasury and took out therefrom all 
 the money of which lie stood in need; declared himself 
 perpetual Dictator; and, after placing in the highest offi- 
 cial positions some of the most notoriously corrupt and 
 dissolute men to be found in Rome, he proceeded to Spain, 
 where he prosecuted a tierce and sanguinary Avar with the 
 Republic; and then, going into Greece, he encountered 
 in arms another body of Roman soldiers, organized also 
 under the authority of the Republic, with which he knew 
 to be associated, (using the language of Cicero,) " the con- 
 suls, and with these Cneius Pompeius, the light and glory 
 of the Roman empire and people, all the men of consular 
 rank whose health would allow them to share in the toils 
 of war, the praetors and all men of praetorian rank, and 
 the tribunes and the greater part of the Senate, all the 
 flower of the youth of the city : " and, after the fatal bat- 
 tle of Pharsalia had been fought, proceeding to Africa, in 
 pursuit of Pompey, he dispatched the infamous Mark 
 Antony to Italy, who there ravaged the whole land and 
 committed such atrocities of every kind as have perhaps 
 never been equaled in any other civilized country under 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 491 
 
 the sun. Nor is this all, for when Caesar, after a long ab- 
 sence, at last returned to Rome, so far was he from hold- 
 ing Mark Antony responsible for all his abominable mis- 
 deeds, that he again took him to his bosom as his most 
 favored friend and counselor, and even raised him to the 
 consulship as his own official colleague. 
 
 It is to us truly astonishing that in an age so enlight- 
 ened as the present one any man should have the 
 effrontery to justify Julius Cassar in the perpetration of 
 all these enormities, and that he should even go so far as 
 to urge his example upon mankind as entitled to their 
 respect and imitation. 
 
 There is one other topic to which we propose to give a 
 brief examination, It is urged by the author of the new 
 History that Caesar is entitled to especial admiration by 
 reason of his admitted clemency, compared with other mil- 
 itary personages who might be mentioned. In this mat- 
 ter he is only repeating the language of Sallust, who 
 though an able and instructive writer, is well known to 
 have been one of the most corrupt and profligate men 
 then residing in Rome ; who had been even expelled from 
 the Senate on account of grave offenses against the pub- 
 lic morals committed by him ; and who owed his restora- 
 tion to the membership of that body, which he had for- 
 feited, to the kindness of Caesar, whom he had joined on 
 the road from Arminium to lower Italy, when the scheme 
 of invasion was already in actual progress. Whether this 
 asserted clemency of Caesar was only seeming, and not 
 real, as is declared by Cicero and others, may be decided 
 by a consideration of the following well-attested facts: 
 
 In his celebrated campaigns in Gaul, Germany, and 
 Britain. — most of which were begun and prosecuted with- 
 out any formal authorization from Koine, and in the 
 progress of which he exercised powers such as did not 
 legitimately appertain to his station — especially in the 
 
102 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 
 
 making and unmaking kings at pleasure ; lie did undoubt- 
 edly cause more blood to be ruthlessly shed and terrible 
 sufferings to be undergone by the vanquisher! than had 
 ever before dishonored the Roman eagles. We have space 
 only for the presentation of a few prominent facts. 
 
 1. After the last decisive battle with the Helvetians, 
 he ordered 6,000 valiant soldiers, called Berbegenl on ac- 
 count of their having attempted simply to avoid, by sep- 
 arate flight, the disastrous fate of the great body of their 
 countrymen, either to be put to death or sold as slaves. 
 
 2. The Veneti, a maritime people, located upon the 
 Northern coast of Gaul, and who are reported to have 
 carried on an active and profitable commerce with Britain, 
 whose sole fault, as alleged in the Commentaries, con- 
 sisted in the detaining of several Roman deputies sent 
 into their country by Caesar for supplies of corn, (which 
 act of detention had only been resorted to in order to 
 compel Caesar to send back their own hostages, demanded 
 of them as the}^ conceived without any just authority,) 
 were subjected to all the horrors of an unsparing war, 
 both upon the land and upon the water. When at last 
 crushed by superior force, in a battle which was begun at 
 ten o'clock in the morning and continued until sunset, 
 the Veneti having lost all their youth, all their principal 
 citizens, and all their fleet, were forced to surrender at 
 discretion. Here was a noble field for the display of 
 moderation and magnanimity. Caesar's own Comment- 
 aries confess the fact that in this state of things the con- 
 queror caused the whole Venetan senate to be put to death, 
 and the rest of the inhabitants to be sold for slaves. 
 
 3. A battle was fought by Caesar with two German 
 tribes, known as the Teucteri and the Usipetes, who were 
 attacked by the Roman forces when they had no right to 
 expect anything of the kind to occur, their chiefs, who 
 had visited Caesar's camp as negotiators tor peace, having 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 498 
 
 been forcibly detained by him. In the conflict which en- 
 sued, the Germans having been completely surprised were 
 thrown into utter confusion ; in the midst of which, 
 Csesar, observing that the women and children who at- 
 tended upon the camp of the enemy were Hying in every 
 direction to a place of safety, ordered them to be indis- 
 criminately massacred by the Roman soldiers. Our his- 
 torian, so far from censuring the cruel and unmanly con- 
 duct of Ceesar on this occasion, finds serious fault with the 
 noble Cato for formally proposing in the Roman Senate 
 that, Csesar, for this atrocious act of mingled perfidy and 
 violence, should be at once surrendered up to the German 
 people to atone for his outrageous violation of the laws of 
 civilized warfare. It would be easy to multiply these 
 sickening details ; but we forbear. We are content, to 
 close this g;rim narrative of atrocities with a single addi- 
 tional instance. 
 
 4. In the year 701, while Csesar was south of the Alps, 
 levying additional forces, and superintending political 
 intrigues looking to his own future advancement to su- 
 preme power, a general uprising of the eight millions of 
 the noble Gallic nation against the tyrannical domination 
 of Rome took place, under the auspices of an accomplished 
 and high-sprited young chief, himself of royal extraction, 
 by name Vercingetorix. After many scenes of bloody 
 and exhausting strife, in which deeds of prowess were 
 performed on either side as honorable as any which have 
 ever adorned the annals of war, the superior generalship 
 of C;esarandthe persevering energy of the Roman soldiery 
 prevail, and the Gallic States and people are no longer 
 willing to prosecute the war for national independence 
 and freedom. The magnanimous conduct of Vercingetorix 
 at this melancholy crisis is worthy of all praise. He con- 
 vokes a council of his countrymen. He declares to this 
 council that he has not undertaken this bloody and terri- 
 
494 CASKET OF KEMINISCENCES. 
 
 ble war " out of personal interest, but for the achievement 
 of the liberty of all." " True," he continues, " we must 
 yield to fate. I place myself at the discretion of my 
 fellow-citizens, and will allow myself, in order to appease 
 the Romans, to be delivered to the enemy, dead or alive." 
 
 A deputation bearing this proposition is sent at once to 
 Caesar, who requires that the arms and the chiefs be de- 
 livered to him. He places himself in front of his camp, 
 inside of his intrenchinents ; the chiefs are brought ; the 
 arms are laid down, and \^ercingetorix surrenders to the 
 conqueror. " This valiant defender of Gaul," says the 
 History, " arrives on horseback, clad in his finest arms, 
 makes the circuit of Caesar's tribunal, dismounts, and lay- 
 ing down his sword and his military ensigns, exclaims : 
 * Thou hast vanquished a bravi man, thou, the bravest of all! " 
 
 Before we notice the fate of this splendid young Gallic 
 hero, we cop}' from the following from Commentaries : 
 '•The prisoners were distributed by head, to each soldier, 
 by way of booty, except the 20,000 who belong to the 
 . Edui and A verm, and whom Caesar restored in the hope 
 of bringing them back to his cause." 
 
 As to Ctesar's treatment of Vercino-etorix, let Dio Cas- 
 sins explain: "After this defeat, Vercingetorix, who had 
 neither been taken or wounded, might have fled, but hop- 
 ing that the friendship which had formerly bound him to 
 Caesar would procure his pardon he repaired to the pro- 
 consul, withoul having sent a herald to ask for peace, and 
 appeared suddenly in his presence, at the moment he was 
 sitting on his tribunal. His appearance inspired some 
 fear, for he was tall of stature and had a very imposing 
 aspect under arms. There was a deep silence ; the Gaulish 
 chief fell at Caesar's knees, and implored him by pressing 
 his bands, without uttering a word. This scene excited 
 the pity of the bystanders, by the remembrance of Ver- 
 cingetorix's former prosperity compared with his present 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 195 
 
 misfortune. Gsesar, on the contrary, upbraided him with 
 the recollections on which he had hoped for his safety. 
 He compared with his recent struggle the friendship of 
 which he reminded him, and by that means pointed out 
 more vividly the odiousness of his conduct. And thus, 
 far from being touched with his misfortunes at that mo- 
 ment, he threw him into fetters, and afterward ordered 
 him to be put to death, after having exhibited him in his 
 triumph." 
 
 There is not in all history, as we believe, an instance of 
 greater cruelty and meanness. We know of nothing which 
 can be regarded as even approximating to it in enormity, 
 save the atrocious treatment of Montezuma and G-uata- 
 mozin by that monstrous chief of bandits, Fernando 
 Cortes himself; and yet, in remarking upon this disgusl ing 
 transaction, our complaisant writer of history only says: 
 "By acting thus Caesar believed that he was obeying state 
 policy and the cruel customs of the time. It is to be re- 
 gretted, for his glory, that he did not use toward Vercin- 
 getorix, the illustrious Gaulish chief, the same clemency 
 which, during the civil war, he showed toward the van- 
 quished who were his fellow-citizens." 
 
 Now we must confess, that after studying with dili- 
 gence the history of Caesar's conduct toward his fellow-citi- 
 zens during the civil war, we have met with no remark- 
 able evidences of the much-boasted clemency. lie cer- 
 tainly did not put to death all the Roman soldiers taken 
 prisoners in battle; and on the contrary manifested on all 
 occasions an eager desire to enlist them under his own 
 banner. It is true that he did not rudely expel all the 
 inhabitants of Italy who had originally opposed his at- 
 tempted usurpation beyond the confines of thai beautiful 
 peninsula; for had he done so he would have left, him- 
 self but few subjects to be reigned over. It is also true 
 that he extended a sort of insulting forgiveness to such 
 
496 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES, 
 
 eminent Roman statesmen as he supposed might be trans- 
 formed into supporters of his authority. But there were, 
 even at the period of his decease, many nobly patriotic 
 citizens of Rome who were forbidden to show their faces 
 in the Eternal City. A very large majority of those who 
 had openly allied themselves with Pompey and the Senate, 
 in the great struggle for the preservation of liberty, were 
 cruelly stripped of all the property they possessed by the 
 ruffianly ministers of confiscation; and even the family of 
 the illustrious commander were by no means excepted 
 from the common fate; in proof of which the high testi- 
 mony of Cicero is adducible in these heart-rending words : 
 "Caesar came back from Alexandria, fortunate, as he seemed 
 at least to think himself; but, in my opinion, no man can 
 be fortunate who is not fortunate to the Republic. The 
 spear* was set up in front of Jupiter Stator, and the 
 property of Cneius Pompeius Magnus, (ah ! miserable me ! 
 foi* even now that my tears have ceased to flow, my grief 
 remains deeply implanted in my heart;)— the property, I 
 say, of Cneius Pompeius, the great, was submitted to the 
 pitiless auctioneer. On that occasion the State forgot its 
 slavery, and groaned aloud; and although men's minds 
 were enslaved, as everything was kept under by fear, still 
 the groans of the Roman people were free/' 
 
 Is further evidence desired of Caesar's tyrannous and un- 
 feeling heart? Let a single well-known scene in Roman 
 history suffice for this purpose. A few months anterior 
 to the infliction of more than Roman justice upon this chief 
 of culprits, repeated and earnest applications were being 
 made in favor of exiled patriots whose presence in Rome 
 was deemed unsafe for the upholders of despotism. The 
 friends of Marcelius were particularly urgent in claiming 
 
 ♦The custom of erecting :i spear wherever an auction was held 
 well known. 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 497 
 
 for bin) the privilege of returning to his native land, 
 which he had so long adorned, in former years, by his 
 virtues not less than his eloquence. At last the whole 
 body of the Senate fell prostrate at the feet of the Dictator, 
 and earnestly implored his pardon, not without the eopi- 
 ous shedding of tears. 
 
 Thus appealed to, the iron will of the vain-glorious 
 tyrant was constrained, for very shame, to unbend itself. 
 On this occasion it was that Cicero delivered his cele- 
 brated oration, u Pro Marcello" in whichhe returned formal 
 and elaborate thanks to Caesar for doing what, if he had 
 not done, he would have forfeited the respect of all living 
 men. Never would such a speech have been delivered if 
 clemency had been a virtue of familiar practice with him 
 to whom this special otter of gratitude was made '. 
 
 A single additional remark will conclude our notice of 
 the History of Julius Caesar by the ex-Emperor of the 
 French. It is asserted in this work that at the time of 
 Cresar's demise he was getting ready to restore the ancient 
 free institutions of Rome. Never was a more unfounded 
 statement hazarded. It is true, on the contrary, that at 
 this very moment, not content with far more than ordi- 
 nary kingly authority, he was contemplating his own 
 formal investment with the regal diadem. 
 
 Had Brutus and his noble associates not altogether de- 
 spaired of the resurrection of Roman liberty, save by such 
 means as they, with the fullest deliberation, adopted, 
 never would they have imbrued their hands in the blood 
 of the tyrant ! It were gross injustice to all these illus- 
 trious men to think otherwise; men of whom Cicero so 
 nobly spoke in the Roman Senate afterward, and employ- 
 ing these memorable words concerning them, which will 
 live as long as the Roman literature shall be known on 
 earth : " If those deliverers of ours have taken themselves 
 away out of our sight, still they have left behind them 
 
CASKET OF REMINISCENCE; . 
 
 the example of their conduct. They have clone what no 
 
 one else has done. Brutus pursued Tarquinius with war : 
 who was a king when it was lawful for a king to exisi 
 in Hour'. Spurius Cassius, Spurius Melius, and Marcus 
 Manlius were all slain because they were suspected of 
 aiming at regal power. These are the Hrsf men who have 
 ever ventured to attack, sword in hand, a man who was 
 not aiming at regal power, but actually reigning, and their 
 action is not only of itself a glorious and god-like exploit, 
 but it is also one put forth for our imitation ; especially 
 as by it the} 7 have acquired such glory as appears hardly 
 to be bounded by heaven itself. For although in the 
 very consciousness of a glorious action there is a certain 
 reward, still I do not consider immortality of glory a 
 thing to be despised by one who is himself mortal." 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
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