penmalife® pH 8.5 E 666 .R86 Copy 1 Wnm U ADDRESS Hon. LOVELL H. ROUSSEAU i / TO I1IW CONSTITUENTS. To my Fellow-Citizens of the Fifth Congressional District of Kentucky : l think it due to you. as well as myself, to place the facts connected with my resignation before you in a more connected form than you have been enabled to have them in the brief, detached, and often, partisan statements of the press. I should have conveyed all 1 now wish to say to you in a parting speech in the House of Representatives, if I had been permitted to make that speech. You will see from tire extracts which I add as an appendix to this address,, that relate to the proceedings of the House on the day of my resignation, and which I copy from the Congressional Globe, that I in vain attempted a personal explanation, which was designed to unfold the motives that actuated me in the punishment of Mr. Grinnell. To do this it was manifestly necessary that 1 should give the history of the whole affair, the essential part of which Was the provoking conduct of the member from Iowa; while, at the same time, the manner in which my case had been prosecuted by certain gentlemen on the floor of the House was obviously proper to be stated in connection with the facts in the case as conclusively showing that the mode of that prosecution, by those who were as well judges as accusers, was unfair and unjust to me personally, and also the establishment of an unworthy Congressional precedent. With those who personally know Mr. Grin- uell, in and out of Congress, what he could say as an individual would be scarcely worth attention ; but as a member of Congress, a representative who uttered the obnoxious sen- timents of men of more note, and remember- ing that these sentiments go upon the records of the nation, his remarks were entitled to some consideration. It was this that prompted me to give my attention to his repeated assaults upon the people of Kentucky, as well as myself. He calls himself a man of peace, yet shows himself in his attacks upon Kentucky and her representatives to be a blusterer who sought occasions to plaee himself on the journals of Congress as a wanton and voluntary libeller and assailant. In February last, during a speech of Mr Grinnell'8 in Congress, a colloquy occurred between himself and the Hon. Mr. Trimble, of Kentucky, as follows : Mr. GRINNELL said : * * * e v *• Yet the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Trimble] says Chat the laws of Kentucky are honorable, just, and suited to the condition of that State, but does not give, what I waited to hear, illustrations. I charge that they are monstrous and daionable'laws, such as would be a. dishonor to th$ most barbarous nation on the face of the earth, and I regret to apply the sound political maxim that, no State or nation is better than its laws. I would ask the gen- tleman why the legislature of Kentuck; late session did not change or amend' thost laws, so that they might show that, there was honor in the Kentuckian heart ; that they were willing to mete out, justice to all men? As the gentleman gives me his attention, I will wait for a replj" if he has one to make. Mr. TRIMBLE. I would be happy to reply to the gentleman if it did not interfere with his remarks. Mr. GRINNELL. I desire an answer, and shall not regard it as an interference with my remarks, as I am speaking without a manu- script. Mr. TRIMBLE. Will the gentleman repeat his question ? Mr. GRINNELL. The gentleman says the laws of Kentucky are honorable, just, and suited to the condition of the people of that, State. I ask that gentleman why Kentuckv Ck .0 V- C « ? has not repealed or amended or changed her barbarous laws. Mr. TRIMBLE. What barbarous laws ? Mr. GRINNELL. Those against the loyal black people of the State. For instance, that law which makes it a penal offence for a man who has worn the Government uniform and fought our battles to go into that State. Mr. TRIMBLE. * * * * And having answered the gentleman, I desire to say that I do not wish to have any personal dispute with him. But it would seem that his remarks could be construed into something of that kind. Mr. GRINNELL. My questions are personal, and could not be otherwise. Mr. TRIMBLE. And your denunciations of the State of Kentucky, were they personal? Mr. GRINNELL. I was denouncing wrong and oppression and wickedness and crime. Mr. TRIMBLE. Does the gentleman intend those denunciations to apply to me? Mr. GRINNELL. Not to the gentleman, personally, but to the State that he is defend- ing here. And not only himself, but his col- leagues, who do the same here day after day. ***** This was the begiuning of the trouble with that pestilent member, lie impudently tells the nation, and yourselves in particular, that your laws are barbarous, monstrous, and damnable, and such as would be a dishonor to the most barbarous nation on the face of the earth ; and that you are no better than your laws, and asks why you do not repeal them and show that you have honor in your hearts. Now, let us analyze this accusation. Your laws arc; barbarous, monstrous, and damnable, and wquld dishonor the meanest and most ignorant savages, and you, being no better than your laws, wmilf consequently disgrace even such a people; while you are inferen- tially accused of wanting what is always ac- corded to savages, some sentiment of honor in the human heart, and that you could only - a*pire to a claim to some honor in the Ken- tuckian heart by repealing your monstrous and damnable laws. At this time I was not in my seat and heard none of this tirade. Judge Trimble could not refrain from interrupting the flow of this tor- rent of billingsgate, and you have seen what passed between them. Smarting under the manifest effort of Mr. Grinnell to turn the dis- cussion into a personal disputo, he gave him a fair opportunity to disclaim such a purpose. A just man who sought no quarrel would at once have disavowed such intention. But Grinnell replies : " My questions are personal, and could not be otherwise.' ' Personal, how ? Why, of course in the sense attributed to them by Judge Trimble. And, said the Judge, " Your denunciations of the State of Kentucky — were they personal?" — Again offering an opportunity to Grinnell to disclaim a desire to offend, by saying he did not intend to be personal; but instead of that, he insolently affirms that he is denouncing "wrong and oppression and wickedness and crime." And yet this man calls himself a man of peace. He insults your State and your people, and de- clines to disclaim his purpose to do so when repeated opportunities are presented. And in this same speech, in order to prove that your laws and yourselves ''would dishonor the most barbarous nation on earth," he tells this story : " And here I recall an incident. Not many years ago a fugitive from Kentucky, partly white, a young man, came to my house. After he had eaten his breakfast, he looked round and saw a picture on the wall— a representation of the Saviour on the cross,. T<(K>king at that picture, he said: What are they doing with that fellow up there?' 'Why,' said I. ' 'hat is the Saviour on thecross.' 'The Saviour'." ' Yes— Jesus.' 'Oh, yes; I've heard of that fiellow. He's dead now, I believe.' Such is the ignorance which is the result of Kentucky's laws, forming a public sentiment which led it to be the truth of history, that before the rebel- lion Kentucky fattened her noble Durhams for north- ern shambles, and bred women and children and sent them down to the slave-markets of the South." * * Look at this atrocious blasphemj', falsely uttered to defame and malign your character ! Who believes a word of it? There is not one person in all the South, white or black, who would not denounce it as a base calumny, and it bears on its face the indubitable marks of falsehood. The blasphemy was not enough. To add scandal to the infamous coinage of his brain, he paints his negro as "partly white." And yet this man wantonly parades this pro- fane fabrication for the purpose, and the purpose only of outraging and insulting the Southern people. After all these attacks upon the people of Kentucky, he has the effrontery to utter the following in his tirade of 11th June : "Now, sir,' I wish to deny any unfriendliness to- wards the gentleman or towards the State of Ken- tucky. I deny that I ever made any remark which could be construed to mean anything unfriendly in that respect. So far from that being the case, I have held Kentucky in high regard. I have held in high re- gard the gentleman who preceded in Congress the gentleman from Kentucky who has spoken to-dav. Mis predecessor writes to me that he will be returned here by five or ten thousand majority." He says he did not assail Kentucky, that he did ribt ( insult her, that he is not unfriendly towards her, that he made no remark that could be construed to mean anything of that sort, and that he has held Kentucky, her early history and her statesmen, in high regard ! In his speech of February is the following : "This discussion Is not plainly promotive of the most commendable temper. The honorable gentle- man from Kentucky [Mr. Rousseau J declared on Saturday, as I caught his language, that if he wen- arrested' on the complaint of a negro and brought before one of the agents of this bureau, when he be- came free he would shoot him. Is that civilzation '.' It is the spirit of barbarism, that lvas too long dwelt in our land— the spirit of infernal regions that brought on the rebellion and this war. * * * * " Mr. SMITH. Will the gentleman allow me a moment '! " Mr. GRINNELL. I will for a question. " Mr. SMITH. I do not want to ask a question; I merely wish to make a remark. \ " Mr. GRINNELL. I decline to yield unless tor a question. "Mr. SMITH. I wish to say that my colleague [Mr. Rousseau J does not belong to that class of men that the gentleman from Iowa speaks of. He served in the Union cause four years during the war. " Mr. GRINNELL. History repeats itsolf. I care not whether the gentleman was four years in the war on the Union side or lour years on the other side ; but I say that he degraded liis State and uttered a sentiment I thought unworthy of an American officer when he said that he would do such an act on the complaint of a negro against him. "Mr. SMITH. I deny that my colleague made any such statement." Not content with the insults he had already offered to the people of Kentucky in general, he thus singles me out for an onslaught, charges me with having degraded my State, and uttered a sentiment unworthy of an Ameri- can officer. Under the circumstances this was an unbearable outrage. This calumny upon me was based upon a passage in my speech on the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, in which I had spoken of the outrages committed by its agents on the people of Kentucky, and had adduced the instance of Mr. Blevius and his family, which had trans- pired in Louisville, under my own eye. I had referred to a conversation with Col. McCaleb. agent of the Freedman's Bureau, in the city of Louisville, in which I had said to him, that if he desired to protect the negroes, and see that they were not imposed npon, I would aid him, if necessary, but if it was his purpose to arrest white women and children for trivial offences on the ex parte statements of negroes, so late in the day, as in the Ble- vin's case, that he would not try them until the next morning, and, to secure their appear- ance, imprison them in the guard house during the night, I opposed him, and would resist him, aud if he should arrest me and my family, and hold us and punish us in that way, I would shoot him, when set at liberty. I was speaking of the duty of a man to stand by his wife and children, and defend them against such illegal and unwarrantable and oppressive outrages as this. And this was the sentiment which Grinnell alleged degraded me, and was unworthy of an American officer. Now, all these insults offered to our people, and this outrage to myself, were wholly unprovoked. There was nothing to call them forth, and they were prompted alone by par- tisan malignity and hate of the southern people. I was not present in the House when these remarks were made, but on the next day saw the whole of the extracts cited above in the Congressional Globe, I at once rose, and denounced the language touching myself as a vile slander. Grinnell replied, and in the conclusion of his remarks, said: " If the gentleman means to say that Kentucky Is the only State whose sons do not turn their backs in tbedayof danger, then I apprise hirn that there are other States northward whose sons I defend from cowardice. It is not for me to boast that I belong to the profession of gory Mars, and I have not had much experience in fast running, but trust I have a com- fortable amount of that quality which means stand- ing mill and both awaiting hii<1 meeting the conse- quences of my acts and words at home and abroud.' ' Such is the language of this man of peace. He assails the courage of others, and, vaunting his own, Haunts it in our faces. Whether he in fact possessed a comfortable amount of that quality to which he alludes, and which he so insultingly parades in this speech, he and I know better than all others. We attained this knowledge on the eastern portico of the Capitol. If it were not a hopeless task, I would call the attention of that member to the words of St. Paul, with which, from his former profession, he ought to be familiar, " Let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall," aud "Let him boast that putteth off his armor, rather than him that buckleth it on." And see the provoking unfairness of charging me with assailing the courage of the soldiers from the free States. 1 had no such thought, and gave utterance to no word, which could be tortured into such a meaning. It is true that I said, (in reply to his remark, that the Iowasoldieis had fought on but one side in the war,) that "he could not put his finger on a Kentucky man who had turned his back upon the dangers of any position he had taken." This he attempted to distort into an imputation en the courage of the soldiers from the loyal states. The immediate provocation, which caused his castigation, occurred on the eleventh cf June. On that day, I made a speech on the floor of the House, and attempted to repel the attacks made by several members upon the President, and those who favored his policy, as well as assaults upon the southern people only because they were southern, and alluded to Grinnell and his slanders upon my State and myself. Thereupon, Grinnell, though a man of professed peace and Christian meekness, became greatly enraged. His frenzy was not relieved until he had delivered himself of the abusive harangue, which, having been re- cently published in the Kentucky newspapers, you have doubtless seen, and in which there was nothing of manner or matter within reach of his capacity, to which he did not resort in order to insult and provoke me. The whole thing was an unparallelled seandal to parlia- mentary proceedings. He was vociferous and blatant, and sheltered from instant responsi- bility by the rules of the House, and my forbearance, which was the result of my representative position on the floor of the House, fierce and defiant. I have said that his manner was vociferous and blatant; and though not parson-like, still it was the pugilistic style of the hard-headed patriarch of a flock ; not, however, the flock " Assembled by the bell — Encircled to hear with reverence The exposition of the Holy Test," but his manner on this occasion was rather that of the combative head of a pastoral assem- lily of four-footed innocents, in placid view of which the patient shepherd " Holds his quiet sway, While rams and ewes and little lambs browze near, And gentle lambkins cunningly do play."* He was making a "personal, explanation." It was no debate. He discussed no ques- tion, and did not arise to do so, but ob- tained leave of the House to speak of matters personal to himself, and necessary to his defence. That is what a personal expla- nation means. During this irritating and insulting harangue, two feeble efforts were made to call him to order. But these calls scarcely interrupted for a moment the tirade, and he went on to the end. The Speaker sat in his chair, and looked serenely and smilingly on ; and if he did not enjoy the scene, he certainly made little eft"ort to check it. I bore the infliction as well as I could, resolving that whatever might occur, the matter should be set right. This happened on Monday, and up to Thursday evening no apology was offered by Grinnell, nor- were any steps taken by any member of the House to vindicate its dignity and punish him for this gross violation of its privileges, aud especially of those of your representative. Thus abandoned by those whose duty it was to protect me, I felt that my remedy, if I had any, was iu my hands alone. And s.o I rattanned Grinnell. He unre- sistingly received the castigation, and repeat- edly said it was "all right," and promptly assured me that he did not wish to hurt me. Afterwards, however, he pretended that the reason he did not resist was that he was afraid of assassination. He was not much injured, though he swore before the committee that he was crippled iu his left shoulder and hand by the rattanning, and could not use them. A good deal has been said about the dis- parity in physical strength between us. Now, 'grinnell is physically one of the strongest met) in Congress - . He is not tall, but must weigh about 180 pounds, and there are not three stronger men on the floor of the House than he. On the day after his castigation, he was boasting to Speaker Colfax of his prowess, and what he could have doue if he had chosen on the occasion. A great deal has also been said of persons present at the time of theassault, and my accusation was greatly magnified by- parading the fact that some of those present had pistols. Ridiculous as it was, some charged that it was intended to assassinate Grinnell. Col. Peunybaker was the only per- son who knew my purpose to rattan Grinnell. No one else knew any thing about the matter, ami of course could make no preparation for it. And yet Peunybaker, Grigsby, and Mc- Grew, the two latter of whom were utterly ignorant of, and took no part in, the thing, were ordered to be arrested and brought be- fore the House for punishment. I asked Col. • Grinnell in an extrusive Blirep (rrou-cr. Pennybaker to go with me, simply to see and afterwards tell what occurred. My case was fiercely prosecuted by Banks and Garfield and Wilson, and there are some inci- dents connected with it, which 1 cannot pass over in silence. Ex-Governor Boutwell of Massachusetts, and Wilson of Iowa, went before the Committee to prosecute me and prepare a case, which, as my judges, they were after- wards to decide in the House. When the Committee met, Boutwell asked permission to appear for Grinnell instead of Wilson, who was absent for the moment. And so Boutwell appeared, and questioned and made suggestions in the case, and- afterwards Wilson took his place — when Boutwell retired. When the stenographic reporter, who took down the proceedings as they occurred, presented the record to the Committee at its next meeting, I found thatBoutwell's name was omitted, and the questions he had asked, and the suggestions he had made in the progress of the investiga- tion, were attributed to Wilson. ■ On asking the reporter how it was the record was thus muti- lated, he replied that Messrs. Boutwell and Wil- son had prevailed upon him to leave out Bout- well's name, saying that it was unnecessary to insert it. The intention doubtless was to re- lieve the case from the appearance of persecu- tion, and withhold the fact, on the record at leiist, that both Boutwell and Wilson had taken part in the prosecution. Here was Bout- well an ex-governor of a State, and Wilson the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, not members of the committee appointed to inves- tigate my case, but volunteers in the matter, both men of position and influence, appearing before the Select Committee to arouse their passions preparatory to a calm and dignified and just and fair examination and decision of it, when it should come into the House ! Now this mutilation of the record, by leaving out Boutwell' s name, with a view of relieving the prosecution of a little weight, was not only an outrage on justice, and a fraud upon the House, but it was in fact an offence hard to describe by a milder expression than one which classes it as moral fraud. The object was to falsify the history of the case, and take from it some of the odium that would attach to it, by such evidence being spread before the public of the eagerness of two of the most prominent men of the House to harrass me; a zeal that would not permit of their waiting till my case properly came up before them, but prompted them to pursue me in advance before the Committee. When the Committee had closed its investi- gation, and were on the point of leaving the room, the reporter remembered that Mr. Wilson had appeared in the case for Mr. Grinnell, and asked in what capacity his name should go upon the record. I said "as counsel, of course." Wilson said " no," and one of the Committee suggested "as the colleague and friend of Mr. Grinnell;" whereupon Wilson drew from his pocket a paper saying, " Well, 6 1 am here in obedience to a summons ; here is the subpoena." He did not say his name should be inserted in the record as a witness, but I leave it to others to decide what he really meant by the suggestion. Ah, Mr. Wilson, you essayed to falsify the record by leaving Boutwell's name out of the ease as one of my prosecutors^ and now are you willing to drop your character as prose- cutor and assume the innocent and inoffensive one of a witness? And after all this you under- take to lecture me on the proprieties of congres- sional and social life ! In the discussions on the floor, Banks and Garfield and Wilson made speeches, and pros- ecuted me as if I had been guilty of a high felonious crime. Garfield's speech was vocif- erous and fierce, exhibiting great passion, and would have been in character with a ' ' shyster' ' in a Police Court of the city of New York. He arose, proclaiming his friendship for Griunell and myself, and premising, therefore, that he eould have no feeling in the matter, and yet, like an actor hired to pump up passion, began at once, "snorting himself into a rage," and raved through the case, as if his life, the spoils of office, or the life of his party depended upon convicting me. In the midst of his speech, a trivial fist fight occurred somewhere in the base- ment of the Capitol, and he lugged an account of that into his argument in a tragic and incen- diary manner "as a brutal and bloody assault" which he seemed to infer, called for my immedi- ate punishment. And thus we see a late soldier, a general of the army, standing on the floor of the House of Representatives of the United States, and attempting to influence its judg- ment in the trial of a brother member, by creating a sensation, and arousing the passions of his hearers by an exaggerated detail of a contemptible matter that should never have been heard of in that body, an affair which would hardly have disturbed a tea party of old maids. But all this, as well as his gratuitous denun- ciation of a former brother soldier, was of course prompted by his * friendship" for me. Save me from all such friends and friendship ! On the instant of his announcement of the fist light as a " bloody and brutal outrage," Mr. Alley of Massachusetts, with shivering limbs and tremulous voice, and finely acted artistic emotion, introduced a resolution that the young man, victor in the tremendous fisticuff below, should be arrested, and held for punishment by the House. The effect of this was dramatic in the extreme; men's faces paled, and many seemed to think that the world demanded an instant victim. The resolution was adopted, and the arrest of the pugilist ordered. This terrible interlude over, the partisan friends of Grinnell, grimly but triumphantly proceeded in the immense work before them. I looked on with some surprise, but more of amuse- ment, at this flurry caused by Garfield's efforts at dramatic effect upon the radical portion of the House. The case went on: Garfield insisted that ^HmmiikmMmmm^mimmigmm^m^mm the House had in fact protected me. This re- markably steep statement was made with all Grinnell's slanders and billingsgate before him, coupled with the fact that but two feeble efforts were made on the part of the House to stop his tongue, which efforts ended as they began. How any gentleman could be so far biased as to see the thing in that light I cannot tell, but I venture the assertion that there was not a member on the floor who agreed with Garfield in that statement. The records of the House show it to be ridiculously false. Garfield perverted my actions and miscon- strued my conduct whenever he alluded to either. He even turned against me the candor and frankness with which I submitted to the Committee every fact within my knowledge touching the affair. I had no concealments, and so told the Committee ; and they appre- ciated the fact, although Mr. Garfield did not. Incapable of understanding a generous action, and judging others by himsdf, he was pleased to hold what was intended and offered as re- spectful submission to the Committee was im- pudence and defiance on my part. Grinnell swore before the Committee of Investigation that he caught me by the collar before I touched him with the rattan, to prevent me from draw- ing a weapon. All who witnessed the affair (as well as myself) know this to be false, as I had no weapon. I questioned Grinnell particularly on the point, to lay a foundation for contra- dicting him, and was, at the time, forced to make several allusions to the moment of striking, and what was said and done within the moment, which was construed by Garfield into a parading, on my part, of the rattanning. Yet, nothing was further from my mind, and there was no evidence that I had any such purpose. He railed at me, also, as being contumacious, for not apologizing to the House, as if I had anything to apologize for. The apology should have come from the Speaker and the House, and from Garfield as a member of it. In fact, whatever I had said or done was misunderstood or misrepresented by Gar- field. He seemed impressed with the* belief that the case was one in which he was called upon to play the pettifogger and exhibit his ingenuity in the quirks and twirls of disputa- tion, regardless of right. As an appropriate matter here, I insert what follows on this branch of the case, extracted from the speech of Mr. Raymond, of New York: "On the same day, after the debate had gone on some time, the gentleman from Iowa rose to reply to the gentleman from Kentucky, asking permission 10- make a personal explanation, which was granted. Now, I do not propose to read at length what the gentleman from Iowa said on the occasion. It was read in full yesterday at the Clerk's desk, during the speech of my colleague, [Mr. Hale.] But I call attention to the leading points of it— to this mainly, that it was in no sense a reply to anything the gentle- man from Kentucky had said. It was simply a per- Bona! attack upon him as a gentleman and as anoftl- cer of the Army, No one can read any part of it with- out seeing that this is its character. In the rirst place, he refers to his personal appear- ance " standing six feet high, wearing butt', and carry- ing the air of a certain bird that has a more than usual extremity of tail, wanting in the other extre- mity.'' He then speaks about his being a defender of the President, and says: "God save the President from an incoherent, brain- lesa defender, equal In valor in civil and in military life. His military record! Who has read It? In what volume of history is it found?'' * * * * * "Where was he in the great lights? Go to the general officers; and since he has alluded to Iowa, I will give the opinion of a leading officer of that state, for not two weeks ago he told me that when there was a noise in camp the men said that it was either a rabbit or General Kousseau." He also refers to the gentleman from Kentucky "having a quarrel with his barber and backed off,' 1 and concludes with the following language: " I did speak something about the men from Ken- tucky lighting on both sides. .Sir, I have been sent here by a majority of seven thousand; and I do not go to the state of Kentucky for indorsement, nor do the soldiers of Iowa. Their record is made, and it was not made under the leadership of any man from Kentucky. It was made under the leadership of their own colonels and generals, and under General Grant and General Sherman. When the gentleman gets up here and claims the honor of having led the Iowa soldiers. I say that they were not so led; that they spurn such an intimation; and in this I mean noth- ing personal." * * * * * * "And then the gentleman whines off with a woman's plea, talcing refuge under feminine skirts as a certain other gentleman went off in disguise." General Banks sat in solemn silence and looked on, with a countenance of great gravity and wisdom, during the harangue of Wilson, and even during the magnifi- cently dramatic effort of Garfield to achieve a flurry caused by the announcement of a list fight, but finally, after the previous ques- tion — which cuts off all reply — 'Was called and seconded, arose to take his part in the mighty affair. His voice, cultivated and at- tuned to that of an ambitious baritone, lack- ing only the Italian melody and finish, rang out in full, but unvarying and monotonous notes, and penetrated every nook and corner of the amphitheatred hall, resounding back from the furtherest galleries, and heard by every- body in and about the building — except per- haps by the two chaps engaged in the san- guinary fist fight in the basement of the cap- itol. The general was eloquent, and like Garfield and Wilson, ever strong on the stronger side. In true tragedian style, he in- formed the House that this was a momentous perfod in our history. The House did not know, but I happened to be informed as to what he alluded. I had been told that before the Committee he contended that as the Southern representatives would soon be again in Con- ■_ ress. it behooved the House to set mi example and make a precedent in my case that would deter them in all time to come from resenting any