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diff --git a/old/13911.txt b/old/13911.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aa30877 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13911.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7253 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, +Volume 3 (of 14), by Elbert Hubbard, Edited by Fred Bann + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) + +Author: Elbert Hubbard + +Release Date: October 31, 2004 [eBook #13911] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES OF +THE GREAT, VOLUME 3 (OF 14)*** + + +E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland and the Project Gutenberg Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 13911-h.htm or 13911-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/9/1/13911/13911-h/13911-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/9/1/13911/13911-h.zip) + + + + + +Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) + +LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES OF AMERICAN STATESMEN + +by + +ELBERT HUBBARD + +Memorial Edition + +1916 + + + + + + +CONTENTS + +THE LITTLE JOURNEYS CAMP +GEORGE WASHINGTON +BENJAMIN FRANKLIN +THOMAS JEFFERSON +SAMUEL ADAMS +JOHN HANCOCK +JOHN QUINCY ADAMS +ALEXANDER HAMILTON +DANIEL WEBSTER +HENRY CLAY +JOHN JAY +WILLIAM H. SEWARD +ABRAHAM LINCOLN + + + + +THE LITTLE JOURNEYS CAMP + +BERT HUBBARD + + A little more patience, a little more charity for all, a little + more devotion, a little more love; with less bowing down to the + past, and a silent ignoring of pretended authority; a brave + looking forward to the future with more faith in our fellows, and + the race will be ripe for a great burst of light and life. + --Elbert Hubbard + +[Illustration: THE LITTLE JOURNEYS CAMP] + + +It was not built with the idea of ever becoming a place in history: simply +a boys' cabin in the woods. + +Fibe, Rich, Pie and Butch were the bunch that built it. + +Fibe was short for Fiber, and we gave him that name because his real name +was Wood. Rich got his name from being a mudsock. Pie got his because he +was a regular pieface. And they called me Butch for no reason at all +except that perhaps my great-great-grandfather was a butcher. + +We were a fine gang of youngsters, all about thirteen years, wise in boys' +deviltry. What we didn't know about killing cats, breaking window-panes in +barns, stealing coal from freight-cars, and borrowing eggs from +neighboring hencoops without consent of the hens, wasn't worth the +knowing. + +There used to be another boy in the gang, Skinny. One day when we ran away +to the swimming-hole after school, this other little fellow didn't come +back with us. + +You see, there was the little-kids' swimmin'-hole and the big-kids' +swimmin'-hole. The latter was over our heads. Well, Skinny swung out on +the rope hanging from the cottonwood-tree on the bank of the big-kids' +hole. Somehow he lost his head and fell in. + +None of us could swim, and he was too far out to reach. There was nothing +to help him with, so we just had to watch him struggle till he had gone +down three times. And there where we last saw him a lot of bubbles came +up. The inquiry before the Justice of Peace with our fathers, which +followed, put fright in our bones, and the sight of the old creek was a +nightmare for months to come. After that we decided to keep to the hills +and woods. This necessitated a hut. But we had no lumber with which to +build it. + +However, there were three houses going up in town--and surely they could +spare a few boards. So after dark we got out old Juliet and the +spring-wagon and made several visits to the new houses. The result was +that in about a week we had enough lumber to frame the cabin. + +Our site was about three miles from town, high up on the Adams Farm. After +many evening trips with the old mare and much figuring we had the thing +done, all but the windows, door, and shingles on the roof. Well, I knew +where there was an old door and two window-sash taken off our +chicken-house to let in the air during Summer. And one rainy night three +bunches of shingles found their way from Perkins' lumber-yard to the foot +of the hill on the Adams Farm. + +In another five days the place was finished. It was ten by sixteen, and +had four bunks, two windows, a paneled front door, a back entrance and a +porch--altogether a rather pretentious camp for a gang of young ruffians. + +But it was a labor of love, and we certainly had worked mighty hard. Our +love was given particularly to the three house-builders and to Perkins, +down in town. + +Of course we had to have a stove. + +This we got from Bowen's hardware-store for two dollars and forty cents. +He wanted four dollars, and we argued for some time. The stove was a +secondhand one and good only for scrap-iron anyway. Scrap was worth fifty +cents a hundred, and this stove weighed only two hundred fifty, so we +convinced the man our offer was big. At that we made him throw in a +frying-pan. + +For dishes and cutlery, I believe each of our mothers' pantries +contributed. Then a stock of grub was confiscated. The storeroom in the +Phalansterie furnished Heinz beans, chutney, and a few others of the +fifty-seven. John had run an ad in "The Philistine" for Heinz and taken +good stuff in exchange. + +For four years after that, this old camp was kept stocked with eats all +the time. We would hike out Friday after school and stay till Sunday +night. At Christmas-time we would spend the week's vacation there. + +Many times had I tried to get my Father to go out and stay overnight. But +he wouldn't go. One time, though, I did not come home when I had promised, +so Father rode out on Garnett to find me. Instead of my coming back with +him he just unsaddled and turned Garnett loose in the woods and stayed +overnight. + +We gave him the big bunk with two red quilts, and he stuck it out. Next +morning we had fried apples, ham and coffee for breakfast. + +What there was about it I did not understand, but John was a very frequent +visitor after that. + +You know we called Father, John, because he said that wasn't his name. + +He used to come up in the evening and would bring the Red One or Sammy the +Artist or Saint Jerome the Sculptor. Once he brought Michael Monahan and +John Sayles the Universalist preacher. + +Mike didn't like it. + +The field-mice running on the rafters overhead at night chilled his blood. +He called them terrible beasts. + +From then on we youngsters were gradually deprived of our freedom at camp. +These visitors were too numerous for us and we had to seek other fields of +adventure. + +John got to going out to the camp to get away from visitors at the Shop. +He found the place quiet and comforting. The woods gave him freedom to +think and write. It so developed that he would spend about four days a +month there, writing the "Little Journey" for the next month. How many of +his masterpieces were written at the Camp I can not say, but for several +years it was his Retreat and he used it constantly. + +He reminded us boys several times when we kicked, that he had a good claim +on it--for didn't he furnish the door and the window-frames? + +I never suspected he would recognize them. + + + + +GEORGE WASHINGTON + + He left as fair a reputation as ever belonged to a human + character.... Midst all the sorrowings that are mingled on this + melancholy occasion I venture to assert that none could have felt + his death with more regret than I, because no one had higher + opinions of his worth.... There is this consolation, though, to + be drawn, that while living no man could be more esteemed, and + since dead none is more lamented. + --Washington, on the Death of Tilghman + +[Illustration: GEORGE WASHINGTON] + + +Dean Stanley has said that all the gods of ancient mythology were once +men, and he traces for us the evolution of a man into a hero, the hero +into a demigod, and the demigod into a divinity. By a slow process, the +natural man is divested of all our common faults and frailties; he is +clothed with superhuman attributes and declared a being separate and +apart, and is lost to us in the clouds. + +When Greenough carved that statue of Washington that sits facing the +Capitol, he unwittingly showed how a man may be transformed into a Jove. + +But the world has reached a point when to be human is no longer a cause +for apology; we recognize that the human, in degree, comprehends the +divine. + +Jove inspires fear, but to Washington we pay the tribute of affection. +Beings hopelessly separated from us are not ours: a god we can not love, a +man we may. We know Washington as well as it is possible to know any man. +We know him better, far better, than the people who lived in the very +household with him. We have his diary showing "how and where I spent my +time"; we have his journal, his account-books (and no man was ever a more +painstaking accountant); we have hundreds of his letters, and his own +copies and first drafts of hundreds of others, the originals of which have +been lost or destroyed. + +From these, with contemporary history, we are able to make up a close +estimate of the man; and we find him human--splendidly human. By his books +of accounts we find that he was often imposed upon, that he loaned +thousands of dollars to people who had no expectation of paying; and in +his last will, written with his own hand, we find him canceling these +debts, and making bequests to scores of relatives; giving freedom to his +slaves, and acknowledging his obligation to servants and various other +obscure persons. He was a man in very sooth. He was a man in that he had +in him the appetites, the ambitions, the desires of a man. Stewart, the +artist, has said, "All of his features were indications of the strongest +and most ungovernable passions, and had he been born in the forest, he +would have been the fiercest man among savage tribes." + +But over the sleeping volcano of his temper he kept watch and ward, until +his habit became one of gentleness, generosity, and shining, simple truth; +and, behind all, we behold his unswerving purpose and steadfast strength. + +And so the object of this sketch will be, not to show the superhuman +Washington, the Washington set apart, but to give a glimpse of the man +Washington who aspired, feared, hoped, loved and bravely died. + + * * * * * + +The first biographer of George Washington was the Reverend Mason L. Weems. +If you have a copy of Weems' "Life of Washington," you had better wrap it +in chamois and place it away for your heirs, for some time it will command +a price. Fifty editions of Weems' book were printed, and in its day no +other volume approached it in point of popularity. In American literature, +Weems stood first. To Weems are we indebted for the hatchet tale, the +story of the colt that was broken and killed in the process, and all those +other fine romances of Washington's youth. Weems' literary style reveals +the very acme of that vicious quality of untruth to be found in the +old-time Sunday-school books. Weems mustered all the "Little Willie" +stories he could find, and attached to them Washington's name, claiming to +write for "the Betterment of the Young," as if in dealing with the young +we should carefully conceal the truth. Possibly Washington could not tell +a lie, but Weems was not thus handicapped. + +Under a mass of silly moralizing, he nearly buried the real Washington, +giving us instead a priggish, punk youth, and a Madame Tussaud, full-dress +general, with a wax-works manner and a wooden dignity. + +Happily, we have now come to a time when such authors as Mason L. Weems +and John S.C. Abbott are no longer accepted as final authorities. We do +not discard them, but, like Samuel Pepys, they are retained that they may +contribute to the gaiety of nations. + +Various violent efforts have been made in days agone to show that +Washington was of "a noble line"--as if the natural nobility of the man +needed a reason--forgetful that we are all sons of God, and it doth not +yet appear what we shall be. But Burke's "Peerage" lends no light, and the +careful, unprejudiced, patient search of recent years finds only the blood +of the common people. + +Washington himself said that in his opinion the history of his ancestors +"was of small moment and a subject to which, I confess, I have paid little +attention." + +He had a bookplate and he had also a coat of arms on his carriage-door. +The Reverend Mr. Weems has described Washington's bookplate thus: "Argent, +two bar gules in chief, three mullets of the second. Crest, a raven with +wings, indorsed proper, issuing out of a ducal coronet, or." + + * * * * * + +Mary Ball was the second wife of Augustine Washington. In his will the +good man describes this marriage, evidently with a wink, as "my second +Venture." And it is sad to remember that he did not live to know that his +"Venture" made America his debtor. The success of the union seems pretty +good argument in favor of widowers marrying. There were four children in +the family, the oldest nearly full grown, when Mary Ball came to take +charge of the household. She was twenty-seven, her husband ten years +older. They were married March Sixth, Seventeen Hundred Thirty-one, and on +February Twenty-second of the following year was born a man child and they +named him George. + +The Washingtons were plain, hard-working people--land-poor. They lived in +a small house that had three rooms downstairs and an attic, where the +children slept, and bumped their heads against the rafters if they sat up +quickly in bed. + +Washington got his sterling qualities from the Ball family, and not from +the tribe of Washington. George was endowed by his mother with her own +splendid health and with all the sturdy Spartan virtues of her mind. In +features and in mental characteristics, he resembled her very closely. +There were six children born to her in all, but the five have been nearly +lost sight of in the splendid success of the firstborn. + +I have used the word "Spartan" advisedly. Upon her children, the mother +of Washington lavished no soft sentimentality. A woman who cooked, weaved, +spun, washed, made the clothes, and looked after a big family in pioneer +times had her work cut out for her. The children of Mary Washington obeyed +her, and when told to do a thing never stopped to ask why--and the same +fact may be said of the father. + +The girls wore linsey-woolsey dresses, and the boys tow suits that +consisted of two pieces, which in Winter were further added to by hat and +boots. If the weather was very cold, the suits were simply duplicated--a +boy wearing two or three pairs of trousers instead of one. + +The mother was the first one up in the morning, the last one to go to rest +at night. If a youngster kicked off the covers in his sleep and had a +coughing spell, she arose and looked after him. Were any sick, she not +only ministered to them, but often watched away the long, dragging hours +of the night. + +And I have noticed that these sturdy mothers in Israel, who so willingly +give their lives that others may live, often find vent for overwrought +feelings by scolding; and I, for one, cheerfully grant them the privilege. +Washington's mother scolded and grumbled to the day of her death. She also +sought solace by smoking a pipe. And this reminds me that a noted +specialist in neurotics has recently said that if women would use the weed +moderately, tired nerves would find repose and nervous prostration would +be a luxury unknown. Not being much of a smoker myself, and knowing +nothing about the subject, I give the item for what it is worth. + +All the sterling, classic virtues of industry, frugality and truth-telling +were inculcated by this excellent mother, and her strong commonsense made +its indelible impress upon the mind of her son. + +Mary Washington always regarded George's judgment with a little suspicion; +she never came to think of him as a full-grown man; to her he was only a +big boy. Hence, she would chide him and criticize his actions in a way +that often made him very uncomfortable. During the Revolutionary War she +followed his record closely: when he succeeded she only smiled, said +something that sounded like "I told you so," and calmly filled her pipe; +when he was repulsed she was never cast down. She foresaw that he would be +made President, and thought "he would do as well as anybody." + +Once, she complained to him of her house in Fredericksburg; he wrote in +answer, gently but plainly, that her habits of life were not such as would +be acceptable at Mount Vernon. And to this she replied that she had never +expected or intended to go to Mount Vernon, and moreover would not, no +matter how much urged--a declination without an invitation that must have +caused the son a grim smile. In her nature was a goodly trace of savage +stoicism that took a satisfaction in concealing the joy she felt in her +son's achievement; for that her life was all bound up in his we have good +evidence. + +Washington looked after her wants and supplied her with everything she +needed, and, as these things often came through third parties, it is +pretty certain she did not know the source; at any rate she accepted +everything quite as her due, and shows a half-comic ingratitude that is +very fine. + +When Washington started for New York to be inaugurated President, he +stopped to see her. She donned a new white cap and a clean apron in honor +of the visit, remarking to a neighbor woman who dropped in that she +supposed "these great folks expected something a little extra." It was the +last meeting of mother and son. She was eighty-three at that time and "her +boy" fifty-five. She died not long after. + +Samuel Washington, the brother two years younger than George, has been +described as "small, sandy-whiskered, shrewd and glib." Samuel was married +five times. Some of the wives he deserted and others deserted him, and two +of them died, thus leaving him twice a sad, lorn widower, from which +condition he quickly extricated himself. He was always in financial +straits and often appealed to his brother George for loans. In Seventeen +Hundred Eighty-one we find George Washington writing to his brother John, +"In God's name! how has Samuel managed to get himself so enormously in +debt?" The remark sounds a little like that of Samuel Johnson, who on +hearing that Goldsmith was owing four hundred pounds exclaimed, "Was ever +poet so trusted before?" + +Washington's ledger shows that he advanced his brother Samuel two thousand +dollars, "to be paid back without interest." But Samuel's ship never came +in, and in Washington's will we find the debt graciously and gracefully +discharged. + +Thornton Washington, a son of Samuel, was given a place in the English +army at George Washington's request; and two other sons of Samuel were +sent to school at his expense. One of the boys once ran away and was +followed by his uncle George, who carried a goodly birch with intent to +"give him what he deserved"; but after catching the lad the uncle's heart +melted, and he took the runaway back into favor. An entry in Washington's +journal shows that the children of his brother Samuel cost him fully five +thousand dollars. + +Harriot, one of the daughters of Samuel, lived in the household at Mount +Vernon and evidently was a great cross, for we find Washington pleading as +an excuse for her frivolity that "she was not brung up right, she has no +disposition, and takes no care of her clothes, which are dabbed about in +every corner, and the best are always in use. She costs me enough!" + +And this was about as near a complaint as the Father of his Country, and +the father of all his poor relations, ever made. In his ledger we find +this item: "By Miss Harriot Washington, gave her to buy wedding-clothes, +$100.00." It supplied the great man joy to write that line, for it was the +last of Harriot. He furnished a fine wedding for her, and all the +servants had a holiday, and Harriot and her unknown lover were happy ever +afterwards--so far as we know. + +From Seventeen Hundred Fifty to Seventeen Hundred Fifty-nine, Washington +was a soldier on the frontier, leaving Mount Vernon and all his business +in charge of his brother John. Between these two there was a genuine bond +of affection. To George this brother was always, "Dear Jack," and when +John married, George sends "respectful greetings to your Lady," and +afterwards "love to the little ones from their Uncle." And in one of the +dark hours of the Revolution, George writes from New Jersey to this +brother: "God grant you health and happiness. Nothing in this world would +add so to mine as to be near you." John died in Seventeen Hundred +Eighty-seven, and the President of the United States writes in simple, +undisguised grief of "the death of my beloved brother." + +John's eldest son, Bushrod, was Washington's favorite nephew. He took a +lively interest in the boy's career, and taking him to Philadelphia placed +him in the law-office of Judge James Wilson. He supplied Bushrod with +funds, and wrote him many affectionate letters of advice, and several +times made him a companion on journeys. The boy proved worthy of it all, +and developed into a strong and manly man--quite the best of all +Washington's kinsfolk. In later years, we find Washington asking his +advice in legal matters and excusing himself for being such a +"troublesome, non-paying client." In his will the "Honorable Bushrod +Washington" is named as one of the executors, and to him Washington left +his library and all his private papers, besides a share in the estate. +Such confidence was a fitting good-by from the great and loving heart of a +father to a son full worthy of the highest trust. + +Of Washington's relations with his brother Charles, we know but little. +Charles was a plain, simple man who worked hard and raised a big family. +In his will Washington remembers them all, and one of the sons of Charles +we know was appointed to a position upon Lafayette's staff on Washington's +request. + +The only one of Washington's family that resembled him closely was his +sister Betty. The contour of her face was almost identical with his, and +she was so proud of it that she often wore her hair in a queue and donned +his hat and sword for the amusement of visitors. Betty married Fielding +Lewis, and two of her sons acted as private secretaries to Washington +while he was President. One of these sons--Lawrence Lewis--married Nellie +Custis, the adopted daughter of Washington and granddaughter of Mrs. +Washington, and the couple, by Washington's will, became part-owners of +Mount Vernon. The man who can figure out the exact relationship of Nellie +Custis' children to Washington deserves a medal. + +We do not know much of Washington's father: if he exerted any special +influence on his children we do not know it. He died when George was +eleven years old, and the boy then went to live at the "Hunting Creek +Place" with his half-brother Lawrence, that he might attend school. +Lawrence had served in the English navy under Admiral Vernon, and, in +honor of his chief, changed the name of his home and called it Mount +Vernon. Mount Vernon then consisted of twenty-five hundred acres, mostly a +tangle of forest, with a small house and log stables. The tract had +descended to Lawrence from his father, with provision that it should fall +to George if Lawrence died without issue. Lawrence married, and when he +died, aged thirty-two, he left a daughter, Mildred, who died two years +later. Mount Vernon then passed to George Washington, aged twenty-one, but +not without a protest from the widow of Lawrence, who evidently was paid +not to take the matter into the courts. Washington owned Mount Vernon for +forty-six years, just one-half of which time was given to the service of +his country. It was the only place he ever called "home," and there he +sleeps. + + * * * * * + +When Washington was fourteen, his schooldays were over. Of his youth we +know but little. He was not precocious, although physically he developed +early; but there was no reason why the neighbors should keep tab on him +and record anecdotes. They had boys of their own just as promising. He was +tall and slender, long-armed, with large, bony hands and feet, very +strong, a daring horseman, a good wrestler, and, living on the banks of a +river, he became, as all healthy boys must, a good swimmer. + +His mission among the Indians in his twenty-first year was largely +successful through the personal admiration he excited among the savages. +In poise, he was equal to their best, and ever being a bit proud, even if +not vain, he dressed for the occasion in full Indian regalia, minus only +the war-paint. The Indians at once recognized his nobility, and named him +"Conotancarius"--Plunderer of Villages--and suggested that he take to wife +an Indian maiden, and remain with them as chief. + +When he returned home, he wrote to the Indian agent, announcing his safe +arrival and sending greetings to the Indians. "Tell them," he says, "how +happy it would make Conotancarius to see them, and take them by the hand." + +His wish was gratified, for the Indians took him at his word, and fifty of +them came to him, saying, "Since you could not come and live with us, we +have come to live with you." They camped on the green in front of the +residence, and proceeded to inspect every room in the house, tested all +the whisky they could find, appropriated eatables, and were only induced +to depart after all the bedclothes had been dyed red, and a blanket or a +quilt presented to each. + +Throughout his life Washington had a very tender spot in his heart for +women. At sixteen, he writes with all a youth's solemnity of "a hurt of +the heart uncurable." And from that time forward there is ever some "Faire +Mayde" to be seen in the shadow. In fact, Washington got along with women +much better than with men; with men he was often diffident and awkward, +illy concealing his uneasiness behind a forced dignity; but he knew that +women admired him, and with them he was at ease. When he made that first +Western trip, carrying a message to the French, he turns aside to call on +the Indian princess, Aliguippa. In his journal, he says, "presented her a +Blanket and a Bottle of Rum, which latter was thought the much best +Present of the 2." + +In his expense-account we find items like these: "Treating the ladys 2 +shillings." "Present for Polly 5 shillings." "My share for Music at the +Dance 3 shillings." "Lost at Loo 5 shillings." In fact, like most +Episcopalians, Washington danced and played cards. His favorite game seems +to have been "Loo"; and he generally played for small stakes, and when +playing with "the Ladys" usually lost, whether purposely or because +otherwise absorbed, we know not. + +In Seventeen Hundred Fifty-six, he made a horseback journey on military +business to Boston, stopping a week going and on the way back at New York. +He spent the time at the house of a former Virginian, Beverly Robinson, +who had married Susannah Philipse, daughter of Frederick Philipse, one of +the rich men of Manhattan. In the household was a young woman, Mary +Philipse, sister of the hostess. She was older than Washington, educated, +and had seen much more of polite life than he. The tall, young Virginian, +fresh from the frontier, where he had had horses shot under him, excited +the interest of Mary Philipse, and Washington, innocent but ardent, +mistook this natural curiosity for a softer sentiment and proposed on the +spot. As soon as the lady got her breath he was let down very gently. + +Two years afterwards Mary Philipse married Colonel Roger Morris, in the +king's service, and cards were duly sent to Mount Vernon. But the +whirligig of time equalizes all things, and, in Seventeen Hundred +Seventy-six, General Washington, Commander of the Continental Army, +occupied the mansion of Colonel Morris, the Colonel and his lady being +fugitive Tories. In his diary, Washington records this significant item: +"Dined at the house lately Colonel Roger Morris confiscated and the +occupation of a common Farmer." + +Washington always attributed his defeat at the hands of Mary Philipse to +being too precipitate and "not waiting until ye ladye was in ye mood." But +two years later we find him being even more hasty and this time with +success, which proves that all signs fail in dry weather, and some things +are possible as well as others. He was on his way to Williamsburg to +consult physicians and stopped at the residence of Mrs. Daniel Parke +Custis to make a short call--was pressed to remain to tea, did so, +proposed marriage, and was graciously accepted. We have a beautiful steel +engraving that immortalizes this visit, showing Washington's horse +impatiently waiting at the door. + +Mrs. Custis was a widow with two children. She was twenty-six, and the +same age as Washington within three months. Her husband had died seven +months before. In Washington's cash-account for May, Seventeen Hundred +Fifty-eight, is an item, "one Engagement Ring L2.16.0." + +The happy couple were married eight months later, and we find Mrs. +Washington explaining to a friend that her reason for the somewhat hasty +union was that her estate was getting in a bad way and a man was needed to +look after it. Our actions are usually right, but the reasons we give +seldom are; but in this case no doubt "a man was needed," for the widow +had much property, and we can not but congratulate Martha Custis on her +choice of "a man." She owned fifteen thousand acres of land, many lots in +the city of Williamsburg, two hundred negroes, and some money on bond; all +the property being worth over one hundred thousand dollars--a very large +amount for those days. Directly after the wedding, the couple moved to +Mount Vernon, taking a good many of the slaves with them. Shortly after, +arrangements were under way to rebuild the house, and the plans that +finally developed into the present mansion were begun. + +Washington's letters and diary contain very few references to his wife, +and none of the many visitors to Mount Vernon took pains to testify either +to her wit or to her intellect. We know that the housekeeping at Mount +Vernon proved too much for her ability, and that a woman was hired to +oversee the household. And in this reference a complaint is found from the +General that "housekeeper has done gone and left things in confusion." He +had his troubles. + +Martha's education was not equal to writing a presentable letter, for we +find that her husband wrote the first draft of all important missives that +it was necessary for her to send, and she copied them even to his mistakes +in spelling. Very patient was he about this, and even when he was +President and harried constantly we find him stopping to acknowledge for +her "an invitation to take some Tea," and at the bottom of the sheet +adding a pious bit of finesse, thus: "The President requests me to send +his compliments and only regrets that the pressure of affairs compels him +to forego the Pleasure of seeing you." + +After Washington's death, his wife destroyed the letters he had written +her--many hundred in number--an offense the world is not yet quite willing +to forget, even though it has forgiven. + + * * * * * + +Although we have been told that when Washington was six years old he could +not tell a lie, yet he afterwards partially overcame the disability. On +one occasion he writes to a friend that the mosquitoes of New Jersey "can +bite through the thickest boot," and though a contemporary clergyman, +greatly flurried, explains that he meant "stocking," we insist that the +statement shall stand as the Father of his Country expressed it. +Washington also records without a blush, "I announced that I would leave +at 8 and then immediately gave private Orders to go at 5, so to avoid the +Throng." Another time when he discharged an overseer for incompetency he +lessened the pain of parting by writing for the fellow "a Character." + +When he went to Boston and was named as Commander of the Army, his chief +concern seemed to be how he would make peace with Martha. Ho! ye married +men! do you understand the situation? He was to be away for a year, two, +or possibly three, and his wife did not have an inkling of it. Now, he +must break the news to her. + +As plainly shown by Cabot Lodge and other historians, there was much +rivalry for the office, and it was only allotted to the South as a +political deal after much bickering. Washington had been a passive but +very willing candidate, and after a struggle his friends secured him the +prize--and now what to do with Martha! Writing to her, among other things +he says, "You may believe me, my dear Patsy, when I assure you in the most +solemn manner that so far from seeking the appointment I have done all in +my power to avoid it." The man who will not fabricate a bit in order to +keep peace with the wife of his bosom is not much of a man. But "Patsy's" +objections were overcome, and beyond a few chidings and sundry +complainings, she did nothing to block the great game of war. + +At Princeton, Washington ordered campfires to be built along the brow of a +hill for a mile, and when the fires were well lighted, he withdrew his +army, marched around to the other side, and surprised the enemy at +daylight. At Brooklyn, he used masked batteries, and presented a fierce +row of round, black spots painted on canvas that, from the city, looked +like the mouths of cannon at which men seek the bauble reputation. It is +said he also sent a note threatening to fire these sham cannon, on +receiving which the enemy hastily moved beyond range. Perceiving +afterwards that they had been imposed upon, the brave English sent word to +"shoot and be damned." Evidently, Washington considered that all things +are fair in love and war. + +Washington talked but little, and his usual air was one of melancholy that +stopped just short of sadness. All this, with the firmness of his features +and the dignity of his carriage, gave the impression of sternness and +severity. And these things gave rise to the popular conception that he +had small sense of humor; yet he surely was fond of a quiet smile. + +At one time, Congress insisted that a standing army of five thousand men +was too large; Washington replied that if England would agree never to +invade this country with more than three thousand men, he would be +perfectly willing that our army should be reduced to four thousand. + +When the King of Spain, knowing he was a farmer, thoughtfully sent him a +present of a jackass, Washington proposed naming the animal in honor of +the donor; and in writing to friends about the present, draws invidious +comparisons between the gift and the giver. Evidently, the joke pleased +him, for he repeats it in different letters; thus showing how, when he sat +down to clear his desk of correspondence, he economized energy by +following a form. So, we now find letters that are almost identical, even +to jokes, sent to persons in South Carolina and in Massachusetts. +Doubtless the good man thought they would never be compared, for how could +he foresee that an autograph-dealer in New York would eventually catalog +them at twenty-two dollars fifty cents each, or that a very proper but +half-affectionate missive of his to a Faire Ladye would be sold by her +great-granddaughter for fifty dollars? + +In Seventeen Hundred Ninety-three there were on the Mount Vernon +plantation three hundred seventy head of cattle, and Washington appends to +the report a sad regret that, with all this number of horned beasts, he +yet has to buy butter. There is also a fine, grim humor shown in the +incident of a flag of truce coming in at New York, bearing a message from +General Howe, addressed to "Mr. Washington." The General took the letter +from the hand of the redcoat, glanced at the superscription, and said: +"Why, this letter is not for me! It is directed to a planter in Virginia. +I'll keep it and give it to him at the end of the war." Then, cramming the +letter into his pocket, he ordered the flag of truce out of the lines and +directed the gunners to stand by. In an hour, another letter came back +addressed to "His Excellency, General Washington." + +It was not long after this a soldier brought to Washington a dog that had +been found wearing a collar with the name of General Howe engraved on it. +Washington returned the dog by a special messenger with a note reading, +"General Washington sends his compliments to General Howe, and begs to +return one dog that evidently belongs to him." In this instance, I am +inclined to think that Washington acted in sober good faith, but was the +victim of a practical joke on the part of one of his aides. + +Another remark that sounds like a joke, but perhaps was not one, was when, +on taking command of the army at Boston, the General writes to his +lifelong friend, Doctor Craik, asking what he can do for him, and adding a +sentiment still in the air: "But these Massachusetts people suffer +nothing to go by them that they can lay their hands on." In another letter +he pays his compliments to Connecticut thus: "Their impecunious meanness +surpasses belief." When Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, Washington +refused to humiliate him and his officers by accepting their swords. He +treated Cornwallis as his guest, and even "gave a dinner in his honor." At +this dinner, Rochambeau being asked for a toast gave "The United States." +Washington proposed "The King of France." Cornwallis merely gave "The +King," and Washington, putting the toast, expressed it as Cornwallis +intended, "The King of England," and added a sentiment of his own that +made even Cornwallis laugh--"May he stay there!" Washington's treatment of +Cornwallis made him a lifelong friend. Many years after, when Cornwallis +was Governor-General of India, he sent a message to his old antagonist, +wishing him "prosperity and enjoyment," and adding, "As for myself, I am +yet in troubled waters." + + * * * * * + +Once in a century, possibly, a being is born who possesses a transcendent +insight, and him we call a "genius." Shakespeare, for instance, to whom +all knowledge lay open; Joan of Arc; the artist Turner; Swedenborg, the +mystic--these are the men who know a royal road to geometry; but we may +safely leave them out of account when we deal with the builders of a +State, for among statesmen there are no geniuses. + +Nobody knows just what a genius is or what he may do next; he boils at an +unknown temperature, and often explodes at a touch. He is uncertain and +therefore unsafe. His best results are conjured forth, but no man has yet +conjured forth a Nation--it is all slow, patient, painstaking work along +mathematical lines. Washington was a mathematician and therefore not a +genius. We call him a great man, but his greatness was of that sort in +which we all can share; his virtues were of a kind that, in degree, we too +may possess. Any man who succeeds in a legitimate business works with the +same tools that Washington used. Washington was human. We know the man; we +understand him; we comprehend how he succeeded, for with him there were no +tricks, no legerdemain, no secrets. He is very near to us. + +Washington is indeed first in the hearts of his countrymen. Washington has +no detractors. There may come a time when another will take first place in +the affections of the people, but that time is not yet ripe. Lincoln +stood between men who now live and the prizes they coveted; thousands +still tread the earth whom he benefited, and neither class can forgive, +for they are of clay. But all those who lived when Washington lived are +gone; not one survives; even the last body-servant, who confused memory +with hearsay, has departed babbling to his rest. + +We know all of Washington we will ever know; there are no more documents +to present, no partisan witnesses to examine, no prejudices to remove. His +purity of purpose stands unimpeached; his steadfast earnestness and +sterling honesty are our priceless examples. + +We love the man. + +We call him Father. + + + + +BENJAMIN FRANKLIN + + I will speak ill of no man, not even in matter of truth; but + rather excuse the faults I hear charged upon others, and upon + proper occasion speak all the good I know of everybody. + --_Franklin's Journal_ + +[Illustration: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN] + + +Benjamin Franklin was twelve years old. He was large and strong and fat +and good-natured, and had a full-moon face and red cheeks that made him +look like a country bumpkin. He was born in Boston within twenty yards of +the church called "Old South," but the Franklins now lived at the corner +of Congress and Hanover Streets, where to this day there swings in the +breeze a gilded ball, and on it the legend, "Josiah Franklin, +Soap-Boiler." + +Benjamin was the fifteenth child in the family; and several having grown +to maturity and flown, there were thirteen at the table when little Ben +first sat in the high chair. But the Franklins were not superstitious, and +if little Ben ever prayed that another would be born, just for luck, we +know nothing of it. His mother loved him very much and indulged him in +many ways, for he was always her baby boy, but the father thought that +because he was good-natured he was also lazy and should be disciplined. + +Once upon a time the father was packing a barrel of beef in the cellar, +and Ben was helping him, and as the father always said grace at table, the +boy suggested he ask a blessing, once for all, on the barrel of beef and +thus economize breath. But economics along that line did not appeal to +Josiah Franklin, for this was early in Seventeen Hundred Eighteen, and +Josiah was a Presbyterian and lived in Boston. + +The boy was not religious, for he never "went forward," and only went to +church because he had to, and read "Plutarch's Lives" with much more +relish than he did "Saints' Rest." But he had great curiosity and asked +questions until his mother would say, "Goodness gracious, go and play!" + +And as the boy wasn't very religious or very fond of work, his father and +mother decided that there were only two careers open for him: the mother +proposed that he be made a preacher, but his father said, send him to sea. + +To go to sea under a good strict captain would discipline him, and to send +him off and put him under the care of the Reverend Doctor Thirdly would +answer the same purpose--which course should be pursued? But Pallas +Athene, who was to watch over this lad's destinies all through life, +preserved him from either. + +His parents' aspirations extended even to his becoming captain of a +schooner or pastor of the First Church at Roxbury. And no doubt he could +have sailed the schooner around the globe in safety, or filled the pulpit +with a degree of power that would have caused consternation to reign in +the heart of every other preacher in town; but Fate saved him that he +might take the Ship of State, when she threatened to strand on the rocks +of adversity, and pilot her into peaceful waters, and to preach such +sermons to America that their eloquence still moves us to better things. + +Parents think that what they say about their children goes, and once in an +awfully long time it does, but the men who become great and learned +usually do so in spite of their parents--which remark was first made by +Martin Luther, but need not be discredited on that account. + +Ben's oldest brother was James. Now, James was nearly forty; he was tall +and slender, stooped a little, and had sandy whiskers, and a nervous +cough, and positive ideas on many subjects--one of which was that he was a +printer. His apprentice, or "devil," had left him, because the devil did +not like to be cuffed whenever the compositor shuffled his fonts. James +needed another apprentice, and proposed to take his younger brother and +make a man of him if the old folks were willing. The old folks were +willing and Ben was duly bound by law to his brother, agreeing to serve +him faithfully, as Jacob served Laban, for seven years and two years more. + +Science has explained many things, but it has not yet told why it +sometimes happens that when seventeen eggs are hatched, the brood will +consist of sixteen barnyard fowls and one eagle. + +James Franklin was a man of small capacity, whimsical, jealous and +arbitrary. But if he cuffed his apprentice Benjamin when the compositor +blundered, and when he didn't, it was his legal right; and the master who +did not occasionally kick his apprentices was considered derelict to duty. +The boy ran errands, cleaned the presses, swept the shop, tied up bundles, +did the tasks that no one else would do; and incidentally "learned the +case." Then he set type, and after a while ran a press. And in those days +a printer ranked considerably above a common mechanic. A man who was a +printer was a literary man, as were the master printers of London and +Venice. A printer was a man of taste. All editors were printers, and +usually composed the matter as they set it up in type. Thus we now have +the expressions: a "composing-room," a "composing-stick," etc. People once +addressed "Mr. Printer," not "Mr. Editor," and when they met "Mr. Printer" +on the street removed their hats--but not in Philadelphia. + +Young Franklin felt a proper degree of pride in his work, if not vanity. +In fact, he himself has said that vanity is a good thing, and whenever he +saw it come flaunting down the street, always made way, knowing that there +was virtue somewhere back of it--out of sight perhaps, but still there. +James, being a brother, had no confidence in Ben's intellect, so when Ben +wrote short articles on this and that, he tucked them under the door so +that James would find them in the morning. James showed these articles to +his friends, and they all voted them very fine, and concluded they must +have been written by Doctor So-and-So, Ph.D., who, like Lord Bacon, was a +very modest man and did not care to see his name in print. + +Yet, by and by, it came out who it was that wrote the anonymous "hot +stuff," and then James did not think it was quite so good as he at first +thought, and moreover, declared he knew whose it was all the time. Ben was +eighteen and had read Montaigne, and Collins, and Shaftesbury, and Hume. +When he wrote he expressed thoughts that then were considered very +dreadful, but that can now be heard proclaimed even in good orthodox +churches. But Ben had wit and to spare, and he leveled it at government +officials and preachers, and these gentlemen did not relish the +jokes--people seldom relish jokes at their own expense--and they sought to +suppress the newspaper that the Franklin brothers published. + +The blame for all the trouble James heaped upon Benjamin, and all the +credit for success he took to himself. James declared that Ben had the big +head--and he probably was right; but he forgot that the big head, like +mumps and measles and everything else in life, is self-limiting and good +in its way. So, to teach Ben his proper place, James reminded him that he +was only an apprentice, with three years yet to serve, and that he should +be seen seldom and not heard all the time, and that if he ran away he +would send a constable after him and fetch him back. + +Ben evidently had a mind open to suggestive influences, for the remark +about running away prompted him to do so. He sold some of his books and +got himself secreted on board a ship about to sail for New York. + +Arriving at New York, in three days he found the broad-brimmed Dutch had +small use for printers and no special admiration for the art preservative; +and he started for Philadelphia. + +Every one knows how he landed in a small boat at the foot of Market Street +with only a few coppers in his pocket, and made his way to a bakeshop and +asked for a threepenny loaf of bread, and being told they had no +threepenny loaves, then asked for threepenny's worth of any kind of bread, +and was given three loaves. Where is the man who in a strange land has not +suffered rather than reveal his ignorance before a shopkeeper? When I was +first in England and could not compute readily in shillings and pence, I +would toss out a gold piece when I made a purchase and assume a 'igh and +'aughty mien. And that Philadelphia baker probably died in blissful +ignorance of the fact that the youth who was to be America's pride bought +from him three loaves of bread when he wanted only one. + +The runaway Ben had a downy beard all over his face, and as he took his +three loaves and walked up Market Street, with a loaf under each arm, +munching on the third, he was smiled upon in merry mirth by the buxom +Deborah Read, as she stood in the doorway of her father's house. Yet +Franklin got even with her, for some months after, he went back that way +and courted her, grew to love him, and they "exchanged promises," he says. +After some months of work and love-making, Franklin sailed away to England +on a wild-goose chase. He promised to return soon and make Deborah his +wife. But he wrote only one solitary letter to the broken-hearted girl and +did not come back for nearly two years. + + * * * * * + +Time is the great avenger as well as educator; only the education is +usually deferred until it no longer avails in this incarnation, and is +valuable only for advice--and nobody wants advice. Deathbed repentances +may be legal-tender for salvation in another world, but for this they are +below par, and regeneration that is postponed until the man has no further +capacity to sin is little better. For sin is only perverted power, and the +man without capacity to sin neither has ability to do good--isn't that so? +His soul is a Dead Sea that supports neither ameba nor fish, neither +noxious bacilli nor useful life. Happy is the man who conserves his +God-given power until wisdom and not passion shall direct it. So, the +younger in life a man makes the resolve to turn and live, the better for +that man and the better for the world. + +Once upon a time Carlyle took Milburn, the blind preacher, out on to +Chelsea embankment and showed the sightless man where Franklin plunged +into the Thames and swam to Blackfriars Bridge. "He might have stayed +here," said Thomas Carlyle, "and become a swimming-teacher, but God had +other work for him!" Franklin had many opportunities to stop and become a +victim of arrested development, but he never embraced the occasion. He +could have stayed in Boston and been a humdrum preacher, or a thrifty +sea-captain, or an ordinary printer; or he could have remained in London, +and been, like his friend Ralph, a clever writer of doggerel, and a +supporter of the political party that would pay the most. + +Benjamin Franklin was twenty years old when he returned from England. The +ship was beaten back by headwinds and blown out of her course by +blizzards, and becalmed at times, so it took eighty-two days to make the +voyage. A worthy old clergyman tells me this was so ordained and ordered +that Benjamin might have time to meditate on the follies of youth and +shape his course for the future, and I do not argue the case, for I am +quite willing to admit that my friend, the clergyman, has the facts. + +Yes, we must be "converted," "born again," "regenerated," or whatever you +may be pleased to call it. Sometimes--very often--it is love that reforms +a man, sometimes sickness, sometimes sore bereavement. + +Doctor Talmage says that with Saint Paul it was a sunstroke, and this may +be so, for surely Saul of Tarsus on his way to Damascus to persecute +Christians was not in love. Love forgives to seventy times seven and +persecutes nobody. + +We do not know just what it was that turned Franklin; he had tried +folly--we know that--and he just seems to have anticipated Browning and +concluded: + + "It's wiser being good than bad; + It's safer being meek than fierce; + It's better being sane than mad." + +On this voyage the young printer was thrust down into the depths and made +to wrestle with the powers of darkness; and in the remorse of soul that +came over him he made a liturgy to be repeated night and morning, and at +midday. There were many items in this ritual--all of which were corrected +and amended from time to time in after-years. Here are a few paragraphs +that represent the longings and trend of the lad's heart. His prayer was: + +"That I may have tenderness for the meek; that I may be kind to my +neighbors, good-natured to my companions and hospitable to strangers. Help +me, O God! + +"That I may be averse to craft and overreaching, abhor extortion and every +kind of weakness and wickedness. Help me, O God! + +"That I may have constant regard to honor and probity; that I may possess +an innocent and good conscience, and at length become truly virtuous and +magnanimous. Help me, O God! + +"That I may refrain from calumny and detraction; that I may abhor deceit, +and avoid lying, envy and fraud, flattery, hatred, malice and ingratitude. +Help me, O God!". + +Then, in addition, he formed rules of conduct and wrote them out and +committed them to memory. The maxims he adopted are old as thought, yet +can never become antiquated, for in morals there is nothing either new or +old, neither can there be. + +On that return voyage from England, he inwardly vowed that his first act +on getting ashore would be to find Deborah Read and make peace with her +and his conscience. And true to his vow, he found her, but she was the +wife of another. Her mother believed that Franklin had run away simply to +get rid of her, and the poor girl, dazed and forlorn, bereft of will, had +been induced to marry a man by the name of Rogers, who was a potter and +also a potterer, but who Franklin says was "a very good potter." + +After some months, Deborah left the potter, because she did not like to be +reproved with a strap, and went home to her mother. + +Franklin was now well in the way of prosperity, aged twenty-four, with a +little printing business, plans plus, and ambitions to spare. He had had +his little fling in life, and had done various things of which he was +ashamed; and the foolish things that Deborah had done were no worse than +those of which he had been guilty. So he called on her, and they talked it +over and made honest confessions that are good for the soul. The potter +disappeared--no one knew where--some said he was dead, but Benjamin and +Deborah did not wear mourning. They took rumor's word for it, and thanked +God, and went to a church and were married. + +Deborah brought to the firm a very small dowry; and Benjamin contributed a +bright baby boy, aged two years, captured no one knows just where. This +boy was William Franklin, who grew up into a very excellent man, and the +worst that can be said of him is that he became Governor of New Jersey. He +loved and respected his father, and called Deborah mother, and loved her +very much. And she was worthy of all love, and ever treated him with +tenderness and gentlest considerate care. Possibly a blot on the +'scutcheon may, in the working of God's providence, not always be a dire +misfortune, for it sometimes has the effect of binding broken hearts as +nothing else can, as a cicatrice toughens the fiber. + +Deborah had not much education, but she had good, sturdy commonsense, +which is better if you are forced to make choice. She set herself to help +her husband in every way possible, and so far as I know, never sighed for +one of those things you call "a career." She even worked in the +printing-office, folding, stitching, and doing up bundles. + +Long years afterward, when Franklin was Ambassador of the American +Colonies in France, he told with pride that the clothes he wore were spun, +woven, cut out, and made into garments--all by his wife's own hands. +Franklin's love for Deborah was very steadfast. Together they became rich +and respected, won world-wide fame, and honors came that way such as no +American before or since has ever received. + +And when I say, "God bless all good women who help men do their work," I +simply repeat the words once used by Benjamin Franklin when he had Deborah +in mind. + + * * * * * + +When Franklin was forty-two, he had accumulated a fortune of seventy-five +thousand dollars. It gave him an income of about four thousand dollars a +year, which he said was all he wanted; so he sold out his business, +intending to devote his entire energies to the study of science and +languages. He had lived just one-half his days; and had he then passed +out, his life could have been summed up as one of the most useful that +ever has been lived. He had founded and been the life of the Junto +Club--the most sensible and beneficent club of which I ever heard. + +The series of questions asked at every meeting of the Junto, so mirror the +life and habit of thought of Franklin that we had better glance at a few +of them: + +1. Have you read over these queries this morning, in order to consider +what you might have to offer the Junto, touching any one of them? + +2. Have you met with anything in the author you last read, remarkable, or +suitable to be communicated to the Junto; particularly in history, +morality, poetry, physics, travels, mechanical arts, or other parts of +knowledge? + +3. Do you know of a fellow-citizen, who has lately done a worthy action, +deserving praise and imitation; or who has lately committed an error, +proper for us to be warned against and avoid? + +4. What unhappy effects of intemperance have you lately observed or +heard; of imprudence, of passion, or of any other vice or folly? + +5. What happy effects of temperance, of prudence, of moderation, or of any +other virtue? + +6. Do you think of anything at present in which the members of the Junto +may be serviceable to mankind, to their country, to their friends, or to +themselves? + +7. Hath any deserving stranger arrived in town since last meeting that you +have heard of? And what have you heard or observed of his character or +merits? And whether, think you, it lies in the power of the Junto to +oblige him, or encourage him as he deserves? + +8. Do you know of any deserving young beginner, lately set up, whom it +lies in the power of the Junto in any way to encourage? + +9. Have you lately observed any defect in the laws of your country, of +which it would be proper to move the legislature for an amendment? Or do +you know of any beneficial law that is wanting? + +10. Have you lately observed any encroachment on the just liberties of the +people? + +11. In what manner can the Junto, or any of its members, assist you in any +of your honorable designs? + +12. Have you any weighty affair on hand in which you think the advice of +the Junto may be of service? + +13. What benefits have you lately received from any man not present? + +14. Is there any difficulty in matters of opinion, of justice and +injustice, which you would gladly have discussed at this time? + +The Junto led to the establishment, by Franklin, of the Philadelphia +Public Library, which became the parent of all public libraries in +America. He also organized and equipped a fire-company; paved and lighted +the streets of Philadelphia; established a high school and an academy for +the study of English branches; founded the Philadelphia Public Hospital; +invented the toggle-joint printing-press, the Franklin Stove, and various +other useful mechanical devices. + +After his retirement from business, Franklin enjoyed seven years of what +he called leisure, but they were years of study and application; years of +happiness and sweet content, but years of aspiration and an earnest +looking into the future. His experiments with kite and key had made his +name known in all the scientific circles of Europe, and his suggestive +writings on the subject of electricity had caused Goethe to lay down his +pen and go to rubbing amber for the edification of all Weimar. + +Franklin was in correspondence with the greatest minds of Europe, and what +his "Poor Richard Almanac" had done for the plain people of America, his +pamphlets were now doing for the philosophers of the Old World. + +In Seventeen Hundred Fifty-four, he wrote a treatise showing the Colonies +that they must be united, and this was the first public word that was to +grow and crystallize and become the United States of America. Before +that, the Colonies were simply single, independent, jealous and bickering +overgrown clans. Franklin showed for the first time that they must unite +in mutual aims. + +In Seventeen Hundred Fifty-seven, matters were getting a little strained +between the Province of Pennsylvania and England. "The lawmakers of +England do not understand us--some one should go there as an authorized +agent to plead our cause," and Franklin was at once chosen as the man of +strongest personality and soundest sense. So Franklin went to England and +remained there for five years as agent for the Colonies. + +He then returned home, but after two years the Stamp Act had stirred up +the public temper to a degree that made revolution imminent, and Franklin +again went to England to plead for justice. The record of the ten years he +now spent in London is told by Bancroft in a hundred pages. Bancroft is +very good, and! have no desire to rival him, so suffice it to say that +Franklin did all that any man could have done to avert the coming War of +the Revolution. Burke has said that when he appeared before Parliament to +be examined as to the condition of things in America, it was like a lot of +schoolboys interrogating the master. + +With the voice and tongue of a prophet, Franklin foretold the English +people what the outcome of their treatment of America would be. Pitt and a +few others knew the greatness of Franklin, and saw that he was right, but +the rest smiled in derision. + +He sailed for home in Seventeen Hundred Seventy-five, and urged the +Continental Congress to the Declaration of Independence, of which he +became a signer. Then the war came, and had not Franklin gone to Paris and +made an ally of France, and borrowed money, the Continental Army could not +have been maintained in the field. + +He remained in France for nine years, and was the pride and pet of the +people. His sound sense, his good humor, his distinguished personality, +gave him the freedom of society everywhere. He had the ability to adapt +himself to conditions, and was everywhere at home. + +Once, he attended a memorable banquet in Paris shortly after the close of +the Revolutionary War. Among the speakers was the English Ambassador, who +responded to the toast, "Great Britain." The Ambassador dwelt at length on +England's greatness, and likened her to the sun that sheds its beneficent +rays on all. The next toast was "America," and Franklin was called on to +respond. He began very modestly by saying: "The Republic is too young to +be spoken of in terms of praise; her career is yet to come, and so, +instead of America, I will name you a man, George Washington--the Joshua +who successfully commanded the sun to stand still." The Frenchmen at the +board forgot the courtesy due their English guest, and laughed needlessly +loud. + +Franklin was regarded in Paris as the man who had both planned the War of +the Revolution, and fought it. They said, "He despoiled the thunderbolt of +its danger and snatched sovereignty out of the hand of King George of +England." No doubt that his ovation was largely owing to the fact that he +was supposed to have plucked whole handfuls of feathers from England's +glory, and surely they were pretty nearly right. + +In point of all-round development, Franklin must stand as the foremost +American. The one intent of his mind was to purify his own spirit, to +develop his intellect on every side, and make his body the servant of his +soul. His passion was to acquire knowledge, and the desire of his heart +was to communicate it. + +The writings of Franklin--simple, clear, concise, direct, impartial, +brimful of commonsense--form a model which may be studied by every one +with pleasure and profit. They should constitute a part of the curriculum +of every college and high school that aspires to cultivate in its pupils a +pure style and correct literary taste. + +We know of no man who ever lived a fuller life, a happier life, a life +more useful to other men, than Benjamin Franklin. For forty-two years he +gave the constant efforts of his life to his country, and during all that +time no taint of a selfish action can be laid to his charge. Almost his +last public act was to petition Congress to pass an act for the abolition +of slavery. He died in Seventeen Hundred Ninety, and as you walk up Arch +Street, Philadelphia, only a few squares from the spot where stood his +printing-shop, you can see the place where he sleeps. + +The following epitaph, written by himself, not, however, appear on the +simple monument that marks his grave: + + The Body + of + Benjamin Franklin, Printer + (Like the cover of an old book, + Its contents torn out, + And stripped of its lettering and gilding,) + Lies here food for worms. + Yet the work itself shall not be lost, + For it will (as he believes) appear once + more + In a new + And more beautiful Edition + Corrected and Amended + By + The Author. + + + + +THOMAS JEFFERSON + + If I could not go to Heaven but with a Party, I would not go + there at all. + --Jefferson, in a Letter to Madison + +[Illustration: THOMAS JEFFERSON] + + +William and Mary College was founded in Sixteen Hundred Ninety-two by the +persons whose names it bears. The founders bestowed on it an endowment +that would have been generous had there not been attached to it sundry +strings in way of conditions. + +The intent was to make Indians Episcopalians, and white students +clergymen; and the assumption being that between the whites and the +aborigines there was little difference, the curriculum was an ecclesiastic +medley. + +All the teachers were appointed by the Bishop of London, and the places +were usually given to clergymen who were not needed in England. + +To this college, in Seventeen Hundred Sixty, came Thomas Jefferson, a +tall, red-haired youth, aged seventeen. He had a sharp nose and a sharp +chin; and a youth having these has a sharp intellect--mark it well. + +This boy had not been "sent" to college. He came of his own accord from +his home at Shadwell, five days' horseback journey through the woods. His +father was dead, and his mother, a rare gentle soul, was an invalid. + +Death is not a calamity "per se," nor is physical weakness necessarily a +curse, for out of these seeming unkind conditions Nature often distils her +finest products. The dying injunction of a father may impress itself upon +a son as no example of right living ever can, and the physical disability +of a mother may be the means that work for excellence and strength. The +last-expressed wish of Peter Jefferson was that his son should be well +educated, and attain to a degree of useful manliness that the father had +never reached. And into the keeping of this fourteen-year-old youth the +dying man, with the last flicker of his intellect, gave the mother, +sisters and baby brother. + +We often hear of persons who became aged in a single night, their hair +turning from dark to white; but I have seen death thrust responsibility +upon a lad and make of him a man between the rising of the sun and its +setting. When we talk of "right environment" and the "proper conditions" +that should surround growing youth, we fan the air with words--there is no +such thing as a universal right environment. + +An appreciative chapter might here be inserted concerning those beings who +move about only in rolling chairs, who never see the winter landscape but +through windows, and who exert their gentle sway from an invalid's couch, +to which the entire household or neighborhood come to confession or to +counsel. And yet I have small sympathy for the people who professionally +enjoy poor health, and no man more than I reverences the Greek passion for +physical perfection. But a close study of Jefferson's early life reveals +the truth that the death of his father and the physical weakness of his +mother and sisters were factors that developed in him a gentle sense of +chivalry, a silken strength of will, and a habit of independent thought +and action that served him in good stead throughout a long life. + +Williamsburg was then the capital of Virginia. It contained only about a +thousand inhabitants, but when the Legislature was in session it was very +gay. + +At one end of a wide avenue was the Capitol, and at the other the +Governor's "palace"; and when the city of Washington was laid out, +Williamsburg served as a model. On Saturdays, there were horse-races on +the "Avenue"; everybody gambled; cockfights and dogfights were regarded as +manly diversions; there was much carousing at taverns; and often at +private houses there were all-night dances where the rising sun found +everybody but the servants plain drunk. + +At the college, both teachers and scholars were obliged to subscribe to +the Thirty-nine Articles and to recite the Catechism. The atmosphere was +charged with theology. + +Young Jefferson had never before seen a village of even a dozen houses, +and he looked upon this as a type of all cities. He thought about it, +talked about it, wrote about it, and we now know that at this time his +ideas concerning city versus country crystallized. + +Fifty years after, when he had come to know London and Paris, and had seen +the chief cities of Christendom, he repeated the words he had written in +youth, "The hope of a nation lies in its tillers of the soil!" + +On his mother's side he was related to the "first families," but +aristocracy and caste had no fascination for him, and he then began +forming those ideas of utility, simplicity and equality that time only +strengthened. + +His tutors and professors served chiefly as "horrible examples," with the +shining exception of Doctor Small. The friendship that ripened between +this man and young Jefferson is an ideal example of what can be done +through the personal touch. Men are great only as they excel in sympathy; +and the difference between sympathy and imagination has not yet been shown +us. + +Doctor Small encouraged the young farmer from the hills to think and to +express himself. He did not endeavor to set him straight or explain +everything for him, or correct all his vagaries, or demand that he should +memorize rules. He gave his affectionate sympathy to the boy who, with a +sort of feminine tenderness, clung to the only person who understood him. + +To Doctor Small, pedigree and history unknown, let us give the credit of +being first in the list of friends that gave bent to the mind of +Jefferson. John Burke, in his "History of Virginia," refers to Professor +Small thus: "He was not any too orthodox in his opinions." And here we +catch a glimpse of a formative influence in the life of Jefferson that +caused him to turn from the letter of the law and cleave to the spirit +that maketh alive. After school-hours the tutor and the student walked and +talked, and on Saturdays and Sundays went on excursions through the woods; +and to the youth there was given an impulse for a scientific knowledge of +birds and flowers and the host of life that thronged the forest. And when +the pair had strayed so far beyond the town that darkness gathered and the +stars came out, they conversed of the wonders of the sky. + +The true scientist has no passion for killing things. He says with +Thoreau, "To shoot a bird is to lose it." Professor Small had the gentle +instinct that respects life, and he refused to take that which he could +not give. To his youthful companion he imparted, in a degree, the secret +of enjoying things without the passion for possession and the lust of +ownership. + +There is a myth abroad that college towns are intellectual centers; but +the number of people in a college town (or any other) who really think, is +very few. + +Williamsburg was gay, and, this much said, it is needless to add it was +not intellectual. But Professor Small was a thinker, and so was Governor +Fauquier; and these two were firm friends, although very unlike in many +ways. And to "the palace" of the courtly Fauquier, Small took his young +friend Jefferson. Fauquier was often a master of the revels, but after his +seasons of dissipation he turned to Small for absolution and comfort. At +these times he seemed to Jefferson a paragon of excellence. To the grace +of the French he added the earnestness of the English. He quoted Pope, and +talked of Swift, Addison and Thomson. Fauquier and Jefferson became +friends, although more than a score of years and a world of experience +separated them. Jefferson caught a little of Fauquier's grace, love of +books and delight in architecture. But Fauquier helped him most by +gambling away all his ready money and getting drunk and smoking strong +pipes with his feet on the table. And Jefferson then vowed he would never +handle a card, nor use tobacco, nor drink intoxicating liquors. And in +conversation with Small, he anticipated Buckle by saying, "To gain +leisure, wealth must first be secured; but once leisure is gained, more +people use it in the pursuit of pleasure than employ it in acquiring +knowledge." + + * * * * * + +Had Jefferson lived in a great city he would have been an architect. His +practical nature, his mastery of mathematics, his love of proportion, and +his passion for music are the basic elements that make a Christopher Wren. +But Virginia, in Seventeen Hundred Sixty-five, offered no temptation to +ambitions along that line; log houses with a goodly "crack" were quite +good enough, and if the domicile proved too small the plan of the first +was simply duplicated. Yet a career of some kind young Jefferson knew +awaited him. + +About this time the rollicking Patrick Henry came along. Patrick played +the violin, and so did Thomas. These two young men had first met on a +musical basis. Some otherwise sensible people hold that musicians are +shallow and impractical; and I know one man who declares that truth and +honesty and uprightness never dwelt in a professional musician's heart; +and further, that the tribe is totally incapable of comprehending the +difference between "meum" and "tuum." But then this same man claims that +actors are rascals who have lost their own characters in the business of +playing they are somebody else. And yet I'll explain for the benefit of +the captious that, although Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry both +fiddled, they never did and never would fiddle while Rome burned. Music +was with them a pastime, not a profession. + +As soon as Patrick Henry arrived at Williamsburg, he sought out his old +friend Thomas Jefferson, because he liked him--and to save tavern bill. +And Patrick announced that he had come to Williamsburg to be admitted to +the bar. + +"How long have you studied law?" asked Jefferson. + +"Oh, for six weeks last Tuesday," was the answer. + +Tradition has it that Jefferson advised Patrick to go home and study at +least a fortnight more before making his application. But Patrick declared +that the way to learn law is to practise it, and he surely was right. Most +young lawyers are really never aware of how little law they know until +they begin to practise. + +But Patrick Henry was duly admitted, although George Wythe protested. Then +Patrick went back home to tend bar (the other kind) for Laban, his +father-in-law, for full four years. He studied hard and practised a little +betimes--and his is the only instance that history records of a barkeeper +acquiring wisdom while following his calling; but for the encouragement of +budding youth I write it down. + + * * * * * + +No doubt it was the example of Patrick Henry that caused Jefferson to +adopt his profession. But it was the literary side of law that first +attracted him--not the practise of it. As a speaker he was singularly +deficient, a slight physical malformation of the throat giving him a very +poor and uncertain voice. But he studied law, and after all it does not +make much difference what a man studies--all knowledge is related, and the +man who studies anything if he keeps at it will become learned. + +So Jefferson studied in the office of George Wythe, and absorbed all that +Fauquier had to offer, and grew wise in the companionship of Doctor Small. +From a red-headed, lean, lank, awkward mountaineer, he developed into a +gracious and graceful young man who has been described as "auburn-haired." +And the evolution from being red-headed to having red hair, and from that +to being auburn-haired, proves he was the genuine article. Still he was +hot handsome--that word can not be used to describe him until he was +sixty--for he was freckled, one shoulder wets higher than the other, and +his legs were so thin that they could not do justice to small-clothes. + +Yet it will not do to assume that thin men are weak, any more than to take +it for granted that fat men are strong. Jefferson was as muscular as a +panther and could walk or ride or run six days and nights together. He +could lift from the floor a thousand pounds. + +When twenty-four, he hung out his lawyer's sign under that of George Wythe +at Williamsburg. And clients came that way with retainers, and rich +planters sent him business, and wealthy widows advised with him--and still +he could not make a speech without stuttering. Many men can harangue a +jury, and every village has its orator; but where is the wise and silent +man who will advise you in a way that will keep you out of difficulty, +protect your threatened interests, and conduct the affairs you may leave +in his hands so as to return your ten talents with other talents added! +And I hazard the statement, without heat or prejudice, that if the +experiment should be made with a thousand lawyers in any one of our larger +cities, four-fifths of them would be found so deficient, either mentally, +morally or both, that if ten talents were placed in their hands, they +would not at the close of a year be able to account for the principal, to +say nothing of the interest. And the bar of today is made up of a better +class than it was in Jefferson's time, even if it has not the intellectual +fiber that it had forty years ago. + +But at the early age of twenty-five, Jefferson was a wise and skilful man +in the world's affairs (and a man who is wise is also honest), and men of +this stamp do not remain hidden in obscurity. The world needs just such +individuals and needs them badly. Jefferson had the quiet, methodical +industry that works without undue expenditure of nervous force; that +intuitive talent which enables the possessor to read a whole page at a +glance and drop at once upon the vital point; and then he had the ability +to get his whole case on paper, marshaling his facts in a brief, pointed +way that served to convince better than eloquence. These are the +characteristics that make for success in practise before our Courts of +Appeal; and Jefferson's success shows that they serve better than bluster, +even with a backwoods bench composed of fox-hunting farmers. + +In Seventeen Hundred Sixty-eight, when Jefferson was twenty-five, he went +down to Shadwell and ran for member of the Virginia Legislature. It was +the proper thing to do, for he was the richest man in the county, being +heir to his father's forty thousand acres, and it was expected that he +would represent his district. He called on every voter in the parish, +shook hands with everybody, complimented the ladies, caressed the babies, +treated crowds at every tavern, and kept a large punch-bowl and open house +at home. He was elected. On the Eleventh of May, Seventeen Hundred +Sixty-nine, the Legislature convened, with nearly a hundred members +present, Colonel George Washington being one of the number. It took two +days for the Assembly to elect a Speaker and get ready for business. On +the third day, four resolutions were introduced--pushed to the front +largely through the influence of our new member. + +These resolutions were: + +1. No taxation without representation. + +2. The Colonies may concur and unite in seeking redress for grievances. + +3. Sending accused persons away from their own country for trial is an +inexcusable wrong. + +4. We will send an address on these things to the King beseeching his +royal interposition. + +The resolutions were passed: they did not mean much anyway, the opposition +said. And then another resolution was passed to this effect: "We will send +a copy of these resolutions to every legislative body on the continent." +That was a little stronger, but did not mean much either. + +It was voted upon and passed. + +Then the Assembly adjourned, having dispatched a copy of the resolutions +to Lord Boutetourt, the newly appointed Governor who had just arrived from +London. + +Next day, the Governor's secretary appeared when the Assembly convened, +and repeated the following formula: "The Governor commands the House to +attend His Excellency in the Council-Chamber." The members marched to the +Council-Chamber and stood around the throne waiting the pleasure of His +Lordship. He made a speech which I will quote entire. "Mr. Speaker and +Gentlemen of the House of Burgesses: I have heard your resolves, and augur +ill of their effect. You have made it my duty to dissolve you, and you are +dissolved accordingly." + +And that was the end of Jefferson's first term in office--the reward for +all the hand-shaking, all the caressing, all the treating! + +The members looked at one another, but no one said anything, because there +was nothing to say. The secretary made an impatient gesture with his hand +to the effect that they should disperse, and they did. + +Just how these legally elected representatives and now legally common +citizens took their rebuff we do not know. + +Did Washington forget his usual poise and break out into one of those +swearing fits where everybody wisely made way? And how did Richard Henry +Lee like it, and George Wythe, and the Randolphs? Did Patrick Henry wax +eloquent that afternoon in a barroom, and did Jefferson do more than smile +grimly, biding his time? + +Massachusetts kept a complete history of her political heresies, but +Virginia chased foxes and left the refinements of literature to +dilettantes. But this much we know: Those country gentlemen did not go off +peaceably and quietly to race horses or play cards. The slap in the face +from the gloved hand of Lord Boutetourt awoke every boozy sense of +security and gave vitality to all fanatical messages sent by Samuel Adams. +Washington, we are told, spoke of it as a bit of upstart authority on the +part of the new Governor; but Jefferson with true prophetic vision saw the +end. + + * * * * * + +One of the leading lawyers at Williamsburg, against whom Jefferson was +often pitted, was John Wayles. I need not explain that lawyers hotly +opposed to each other in a trial are not necessarily enemies. The way in +which Jefferson conducted his cases pleased the veteran Wayles, and he +invited Jefferson to visit him at his fine estate, called "The Forest," a +few miles out from Williamsburg. Now, in the family of Mr. Wayles dwelt +his widowed daughter, the beautiful Martha Skelton, gracious and rich as +Jefferson in worldly goods. She played the spinet with great feeling, and +the spinet and the violin go very well together. So, together, Thomas and +Martha played, and sometimes a bit of discord crept in, for Thomas was +absent-minded and, in the business of watching the widow's fingers touch +the keys, played flat. + +Long years before, he had liked and admired Becca, gazed fondly at Sukey, +and finally loved Belinda. He did not tell her so, but he told John Page, +and vowed that if he did not wed Belinda he would go through life solitary +and alone. In a few months Belinda married that detested being--another. +Then it was he again swore to his friend Page he would be true to her +memory, even though she had dissembled. But now he saw that the widow +Skelton had intellect, while Belinda had been but clever; the widow had +soul, while Belinda had nothing but form. Jefferson's experience seems to +settle that mooted question, "Can a man love two women at the same time?" +Unlike Martha Custis, this Martha was won only after a protracted wooing, +with many skirmishes and occasional misunderstandings and explanations, +and sweet makings-up that were surely worth a quarrel. + +Then they were married at "The Forest," and rode away through the woods to +Monticello. Jefferson was twenty-seven, and although it may not be proper +to question closely as to the age of the widow, yet the bride, we have +reason to believe, was about the age of her husband. + +It was a most happy mating--all their quarreling had been done before +marriage. The fine intellect and high spirit of Jefferson found their +mate. She was his comrade and helpmeet as well as his wife. He could read +his favorite Ossian aloud to her, and when he tired she would read to him; +and all his plans and ambitions and hopes were hers. In laying out the +grounds and beautifying that home on Monticello mountain, she took much +more than a passive interest. It was "Our Home," and to make it a home in +very sooth for her beloved husband was her highest ambition. She knew the +greatness of her mate, and all the dreams she had for his advancement were +to come true. With her, ideality was to become reality. But she was to see +it only in part. + +Yet she had seen her husband re-elected to the Virginia Legislature; sent +as a member to the Colonial Congress at Philadelphia, there to write the +best known of all American literary productions; from their mountain home +she had seen British troops march into Charlottesville, four miles away, +and then, with household treasure, had fled, knowing that beautiful +Monticello would be devastated by the enemy's ruthless tread. She had +known Washington, and had visited his lonely wife there at Mount Vernon +when victory hung in the balance; when defeat meant that Thomas Jefferson +and George Washington would be the first victims of a vengeful foe. She +saw her husband War-Governor of Virginia in its most perilous hour; she +lived to know that Washington had won; that Cornwallis was his "guest," +and that no man, save Washington alone, was more honored in proud Virginia +than her beloved lord and husband. She saw a messenger on horseback +approach bearing a packet from the Congress at Philadelphia to the effect +that "His Excellency, the Honorable Thomas Jefferson," had been appointed +as one of an embassy to France in the interests of the United States, with +Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane as colleagues, and, knowing her +husband's love for Franklin, and his respect for France, she leaned over +his chair and with misty eyes saw him write his simple "No," and knew that +the only reason he declined was because he would not leave his wife at a +time when she might most need his tenderness and sympathy. + +And then they retired to beloved Monticello to enjoy the rest that comes +only after work well done--to spend the long vacation of their lives in +simple homekeeping work and studious leisure, her husband yet in manhood's +prime, scarce thirty-seven, as men count time, and rich, passing rich, in +goods and lands. + +And then she died. + +And Thomas Jefferson, the strong, the self-poised, the self-reliant, fell +in a helpless swoon, and was laid on a pallet and carried out, as though +he, too, were dead. For three weeks his dazed senses prayed for death. He +could endure the presence of no one save his eldest daughter, a slim, +slender girl of scarce ten years, grown a woman in a day. By her loving +touch and tenderness he was lured back from death and reason's night into +the world of life and light. With tottering steps, led by the child who +had to think for both, he was taken out on the veranda of beautiful +Monticello. He looked out on stretching miles of dark-blue hills and +waving woods and winding river. He gazed, and as he looked it came slowly +to him that the earth was still as when he last saw it, and realized that +this would be so even if he were gone. Then, turning to the child, who +stood by, stroking his locks, it came to him that even in grief there may +be selfishness, and for the first time he responded to the tender caress, +saying, "Yes, we will live, daughter--live in memory of her!" + + * * * * * + +When two men of equal intelligence and sincerity quarrel, both are +probably right. Hamilton and Jefferson were opposed to each other by +temperament and disposition, in a way that caused either to look with +distrust on any proposition made by the other. And yet, when Washington +pressed upon Jefferson the position of Secretary of State, I can not but +think he did it as an antidote to the growing power and vaunting ambition +of Hamilton. Washington won his victories, as great men ever do, by wisely +choosing his aides. Hamilton had done yeoman's service in every branch of +the government, and while the chief sincerely admired his genius, he +guessed his limitations. Power grows until it topples, and when it +topples, innocent people are crushed. Washington was wise as a serpent, +and rather than risk open ruction with Hamilton by personally setting +bounds, he invited Jefferson into his cabinet, and the acid was +neutralized to a degree where it could be safely handled. + +Jefferson had just returned from Paris with his beloved daughter, Martha. +He was intending soon to return to France and study social science at +close range. Already, he had seen that mob of women march out to +Versailles and fetch the King to Paris, and had seen barricade after +barricade erected with the stones from the leveled Bastile; he was on +intimate and affectionate terms with Lafayette and the Republican leaders, +and here was a pivotal point in his life. Had not Washington persuaded +him to remain "just for the present" in America, he might have played a +part in Carlyle's best book, that book which is not history, but more--an +epic. So, among the many obligations that America owes to Washington, must +be named this one of pushing Thomas Jefferson, the scholar and man of +peace, into the political embroglio and shutting the door. Then it was +that Hamilton's taunting temper awoke a degree of power in Jefferson that +before he wist not of; then it was that he first fully realized that the +"United States" with England as a sole pattern was not enough. + +A pivotal point! Yes, a pivotal point for Jefferson, America and the +world; for Jefferson gave the rudder of the Ship of State such a turn to +starboard that there was never again danger of her drifting on to +aristocratic shoals, an easy victim to the rapacity of Great Britain. +Hamilton's distrust of the people found no echo in Jefferson's mind. + +He agreed with Hamilton that a "strong government" administered by a few, +provided the few are wise and honorable, is the best possible government. +Nay, he went further and declared that an absolute monarchy in which the +monarch was all-wise and all-powerful, could not be improved upon by the +imagination of man. + +In his composition, there was a saving touch of humor that both Hamilton +and Washington seemed to lack. He could smile at himself; but none ever +dared turn a joke on Hamilton, much less on Washington. And so when +Hamilton explained that a strong government administered by Washington, +President; Jefferson, Secretary of State; Hamilton, Secretary of the +Treasury; Knox, Secretary of War; and Randolph, Attorney-General, was +pretty nearly ideal, no one smiled. But Jefferson's plain inference was +that power is dangerous and man is fallible; that a man so good as +Washington dies tomorrow and another man steps in, and that those who have +the government in their present keeping should curb ambitions, limit their +own power, and thus fix a precedent for those who are to follow. + +The wisdom that Jefferson as a statesman showed in working for a future +good, and the willingness to forego the pomp of personal power, to +sacrifice self if need be, that the day he should not see might be secure, +ranks him as first among statesmen. For a statesman is one who builds a +State--and not a politician who is dead, as some have said. + +Others, since, have followed Jefferson's example, but in the world's +history I do not recall a man before him who, while still having power in +his grasp, was willing to trust the people. + +The one mistake of Washington that borders on blunder was in refusing to +take wages for his work. In doing this, he visited untold misery on +others, who, not having married rich widows, tried to follow his example +and floundered into woeful debt and disgrace; and thereby were lost to +useful society and to the world. And there are yet many public offices +where small men rattle about because men who can fill the place can not +afford it. Bryce declares that no able and honest man of moderate means +can afford to take an active part in municipal affairs in America--and +Bryce is right. + +When Jefferson became President, in his messages to Congress again and +again he advised the fixing of sufficient salaries to secure the best men +for every branch of the service, and suggested the folly of expecting +anything for nothing, or the hope of officials not "fixing things" if not +properly paid. + +Men from the soil who gain power are usually intoxicated by it; beginning +as democrats they evolve into aristocrats, then into tyrants, if kindly +Fate does not interpose, and are dethroned by the people who made them. +And it is not surprising that this man, born into a plenty that bordered +on affluence, and who never knew from experience the necessity of economy +(until in old age tobacco and slavery had wrecked Virginia and Monticello +alike), should set an almost ideal example of simplicity, moderation and +brotherly kindness. + +Among the chief glories that belong to him are these: + +1. Writing the Declaration of Independence. + +2. Suggesting and carrying out the present decimal monetary system. + +3. Inducing Virginia to deed to the States, as their common property, the +Northwest Territory. + +4. Purchasing from France, for the comparatively trifling sum of fifteen +million dollars, Louisiana and the territory running from the Gulf of +Mexico to Puget's Sound, being at the rate of a fraction of a cent per +acre, and giving the United States full control of the Mississippi River. + +But over and beyond these is the spirit of patriotism that makes each true +American feel he is parcel and part of the very fabric of the State, and +in his deepest heart believe that "a government of the people, by the +people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth." + + + + +SAMUEL ADAMS + + The body of the people are now in council. Their opposition grows + into a system. They are united and resolute. And if the British + Administration and Government do not return to the principles of + moderation and equity, the evil, which they profess to aim at + preventing by their rigorous measures, will the sooner be brought + to pass, viz., the entire separation and independence of the + Colonies. + --Letter to Arthur Lee + +[Illustration: SAMUEL ADAMS] + + +Samuel and John Adams were second cousins, having the same +great-grandfather. Between them in many ways there was a marked contrast, +but true to their New England instincts both were theologians. + +John was a conservative in politics, and at first had little sympathy with +"those small-minded men who refused to pay a trivial tax on their tea; and +who would plunge the country into war, and ruin all for a matter of +stamps." John was born and lived at the village of Braintree. He did not +really center his mind on politics until the British had closed all +law-courts in Boston, thus making his profession obsolete. He was +scholarly, shrewd, diplomatic, cautious, good-natured, fat, and took his +religion with a wink. He was blessed with a wife who was worthy of being +the mother of kings (or presidents); he lived comfortably, acquired +property, and died aged ninety-two. He had been President and seen his son +President of the United States, and that is an experience that has never +come and probably never will come to another living man, for there seems +to be an unwritten law that no man under fifty shall occupy the office of +Chief Magistrate of these United States. + +Samuel was stern, serious and deeply in earnest. He seldom smiled and +never laughed. He was uncompromisingly religious, conscientious and +morally unbending. In his life there was no soft sentiment. The fact that +he ran a brewery can be excused when we remember that the best spirit of +the times saw nothing inconsistent in the occupation; and further than +this we might explain in extenuation that he gave the business indifferent +attention, and the quality of his brew was said to be very bad. + +In religion, he swerved not nor wavered. He was a Calvinist and clung to +the five points with a tenacity at times seemingly quite unnecessary. + +When in that first Congress, Samuel Adams publicly consented to the +opening of the meeting with religious service conducted by the Reverend +Mr. Duche, an Episcopal clergyman, he gave a violent wrench to his +conscience and an awful shock to his friends. But Mr. Duche met the issue +in the true spirit, and leaving his detested "popery robe" and prayer-book +at home uttered an extemporaneous invocation, without a trace of intoning, +that pleased the Puritans and caused one of them to remark, "He is surely +coming over to the Lord's side!" + +But in politics, Samuel Adams was a liberal of the liberals. In +statecraft, the heresy of change had no terrors for him, and with Hamlet, +he might have said, "Oh, reform it altogether!" + +The limitations set in every character seem to prevent a man from being +generous in more than one direction; the bigot in religion is often a +liberal in politics, and vice versa. For instance, physicians are almost +invariably liberal in religious matters, but are prone to call a man +"Mister" who does not belong to their school; while orthodox clergymen, I +have noticed, usually employ a homeopathist. + +In that most valuable and interesting work, "The Diary of John Adams," the +author refers repeatedly to Samuel Adams as "Adams"! This simple way of +using the word "Adams" shows a world of appreciation for the man who +blazed the path that others of this illustrious name might follow. And so +with the high precedent in mind, I, too, will drop prefix and call my +subject simply "Adams." + +On the authority of King George, General Gage made an offer of pardon to +all save two who had figured in the Boston uprising. + +The two men thus honored were John Hancock (whose signature the King could +read without spectacles), and the other was "one, S. Adams." + +Adams, however, was the real offender, and the plea might have been made +for John Hancock that, if it had not been for accident and Adams, Hancock +would probably have remained loyal to the mother country. + +Hancock was aristocratic, cultured and complacent. He was the richest man +in New England. His personal interests were on the side of peace and the +established order. But circumstances and the combined tact and zeal of +Adams threw him off his guard, and in a moment of dalliance the seeds of +sedition found lodgment in his brain. And the more he thought about it, +the nearer he came to the conclusion that Adams was right. But let the +fact further be stated, if truth demands, that both John Hancock and +Samuel Adams, the first men who clearly and boldly expressed the idea of +American Independence, were moved in the beginning by personal grievances. + +A single motion made before the British Parliament by we know not whom, +and put to vote by the Speaker, bankrupted the father of Samuel Adams and +robbed the youth of his patrimony. + +The boy was then seventeen; old enough to know that from plenty his father +was reduced to penury, and this because England, three thousand miles +away, had interfered with the business arrangements of the Colony, and +made unlawful a private banking scheme. + +Then did the boy ask the question, What moral right has England to govern +us, anyway? + +From thinking it over he began to formulate reasons. He discussed the +subject at odd times and thought of it continually, and, in Seventeen +Hundred Forty-three, when he prepared his graduation thesis at Harvard +College he chose for his subject, "The Doctrine of the Lawfulness of +Resistance to the Supreme Magistrate if the Commonwealth Can Not Otherwise +be Preserved." + +When Massachusetts admitted that she was under subjection to the King, yet +argued for the right to nullify the Acts of the English Parliament, she +took exactly the same ground that South Carolina did a hundred years +later. The logic of Samuel Adams and of Robert Hayne was one and the same. + +Yet we are glad that Adams carried his point; and we rejoice exceedingly +that Hayne failed, so curious are these things we call "reasons." + +The royalists who heard of this youth with a logical mind denounced him +without stint. A few newspapers upheld him and spoke of the right of free +speech and all that, reprinting the thesis in full. And in the controversy +that followed, young Adams was always a prominent figure. He was not an +orator in the popular sense, but he held the pen of a ready writer, and +through the Boston papers kept up a constant fusillade. + +The tricks of journalism are no new thing belonging to the fag-end of this +century. Young Adams wrote letters over the "nom de plume" of Pro Bono +Publico, and then replied to them over the signature of Rex Americus. He +did not adopt as his motto, "Let not thy left hand know what thy right +hand doeth," for he wrote with both hands and each hand was in the secret. + +During the years that followed his graduation from college he was a +businessman and a poor one, for a man who looks after public affairs much +can not attend to his own. But he managed to make shift; and when too +closely pressed by creditors, a loan from Hancock, or John Adams, +Hancock's attorney, relieved the pressure. In fact, when he went to +Philadelphia "on that very important errand," he rode a horse borrowed +from John Adams, and his Sunday coat was the gift of a thoughtful friend. + +In Seventeen Hundred Sixty-three, it became known that the British +Government had on foot a scheme to demand a tribute from the Colonies. On +invitation of a committee, possibly appointed by Adams, Adams was +requested to draw up instructions to the Representatives in the Colonial +Legislature. Adams did so and the document is now in the archives of the +old State House at Boston, in the plain and elegant penmanship that is so +easily recognized. This document calls itself, "The First Public Denial of +the Right of the British Parliament to tax the Colonies without their +Consent, and the first Public Suggestion of a Union on the part of the +Colonies to Protect themselves against British Aggression." + +The style of the paper is lucid, firm and logical; it combines in itself +the suggestion of all there was to be said or could be said on the matter. +Adams saw all over and around his topic--no unpleasant surprise could be +sprung on him--twenty-five years had he studied this one theme. He had +made himself familiar with the political history of every nation so far as +such history could be gathered; he was past master of his subject. + +However, when he was forty years of age his followers were few and mostly +men of small influence. The Calkers' Club was the home of the sedition, +and many of the members were day-laborers. But the idea of independence +gradually grew, and, in Seventeen Hundred Sixty-five, Adams was elected a +member of the Massachusetts Colonial Legislature. In honor of his writing +ability, he was chosen clerk of the Assembly, for in all public gatherings +orators are chosen as presidents and newspapermen for secretaries. Thus +are honors distributed, and thus, too, does the public show which talent +it values most. + +On November Second, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-two, on motion of Adams, a +committee of several hundred citizens was appointed "to state the Rights +of the Colonies and to communicate and publish them to the World as the +sense of the Town, with the infringements and violations thereof that have +been or may be made from time to time; also requesting from each Town a +free communication of their sentiments on this Subject." + +This was the Committee of Correspondence from which grew the union of the +Colonies and the Congress of the United States. It is a pretty well +attested fact that the first suggestion of the Philadelphia Congress came +from Samuel Adams, and the chief work of bringing it about was also his. + +It was well known to the British Government who the chief agitator was, +and when General Gage arrived in Boston in May, Seventeen Hundred +Seventy-four, his first work was an attempt to buy off Samuel Adams. With +Adams out of the way, England might have adopted a policy of conciliation +and kept America for her very own--yes, to the point of moving the home +government here and saving the snug little island as a colony, for both in +wealth and in population America has now far surpassed England. + +But Adams was not for sale. His reply to Gage sounds like a scrap from +Cromwell: "I trust I have long since made my peace with the King of Kings. +No personal consideration shall induce me to abandon the Righteous Cause +of my Country." + +Gage having refused to recognize the thirteen Counselors appointed by the +people, the General Court of Massachusetts, in secret session, appointed +five delegates to attend the Congress of Colonies at Philadelphia. Of +course Samuel Adams was one of these delegates; and to John Adams, another +delegate, are we indebted for a minute description of that most momentous +meeting. + +A room in the State House had been offered the delegates, but with +commendable modesty they accepted the offer of the Carpenters' Company to +use their hall. + +And so there they convened on the fifth day of September, Seventeen +Hundred Seventy-four, having met by appointment, and walked over from the +City Tavern in a body. Forty-four men were present--not a large +gathering, but they had come hundreds of miles, and several of them had +been months on the journey. + +They were a sturdy lot; and madam! I think it would have been worth while +to have looked in upon them. There were several coonskin caps in evidence; +also lace and frills and velvet brought from England--but plainness to +severity was the rule. Few of these men had ever been away from their own +Colonies before, few had ever met any members of the Congress save their +own colleagues. They represented civilizations of very different degrees. +Each stood a bit in awe of all the rest. Several of the Colonies had been +in conflict with the others. + +Meeting new men in those days, when even the stagecoach was a passing show +worth going miles to see, was an event. There was awkwardness and +nervousness on the swarthy faces; firm mouths twitched, and big, bony +hands sought for places of concealment. + +The meeting had been called for September First, but was postponed for +five days awaiting the arrival of belated delegates who had been detained +by floods. Even then, delegates from North Carolina had not arrived, and +Georgia not having thought it worth while to send any, eleven Colonies +only were represented. Each delegation naturally kept together, as men +will who have a fighting history and a pioneer ancestry. + +It was a serious, solemn business, and these men were not given to levity +in any event. When they were seated, there was a moment of silence so +tense it could be heard. Every chance movement of a foot on the uncarpeted +floor sent an echo through the room. + +The stillness was first broken by Mr. Lynch, of South Carolina, who arose +and in a low, clear voice said: "There is a gentleman present who has +presided with great dignity over a very respectable body and greatly to +the advantage of America. Gentlemen, I move that the Honorable Peyton +Randolph, one of the delegates from Virginia, be appointed to preside over +this meeting. I doubt not it will be unanimous." + +It was so; and a large man in powdered wig and scarlet coat arose, and, +carrying his gold-headed cane before him like a mace, walked to the +platform without apology. + +The New Englanders in homespun looked at one another with trepidation on +their features. The red coat was not assuring, but they kept their peace +and breathed hard, praying that the enemy had not captured the convention +through strategy. Mr. Randolph's first suggestion was not revolutionary; +it was that a secretary be appointed. + +Again Mr. Lynch arose and named Charles Thomson, "a gentleman of family, +fortune and character." This testimonial of family and fortune was not +assuring to the plain Massachusetts men, but they said nothing and awaited +developments. + +All were cautious as woodsmen, and the motion that the Council be held +behind closed doors was adopted. Every member then held up his right hand +and made a solemn promise to divulge no part of the transactions; and +Galloway, of Pennsylvania, promised with the rest, and straightway each +night informed the enemy of every move. + +Little was done that first day but get acquainted by talking very +cautiously and very politely. The next day a notable member had arrived, +and in a front seat sat Richard Henry Lee, a man you would turn and look +at in any company. Slender and dark, with a brilliant eye and a +profile--and only one man in ten thousand has a profile--Lee was a +gracious presence. His voice was gentle and flexible and luring, and there +was a dignity and poise in his manner that made him easily the foremost +orator of his time. + +Near him sat William Livingston, of New Jersey, and John Jay, his +son-in-law, the youngest man in the Congress, with a nose that denoted +character, and all his fame in the future. + +The Pennsylvanians were all together, grouped on one side. Duane, of New +York, sat near them, "shy and squint-eyed, very sensible and very artful," +wrote John Adams that night in his diary. + +Then over there sat Christopher Gadsden, of South Carolina, who had +preached independence for full ten years before this, and who, when he +heard that the British soldiers had taken Boston, proposed to raise a +troop at once and fight redcoats wherever found. + +"But the British will burn our seaport towns if we antagonize them," some +timid soul explained. + +"Our towns are built of brick and wood; if they are burned we can rebuild +them; but liberty once gone is gone forever," he retorted. And the saying +sounds well, even if it will not stand analysis. + +Back near the wall was a man who, when the assembly stood at morning +prayers, showed a half-head above his neighbors. His face was broad, and +he, too, had a profile. His mouth was tightly closed, and during the first +fourteen days of that Congress he never opened it to utter a word, and +after his long quiet he broke the silence by saying, "Mr. President, I +second the motion." Once, in a passionate speech, Lynch turned to him and +pointing his finger said: "There is a man who has not spoken here, but in +the Virginia Assembly he made the most eloquent speech I ever heard. He +said, 'I will raise a thousand men, and arm and subsist them at my expense +and march them to the relief of Boston.'" And then did the tall man, whose +name was George Washington, blush like a schoolgirl. + +But in all that company the men most noticed were the five members from +Massachusetts. They were Bowdoin, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Gushing and +Robert Treat Paine. Massachusetts had thus far taken the lead in the +struggle with England. A British army was encamped upon her soil, her +chief city besieged--the port closed. Her sufferings had called this +Congress into being, and to her delegates the members had come to listen. +All recognized Samuel Adams as the chief man of the Convention. His hand +wrote the invitations and earnest requests to come. Galloway, writing to +his friends, the enemy, said: "Samuel Adams eats little, drinks little, +sleeps little and thinks much. He is most decisive and indefatigable in +the pursuit of his object. He is the man who, by his superior application, +manages at once the faction in Philadelphia and the factions of New +England." + +Yet Samuel Adams talked little at the Convention. He allowed John Adams to +state the case, but sat next to him supplying memoranda, occasionally +arising to make remarks or explanations in a purely conversational tone. +But so earnest and impressive was his manner, so ably did he answer every +argument and reply to every objection, that he thoroughly convinced a +tall, angular, homely man by the name of Patrick Henry of the +righteousness of his cause. Patrick Henry was pretty thoroughly convinced +before, but the recital of Boston's case fired the Virginian, and he made +the first and only real speech of the Congress. In burning words he +pictured all the Colonies had suffered and endured, and by his matchless +eloquence told in prophetic words of the glories yet to be. In his speech +he paid just tribute to the genius of Samuel Adams, declaring that the +good that was to come from this "first of an unending succession of +Congresses" was owing to the work of Adams. And in after-years Adams +repaid the compliment by saying that if it had not been for the cementing +power of Patrick Henry's eloquence, that first Congress probably would +have ended in a futile wrangle. + +The South regarded, in great degree, the fight in Boston as Massachusetts' +own. To make the entire thirteen Colonies adopt the quarrel and back the +Colonial army in the vicinity of Boston was the only way to make the issue +a success, and to unite the factions by choosing for a leader a Virginian +aristocrat was a crowning stroke of diplomacy. + +John Hancock had succeeded Randolph as president of the second Congress, +and Virginia was inclined to be lukewarm, when John Adams in an +impassioned speech nominated Colonel George Washington as +Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. The nomination was seconded +very quietly by Samuel Adams. It was a vote, and the South was committed +to the cause of backing up Washington, and, incidentally, New England. The +entire plan was probably the work of Samuel Adams, yet he gave the credit +to John, while the credit of stoutly opposing it goes to John Hancock, +who, being presiding officer, worked at a disadvantage. + +But Adams had a way of reducing opposition to the minimum. He kept out of +sight and furthered his ends by pushing this man or that to the front at +the right time to make the plea. He was a master in that fine art of +managing men and never letting them know they are managed. By keeping +behind the arras, he accomplished purposes that a leader never can who +allows his personality to be in continual evidence, for personality repels +as well as attracts, and the man too much before the public is sure to be +undone eventually. Adams knew that the power of Pericles lay largely in +the fact that he was never seen upon but a single street of Athens, and +that but once a year. + +The complete writings of Adams have recently been collected and published. +One marvels that such valuable material has not before been printed and +given to the public, for the literary style and perspicuity shown are most +inspiring, and the value of the data can not be gainsaid. + +No one ever accused Adams of being a muddy thinker; you grant his premises +and you are bound to accept his conclusions. He leaves no loopholes for +escape. + +The following words, used by Chatham, refer to documents in which Adams +took a prominent part in preparing: "When your Lordships look at the +papers transmitted us from America, when you consider their decency, +firmness and wisdom, you can not but respect their cause and wish to make +it your own. For myself, I must avow that, in all my reading--and I have +read Thucydides and have studied and admired the master statesmen of the +world--for solidity of reason, force of sagacity, and wisdom of +conclusion under a complication of difficult circumstances, no body of men +can stand in preference to the general Congress of Philadelphia. The +histories of Greece and Rome give us nothing like it, and all attempts to +impress servitude on such a mighty continental people must be in vain." + +In the life of Adams there was no soft sentiment nor romantic vagaries. +"He is a Puritan in all the word implies, and the unbending fanatic of +independence," wrote Gage, and the description fits. + +He was twice married. Our knowledge of his first wife is very slight, but +his second wife, Elizabeth Wells, daughter of an English merchant, was a +capable woman of brave good sense. She adopted her husband's political +views and with true womanly devotion let her old kinsmen slide; and during +the dark hours of the war bore deprivation without repining. + +Adams' home life was simple to the verge of hardship. All through life he +was on the ragged edge financially, and in his latter years he was for the +first time relieved from pressing obligations by an afflicting event--the +death of his only son, who was a surgeon in Washington's army. The money +paid to the son by the Government for his services gave the father the +only financial competency he ever knew. Two daughters survived him, but +with him died the name. + +John Adams survived Samuel for twenty-three years. He lived to see "the +great American experiment," as Mr. Ruskin has been pleased to call our +country, on a firm basis, constantly growing stronger and stronger. He +lived to realize that the sanguine prophecies made by Samuel were working +themselves out in very truth. + +The grave of Samuel Adams is viewed by more people than that of any other +American patriot. In the old Granary Burying-Ground, in the very center of +Boston, on Tremont Street--there where travel congests, and two living +streams meet all day long---you look through the iron fence, so slender +that it scarce impedes the view, and not twenty feet from the curb is a +simple metal disk set on an iron rod driven into the ground and on it this +inscription: "This marks the grave of Samuel Adams." + +For many years the grave was unmarked, and the disk that now denotes it +was only recently placed in position by the Sons of the American +Revolution. But the place of Samuel Adams on the pages of history is +secure. Upon the times in which he lived he exercised a profound +influence. And he who influences the times in which he lives has +influenced all the times that come after; he has left his impress on +eternity. + + + + +JOHN HANCOCK + + Boston, Sept. 30, 1765 + + Gent: + + Since my last I have receiv'd your favour by Capt Hulme who is + arriv'd here with the most disagreeable Commodity (say Stamps) + that were imported into this Country & what if carry'd into + Execution will entirely Stagnate Trade here, for it is + universally determined here never to Submitt to it and the + principal merchts here will by no means carry on Business under a + Stamp, we are in the utmost Confusion here and shall be more so + after the first of November & nothing but the repeal of the act + will righten, the Consequence of its taking place here will be + bad, & attended with many troubles, & I believe may say more + fatal to you than us. I dread the Event. + --Extract From Hancock's Letter-Book + +[Illustration: JOHN HANCOCK] + + +Long years ago when society was young, learning was centered in one man in +each community, and that man was the priest. It was the priest who was +sent for in every emergency of life. He taught the young, prescribed for +the sick, advised those who were in trouble, and when human help was vain +and man had done his all, this priest knelt at the bedside of the dying +and invoked a Power with whom it was believed he had influence. + +The so-called learned professions are only another example of the Division +of Labor. We usually say there are three learned professions: Theology, +Medicine and Law. As to which is the greatest is a much-mooted question +and has caused too many family feuds for me to attempt to decide it. And +so I evade the issue and say there is a fourth profession, that is only +allowed to be called so by grace, but which in my mind is greater than +them all--the profession of Teacher. I can conceive of a condition of +society so high and excellent that it has no use for either doctor, lawyer +or preacher, but the teacher would still be needed. Ignorance and sin +supply the three "learned professions" their excuse for being, but the +teacher's work is to develop the germ of wisdom that is in every soul. + +And now each of these professions has divided up, like monads, into many +heads. In medicine, we have as many specialists as there are organs of the +body. The lawyer who advises you in a copyright or patent cause knows +nothing about admiralty; and as they tell us a man who pleads his own case +has a fool for a client, so does the insurance lawyer who is retained to +foreclose a mortgage. In all prosperous city churches, the preacher who +attracts the crowd in the morning allows a 'prentice to preach to the +young folks in the evening; he does not make pastoral calls; and the +curate who reads the service at funerals is never called upon to perform a +marriage ceremony except in a case of charity. Likewise the teacher's +profession has its specialists: the man who teaches Greek well can not +write good English; the man who teaches composition is baffled and +perplexed by long division; and the teacher who delights in trigonometry +pooh-poohs a kindergartner. + +Just where this evolutionary dividing and subdividing of social cells will +land the race no man can say; but that a specialist is a dangerous man, is +sure. He is a buzz-saw with which wise men never monkey. A surgeon who has +operated for appendicitis five times successfully is above all to be +avoided. I once knew a man with lung trouble who inadvertently strayed +into an oculist's and was looked over and sent away with an order on an +optician. And should you through error stray into the office of a nose and +throat specialist, and ask him to treat you for varicose veins, he would +probably do so by nasal douche. + +Even now a specialist in theology will lead us, if he can, a merry +"ignis-fatuus" chase and land us in a morass. The only thing that saved +the priest in days agone was the fact that he had so many duties to +perform that he exercised all his mental muscles, and thus attained a +degree of all-roundness which is not possible to the specialist. Even then +there were not lacking men who found time to devote to specialties: Bishop +Georgius Ambrosius, for instance, who in the Fifteenth Century produced a +learned work proving that women have no souls. And a like book was written +at Nashville, Tennessee, in Eighteen Hundred Fifty-nine, by the Reverend +Hubert Parsons of the Methodist Episcopal Church (South), showing that +negroes were in a like predicament. But a more notable instance of the +danger of a specialty is the Reverend Cotton Mather, who investigated the +subject of witchcraft and issued a modest brochure incorporating his views +on the subject. He succeeded in convincing at least one man of its verity, +and that man was himself, and thus immortality was given to the town of +Salem, which, otherwise, would have no claim on us for remembrance, save +that Hawthorne was once a clerk in its custom-house. + +A very slight study of Colonial history will show any student that, for +two centuries, the ministers in New England occupied very much the same +position in society that the priest did during the Middle Ages. As the +monks kept learning from dying off the face of the earth, so did the +ministers of the New World preserve culture from passing into +forgetfulness. Very seldom, indeed, were books to be found in a community +except at the minister's. And during the Seventeenth Century, and well +into the Eighteenth, he combined in himself the offices of doctor, lawyer, +preacher and teacher. Mr. Lowell has said: "I can not remember when there +was not one or more students in my father's household, and others still +who came at regular intervals to recite. And this was the usual custom. It +was the minister who fitted boys for college, and no youth was ever sent +away to school until he had been drilled by the local clergyman." + +And it must further be noted that genealogical tables show that very +nearly all of the eminent men of New England were sons of ministers, or of +an ancestry where ministers' names are seen at frequent intervals. As an +intellectual and moral force, the minister has now but a rudiment of the +power he once exercised. The tendency to specialize all art and all +knowledge has to a degree shorn him of his strength. And to such an extent +is this true, that within forty years it has passed into a common proverb +that the sons of clergymen are rascals, whereas in Colonial days the +highest recommendation a youth could carry was that he was the son of a +minister. + +The Reverend John Hancock, grandfather of John Hancock the patriot, was +for more than half a century the minister of Lexington, Massachusetts. I +say "the minister," because there was only one: the keen competition of +sect that establishes half a dozen preachers in a small community is a +very modern innovation. + +John Hancock, "Bishop of Lexington," was a man of pronounced personality, +as is plainly seen in his portrait in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. They +say he ruled the town with a rod of iron; and when the young men, who +adorned the front steps of the meetinghouse during service, grew +disorderly, he stopped in his prayer, and going outside soundly cuffed the +ears of the first delinquent he could lay hands upon. In his clay there +was a dash of facetiousness that saved him from excess, supplying a useful +check to his zeal--for zeal uncurbed is very bad. He was a wise and +beneficent dictator; and government under such a one can not be improved +upon. His manner was gracious, frank and open, and such was the specific +gravity of his nature that his words carried weight, and his wish was +sufficient. + +The house where this fine old autocrat lived and reigned is standing in +Lexington now. When you walk out through Cambridge and Arlington on your +way to Concord, following the road the British took on their way out to +Concord, you will pass by it. It is a good place to stop and rest. You +will know the place by the tablet in front, on which is the legend: "Here +John Hancock and Samuel Adams were sleeping on the night of the +Eighteenth of April, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-five, when aroused by Paul +Revere." + +The Reverend Jonas Clark owned the house after the Reverend John Hancock, +and the ministries of those two men, and their occupancy of the house, +cover one hundred years and five years more. Here the thirteen children of +Jonas Clark were born, and all lived to be old men and women. When you +call there I hope you will be treated with the same gentle courtesy that I +met. If you delay not your visit too long, you will see a fine, motherly +woman, with white "sausage curls" and a high back-comb, wearing a check +dress and felt slippers, and she will tell you that she is over eighty, +and that when her mother was a little girl she once sat on Governor +Hancock's knee and he showed her the works in his watch. + +And then as you go away you will think again of what the old lady has just +told you, and as you look back for a parting glance at the house, standing +firm and solemn in its rusty-gray dignity, you will doff your hat to it, +and mayhap murmur: The days of man on earth--they are but as a passing +shadow! + +"Here John Hancock and Samuel Adams were sleeping when aroused by Paul +Revere!" Merchant-prince and agitator, horse and rider--where are you now? +And is your sleep disturbed by dreams of British redcoats or hissing +flintlocks? + +Phantom British warships may lie at their moorings, swinging wide on the +unforgetting tide, lanterns may hang high in the belfry of the Old North +Church tower, hurried knocks and calls of defiance and hoof-beats of +fast-galloping steed may echo and echo again, borne on the night-wind of +the dim Past, but you heed them not! + + * * * * * + +The Reverend John Hancock of Lexington had two sons. John Hancock (Number +Two) became pastor of the church of the North Precinct of the town of +Braintree, which afterwards was to be the town of Quincy. + +The nearest neighbor to the village preacher was John Adams, shoemaker and +farmer. Each Sunday in the amen corner of the Reverend John Hancock's +meetinghouse was mustered the well washed and combed brood of Mr. and Mrs. +Adams. Now, this John Adams had a son whom the Reverend John Hancock +baptized, also named John, two years older than John, the son of the +preacher. And young John Adams and John Hancock (Number Three) used to +fish and swim together, and go nutting, and set traps for squirrels, and +help each other in fractions. And then they would climb trees, and +wrestle, and sometimes fight. In the fights, they say, John Hancock used +to get the better of his antagonist, but as an exploiter of fractions John +Adams was more than his equal. + +The parents of John Adams were industrious and savin'--the little farm +prospered, for Boston supplied a goodly market, and weekly trips were made +there in a one-horse cart, often piloted by young John, with the +minister's boy for ballast. The Adams family had ambitions for their son +John--he was to go to Harvard and be educated, and be a minister and +preach at Braintree, or Weymouth, or perhaps even Boston! + +In the meantime the Reverend John Hancock had died, and the widowed mother +was not able to give her boy a college education--times were hard. + +But the lad's uncle, Thomas Hancock, a prosperous merchant of Boston, took +quite an interest in young John. And it occurred to him to adopt the +fatherless boy, legally, as his own. The mother demurred, but after some +months decided that it was best so, for when twenty-one he would be her +boy just as much and as truly as if his uncle had not adopted him. And so +the rich uncle took him, and rigged him out with a deal finer clothing +than he had ever before worn, and sent him to the Latin School and +afterward over to Cambridge, with silver jingling in his pocket. + +Prosperity is a severe handicap to youth; not very many grown men can +stand it; but beyond a needless display of velvet coats and frilled +shirts, the young man stood the test, and got through Harvard. In point of +scholarship he did not stand so high as John Adams; and between the lads +there grew a small but well-defined gulf, as is but natural between +homespun and broadcloth. Still the gulf was not impassable, for over it +friendly favors were occasionally passed. + +John Hancock's mother wanted him to be a preacher, but Uncle Thomas would +not listen to it--the youth must be taught to be a merchant, so he could +be the ready helper and then the successor of his foster-father. + +Graduating at the early age of seventeen, John Hancock at once went to +work in his uncle's counting-house in Boston. He was a fine, tall fellow +with dash and spirit, and seemed to show considerable aptitude for the +work. The business prospered, and Uncle Thomas was very proud of his +handsome ward, who was quite in demand at parties and balls and in a +general social way, while the uncle could not dance a minuet to save him. + +Not needing the young man very badly around the store, the uncle sent him +to Europe to complete his education by travel. He went with the retiring +Governor Pownal, whose taste for social enjoyment was very much in accord +with his own. In England, he attended the funeral of George the Second, +and saw the coronation of George the Third, little thinking the while that +he would some day make violent efforts to snatch from that crown its +brightest jewel. + +When young Hancock was twenty-seven, the uncle died, and left to him his +entire fortune of three hundred fifty thousand dollars. It made him one of +the very richest men in the Colony--for at that time there was not a man +in Massachusetts worth half a million dollars. + +The jingling silver in his pocket when sent to Harvard had severely tested +his moral fiber, but this great fortune came near smothering all his +native commonsense. If a man makes his money himself, he stands a certain +chance of growing as the pile grows. + +There is little doubt as to the soundness of Emerson's epigram, that what +you put into his chest you take out of the man. More than this, when a man +gradually accumulates wealth, it attracts little attention, so the mob +that follows the newly rich never really gets on to the scent. And besides +that, the man who makes his own fortune always stands ready to repel +boarders. + +There may be young men of twenty-seven who are men grown, and no doubt +every man of twenty-seven is very sure that he is one of these; but the +thought that man is mortal never occurs to either men or women until they +are past thirty. The blood is warm, conquest lies before, and to seize the +world by the tail and snap its head off seems both easy and desirable. + +The promoters, the flatterers and friends until then unknown flocked to +Hancock and condoled with him on the death of his uncle. Some wanted small +loans to tide over temporary emergencies, others had business ventures in +hand whereby John Hancock could double his wealth very shortly. Still +others spoke of wealth being a trust, and to use money to help your +fellow-men, and thus to secure the gratitude of many, was the proper +thing. + +The unselfishness of the latter suggestion appealed to Hancock. To be the +friend of humanity, to assist others--this is the highest ambition to +which a man can aspire! And, of course, if one is pointed out on the +street as the good Mr. Hancock it can not be helped. It is the penalty of +well-doing. + +So in order to give work to many and to promote the interests of Boston, a +thriving city of fifteen thousand inhabitants, for all good men wish to +build up the place in which they live, John Hancock was induced to embark +in shipbuilding. He also owned several ships of his own which traded with +London and the West Indies, and was part owner of others. But he publicly +explained that he did not care to make money for himself--his desire was +to give employment to the worthy poor and to enhance the good of Boston. + +The aristocratic company of militia, known as the Governor's Guard, had +been fitted out with new uniforms and arms by the generous Hancock, and he +had been chosen commanding officer, with rank of Colonel. He drilled with +the crack company and studied the manual much more diligently than he ever +had his Bible. + +Hancock lived in the mansion, inherited from his uncle, on Beacon Street, +facing the Common. There was a chariot and six horses for state occasions, +much fine furniture from over the sea, elegant clothes that the Puritans +called "gaudy apparel," and at the dinners the wine flowed freely, and +cards, dancing and music filled many a night. + +The Puritan neighbors were shocked, and held up their hands in horror to +think that the son of a minister should so affront the staid and sober +customs of his ancestors. Still others said, "Why, that's what a rich man +should do--spend his money, of course; Hancock is the benefactor of his +kind; just see how many people he employs!" + +The town was all agog, and Hancock was easily Boston's first citizen, but +in his time of prosperity he did not forget his old friends. He sent for +them to come and make merry with him; and among the first in his good +offices was John Adams, the rising young lawyer of Braintree. + +John Adams had found clients scarce, and those he had, poor pay, but when +he became the trusted legal adviser of John Hancock, things took a turn +and prosperity came that way. The wine and cards and dinners hadn't much +attraction for him, but still there were no conscientious scruples in the +way. He patted John Hancock on the back, assured him that he was the +people, looked after his interests loyally, and extracted goodly fees for +services performed. + +At the home of Adams at Braintree, Hancock had met a quiet, taciturn +individual by the name of Samuel Adams. This man he had long known in a +casual way, but had never been able really to make his acquaintance. He +was fifteen years older than Hancock, and by his quiet dignity and +self-possession made quite an impression on the young man. + +So, now that prosperity had smiled, Hancock invited him to his house, but +the quiet man was an ascetic and neither played cards, drank wine nor +danced, and so declined with thanks. + +But not long after, he requested a small loan from the merchant-prince, +and asked it as though it were his right, and so he got it. His manner was +in such opposition to the flatterers and those who crawled, and whined, +and begged, that Hancock was pleased with the man. Samuel Adams had +declined Hancock's social favors, and yet, in asking for a loan, showed +his friendliness. + +Samuel Adams was a politician, and had long taken an active part in the +town meetings. In fact, to get a measure through, it was well to have +Samuel Adams at your side. He was clear-headed, astute, and knew the human +heart. Yet he talked but little, and the convivial ways of the small +politician were far from him; but in the fine art that can manage men and +never let them know they are managed he was a past-master. Tucked in his +sleeve, no doubt, was a degree of pride in his power, but the stoic +quality in his nature never allowed him to break into laughter when he +considered how he led men by the nose. + +In Boston and its vicinity, Samuel Adams was not highly regarded, and +outside of Boston, at forty years of age, he was positively unknown. The +neighbors regarded him as a harmless fanatic, sane on most subjects, but +possessed of a buzzing bee in his bonnet to the effect that the Colonies +should be separated from their protector, England. Samuel Adams neglected +his business and kept up a fusillade of articles in the newspapers, on +various political subjects, and men who do this are regarded everywhere as +"queer." A professional newspaper-writer never takes his calling +seriously--it is business. He writes to please his employer, or if he owns +the paper himself, he still writes to please his employer, that is to say, +the public. Journalism, thy name is pander! + +The man who comes up the stairway furtively, with a manuscript he wants +printed, is in dead earnest; and he has excited the ridicule, wrath or +pity of editors for three hundred years. Such a one was Samuel Adams. His +wife did her own work, and the grocer with bills in his hand often grew +red in the face and knocked in vain. + +And yet the keen intellect of Samuel Adams was not a thing to smile at. +Any one who stood before him, face to face, felt the power of the man, and +acknowledged it then and there, as we always do when we stand in the +presence of a strong individuality. And this inward acknowledgment of +worth was instinctively made by John Hancock, the biggest man in all +Boston town. + +John Hancock, through his genial, glowing personality, and his lavish +spending of money, was very popular. He was being fed on flattery, and the +more a man gets of flattery, once the taste is acquired, the more he +craves. It is like the mad thirst for liquor, or the Romeike habit. + +John Hancock was getting attention, and he wanted more. He had been chosen +selectman to fill the place that his uncle had occupied, and when Samuel +Adams incidentally dropped a remark that good men were needed in the +General Court, John Hancock agreed with him. He was named for the office +and with Samuel Adams' help was easily elected. + +Not long after this, the sloop "Liberty" was seized by the government +officials for violation of the revenue laws. The craft was owned by John +Hancock and had surreptitiously landed a cargo of wine without paying +duty. + +When the ship of Boston's chief citizen was seized by the bumptious, +gilt-braided British officials, there was a merry uproar. All the men in +the shipyards quit work, and the Calkers' Club, of which Samuel Adams was +secretary, passed hot resolutions and revolutionary preambles and eulogies +of John Hancock, who was doing so much for Boston. + +In fact, there was a riot, and three regiments of British troops were +ordered to Boston. + +And this was the very first step on the part of England to enforce her +authority, by arms, in America. + +The troops were in the town to preserve order, but the mob would not +disperse. Upon the soldiers, they heaped every indignity and insult. They +dared them to shoot, and with clubs and stones drove the soldiers before +them. At last the troops made a stand and in order to save themselves from +absolute rout fired a volley. Five men fell dead--and the mob dispersed. + +This was the so-called Boston massacre. + +Pinkerton guards would blush at bagging so small a game with a volley. +They have done better again and again at Pittsburgh, Pottsville and +Chicago. + +The riot was quelled, and out of the scrimmage various suits were +instigated by the Crown against John Hancock, in the Court of Admiralty. +The claims against him amounted to over three hundred thousand dollars, +and the charge was that he had long been evading the revenue laws. John +Adams was his attorney, with Samuel Adams as counsel, and vigorous efforts +for prosecution and defense were being made. + +If the Crown were successful the suits would confiscate the entire Hancock +estate--matters were getting in a serious way. Witnesses were summoned, +but the trial was staved off from time to time. + +Hancock had refused to follow Samuel Adams' lead in the controversy with +Governor Hutchinson as to the right to convene the General Court. The +report was that John Hancock was growing lukewarm and siding with the +Tories. A year had passed since the massacre had occurred, and the +agitators proposed to commemorate the day. + +Colonel Hancock had appeared in many prominent parts, but never as an +orator. + +"Why not show the town what you can do!" some one said. + +So John Hancock was invited to deliver the oration. He did so to an +immense concourse. The address was read from the written page. It +overflowed with wisdom and patriotism; and the earnestness and eloquence +of the well-rounded periods was the talk of the town. + +The knowing ones went around corners and roared with laughter, but Samuel +Adams said not a word. The charge was everywhere made by the captious and +bickering that the speech was written by another, and that, moreover, John +Hancock had not even a very firm hold on its import. It was the one speech +of his life. Anyway, it so angered General Gage that he removed Colonel +Hancock from his command of the cadets. + +An order was out for Hancock's arrest, and he and Samuel Adams were in +hiding. + +The British troops marched out to Lexington to capture them, but Paul +Revere was two hours ahead, and when the redcoats arrived the birds had +flown. + +Then came the expulsion of the British, the closing of all courts, the +Admiralty included. The merchant-prince breathed easier, and that was the +last of the Crown versus John Hancock. + + * * * * * + +Throughout the months that had gone before, when the Hancock mansion was +gay with floral decorations, and servants in livery stood at the door with +silver trays, and the dancing-hall was bright with mirth and music, Samuel +Adams had quietly been working his Bureau of Correspondence to the end +that the thirteen Colonies of America should come together in convention. +Chief mover of the plan, and the one man in Massachusetts who was giving +all his time to it, he dictated whom Massachusetts should send as +delegates. This delegation, as we know, included John Hancock, John Adams +and Samuel Adams himself. + +From the danger of Lexington, Hancock and Adams made their way to +Philadelphia to attend the Second Congress. + +At that time the rich men of New England were hurriedly making their way +into the English fold. Some thought that the mother country had been +harsh, but still, England had only acted within her right, and she was +well able to back up this authority. She had regiment upon regiment of +trained fighting men, warships, and money to build more. The Colonies had +no army, no ships, no capital. + +Only those who have nothing to lose can afford to resist lawful +authority--back into the fold they went, penitent and under their breath +cursing the bull-headed men who insisted on plunging the country into red +war. + +Out in the cold world stood John Hancock, alone, save for Bowdoin, among +the aristocrats of New England. The British would confiscate his property, +his splendid house--all would be gone! + +"It will all be gone, anyway," calmly suggested Samuel Adams. "You know +those suits against you in the Admiralty Court?" + +"Yes, yes!" + +"And if we can unite these thirteen Colonies an army can be raised, and we +can separate ourselves entire, in which case there will be glory for +somebody." + +John Hancock, the rich, the ambitious, the pleasure-loving, had burned his +bridges. He was in the hands of Samuel Adams, and his infamy was one with +this man who was a professional agitator, and who had nothing to lose. + +General Gage had made an offer of pardon to all--all, save two men: Samuel +Adams and John Hancock. Back into the fold tumbled the Tories, but against +John Hancock the gates were barred. John Adams, Attorney of the Hancock +estate, rubbed his chin, and decided to stand by the ship--sink or swim, +survive or perish. + +Down in his heart Samuel Adams grimly smiled, but on his cold, pale face +there was no sign. + +The British held Boston secure, and in the splendid mansion of Hancock +lived the rebel, Lord Percy, England's pet. The furniture, plate and +keeping of the place were quite to his liking. + +Hancock's ambitions grew as the days went by. The fight was on. His +property was in the hands of the British, and a price was upon his head. +He, too, now had nothing to lose. If England could be whipped he would get +his property back, and the honors of victory would be his, beside. + +Ambition grew apace; he studied the Manual of Arms as never before, and +made himself familiar with the lives of Caesar and Alexander. At Harvard, +he had read the Anabasis on compulsion, but now he read it with zest. + +The Second Congress was a Congress of action; the first had been one +merely of conference. A presiding officer was required, and Samuel Adams +quietly pushed his man to the front. He let it be known that Hancock was +the richest man in New England, perhaps in America, and a power in every +emergency. + +John Hancock was given the office of presiding officer, the place of +honor. + +The thought never occurred to him that the man on the floor is the man who +acts, and the individual in the chair is only a referee, an onlooker of +the contest. When a man is chosen to preside he is safely out of the way, +and no one knew this better than that clear-headed man, wise as a serpent, +Samuel Adams. + +Hancock was intent on being chosen Commander of the Continental Army. The +war was in Massachusetts, her principal port closed, all business at a +standstill. Hancock was a soldier, and was, moreover, the chief citizen +of Massachusetts--the command should go to him. Samuel Adams knew this +could never be. + +To hold the Southern Colonies and give the cause a show of reason before +the world, an aristocrat with something to lose, and without a personal +grievance, must be chosen, and the man must be from the South. To get +Hancock in a position where his mouth would be stopped, he was placed in +the chair. It was a master move. + +Colonel George Washington was already a hero; he had fought valiantly for +England. His hands were clean; while Hancock was openly called a smuggler. +Washington was nominated by John Adams. The motion was seconded by Samuel +Adams. Hancock turned first red and then deathly pale. He grasped the arms +of his chair with both hands, and--put the question. + +It was unanimous. + +Hancock's fame seems to rest on the fact that he was presiding officer of +the Congress that passed the Declaration of Independence, and therefore +its first signer, and, without consideration for cost of ink and paper, +wrote his name in poster letters. When you look upon the Declaration the +first thing you see is the signature of John Hancock, and you recall his +remark, "I guess King George can read that without spectacles." The whole +action was melodramatic, and although a bold signature has ever been said +to betoken a bold heart, it has yet to be demonstrated that boys who +whistle going through the woods are indifferent to danger. "Conscious +weakness takes strong attitudes," says Delsarte. The strength of Hancock's +signature was an affectation quite in keeping with his habit of riding +about Boston in a coach-and-six, with outriders in uniform, and servants +in livery. + +When Hancock wrote to Washington asking for an appointment in the army, +the wise and farseeing chief replied with gentle words of praise +concerning Colonel Hancock's record, and wound up by saying that he +regretted there was no place at his disposal worthy of Colonel Hancock's +qualifications. Well did he know that Hancock was not quite patriot enough +to fill a lowly rank. + +The part that Hancock played in the eight years of war was inconspicuous. +However, there was little spirit of revenge in his character: he sometimes +scolded, but he did not hate. He never allowed personal animosities to +make him waver in his loyalty to independence. In fact, with a price upon +his head, but one course was open for him. + +Just before Washington was inaugurated President, he visited Boston, and a +curious struggle took place between him and Hancock, who was Governor. It +was all a question of etiquette--which should make the first call. Each +side played a waiting game, and at last Hancock's gout came in as an +excellent excuse and the country was saved. + +In one of his letters, Hancock says, "The entire Genteel portion of the +town was invited to my House, while on the sidewalk I had a cask of +Madeira for the Common People." His repeated re-election as Governor +proves his popularity. Through lavish expenditure, his fortune was much +reduced, and for many years he was sorely pressed for funds, his means +being tied up in unproductive ways. + +His last triumph, as Governor, was to send a special message to the +Legislature, informing that body that "a company of Aliens and Foreigners +have entered the State, and the Metropolis of Government, and under +advertisements insulting to all Good Men and Ladies have been pleased to +invite them to attend certain Stage-Plays, Interludes and Theatrical +Entertainments under the Style and Appellation of Moral Lectures.... All +of which must be put a stop to to once and the Rogues and Varlots +punished." + +A few days after this, "the Aliens and Foreigners" gave a presentation of +Sheridan's "School for Scandal." In the midst of the performance the +sheriff and a posse made a rush upon the stage and bagged all the +offenders. + +When their trial came on, the next day, the "varlots and vagroms" had +secured high legal talent to defend them, one of which counsel was +Harrison Gray Otis. The actors were discharged on the slim technicality +that the warrants of arrest had not been properly verified. + +However, the theater was closed, but the "Common People" made such an +unseemly howl about "rights" and all that, that the Legislature made haste +to repeal the law which provided that play-actors should be flogged. + +Hancock defaulted in his stewardship as Treasurer of Harvard College, and +only escaped arrest for embezzlement through the fact that he was Governor +of the State, and no process could be served upon him. After his death his +estate paid nine years' simple interest on his deficit, and ten years +thereafter, the principal was paid. + +His widow married Captain Scott, who was long in Hancock's employ as +master of a brig; and we find the worthy captain proudly exclaiming, "I +have embarked on the sea of Matrimony, and am now at the helm of the +Hancock mansion!" + +No biography of Governor Hancock has ever been written. The record of his +life flutters only in newspaper paragraphs, letters, and chance mention in +various diaries. + +Hancock did not live to see John Adams President. Worn by worry, and grown +old before his time, he died at the early age of fifty-six, of a +combination of gout and that unplebeian complaint we now term Bright's +Disease. + +Thirty-three years after, hale old John Adams down at Quincy spoke of him +as "a clever fellow, a bit spoiled by a legacy, whom I used to know in my +younger days." + +He left no descendants, and his heirs were too intent on being in at the +death to care for his memory. They neither preserved the data of his life, +nor over his grave placed a headstone. The monument that now marks his +resting-place was recently erected by the State of Massachusetts. He was +buried in the Old Granary Burying-Ground, on Tremont Street, and only a +step from his grave sleeps his friend Samuel Adams. + + + + +JOHN QUINCY ADAMS + + To the guidance of the legislative councils; to the assistance of + the executive and subordinate departments; to the friendly + co-operation of the respective State Governments; to the candid + and liberal support of the people, so far as it may be deserved + by honest industry and zeal, I shall look for whatever success + may attend my public service; and knowing that "except the Lord + keep the city, the watchman waketh in vain," with fervent + supplications for His favor, to His overruling providence I + commit, with humble but fearless confidence, my own fate and the + future destinies of my country. + --_Inaugural Address_ + +[Illustration: JOHN QUINCY ADAMS] + + +Nine miles south of Boston, just a little back from the escalloped shores +of Old Ocean, lies the village of Braintree. It is on the Plymouth +post-road, being one of that string of settlements, built a few miles +apart for better protection, that lined the sea, Boston being crowded, and +Plymouth full to overflowing, the home-seekers spread out north and south. + +In Sixteen Hundred Twenty, when the first cabin was built at Braintree, +land that was not in sight of the coast had actually no value. Back a +mile, all was a howling wilderness, with trails made by wild beasts or +savage men as wild. These paths led through tangles of fallen trees and +tumbled rocks, beneath dark, overhanging pines where winter's snows melted +not till midsummer, and the sun's rays were strange and alien. Men who +sought to traverse these ways had to crouch and crawl or climb. Through +them no horse or ox or beast of burden had carried its load. + +But up from the sea the ground rose gradually for a mile, and along this +slope that faced the tide, wind and storm had partly cleared the ground, +and on the hillsides our forefathers made their homes. The houses were +built facing either the east or the south. This persistence to face +either the sun or the sea shows a last, strange rudiment of paganism, +making queer angles now that surveyors have come with Gunter's chain and +transit, laying out streets and doing their work. + +A mile out, north of Braintree, on the Boston road, came, in Sixteen +Hundred Twenty-five, one Captain Wollaston, a merry wight, and thirty boon +companions, all of whom probably left England for England's good. They +were in search of gold and pelf, and all were agreed on one point: they +were quite too good to do any hard work. Their camp was called Mount +Wollaston, or the Merry Mount. Our gallant gentlemen cultivated the +friendship of the Indians, in the hope that they would reveal the caves +and caverns where the gold grew lush and nuggets cumbered the way; and the +Indians, liking the drink they offered, brought them meal and corn and +furs. + +And so the thirty set up a Maypole, adorned with bucks' horns, and drank +and feasted, and danced like fairies or furies, the livelong day or night. +So scandalously did these exiled lords behave that good folks made a wide +circuit 'round to avoid their camp. + +Preaching had been in vain, and prayers for the conversion of the wretches +remained unanswered. So the neighbors held a convention, and decided to +send Captain Miles Standish with a posse to teach the merry men manners. + +Standish appeared among the bacchanalians one morning, perfectly sober, +and they were not. He arrested the captain, and bade the others begone. +The leader was shipped back to England, with compliments and regrets, and +the thirty scattered. This was the first move in that quarter in favor of +local option. + +Six years later, the land thereabouts was granted and apportioned out to +the Reverend John Wilson, William Coddington, Edward Quinsey, James +Penniman, Moses Payne and Francis Eliot. + +And these men and their families built houses and founded "the North +Precinct of the Town of Braintree." + +Between the North Precinct and the South Precinct there was continual +rivalry. Boys who were caught over the dead-line, which was marked by +Deacon Penniman's house, had to fight. Thus things continued until +Seventeen Hundred Ninety-two, when one John Adams was Vice-President of +the United States. Now this John Adams, lawyer, was the son of John Adams, +honest farmer and cordwainer, who had bought the Penniman homestead, and +whose progenitor, Henry Adams, had moved there in Sixteen Hundred +Thirty-six. John Adams, Vice-President, afterwards President, was born +there in the Penniman house, and was regarded as a neutral, although he +had been thrashed by boys both from the North and from the South Precinct. +But at the last, there is no such thing as neutrality. + +John Adams sided with the boys from the North Precinct, and now that he +was in power it occurred to him, having had a little experience in the +revolutionary line, that for the North Precinct to secede from the great +town of Braintree would be but proper and right. + +The North Precinct had six stores that sold W.I. goods, and a tavern that +sold W.E.T. goods, and it should have a post-office of its own. + +So John Adams suggested the matter to Richard Cranch, who was his +brother-in-law and near neighbor. Cranch agitated the matter, and the new +town, which was the old, was incorporated. They called it Quincy, probably +because Abigail, John's wife, insisted upon it. She had named her eldest +boy Quincy, in honor of her grandfather, whose father's name was Quinsey, +and who had relatives who spelled it De Quincey, one of which tribe was an +opium-eater. + +Now, when Abigail made a suggestion, John usually heeded it. For Abigail +was as wise as she was good, and John well knew that his success in life +had come largely from the help, counsel and inspiration vouchsafed to him +by this splendid woman. And the man who will not let a woman have her way +in all such small matters as naming of babies or towns is not much of a +man. + +So the town was named Quincy, and brother-in-law Cranch was appointed its +first postmaster. Shortly after, the Boston "Centinel" contained a +sarcastic article over the signature, "Old Subscriber," concerning the +distribution of official patronage among kinsmen, and the Eliots and the +Everetts gossiped over their back fences. + +At this time Abigail lived in the cottage there on the Plymouth road, +halfway between Braintree and Quincy, but she got her mail at Quincy. + +The Adams cottage is there now, and the next time you are in Boston you +had better go out and see it, just as June and I did one bright October +day. + +June has lived within an hour's ride of the Adams' home all her blessed +thirty-two sunshiny summers; she also boasts a Mayflower ancestry, with, +however, a slight infusion of Castle Garden, like myself, to give firmness +of fiber--and yet she had never been to Quincy. + +The John and Abigail cottage was built in Seventeen Hundred Sixteen, so +says a truthful brick found in the quaint old chimney. Deacon Penniman +built this house for his son, and it faces the sea, although the older +Penniman house faces the south. John Adams was born in the older house; +but when he used to go to Weymouth every Wednesday and Saturday evening to +see Abigail Smith, the minister's daughter, his father, the worthy +shoemaker, told him that when he got married he could have the other house +for himself. + +John was a bright young lawyer then, a graduate of Harvard, where he had +been sent in hopes that he would become a minister, for one-half the +students then at Harvard were embryo preachers. But John did not take to +theology. + +He had witnessed ecclesiastical tennis and theological pitch and toss in +Braintree that had nearly split the town, and he decided on the law. One +thing sure, he could not work: he was not strong enough for +that--everybody said so. And right here seems a good place to call +attention to the fact that weak men, like those who are threatened, live +long. John Adams' letters to his wife reveal a very frequent reference to +liver complaint, lung trouble, and that tired feeling, yet he lived to be +ninety-two. + +The Reverend Mr. Smith did not at first favor the idea of his daughter +Abigail marrying John Adams. The Adams family were only farmers (and +shoemakers when it rained), while the Smiths had aristocracy on their +side. He said lawyers were men who got bad folks out of trouble and good +folks in. But Abigail said that this lawyer was different; and as Mr. +Smith saw it was a love-match, and such things being difficult to combat +successfully, he decided he would do the next best thing--give the young +couple his blessing. Yet the neighbors were quite scandalized to think +that their pastor's daughter should hold converse over the gate with a +lawyer, and they let the clergyman know it as neighbors then did, and +sometimes do now. Then did the Reverend Mr. Smith announce that he would +preach a sermon on the sin of meddling with other folk's business. As his +text he took the passage from Luke, seventh chapter, thirty-third verse: +"For John came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, he +hath a devil." + +The neighbors saw the point, for a short time before, when the eldest +daughter, Mary, had married Richard Cranch (the man who was to achieve a +post-office), the community had entered a protest, and the Reverend Mr. +Smith had preached from Luke, tenth chapter, forty-second verse: "And Mary +hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her." So +there, now! + +And John and Abigail were married one evening at early candlelight, in the +church at Weymouth. The good father performed the ceremony, and nearly +broke down during it, they say, and then he kissed both bride and groom. + +The neighbors had repaired to the parsonage and were eating and drinking +and making merry when John and Abigail slipped out by the back gate, and +made their way, hand in hand, in the starlight, down the road that ran +through the woods to Braintree. When near the village they cut across the +pasture-lot and reached their cottage, which for several weeks they had +been putting in order. John unlocked the front door, and they entered over +the big, flat stone at the entry, and over which you may enter now, all +sunken and worn by generations of men gone. Some whose feet have pressed +that doorstep we count as the salt of the earth, for their names are +written large on history's page. Washington rode out there on horseback, +and while his aide held his horse, he visited and drank mulled cider and +ate doughnuts within. Hancock came often, and Otis, Samuel Adams and +Loring used to enter without plying the knocker. + +Through the earnest work of William G. Spear, the cottage has now been +restored and fully furnished, as near like it was then as knowledge, fancy +and imagination can devise. + +When we reached Quincy we saw a benevolent-looking old Puritan, and June +said, "Ask him!" + +"Can you tell me where we can find Mr. Spear, the antiquarian?" I +inquired. + +"The which?" said the son of Priscilla Mullins. + +"Mr. Spear, the antiquarian," I repeated. + +"It's not Bill Spear who keeps a secondhand-shop, you want, mebbe?" + +"Yes; I think that is the man." + +And so we were directed to the "secondhand-shop," which proved to be the +rooms of the Quincy Historical Society. And there we saw such a wondrous +collection of secondhand stuff that, as we looked and looked, and Mr. +Spear explained, and gave large slices of Colonial history, June, who is a +Daughter of the American Revolution, gushed a trifle more than was meet. + +Nothing short of a hundred years will set the seal of value on an article +for Mr. Spear, and one hundred fifty is more like it. On his walls are +hats, caps, spurs, boots and accouterments used in the Revolutionary War. +Then there are candlesticks, snuffers, spectacles, butter-molds, bonnets, +dresses, shoes, baby-stockings, cradles, rattles, aprons, butter-tubs made +out of a solid piece, shovels to match, andirons, pokers, skillets and +blue china galore. + +"Bill Spear" himself is quite a curiosity. He traces a lineage to the +well-known Lieutenant Seth Spear, of Revolutionary fame, and back of that +to John Alden, who spoke for himself. The bark on the antiquarian, is +rather rough; and I regret to say that he makes use of a few words I can +not find in the "Century Dictionary," but as June was not shocked I +managed to stand it. On further acquaintance I concluded that Mr. Spear's +bruskness was assumed, and that beneath the tough husk there beats a very +tender heart. He is one of those queer fellows who do good by stealth and +abuse you roundly if accused of it. + +For twenty-five years Mr. Spear has been doing little else but studying +Colonial history, and making love to old ladies who own clocks and +skillets given them by their great-grandmammas. There is no doubt that +Spear has dictated clauses in a hundred wills devising that William G. +Spear, Custodian of the Quincy Historical Society, shall have snuffers and +biscuit-molds. + +At first, Mr. Spear collected for his own amusement and benefit, but the +trouble grew upon him until it became chronic, and one fine day he +realized that he was not immortal, and when he should die, all his +collection, which had taken years to accumulate, would be scattered. And +so he founded the Quincy Historical Society, incorporated by a perpetual +charter, with Charles Francis Adams, grandson of John Quincy Adams, as +first president. + +Then, the next thing was to secure the cottage where John and Abigail +Adams began housekeeping, and where John Quincy was born. This house has +been in the Adams family all these years and been rented to the firm of +Tom, Dick and Harry, and any of their tribe who would agree to pay ten +dollars a month for its use and abuse. Just across the road from the +cottage lives a fine old soul by the name of John Crane. Mr. Crane is +somewhere between seventy and a hundred years old, but he has a young +heart, a face like Gladstone and a memory like a copy-book. Mr. Crane was +on very good terms with John Quincy Adams, knew him well and had often +seen him come here to collect rent. He told me that during his +recollection the Adams place had been occupied by full forty families. But +now, thanks to "Bill Spear," it is no longer for rent. + +The house has been raised from the ground, new sills placed under it, and +while every part--scantling, rafter, joist, crossbeam, lath and +weatherboard--of the original house has been retained, it has been put in +such order that it is no longer going to ruin. + +From the ample stores of his various antiquarian depositories Mr. Spear +has refurnished it; and with a ripe knowledge and rare good taste and +restraining imagination, the cottage is now shown to us as a Colonial +farmhouse of the year Seventeen Hundred Fifty. The wonder to me is that +Mr. Spear, being human, did not move his "secondhand-shop" down here and +make of the place a curiosity-shop. But he has done better. + +As you step across the doorsill and pass from the little entry into the +"living-room," you pause and murmur, "Excuse me." For there is a fire on +the hearth, the tea-kettle sings softly, and on the back of a chair hangs +a sunbonnet. And over there on the table is an open Bible, and on the open +page is a pair of spectacles and a red, crumpled handkerchief. Yes, the +folks are at home: they have just stepped into the next room--perhaps are +eating dinner. And so you sit down in an old hickory chair, or in the high +settle that stands against the wall by the fireplace, and wait, expecting +every moment that the kitchen-door will creak on its wooden hinges, and +Abigail, smiling and gentle, will enter to greet you. Mr. Spear +understands, and, disappearing, leaves you to your thoughts--and June's. + +John and Abigail were lovers their lifetime through. Their published +letters show a oneness of thought and sentiment that, viewed across the +years, moves us to tears to think that such as they should at last feebly +totter, and then turn to dust. But here they came in the joyous springtime +of their lives; upon this floor you tread the ways their feet have trod; +these walls have echoed to their singing voices, listened to their +counsels, and seen love's caress. + +There is no surplus furniture nor display nor setting forth of useless +things. Every article you see has its use. The little shelf of books, +well-thumbed, displays no "Trilby" nor "Quest of the Golden Girl"--not an +anachronism any where. Curtains, chairs, tables, and the one or two +pictures--all ring true. In the kitchen are washtubs and butter-ladles and +bowls; and the lantern hanging by the chimney, with a dipped candle +inside, has a carefully scraped horn face. It is a lanthorn. In the +cupboard across the corner are blue china and pewter spoons and steel +knives, with just a little polished-brass stuff sent from England. Down in +the cellar, with its dirt walls, are apples, yellow pumpkins and +potatoes--each in its proper place, for Abigail was a rare good +housekeeper. Then there is a barrel of cider, with a hickory spigot and an +inviting gourd. All tells of economy, thrift, industry and the cunning of +woman's hands. + +In the kitchen is a funny cradle, hooded, and cut out of a great pine log. +The little mattress and the coverlet seem disturbed, and you would declare +the baby had just been lifted out, and you listen for its cry. The rocker +is worn by the feet of mothers whose hands were busy with needles or wheel +as they rocked and sang. And from the fact that it is in the kitchen, you +know that the servant-girl problem then had no terrors. + +Overhead hang ears of corn, bunches of dried catnip, pennyroyal and +boneset, and festooned across the corner are strings of dried apples. + +Then you go upstairs, with conscience pricking a bit for thus visiting the +house of honest folks when they are away, for you know how all good +housewives dislike to have people prying about, especially in the upper +chambers--at least June said so! + +The room to the right was Abigail's own. You would know it was a woman's +room. There is a faint odor of lavender and thyme about it, and the white +and blue draperies around the little mirror, and the little feminine +nothings on the dresser, reveal the lady who would appear well before the +man she loves. + +The bed is a high, draped four-poster, plain and solid, evidently made by +a ship-carpenter who had ambitions. The coverlet is light blue, and +matches the draperies of windows, dresser and mirror. On the pillow is a +nightcap, in which even a homely woman would be beautiful. + +There is a clothespress in the corner, into which Mr. Spear says we may +look. On the door is a slippery-elm button, and within, hanging on wooden +pegs, are dainty dresses; stiff, curiously embroidered gowns they are, +that came from across the sea, sent, perhaps, by John Adams when he went +to France, and left Abigail here to farm and sew and weave and teach the +children. June examined the dresses carefully, and said the embroidery was +handmade, and must have taken months and months to complete. On a high +shelf of the closet are bandboxes, in which are bonnets, astonishing +bonnets, with prodigious flaring fronts. Mr. Spear insisted that June +should try one on, and when she did we stood off and declared the effect +was a vision of loveliness. Outside the clothespress, on a peg, hangs a +linsey-woolsey every-day gown that shows marks of wear. The waist came +just under June's arms, and the bottom of the dress to her shoe-tops. + +We asked Mr. Spear the price of it, but the custodian is not commercial. +In a corner of the room is a cedar chest containing hand-woven linen. + +By the front window is a little, low desk, with a leaf that opens out for +a writing-shelf. And here you see quill-pens, fresh nibbed, and ink in a +curious well made from horn. Here it was that Abigail wrote those letters +to her lover-husband when he attended those first and second Congresses in +Philadelphia; and then when he was in France and England, those letters in +which we see affection, loyalty, tales of babies with colic, brave, +political good sense, and all those foolish trifles that go to fill up +love-letters, and, at the last, are their divine essence and charm. + +Here, she wrote the letter telling of going with their seven-year-old boy, +John Quincy, to Penn's Hill to watch the burning of Charlestown; and saw +the flashing of cannons and rising smoke that marked the battle of Bunker +Hill. Here she wrote to her husband when he was minister to England, +"This little cottage has more comfort and satisfaction for you than the +courts of royalty." + +But of all the letters written by that brave woman none reveals her true +nobility better than the one written to her husband the day he became +President of the United States. Here it is entire: + + Quincy, 8 February, 1797 + + "The sun is dressed in brightest beams, + To give thy honors to the day." + + "And may it prove an auspicious prelude to each ensuing season. + You have this day to declare yourself head of a Nation. And now, + O Lord, my God, Thou hast made Thy servant ruler over the people. + Give unto him an understanding heart, that he may know how to go + out and come in before this great people; that he may discern + between good and bad. For who is able to judge this Thy so great + a people, were the words of a royal Sovereign; and not less + applicable to him who is invested with the Chief Magistracy of a + nation, though he wear not a crown, nor the robes of royalty. + + "My thoughts and my meditations are with you, though personally + absent; and my petitions to Heaven are that the things which make + for peace may not be hidden from your eyes. My feelings are not + those of pride or ostentation upon the occasion. + + "They are solemnized by a sense of the obligations, the important + trusts, and numerous duties connected with it. That you may be + enabled to discharge them with honor to yourself, with justice + and impartiality to your country, and with satisfaction to this + great people, shall be the daily prayer of your + + "A.A." + +It was in this room that Abigail waited while British soldiers ransacked +the rooms below and made bullets of the best pewter spoons. Here her son +who was to be President was born. + +John Quincy Adams was six years old when his father kissed him good-by and +rode away for Philadelphia with John Hancock and Samuel Adams (who rode a +horse loaned him by John Adams). Abigail stood in the doorway holding the +baby, and watched them disappear in the curve of the road. This was in +August, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-four. Most of the rest of that year +Abigail was alone with her babies on the little farm. It was the same next +year, and in Seventeen Hundred Seventy-six, too, when John Adams wrote +home that he had made the formal move for Independency and also nominated +George Washington as Commander-in-Chief of the army; and he hoped things +would soon be better. + +Those were troublous times in which to live in the vicinity of Boston. +There were straggling troops passing up and down the Plymouth road every +day. Sometimes they were redcoats and sometimes buff and blue, but all +seemed to be very hungry and extremely thirsty, and the Adams household +received a great deal more attention than it courted. The master of the +house was away, but all seemed to know who lived there, and the callers +were not always courteous. + +In such a feverish atmosphere of unrest, children evolve quickly into men +and women, and their faces take on the look of thought where should be +only careless, happy, dimpled smiles. Yes, responsibility matures, and +that is the way John Quincy Adams got cheated out of his childhood. + +When eight years of age, his mother called him the little man of the +house. The next year he was a post-rider, making a daily trip to Boston +with letter-bags across his saddlebows. + +When eleven years of age, his father came home to say that some one had to +go to France to serve with Jay and Franklin in making a treaty. + +"Go," said Abigail, "and God be with you!" But when it was suggested that +John Quincy go, too, the parting did not seem so easy. But it was a fine +opportunity for the boy to see the world of men, and the mother's head +appreciated it even if her heart did not. And yet she had the heroism that +is willing to remain behind. + +So father and son sailed away; and little John Quincy added postscripts to +his father's letters and said, "I send my loving duty to my mamma." + +The boy took kindly to foreign ways, as boys will, and the French language +had no such terrors for him as it had for his father. The first stay in +Europe was only three months, and back they came on a leaky ship. + +But the home-stay was even shorter than the stay abroad, and John Adams +had again to cross the water on his country's business. Again the boy went +with him. + +It was five years before the mother saw him. And then he had gone on alone +from Paris to London to meet her. She did not know him, for he was nearly +eighteen and a man grown. He had visited every country in Europe and been +the helper and companion of statesmen and courtiers, and seen society in +its various phases. He spoke several languages, and in point of polish and +manly dignity was the peer of many of his elders. Mrs. Adams looked at him +and then began to cry, whether for joy or for sorrow she did not know. Her +boy had gone, escaped her, gone forever, but, instead, here was a tall +young diplomat calling her "mother." + +There was a career ahead for John Quincy Adams--his father knew it, his +mother was sure of it, and John Quincy himself was not in doubt. He could +then have gone right on, but his father was a Harvard man, and the New +England superstition was strong in the Adams heart that success could only +be achieved when based on a Harvard parchment. + +So back to Massachusetts sailed John Quincy; and a two-year course at +Harvard secured the much-desired diploma. + +From the very time he crawled over this kitchen-floor and pushed a chair, +learning to walk, or tumbled down the stairs and then made his way bravely +up again alone, he knew that he would arrive. Precocious, proud, firm, and +with a coldness in his nature that was not a heritage from either his +father or his mother, he made his way. + +It was a zigzag course, and the way was strewn with the flotsam and jetsam +of wrecked parties and blighted hopes, but out of the wreckage John Quincy +Adams always appeared, calm, poised and serene. When he opposed the +purchase of Louisiana it looks as if he allowed his animosity for +Jefferson to put his judgment in chancery. He made mistakes, but this was +the only blunder of his career. The record of that life expressed in bold +stands thus: + + 1767--Born May Eleventh. + 1776--Post-rider between Boston and Quincy. + 1778---At school in Paris. + 1780--At school in Leyden. + 1781--Private Secretary to Minister to Russia. + 1787---Graduated at Harvard. + 1794--Minister at The Hague. + 1797--Married Louise Catherine Johnson, of Maryland. + 1797--Minister at Berlin. + 1802--Member of Massachusetts State Senate. + 1803--United States Senator. + 1806--Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard + 1809--Minister to Russia. + 1811--Nominated and confirmed by Senate as Judge of Supreme Court + of the United States; declined. + 1814--Commissioner at Ghent to treat for peace with Great Britain. + 1815--Minister to Great Britain. + 1817--Secretary of State. + 1825--Elected President of the United States. + 1830--Elected a Member of Congress, and represented the district + for seventeen years. + 1848--Stricken with paralysis February Twenty-first in the + Capitol, and died the second day after. + + * * * * * + +"Aren't we staying in this room a good while?" said June; "you have sat +there staring out of that window looking at nothing for just ten minutes, +and not a word have you spoken!" + +Mr. Spear had disappeared into space, and so we made our way across the +little hall to the room that belonged to Mr. Adams. It was in the disorder +that men's rooms are apt to be. On the table were quill-pens and curious +old papers with seals on them, and on one I saw the date, June Sixteenth, +Seventeen Hundred Sixty-eight--the whole document written out in the hand +of John Adams, beginning very prim and careful, then moving off into a +hurried scrawl as spirit mastered the letter. There is a little +hair-covered trunk in the corner, studded with brass nails, and boots and +leggings and canes and a jackknife and a bootjack, and, on the +window-sill, a friendly snuffbox. In the clothespress were buff trousers +and an embroidered coat, and shoes with silver buckles, and several suits +of every-day clothes, showing wear and patches. + +On up to the garret we groped, and bumped our heads against the rafters. +The light was dim, but we could make out more apples on strings, and roots +and herbs in bunches hung from the peak. Here was a three-legged chair and +a broken spinning-wheel, and the junk that is too valuable to throw away, +yet not good enough to keep, but "some day may be needed." + +Down the narrow stairway we went, and in the little kitchen, Sammy, the +artist, and Mr. Spear, the custodian, were busy at the fireplace preparing +dinner. There is no stove in the house, and none is needed. The crane and +brick oven and long-handled skillets suffice. Sammy is an expert +camp-cook, and swears there is death in the chafing-dish, and grows +profane if you mention one. His skill in turning flapjacks by a simple +manipulation of the long-handled griddle means more to his true ego than +the finest canvas. + +June offered to set the table, but Sammy said she could never do it alone, +so together they brought out the blue china dishes and the pewter plates. +Then they drew water at the stone-curbed well with the great sweep, +carrying the leather-baled bucket between them. + +I was feeling quite useless and asked, "Can't I do something to help?" + +"There is the lye-leach--you might bring out some ashes and make some soft +soap," said June pointing to the ancient leach and soap-kettle in the +yard, the joys of Mr. Spear's heart. + +Sammy stood at the back door and pounded on the dishpan with a wooden +spoon to announce that dinner was ready. It was quite a sumptuous meal: +potatoes baked in the ashes, beans baked in the brick oven, coffee made on +the hearth, fish cooked in the skillet, and pancakes made on a griddle +with a handle three feet long. + +Mr. Spear had aspirations toward an apple-pie and had made violent efforts +in that direction, but the product being dough on top and charcoal on the +bottom we declined the nomination with thanks. + +June suggested that pies should be baked in an oven and not cooked on a +pancake griddle. The custodian thought there might be something in it--a +suggestion he would have scorned and scouted had it come from me. + +To change the rather painful subject, Mr. Spear began to talk about John +and Abigail Adams, and to quote from their "Letters," a volume he seems to +have by heart. + +"Do you know why their love was so very steadfast, and why they stimulated +the mental and spiritual natures of each other so?" asked June. + +"No, why was it?" + +"Well, I'll tell you: it was because they spent one-third of their married +life apart." + +"Indeed!" + +"Yes, and in this way they lived in an ideal world. In all their letters +you see they are always counting the days ere they will meet. Now, people +who are together all the time never write that way, because they do not +feel that way--I'll leave it to Mr. Spear!" + +But Mr. Spear, being a bachelor, did not know. Then the case was referred +to Sammy, and Sammy lied and said he had never considered the subject. + +"And would you advise, then, that married couples live apart one-third of +the time, in the interests of domestic peace?" I asked. + +"Certainly!" said June, with her Burne-Jones chin in the air. "Certainly; +but I fear you are the man who does not understand; and anyway I am sure +it will be much more profitable for us to cultivate the receptive spirit +and listen to Mr. Spear--such opportunities do not come very often. I did +not mean to interrupt you, Mr. Spear; go on, please!" + +And Mr. Spear filled a clay pipe with natural leaf that he crumbled in his +hand, and deftly picking a coal from the fireplace with a shovel one +hundred fifty years old, puffed five times silently, and began to talk. + + + + +ALEXANDER HAMILTON + + The objects to be attained are: To justify and preserve the + confidence of the most enlightened friends of good government; to + promote the increasing respectability of the American name; to + answer the calls of justice; to restore landed property to its + due value; to furnish new sources both to agriculture and to + commerce; to cement more closely the union of the States; to add + to their security against foreign attack; to establish public + order on the basis of an upright and liberal policy: these are + the great and invaluable ends to be secured by a proper and + adequate provision, at the present period, for the support of + public credit. + --_Report to Congress_ + +[Illustration: ALEXANDER HAMILTON] + + +We do not know the name of the mother of Alexander Hamilton: we do not +know the given name of his father. But from letters, a diary and +pieced-out reports, allowing fancy to bridge from fact to fact, we get a +patchwork history of the events preceding the birth of this wonderful man. + +Every strong man has had a splendid mother. Hamilton's mother was a woman +of wit, beauty and education. While very young, through the machinations +of her elders, she had been married to a man much older than +herself--rich, wilful and dissipated. The man's name was Lavine, but his +first name we do not know, so hidden were the times in a maze of +obscurity. The young wife very soon discovered the depravity of this man +whom she had vowed to love and obey; divorce was impossible; and rather +than endure a lifelong existence of legalized shame, she packed up her +scanty effects and sought to hide herself from society and kinsmen by +going to the West Indies. + +There she hoped to find employment as a governess in the family of one of +the rich planters; or if this plan were not successful she would start a +school on her own account, and thus benefit her kind and make for herself +an honorable living. Arriving at the island of Nevis, she found that the +natives did not especially desire education, certainly not enough to pay +for it, and there was no family requiring a governess. But a certain +Scotch planter by the name of Hamilton, who was consulted, thought in time +that a school could be built up, and he offered to meet the expense of it +until such a time as it could be put on a paying basis. Unmarried women +who accept friendly loans from men stand in dangerous places. With all +good women, heart-whole gratitude and a friendship that seems unselfish +ripen easily into love. They did so here. Perhaps, in a warm, ardent +temperament, sore grief and biting disappointment and crouching want +obscure the judgment and give a show of reason to actions that a colder +intellect would disapprove. + +On the frontiers of civilization man is greater than law--all ceremonies +are looked upon lightly. In a few months Mrs. Lavine was called by the +little world of Nevis, Mrs. Hamilton, and Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton regarded +themselves as man and wife. + +The planter Hamilton was a hard-headed, busy individual, who was quite +unable to sympathize with his wife's finer aspirations. Her first husband +had been clever and dissipated; this one was worthy and dull. And thus +deprived of congenial friendships, without books or art or that social +home life which goes to make up a woman's world, and longing for the +safety of close sympathy and tender love, with no one on whom her +intellect could strike a spark, she keenly felt the bitterness of exile. + +In a city where society ebbs and flows, an intellectual woman married to a +commerce-grubbing man is not especially to be pitied. She can find +intellectual affinities that will ease the irksomeness of her situation. +But to be cast on a desert isle with a being, no matter how good, who is +incapable of feeling with you the eternal mystery of the encircling tides; +who can only stare when you speak of the moaning lullaby of the restless +sea; who knows not the glory of the sunrise, and feels no thrill when the +breakers dash themselves into foam, or the moonlight dances on the +phosphorescent waves--ah, that is indeed exile! Loneliness is not in being +alone, for then ministering spirits come to soothe and bless--loneliness +is to endure the presence of one who does not understand. + +And so this finely organized, receptive, aspiring woman, through the +exercise of a will that seemed masculine in its strength, found her feet +mired in quicksand. She struggled to free herself, and every effort only +sank her deeper. The relentless environment only held her with firmer +clutch. + +She thirsted for knowledge, for sweet music, for beauty, for sympathy, for +attainment. She had a heart-hunger that none about her understood. She +strove for better things. She prayed to God, but the heavens were as +brass; she cried aloud, and the only answer was the throbbing of her +restless heart. + +In this condition, a son was born to her. They called his name Alexander +Hamilton. This child was heir to all his mother's splendid ambitions. Her +lack of opportunity was his blessing; for the stifled aspirations of her +soul charged his being with a strong man's desires, and all the mother's +silken, unswerving will was woven through his nature. He was to surmount +obstacles that she could not overcome, and to tread under his feet +difficulties that to her were invincible. + +The prayer of her heart was answered, but not in the way she expected. God +listened to her after all; for every earnest prayer has its answer, and +not a sincere desire of the heart but somewhere will find its +gratification. + +But earth's buffets were too severe for the brave young woman; the forces +in league against her were more than she could withstand, and before her +boy was out of baby dresses she gave up the struggle, and went to her long +rest, soothed only by the thought that, although she had sorely blundered, +she yet had done her work as best she could. + + * * * * * + +At his mother's death, we find Alexander Hamilton taken in charge by +certain mystical kinsmen. Evidently he was well cared for, as he grew into +a handsome, strong lad--small, to be sure, but finely formed. Where he +learned to read, write and cipher we know not; he seems to have had one of +those active, alert minds that can acquire knowledge on a barren island. + +When nine years old, he signed his name as witness to a deed. The +signature is needlessly large and bold, and written with careful schoolboy +pains, but the writing shows the same characteristics that mark the +thousand and one dispatches which we have, signed at bottom, "G. +Washington." + +At twelve years of age, he was clerk in a general store--one of those +country stores where everything is kept, from ribbon to whisky. There were +other helpers in the store, full grown; but when the proprietor went away +for a few days into the interior, the dark, slim youngster took charge of +the bookkeeping and the cash; and made such shrewd exchanges of +merchandise for produce that when the "Old Man" returned, the lad was +rewarded by two pats on the head and a raise in salary of one shilling a +week. + +About this time, the boy was also showing signs of literary skill by +writing sundry poems and "compositions," and one of his efforts in this +line describing a tropical hurricane was published in a London paper. + +This opened the eyes of the mystical kinsmen to the fact that they had a +genius among them, and the elder Hamilton was importuned for money to send +the boy to Boston that he might receive a proper education and come back +and own the store and be a magistrate and a great man. No doubt the lad +pressed the issue, too, for his ambition had already begun to ferment, as +we find him writing to a friend, "I'll risk my life, though not my +character, to exalt my station." + +Most great things in America have to take their rise in Boston; so it +seems meet that Alexander Hamilton, aged fifteen, a British subject, +should first set foot on American soil at Long Wharf, Boston. He took a +ferry over to Cambridgeport and walked through the woods three miles to +Harvard College. Possibly he did not remain because his training in a +bookish way had not been sufficient for him to enter, and possibly he did +not like the Puritanic visage of the old professor who greeted him on the +threshold of Massachusetts Hall; at any rate, he soon made his way to New +Haven. Yale suited him no better, and he took a boat for New York. + +He had letters to several good clergymen in New York, and they proved wise +and good counselors. The boy was advised to take a course at the Grammar +School at Elizabethtown, New Jersey. + +There he remained a year, applying himself most vigorously, and the next +Fall he knocked at the gate of King's College. It is called Columbia now, +because kings in America went out of fashion, and all honors formerly +paid to the king were turned over to Miss Columbia, Goddess of Freedom. + +King's College swung wide its doors for the swarthy little West Indian. He +was allowed to choose his own course, and every advantage of the +university was offered him. In a university, you get just all you are able +to hold--it depends upon yourself--and at the last all men who are made at +all are self-made. + +Hamilton improved each passing moment as it flew; with the help of a tutor +he threw himself into his work, gathering up knowledge with the quick +perception and eager alertness of one from whom the good things of earth +have been withheld. + +Yet he lived well and spent his money as if there were plenty more where +it came from; but he was never dissipated nor wasteful. + +This was in the year Seventeen Hundred Seventy-four, and the Colonies were +in a state of political excitement. Young Hamilton's sympathies were all +with the mother country. He looked upon the Americans, for the most part, +as a rude, crude and barbaric people, who should be very grateful for the +protection of such an all-powerful country as England. At his +boarding-house and at school, he argued the question hotly, defending +England's right to tax her dependencies. + +One fine day, one of his schoolmates put the question to him flatly: "In +case of war, on which side will you fight?" Hamilton answered, "On the +side of England." + +But by the next day he had reasoned it out that if England succeeded in +suppressing the rising insurrection she would take all credit to herself; +and if the Colonies succeeded there would be honors for those who did the +work. Suddenly it came over him that there was such a thing as "the divine +right of insurrection," and that there was no reason why men living in +America should be taxed to support a government across the sea. The wealth +produced in America should be used to develop America. + +He was young, and burning with a lofty ambition. He knew, and had known +all along, that he would some day be great and famous and powerful--here +was the opportunity. + +And so, next day, he announced at the boarding-house that the eloquence +and logic of his messmates were too powerful to resist--he believed the +Colonies and the messmates were in the right. Then several bottles were +brought in, and success was drunk to all men who strove for liberty. + +Patriotic sentiment is at the last self-interest; in fact, Herbert Spencer +declares that there is no sane thought or rational act but has its root in +egoism. + +Shortly after the young man's conversion, there was a mass-meeting held in +"The Fields," which meant the wilds of what is now the region of +Twenty-third Street. + +Young Hamilton stood in the crowd and heard the various speakers plead the +cause of the Colonies, and urge that New York should stand firm with +Massachusetts against the further encroachments and persecutions of +England. There were many Tories in the crowd, for New York was with King +George as against Massachusetts, and these Tories asked the speakers +embarrassing questions that the speakers failed to answer. And all the +time young Hamilton found himself nearer and nearer the platform. Finally, +he undertook to reply to a talkative Tory, and some one shouted, "Give him +the platform--the platform!" and in a moment this seventeen-year-old boy +found himself facing two thousand people. There was hesitation and +embarrassment, but the shouts of one of his college chums, "Give it to +'em! Give it to 'em!" filled in an awkward instant, and he began to speak. +There was logic and lucidity of expression, and as he talked the air +became charged with reasons, and all he had to do was to reach up and +seize them. + +His strong and passionate nature gave gravity to his sentences, and every +quibbling objector found himself answered, and more than answered, and the +speakers who were to present the case found this stripling doing the work +so much better than they could, that they urged him on with applause and +loud cries of "Bravo! Bravo!" + +Immediately at the close of Hamilton's speech, the chairman had the good +sense to declare the meeting adjourned--thus shutting off all reply, as +well as closing the mouths of the minnow orators who usually pop up to +neutralize the impression that the strong man has made. + +Hamilton's speech was the talk of the town. The leading Whigs sought him +out and begged that he would write down his address so that they could +print it as a pamphlet in reply to the Tory pamphleteers who were +vigorously circulating their wares. The pens of ready writers were scarce +in those days: men could argue, but to present a forcible written brief +was another thing. So young Hamilton put his reasons on paper, and their +success surprised the boys at the boarding-house, and the college chums +and the professors, and probably himself as well. His name was on the lips +of all Whigdom, and the Tories sent messengers to buy him off. + +But Congress was willing to pay its defenders, and money came from +somewhere--not much, but all the young man needed. College was dropped; +the political pot boiled; and the study of history, economics and +statecraft filled the daylight hours to the brim and often ran over into +the night. + +The Winter of Seventeen Hundred Seventy-five passed away; the plot +thickened. New York had reluctantly consented to be represented in +Congress and agreed grumpily to join hands with the Colonies. + +The redcoats had marched out to Concord--and back; and the embattled +farmers had stood and fired the shot "heard 'round the world." + +Hamilton was working hard to bring New York over to an understanding that +she must stand firm against English rule. He organized meetings, gave +addresses, wrote letters, newspaper articles and pamphlets. Then he joined +a military company and was perfecting himself in the science of war. + +There were frequent outbreaks between Tory mobs and Whigs, and the +breaking up of your opponents' meeting was looked upon as a pleasant +pastime. + +Then came the British ship "Asia" and opened fire on the town. This no +doubt made Whigs of a good many Tories. Whig sentiment was on the +increase; gangs of men marched through the streets and the king's stores +were broken into, and prominent Royalists found their houses being +threatened. + +Doctor Cooper, President of King's College, had been very pronounced in +his rebukes to Congress and the Colonies, and a mob made its way to his +house. Arriving there, Hamilton and his chum Troup were found on the +steps, determined to protect the place. Hamilton stepped forward, and in a +strong speech urged that Doctor Cooper had merely expressed his own +private views, which he had a right to do, and the house must not on any +account be molested. While the parley was in progress, old Doctor Cooper +himself appeared at one of the upper windows and excitedly cautioned the +crowd not to listen to that blatant young rapscallion Hamilton, as he was +a rogue and a varlet and a vagrom. The good Doctor then slammed the window +and escaped by the back way. + +His remarks raised a laugh in which even young Hamilton joined, but his +mistake was very natural in view of the fact that he only knew that +Hamilton had deserted the college and espoused the devil's cause; and not +having heard his remarks, but seeing him standing on his steps haranguing +a crowd, thought surely he was endeavoring to work up mischief against his +old preceptor, who had once plucked him in Greek. + +It seems to have been the intention of his guardians that the limit of +young Hamilton's stay in America was to be two years, and by that time his +education would be "complete," and he would return to the West Indies and +surprise the natives. + +But his father, who supplied the money, and the mystical kinsmen who +supplied advice, and the kind friends who had given him letters to the +Presbyterian clergymen at New York and Princeton, had figured without +their host. Young Hamilton knew all that Nevis had in store for him: he +knew its littleness, its contumely and disgrace, and in the secret +recesses of his own strong heart he had slipped the cable that held him to +the past. No more remittances from home; no more solicitous advice; no +more kind, loving letters--the past was dead. + +For England he once had had an almost idolatrous regard; to him she had +once been the protector of his native land, the empress of the seas, the +enlightener of mankind; but henceforth he was an American. + +He was to fight America's battles, to share in her victory, to help make +of her a great Nation, and to weave his name into the web of her history +so that as long as the United States of America shall be remembered, so +long also shall be remembered the name of Alexander Hamilton. + + * * * * * + +What General Washington called his "family" usually consisted of sixteen +men. These were his aides, and more than that, his counselors and friends. +In Washington's frequent use of that expression, "my family," there is a +touch of affection that we do not expect to find in the tents of war. In +rank, the staff ran the gamut from captain to general. Each man had his +appointed work and made a daily report to his chief. When not in actual +action, the family dined together daily, and the affair was conducted with +considerable ceremony. Washington sat at the head of the table, large, +handsome and dignified. At his right hand was seated the guest of honor, +and there were usually several invited friends. At his left sat Alexander +Hamilton, ready with quick pen to record the orders of his chief. + +And methinks it would have been quite worth while to have had a place at +that board, and looked down the table at "the strong, fine face, tinged +with melancholy," of Washington; and the cheery, youthful faces of +Lawrence, Tilghman, Lee, Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton and the others of +that brave and handsome company. Well might they have called Washington +father, for this he was in spirit to them all--grave, gentle, courteous +and magnanimous, yet exacting strict and instant obedience from all; and +well, too, may we imagine that this obedience was freely and cheerfully +given. + +Hamilton became one of Washington's family on March First, Seventeen +Hundred Seventy-seven, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He was barely +twenty years of age; Washington was forty-seven, and the average age of +the family, omitting its head, was twenty-five. All had been selected on +account of superior intelligence and a record of dashing courage. When +Hamilton took his place at the board, he was the youngest member, save +one. In point of literary talent, he stood among the very foremost in the +country, for then there was no literature in America save the literature +of politics; and as an officer, he had shown rare skill and bravery. + +And yet, such was Hamilton's ambition and confidence in himself, that he +hesitated to accept the position, and considered it an act of sacrifice to +do so. But having once accepted, he threw himself into the work and became +Washington's most intimate and valued assistant. Washington's +correspondence with his generals, with Congress, and the written decisions +demanded daily on hundreds of minor questions, mostly devolved on +Hamilton, for work gravitates to him who can do it best. A simple "Yes," +"No" or "Perhaps" from the chief must be elaborated into a diplomatic +letter, conveying just the right shade of meaning, all with its proper +emphasis and show of dignity and respect. Thousands of these dispatches +can now be seen at the Capitol; and the ease, grace, directness and +insight shown in them are remarkable. There is no muddy rhetoric or +befuddled clauses. They were written by one with a clear understanding, +who was intent that the person addressed should understand, too. + +Many of these documents were merely signed by Washington, but a few reveal +interlined sentences and an occasional word changed in Washington's hand, +thus showing that all was closely scrutinized and digested. + +As a member of Washington's staff, Hamilton did not have the independent +command that he so much desired; but he endured that heroic Winter at +Valley Forge, was present at all the important battles, took an active +part in most of them, and always gained honor and distinction. + +As an aide to Washington, Hamilton's most important mission was when he +was sent to General Gates to secure reinforcements for the Southern army. +Gates had defeated Burgoyne and won a full dozen stern victories in the +North. In the meantime, Washington had done nothing but make a few brave +retreats. Gates' army was made up of hardy and seasoned soldiers, who had +met the enemy and defeated him over and over again. The flush of success +was on their banners; and Washington knew that if a few thousand of those +rugged veterans could be secured to reinforce his own well-nigh +discouraged troops, victory would also perch upon the banners of the +South. + +As a superior officer he had the right to demand these troops; but to +reduce the force of a general who is making an excellent success is not +the common rule of war. The country looked upon Gates as its savior, and +Gates was feeling a little that way himself. Gates had but to demand it, +and the position of Commander-in-Chief would go to him. Washington +thoroughly realized this, and therefore hesitated about issuing an order +requesting a part of Gates' force. To secure these troops as if the +suggestion came from Gates was a most delicate commission. Alexander +Hamilton was dispatched to Gates' headquarters, armed, as a last resort, +with a curt military order to the effect that he should turn over a +portion of his army to Washington. Hamilton's orders were: "Bring the +troops, but do not deliver this order unless you are obliged to." + +Hamilton brought the troops, and returned the order with seal intact. + +The act of his sudden breaking with Washington has been much exaggerated. +In fact, it was not a sudden act at all, for it had been premeditated for +some months. There was a woman in the case. Hamilton had done more than +conquer General Gates on that Northern trip; at Albany, he had met +Elizabeth, daughter of General Schuyler, and won her after what has been +spoken of as "a short and sharp skirmish." Both Alexander and Elizabeth +regarded "a clerkship" as quite too limited a career for one so gifted; +they felt that nothing less than commander of a division would answer. How +to break loose--that was the question. + +And when Washington met him at the head of the stairs of the New Windsor +Hotel and sharply chided him for being late, the young man embraced the +opportunity and said, "Sir, since you think I have been remiss, we part." + +It was the act of a boy; and the figure of this boy, five feet five inches +high, weight one hundred twenty, aged twenty-four, talking back to his +chief, six feet three, weight two hundred, aged fifty, has its comic side. +Military rule demands that every one shall be on time, and Washington's +rebuke was proper and right. Further than this, one feels that if he had +followed up his rebuke by boxing the young man's ears for "sassing back," +he would still not have been outside the lines of duty. + +But an hour afterwards we find Washington sending for the youth and +endeavoring to mend the break. And although Hamilton proudly repelled his +advances, Washington forgave all and generously did all he could to +advance the young man's interests. Washington's magnanimity was absolutely +without flaw, but his attitude towards Hamilton has a more suggestive +meaning when we consider that it was a testimonial of the high estimate he +placed on Hamilton's ability. + +At Yorktown, Washington gave Hamilton the perilous privilege of leading +the assault. Hamilton did his work well, rushing with fiery impetuosity +upon the fort--carried all before him, and in ten minutes had planted the +Stars and Stripes on the ramparts of the enemy. + +It was a fine and fitting close to his glorious military career. + + * * * * * + +When Washington became President, the most important office to be filled +was that of manager of the exchequer. In fact, all there was of it was the +office--there was no treasury, no mint, no fixed revenue, no credit; but +there were debts--foreign and domestic--and clamoring creditors by the +thousand. The debts consisted of what was then the vast sum of eighty +million dollars. The treasury was empty. Washington had many advisers who +argued that the Nation could never live under such a weight of debt--the +only way was flatly and frankly to repudiate--wipe the slate clean--and +begin afresh. + +This was what the country expected would be done; and so low was the hope +of payment that creditors could be found who were willing to compromise +their claims for ten cents on the dollar. Robert Morris, who had managed +the finances during the period of the Confederation, utterly refused to +attempt the task again, but he named a man who, he said, could bring order +out of chaos, if any living man could. That man was Alexander Hamilton. +Washington appealed to Hamilton, offering him the position of Secretary of +the Treasury. Hamilton, aged thirty-two, gave up his law practise, which +was yielding him ten thousand a year, to accept this office which paid +three thousand five hundred. Before the British cannon, Washington did not +lose heart, but to face the angry mob of creditors waving white-paper +claims made him quake; but with Hamilton's presence his courage came back. + +The first thing that Hamilton decided upon was that there should be no +repudiation--no offer of compromise would be considered--every man should +be paid in full. And further than this, the general government would +assume the entire war debt of each individual State. Washington concurred +with Hamilton on these points, but he could make neither oral nor written +argument in a way that would convince others; so this task was left to +Hamilton. Hamilton appeared before Congress and explained his +plans--explained them so lucidly and with such force and precision that he +made an indelible impression. There were grumblers and complainers, but +these did not and could not reply to Hamilton, for he saw all over and +around the subject, and they saw it only at an angle. Hamilton had studied +the history of finance, and knew the financial schemes of every country. +No question of statecraft could be asked him for which he did not have a +reply ready. He knew the science of government as no other man in America +then did, and recognizing this, Congress asked him to prepare reports on +the collection of revenue, the coasting trade, the effects of a tariff, +shipbuilding, post-office extension, and also a scheme for a judicial +system. When in doubt they asked Hamilton. + +And all the time Hamilton was working at this bewildering maze of detail, +he was evolving that financial policy, broad, comprehensive and minute, +which endures even to this day, even to the various forms of accounts that +are now kept at the Treasury Department at Washington. + +His insistence that to preserve the credit of a nation every debt must be +paid, is an idea that no statesman now dare question. The entire aim and +intent of his policy was high, open and frank honesty. The people should +be made to feel an absolute security in their government, and this being +so, all forms of industry would prosper, "and the prosperity of the people +is the prosperity of the Nation." To such a degree of confidence did +Hamilton raise the public credit that in a very short time the government +found no trouble in borrowing all the money it needed at four per cent; +and yet this was done in face of the fact that its debt had increased. + +Just here was where his policy invited its strongest and most bitter +attack. For there are men today who can not comprehend that a public debt +is a public blessing, and that all liabilities have a strict and +undivorceable relationship to assets. Alexander Hamilton was a leader of +men. He could do the thinking of his time and map out a policy, "arranging +every detail for a kingdom." He has been likened to Napoleon in his +ability to plan and execute with rapid and marvelous precision, and surely +the similarity is striking. + +But he was not an adept in the difficult and delicate art of +diplomacy--he could not wait. He demanded instant obedience, and lacked +all of that large, patient, calm magnanimity so splendidly shown forth +since by Abraham Lincoln. Unlike Jefferson, his great rival, he could not +calmly and silently bide his time. But I will not quarrel with a man +because he is not some one else. + +He saw things clearly at a glance; he knew because he knew; and if others +would not follow, he had the audacity to push on alone. This recklessness +to the opinion of the slow and plodding, this indifference to the dull, +gradually drew upon him the hatred of a class. + +They said he was a monarchist at heart and "such men are dangerous." The +country became divided into those who were with Hamilton and those who +were against him. The very transcendent quality of his genius wove the net +that eventually was to catch his feet and accomplish his ruin. + + * * * * * + +It has been the usual practise for nearly a hundred years to refer to +Aaron Burr as a roue, a rogue and a thorough villain, who took the life of +a gentle and innocent man. + +I have no apologies to make for Colonel Burr; the record of his life lies +open in many books, and I would neither conceal nor explain away. + +If I should attempt to describe the man and liken him to another, that man +would be Alexander Hamilton. + +They were the same age within ten months; they were the same height within +an inch; their weight was the same within five pounds, and in temperament +and disposition they resembled each other as brothers seldom do. Each was +passionate, ambitious, proud. + +In the drawing-room where one of these men chanced to be, there was room +for no one else--such was the vivacity, the wit, and the generous, glowing +good-nature shown. With women, the manner of these men was most gentle and +courtly; and the low, alluring voice of each was music's honeyed flattery +set to words. + +Both were much under the average height, yet the carriage of each was so +proud and imposing that everywhere they went men made way, and women +turned and stared. + +Both were public speakers and lawyers of such eminence that they took +their pick of clients and charged all the fee that policy would allow. In +debate, there was a wilful aggressiveness, a fiery sureness, a lofty +certainty, that moved judges and juries to do their bidding. Henry Cabot +Lodge says that so great was Hamilton's renown as a lawyer that clients +flocked to him because the belief was abroad that no judge dare decide +against him. With Burr it was the same. + +Both made large sums, and both spent them all as fast as made. + +In point of classic education, Burr had the advantage. He was the grandson +of the Reverend Jonathan Edwards. In his strong, personal magnetism, and +keen, many-sided intellect, Aaron Burr strongly resembled the gifted +Presbyterian divine who wrote "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." His +father was the Reverend Aaron Burr, President of Princeton College. He was +a graduate of Princeton, and, like Hamilton, always had the ability to +focus his mind on the subject in hand, and wring from it its very core. +Burr's reputation as to his susceptibility to women's charms is the +world's common--very common--property. He was unhappily married; his wife +died before he was thirty; he was a man of ardent nature and stalked +through the world a conquering Don Juan. A historian, however, records +that "his alliances were only with women who were deemed by society to be +respectable. Married women, unhappily mated, knowing his reputation, very +often placed themselves in his way, going to him for advice, as moths +court the flame. Young, tender and innocent girls had no charm for him." + +Hamilton was happily married to a woman of aristocratic family; rich, +educated, intellectual, gentle, and worthy of him at his best. They had a +family of eight children. Hamilton was a favorite of women everywhere and +was mixed up in various scandalous intrigues. He was an easy mark for a +designing woman. In one instance, the affair was seized upon by his +political foes, and made capital of to his sore disadvantage. Hamilton met +the issue by writing a pamphlet, laying bare the entire shameless affair, +to the horror of his family and friends. Copies of this pamphlet may be +seen in the rooms of the American Historical Society at New York. Burr had +been Attorney-General of New York State and also United States Senator. +Each man had served on Washington's staff; each had a brilliant military +record; each had acted as second in a duel; each recognized the honor of +the code. + +Stern political differences arose, not so much through matters of opinion +and conscience, as through ambitious rivalry. Neither was willing the +other should rise, yet both thirsted for place and power. Burr ran for the +Presidency, and was sternly, strongly, bitterly opposed as "a dangerous +man" by Hamilton. + +At the election one more electoral vote would have given the highest +office of the people to Aaron Burr; as it was he tied with Jefferson. The +matter was thrown into the House of Representatives, and Jefferson was +given the office, with Burr as Vice-President. Burr considered, and +perhaps rightly, that were it not for Hamilton's assertive influence he +would have been President of the United States. + +While still Vice-President, Burr sought to become Governor of New York, +thinking this the surest road to receiving the nomination for the +Presidency at the next election. + +Hamilton openly and bitterly opposed him, and the office went to another. + +Burr considered, and rightly, that were it not for Hamilton's influence he +would have been Governor of New York. + +Burr, smarting under the sting of this continual opposition by a man who +himself was shelved politically through his own too fiery ambition, sent a +note by his friend Van Ness to Hamilton, asking whether the language he +had used concerning him ("a dangerous man") referred to him politically or +personally. + +Hamilton replied evasively, saying he could not recall all that he might +have said during fifteen years of public life. "Especially," he said in +his letter, "it can not be reasonably expected that I shall enter into any +explanation upon a basis so vague as you have adopted. I trust on more +reflection you will see the matter in the same light. If not, however, I +only regret the circumstances, and must abide the consequences." + +When fighting men use fighting language they invite a challenge. +Hamilton's excessively polite regret that "he must abide the +consequences" simply meant fight, as his language had for a space of five +years. + +A challenge was sent by the hand of Pendleton. Hamilton accepted. Being +the challenged man (for duelists are always polite), he was given the +choice of weapons. He chose pistols at ten paces. + +At seven o'clock on the morning of July Eleventh, Eighteen Hundred Four, +the participants met on the heights of Weehawken, overlooking New York +Bay. On a toss Hamilton won the choice of position and his second also won +the right of giving the word to fire. + +Each man removed his coat and cravat; the pistols were loaded in their +presence. As Pendleton handed his pistol to Hamilton he asked, "Shall I +set the hair-trigger?" + +"Not this time," replied Hamilton. With pistols primed and cocked, the men +were stationed facing each other, thirty feet apart. + +Both were pale, but free from any visible nervousness or excitement. +Neither had partaken of stimulants. Each was asked if he had anything to +say, or if he knew of any way by which the affair could be terminated +there and then. + +Each answered quietly in the negative. Pendleton, standing fifteen feet to +the right of his principal, said: "One--two--three--present!" and as the +last final sounding of the letter "t" escaped his teeth, Burr fired, +followed almost instantly by the other. + +Hamilton arose convulsively on his toes, reeled, and Burr, dropping his +smoking pistol, sprang towards him to support him, a look of regret on his +face. + +Van Ness raised an umbrella over the fallen man, and motioned Burr to be +gone. + +The ball passed through Hamilton's body, breaking a rib, and lodging in +the second lumbar vertebra. + +The bullet from Hamilton's pistol cut a twig four feet above Burr's head. + +While he was lying on the ground Hamilton saw his pistol near and said, +"Look out for that pistol, it is loaded--Pendleton knows I did not intend +to fire at him!" + +Hamilton died the following day, first declaring that he bore Colonel Burr +no ill-will. + +Colonel Burr said he very much regretted the whole affair, but the +language and attitude of Hamilton forced him to send a challenge or remain +quiet and be branded as a coward. He fully realized before the meeting +that if he killed Hamilton it would be political death for him, too. + +At the time of the deed Burr had no family; Hamilton had a wife and seven +children, his oldest son having fallen in a duel fought three years before +on the identical spot where he, too, fell. + +Burr fled the country. + +Three years afterwards, he was arrested for treason in trying to found an +independent State within the borders of the United States. He was tried +and found not guilty. + +After some years spent abroad he returned and took up the practise of law +in New York. He was fairly successful, lived a modest, quiet life, and +died September Fourteenth, Eighteen Hundred Thirty-six, aged eighty years. + +Hamilton's widow survived him just one-half a century, dying in her +ninety-eighth year. + +So passeth away the glory of the world. + + + + +DANIEL WEBSTER + + Not many days ago I saw at breakfast the notablest of all your + notabilities, Daniel Webster. He is a magnificent specimen. You + might say to all the world, "This is our Yankee-Englishman; such + links we make in Yankeeland!" As a logic fencer, advocate or + Parliamentary Hercules, one would incline to back him at first + sight against all the extant world. The tanned complexion; the + amorphous, craglike face; the dull black eyes under the precipice + of brows, like dull anthracite furnaces needing only to be blown; + the mastiff mouth accurately closed; I have not traced so much of + silent Berserker rage that I remember of in any other man. "I + guess I should not like to be your nigger!" + --Carlyle to Emerson + +[Illustration: DANIEL WEBSTER] + + +Those were splendid days, tinged with no trace of blue, when I attended +the district school, wearing trousers buttoned to a calico waist. I had +ambitions then--I was sure that some day I could spell down the school, +propound a problem in fractions that would puzzle the teacher, and play +checkers in a way that would cause my name to be known throughout the +entire township. + +In the midst of these pleasant emotions, a cloud appeared upon the horizon +of my happiness. What was it? A Friday Afternoon, that's all. + +A new teacher had been engaged--a woman, actually a young woman. It was +prophesied that she could not keep order a single day, for the term +before, the big boys had once arisen and put out of the building the man +who taught them. Then there was a boy who occasionally brought a dog to +school; and when the bell rang, the dog followed the boy into the room and +lay under the desk pounding his tail on the floor; and everybody tittered +and giggled until the boy had been coaxed into taking the dog home, for if +merely left in the entry he howled and whined in a way that made study +impossible. But one day the boy was not to be coaxed, and the teacher +grabbed the dog by the scruff of the neck, and flung him through a window +so forcibly that he never came back. And now a woman was to teach the +school: she was only a little woman and yet the boys obeyed her, and I had +come to think that a woman could teach school nearly as well as a man, +when the awful announcement was made that thereafter every week we were to +have a Friday Afternoon. There were to be no lessons; everybody was to +speak a piece, and then there was to be a spelling-match--and that was +all. But heavens! it was enough. + +Monday began very blue and gloomy, and the density increased as the week +passed. My mother had drilled me well in my lines, and my big sister was +lavish in her praise, but the awful ordeal of standing up before the whole +school was yet to come. + +Thursday night I slept but little, and all Friday morning I was in a +burning fever. At noon I could not eat my lunch, but I tried to, manfully, +and as I munched on the tasteless morsels, salt tears rained on the +johnnycake I held in my hand. And even when the girls brought in big +bunches of wild flowers and cornstalks, and began to decorate the +platform, things appeared no brighter. + +Finally, the teacher went to the door and rang the bell: nobody seemed to +play, and as the scholars took their seats, some, very pale, tried to +smile, and others whispered, "Have you got your piece?" Still others kept +their lips working, repeating lines that struggled hard to flee. + +Names were called, but I did not see who went up, neither did I hear what +was said. At last, my name was called: it came like a clap of thunder--as +a great surprise, a shock. I clutched the desk, struggled to my feet, +passed down the aisle, the sound of my shoes echoing through the silence +like the strokes of a maul. The blood seemed ready to burst from my eyes, +ears and nose. + +I reached the platform, missed my footing, stumbled, and nearly fell. I +heard the giggling that followed, and knew that a red-haired boy, who had +just spoken, and was therefore unnecessarily jubilant, had laughed aloud. + +I was angry. I shut my fists so that the nails cut my flesh, and glaring +straight at his red head shot my bolt: "I know not how others may feel, +but sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my heart and my +hand to this vote. It is my living sentiment and by the blessing of God it +shall be my dying sentiment. Independence now, and independence forever." + +That was all of the piece. I gave the whole thing in a mouthful, and +started for my seat, got halfway there and remembered I had forgotten to +bow, turned, went back to the platform, bowed with a jerk, started again +for my seat, and hearing some one laugh, ran. + +Reaching the seat, I burst into tears. + +The teacher came over, patted my head, kissed my cheek, and told me I had +done first-rate, and after hearing several others speak I calmed down and +quite agreed with her. + + + * * * * * + +It was Daniel Webster who caused the Friday Afternoon to become an +institution in the schools of America. His early struggles were dwelt upon +and rehearsed by parents and pedagogues until every boy was looked upon as +a possible Demosthenes holding senates in thrall. + +If physical imperfections were noticeable, the fond mother would explain +that Demosthenes was a sickly, ill-formed youth, who only overcame a lisp +by orating to the sea with his mouth full of pebbles; and every one knew +that Webster was educated only because he was too weak to work. Oratory +was in the air; elocution was rampant; and to declaim in orotund, and +gesticulate in curves, was regarded as the chief end of man. One-tenth of +the time in all public schools was given over to speaking, and on Saturday +evenings the schoolhouse was sacred to the Debating Society. + +Then came the Lyceum, and the orators of the land made pilgrimages, +stopping one day in a place, putting themselves on exhibition, and giving +the people a taste of their quality at fifty cents per head. Recently, +there has been a relapse of the oratorical fever. Every city from +Leadville to Boston has its College of Oratory, or School of Expression, +wherein a newly discovered "Natural Method" is divulged for a +consideration. Some of these "Colleges" have done much good; one in +particular I know, that fosters a fine spirit of sympathy, and a trace of +mysticism that is well in these hurrying, scurrying days. + +But all combined have never produced an orator; no, dearie, they never +have, and never can. You might as well have a school for poets, or a +college for saints, or give medals for proficiency in the gentle art of +wooing, as to expect to make an orator by telling how. + +Once upon a day, Sir Walter Besant was to give a lecture upon "The Art of +the Novelist." He had just adjusted his necktie for the last time, slipped +a lozenge into his mouth, and was about to appear upon the platform, when +he felt a tug at the tail of his dress-coat. On looking around, he saw the +anxious face of his friend, James Payn. "For God's sake, Walter," +whispered Payn, "you are not going to explain to 'em how you do it, are +you?" But Walter did not explain how to write fiction, because he could +not, and Payn's quizzing question happily relieved the lecture of the +bumptiousness it might otherwise have contained. + +The first culture for which a people reach out is oratory. The Indian is +an orator with "the natural method"; he takes the stump on small +provocation, and under the spell of the faces that look up to him, is +often moved to strange eloquence. I have heard negro preachers who could +neither read nor write, move vast congregations to profoundest emotion by +the magic of their words and presence. And further, they proved to me that +the ability to read and write is a cheap accomplishment, and that a man +can be a very strong character, and not know how to do either. + +For the most part, people who live in cities are not moved by oratory; +they are unsocial, unimaginative, unemotional. They see so much and hear +so much that they cease to be impressed. When they come together in +assemblages they are so apathetic that they fail to generate +magnetism--there is no common soul to which the speaker can address +himself. They are so cold that the orator never welds them into a mass. He +may amuse them, but in a single hour to change the opinions of a lifetime +is no longer possible in America. There are so many people, and so much +business to transact, that emotional life plays only upon the surface--in +it there is no depth. To possess depth you must commune with the Silences. +No more do you find men and women coming for fifty miles, in wagons, to +hear speakers discuss political issues; no more do you find campmeetings +where the preacher strikes conviction home until thousands are on their +knees crying to God for mercy. + +Intelligence has increased; spirituality has declined, and as a people the +warm emotions of our hearts are gone forever. + +Oratory is a rustic product. The great orators have always been +country-bred, and their appeal has been made to rural people. Those who +live in a big place think they are bigger on that account. They acquire +glibness of speech and polish of manner; but they purchase these things at +a price. They lack the power to weigh mighty questions, the courage to +formulate them, and the sturdy vitality to stand up and declare them in +the face of opposition. Revolutions are fought by farmers and +rail-splitters; these are the embattled men who fire the shots heard +'round the world. + +When Daniel Webster's father took up his residence in New Hampshire, his +log cabin was the most northern one of the Colonies. Between him and +Montreal lay an unbroken forest inhabited only by prowling Indians. +Ebenezer Webster's long rifle had sent cold lead into many a redskin; and +the same rifle had done good service in fighting the British. Once, its +owner stood guard before Washington's Headquarters at Newburgh, and +Washington came out and said, "Captain Webster, I can trust you!" + +Ebenezer Webster would leave his home to carry a bag of corn on his back +through the woods to the mill ten miles away to have it ground into meal, +and his wife would be left alone with the children. On such occasions, +Indians who never saw settlers' cabins without having an itch to burn +them, used sometimes to call, and the housewife would have to parley with +these savages, "impressing them concerning the rights of property." + +So here was born Daniel Webster, in Seventeen Hundred Eighty-two, the +second child of his mother. His father was then forty-three, and had +already raised one brood, but his mother was only in her twenties. It +seems that biting poverty and sore deprivation are about as good prenatal +influences as a soul can well ask, provided there abides with the mother a +noble discontent and a brave unrest. + +However, it came near being overdone in Daniel Webster's case, for the +Mrs. Gamp who presided at his birth declared he could not live, and if he +did, would "allus be a no-'count." + +But he made a brave fight for breath, and his crossness and peevishness +through the first years of his life were proof of vitality. He must have +been a queer toddler when he wore dresses, with his immense head and +deep-set black eyes and serious ways. + +Being sickly, he was allowed to rule, and the big girls, his half-sisters, +humored him, and his mother did the same. They taught him his letters when +he was only a baby, and he himself said that he could not remember a time +when he could not read the Bible. + +When he grew older he did not have to bring in wood and do the chores--he +was not strong enough, they said. Little Dan was of a like belief, and +encouraged the idea on every occasion. He roamed the woods, fished, +hunted, and read every scrap of print that came his way. + +Being able to read any kind of print, and not being strong enough to work, +it very early was decided that he should have an education. It is rather a +humbling confession to make, but our worthy forefathers chiefly prized an +education for the fact that it caused the fortunate possessor to be exempt +from manual labor. + +When Daniel was fourteen, a member of Congress came to see Ebenezer +Webster, to secure his influence at election. As the great man rode away, +Ebenezer said to his son: "Daniel, look there! he is educated and gets six +dollars a day in Congress for doing nothing; while I toil on this rocky +hillside and hardly see six dollars in a year. Daniel, get an education!" + +"I'll do it," said Daniel, and throwing his arms around his father's neck, +burst into tears. + +The village of Salisbury, where Webster was born, is fifteen miles north +of Concord. You leave the train at Boscowan, and there is a rickety old +stage, with a loquacious driver, that will take you to Salisbury, five +miles, for twenty-five cents. The country is one vast outcrop of granite; +and one can not but be filled with admiration, mingled with pity, for the +dwellers thereabouts who call these piles of rock "farms." + +As we wound slowly around the hills, the church-spire of the village came +in sight; and soon we entered the one street of this sleepy, forgotten +place. I shook hands with the old stage-driver as he let me down in front +of the tavern; and as I went in search of the landlord, I thought of the +remark of the Chicago woman who, in riding from Warwick over to Stratford, +said, "Goodness me! why should a man like Shakespeare ever take it in his +head to live so far off!" + +Salisbury has four hundred people. You can rent a house there for fifty +dollars a year, or should you prefer not to keep house, but board, you +can be accommodated at the tavern for three dollars a week. There are +various abandoned farms round about, and they are abandoned so thoroughly +that even Kate Sanborn would not have the courage to their adoption try. + +The landlord of the hotel told me that were it not for the "Harvest +Dance," the dance on the Fourth of July, and the party at Christmas, he +could not keep the house open at all. Of course, all the inhabitants know +that Webster was born at Salisbury, but there is not so much local pride +in the matter as there is at East Aurora over the fact that one of her +former citizens is a performer in Barnum and Bailey's Circus. + +The number of old men in one of these New England villages impresses folks +from the West as being curious. There are a full dozen men at Salisbury +between seventy-five and ninety, and all have positive ideas as to just +why Daniel Webster missed the Presidency. I found opinion curiously +divided as to Webster's ability; but all seemed to argue that when he left +New Hampshire and became a citizen of Massachusetts, he made a fatal +mistake. + + * * * * * + +The sacrifices that the mother and the father of Daniel Webster made, in +order that he might go to school, were very great. Every one in the family +had to do without things, that this one might thrive. The boy accepted it +all, quite as a matter of course, for from babyhood he had been protected +and petted. At the last we must admit that the man who towers above his +fellows is the one who has the power to make others work for him; a great +success is not possible in any other way. + +Throughout his life Webster utilized the labor of others, and took it in a +high and imperious manner, as though it were his due. No doubt the way in +which his family lavished their gifts upon him fixed in his mind that +immoral slant of disregard for his financial obligations which clung to +him all through life. + +There is a story told of his going to a county fair with his brother +Ezekiel, which shows the characters of these brothers better than a +chapter. The father had given each lad a dollar to spend. When the boys +got home Daniel was in gay spirits and Ezekiel was depressed. "Well, Dan," +said the father, "did you spend your money?" + +"Of course I did," replied Daniel. + +"And, Zeke, what did you do with your dollar?" + +"Loaned it to Dan," replied Ezekiel. + +But there was a fine bond of affection between these two. Ezekiel was two +years older and, unfortunately for himself, was strong and well. He was +very early set to work, and I can not find that the thought of giving him +an education ever occurred to his parents, until after Daniel had +graduated at Dartmouth, and Dan and Zeke themselves then forced the issue. + +In stature they were the same size: both were tall, finely formed, and in +youth slender. As they grew older they grew stouter, and the personal +presence of each was very imposing. Ezekiel was of light complexion and +ruddy; Daniel was very dark and sallow. I have met several men who knew +them both, and the best opinion is that Ezekiel was the stronger of the +two, mentally and morally. + +Daniel was not a student, while Ezekiel was; and as a counselor Ezekiel +was the safer man. Up to the very week of Ezekiel's death Daniel advised +with him on all his important affairs. When Ezekiel fell dead in the +courtroom at Concord and the news was carried to his brother, it was a +blow that affected him more than the loss of wife or child. His friend and +counselor, the one man in life upon whom he leaned, was gone, and over his +own great, craglike face came that look of sorrow which death only +removed. But care and grief became this giant, as they do all who are +great enough to bear them. + +It was two years after his brother's death that he made the speech which +is his masterpiece. And while the applause was ringing in his ears he +turned to Judge Story and said, "Oh, if Zeke were only here!" Who is +there who can not sympathize with that groan? We work for others; and to +win the applause of senates or nations, and not be able to know that Some +One is glad, takes all the sweetness out of victory. + +"When I sing well, I want you to meet me in the wings of the stage, and +taking me in your aims, kiss my cheek, and whisper it was all right." When +Patti wrote this to her lover she voiced the universal need of a some one +who understands, to share the triumph of good work well done. The +nostalgia of life never seems so bitter as after moments of success; then +comes creeping in the thought that he who would have gloried in +this--knowing all the years of struggle and deprivations that made it +possible--is sleeping his long sleep. + +In that speech of January Twenty-sixth, Eighteen Hundred Thirty, Webster +reached high-water mark. On that performance, more than any other, rests +his fame. He was forty-eight years old then. All the years of his career +he had been getting ready for that address. It was on the one theme that +he loved; on the theme he had studied most; on the only theme upon which +he ever spoke well--the greatness, the grandeur and the possibilities of +America. He spoke for four hours, and in his works the speech occupies +seventy close pages. He was at the zenith of his physical and intellectual +power, and that is as good a place as any to stop and view the man. + +On account of his proud carriage, and the fine poise of his massive head, +he gave the impression of being a very large man; but he was just five +feet ten, and weighed a little less than two hundred. His manner was +grave, deliberate and dignified; and his sturdy face, furrowed with lines +of sorrow, made a profound impression upon all before he had spoken a +word. He had arrived at an age when the hot desire to succeed had passed. +For no man can attain the highest success until he has reached a point +where he does not care for it. In oratory the personal desire for victory +must be obliterated or the hearer will never award the palm. + +Hayne was a very bright and able speaker. He had argued the right of a +State to dissent from, or nullify, a law passed by the House of +Representatives and Senate, making such law inoperative within its +borders. His claim was that the framers of the Constitution did not expect +or intend that a law could be passed that was binding on a State when the +people of that State did not wish it so. Mr. Hayne had the best end of the +argument, and the opinion is now general among jurists that his logic was +right and just, and that those who thought otherwise were wrong. New +England had practically nullified United States law in Eighteen Hundred +Twelve, the Hartford Convention of Eighteen Hundred Fourteen had declared +the right; Josiah Quincy had advocated the privilege of any State to +nullify an obnoxious law, quite as a matter of course. + +The framers of the Constitution had merely said that we "had better" hang +together, not that we "must." But with the years had come a feeling that +the Nation's life was unsafe if any State should pull away. + +Once, on the plains of Colorado, I was with a party when there was danger +of an attack from Indians. Two of the party wished to go back; but the +leader drew his revolver and threatened to shoot the first man who tried +to seek safety. "We must hang together or hang separately." Logically, +each man had the right to secede, and go off on his own account, but +expediency made a law and we declared that any man who tried to leave did +so at his peril. + +To Webster was given the task of putting a new construction on the +Constitution, and to make of the Constitution a Law instead of a mere +compact. Webster's speech was not an argument; it was a plea. And so +mightily did he point out the dangers of separation; review the splendid +past; and prophesy the greatness of the future--a future that could only +be ours through absolute union and loyalty to the good of the whole--that +he won his cause. + +After that speech, if Calhoun had allowed South Carolina to nullify a +United States law, President Jackson would have made good his threat and +hanged both him and Hayne on one tree, and the people would have approved +the act. But Webster did not get the case quashed: he got only a +postponement. In Eighteen Hundred Sixty, South Carolina moved the case +again; she opened the argument in another way this time, and a million +lives were required, and millions upon millions in treasure expended to +put a construction on the Constitution that the framers did not intend; +but which was necessary in order that the Nation might exist. + +In the battle of Bull Run, almost the first battle of the war, fell +Colonel Fletcher Webster, the only surviving son of Daniel Webster, and +with him died the name and race. + + * * * * * + +The cunning of Webster's intellect was not creative. In his argument there +is little ingenuity; but he had the power of taking an old truth and +presenting it in a way that moved men to tears. When aroused, all he knew +was within his reach; he had the faculty of getting all his goods in the +front window. And he himself confessed that he often pushed out a masked +battery, when behind there was not a single gun. + +Under the spell of the orator an audience becomes of one mind: the dullest +intellect is more alert than usual and the most discerning a little less +so. Cheap wit will then often pass for brilliancy, and platitude for +wisdom. We roar over the jokes we have known since childhood, and cry +"Hear, hear!" when the great man with upraised hands and fire in his +glance declares that twice two is four. + +Oratory is hypnotism practised on a large scale. Through oratory ideas are +acquired by induction. + +Webster was a lawyer; and he was not above resorting to any trick or +device that could move the emotions or passions of judge and jury to a +prejudice favorable to his side. This was very clearly brought out when he +undertook to break the will of Stephen Girard. + +Girard was a freethinker, and in leaving money to found a college devised +that no preacher or priest should have anything to do with its management. +The question at issue was, "Is a bequest for founding a college a +charitable bequest?" If so, then the will must stand. But if the bequest +were merely a scheme to deprive the legal heirs of their rights--diverting +the funds from them for whimsical and personal reasons--then the will +should be broken. Mr. Webster made the plea that there was only one kind +of charity, namely, Christian charity. Girard was not a Christian, for he +had publicly affronted the Christian religion by providing that no +minister should teach in his school. Mr. Webster spoke for three hours +with many fine bursts of tearful eloquence in support of the Christian +faith, reviewing its triumphs and denouncing its foes. + +The argument was carried outside of the realm of law into the domain of +passion and prejudice. + +The court took time for the tumult to subside, and then very quietly +decided against Webster, sustaining the will. The college building was +erected and stands today, the finest specimen of purely Greek architecture +in America; and the good that Girard College has done and is now doing is +the priceless heritage of our entire country. + +One of Webster's first greatest speeches was before the United States +Supreme Court in the Dartmouth College case. Here he defended the cause of +education with that grave and wonderful weight of argument of which he was +master. In the Girard College case, eighteen years after, he reversed his +logic, and touched with rare skill on the dangers of a too-liberal +education. + +No man now is quite so daring as to claim that Webster was a Christian. +Neither was he a freethinker. He inherited his religious views from his +parents, and never considered them enough to change. He simply viewed +religion as a part of the fabric of government, giving sturdiness and +safety to established order. His own spiritual acreage was left absolutely +untilled. His services were for sale; and so plastic were his convictions +that once having espoused a cause he was sure it was right. Doubtless it +is self-interest, as Herbert Spencer says, that makes the world go round. +And thus does sincerity of belief resolve itself into which side will pay +most. This question being settled, reasons are as plentiful as +blackberries, and are supplied in quantities proportionate in size to the +retainer. + +John Randolph once touched the quick by saying, "If Daniel Webster was +employed on a case and he had partially lost faith in it, his belief in +his client's rights could always be refreshed and his zeal renewed by a +check." + +Webster had every possible qualification that is required to make the +great orator. All those who heard him speak, when telling of it, begin by +relating how he looked. He worked the dignity and impressiveness of his +Jovelike presence to its furthest limit, and when once thoroughly awake +was in possession of his entire armament. + +No other American has been able to speak with a like degree of +effectiveness; and his name deserves to rank, and will rank, with the +names of Burke, Chatham, Sheridan and Pitt. The case has been tried, the +verdict is in and recorded on the pages of history. There can be no +retrial, for Webster is dead, and his power died thirty years before his +form was laid to rest at Marshfield by the side of his children and the +wife of his youth. + +Oratory is the lowest of the sublime arts. The extent of its influence +will ever be a vexed question. Its result depends on the mood and +temperament of the hearer. But there are men who are not ripe for treason +and conspiracy, to whom even music makes small appeal. Yet music can be +recorded, entrusted to an interpreter yet unborn, and lodge its appeal +with posterity. Literature never dies: it dedicates itself to Time. For +the printed page is reproduced ten thousand times ten thousand times, and +besides, lives as did the Homeric poems, passed on from generation to +generation by word of mouth. Were every book containing Shakespeare's +plays burned this night, tomorrow they could be rewritten by those who +know their every word. + +With the passing years the painter's colors fade; time rots his canvas; +the marble is dragged from its pedestal and exists in fragments from which +we resurrect a nation's life; but oratory dies on the air and exists only +as a memory in the minds of those who can not translate, and then as +hearsay. So much for the art itself; but the influence of that art is +another thing. + +He who influences the beliefs and opinions of men influences all other men +that live after. For influence, like matter, can not be destroyed. + +In many ways, Webster lacked the inward steadfastness that his face and +frame betokened; but on one theme he was sound to the inmost core. He +believed in America's greatness and the grandeur of America's mission. +Into the minds of countless men he infused his own splendid patriotism. +From his first speech at Hanover when eighteen years old, to his last when +nearly seventy, he fired the hearts of men with the love of native land. +And how much the growing greatness of our country is due to the magic of +his words and the eloquence of his inspired presence no man can compute. + +The passion of Webster's life is well mirrored in that burning passage: + +"When mine eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in +heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments +of a once glorious Union: on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent: +on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal +blood. Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the +gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the +earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their +original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, or a single star +obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as 'What +is all this worth?' nor those other words of delusion and folly, 'Liberty +first and Union afterwards'; but everywhere, spread all over in characters +of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the +sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that +other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, 'Liberty and Union, +now and forever, one and inseparable.'" + + + + +HENRY CLAY + + If there be any description of rights, which, more than any + other, should unite all parties in all quarters of the Union, it + is unquestionably the rights of the person. No matter what his + vocation, whether he seeks subsistence amid the dangers of the + sea, or draws it from the bowels of the earth, or from the + humblest occupations of mechanical life--wherever the sacred + rights of an American freeman are assailed, all hearts ought to + unite and every arm be braced to vindicate his cause. + --Henry Clay + +[Illustration: HENRY CLAY] + + +There is a story told of an Irishman and an Englishman who were immigrants +aboard a ship that was coming up New York Harbor. It chanced to be the +fourth day of July, and as a consequence there was a needless waste of +gunpowder going on, and many of the ships were decorated with bunting that +in color was red, white and blue. + +"What can all this fuss be about?" asked the Englishman. + +"What's it about?" answered Pat. "Why, this is the day we run you out!" + +And the moral of the story is that as soon as an Irishman reaches the +Narrows he says "we Americans," while an Englishman will sometimes +continue to say "you Americans" for five years and a day. More than this, +an Irish-American citizen regards an English-American citizen with +suspicion and refers to him as a foreigner, even unto the third and fourth +generation. + +No man ever hated England more cordially than did Henry Clay. + +The genealogists have put forth heroic efforts to secure for Clay a noble +English ancestry, but with a degree of success that only makes the +unthinking laugh and the judicious grieve. + +Had these zealous pedigree-hunters studied the parish registers of County +Derry, Ireland, as lovingly as they have Burke's Peerage, they might have +traced the Clays of America back to the Cleighs, honest farmers +(indifferent honest), of Londonderry. + +The character of Henry Clay had in it various traits that were peculiarly +Irish. The Irishman knows because he knows, and that's all there is about +it. He is dramatic, emotional, impulsive, humorous without suspecting it, +and will fight friend or foe on small provocation. Then he is much given +to dealing in that peculiar article known as palaver. The farewell address +of Henry Clay to the Senate, and his return thereto a few years later, +comprise one of the most Irishlike proceedings to be found in history. + +There is no finer man on earth than your "thrue Irish gintleman," and +Henry Clay had not only all the highest and most excellent traits of the +"gintleman," but a few also of his worst. Clay made friends as no other +American statesman ever did. "To come within reach of the snare of his +speech was to love him," wrote one man. People loved him because he was +affectionate, for love only goes out to love. And the Irish heart is a +heart of love. Henry Clay called himself a Christian, and yet at times he +was picturesquely profane. We have this on the authority of the "Diary" of +John Quincy Adams, which of course we must believe, for even that other +fighting Irishman, Andrew Jackson, said, "Adams' Diary is probably +correct--damn it!" + +Clay was convivial in all the word implies; his losses at cards often put +him in severe financial straits; he stood ready to back his opinion +concerning a Presidential election, a horse-race or a dog-fight, and with +it all he held himself "personally responsible"--having fought two duels +and engaged in various minor "misunderstandings." + +And yet he was a great statesman--one of the greatest this country has +produced, and as a patriot no man was ever more loyal. It was America with +him first and always. His reputation, his fortune, his life, his all, +belonged to America. + + * * * * * + +The city of Lexington contains about twenty-five thousand inhabitants. In +Lexington two distinct forms of civilization meet. + +One is the civilization of the F.F.V., converted into that peculiar form +of noblesse known the round world over as the Blue-Grass Aristocracy. +Blue-Grass Society represents leisure and luxury and the generous +hospitality of friendships generations old; it means broad acres, noble +mansions reached by roadways that stray under wide-spreading oaks and elms +where squirrels chatter and mild-eyed cows look at you curiously; it means +apple-orchards, gardens lined with boxwood, capacious stables and long +lines of whitewashed cottages, around which swarm a dark cloud of +dependents who dance and sing and laugh--and work when they have to. + +Over against these there are to be seen trolley-cars, electric lights, +smart rows of new brick houses on lots thirty by one hundred, negro +policemen in uniforms patterned after those worn by the Broadway Squad, +streets torn up by sewers and conduits, steam-rollers with an unsavory +smell of tar and asphalt, push-buttons and a Hello-Exchange. + +As to which form of civilization is the more desirable is a question that +is usually answered by taste and temperament. One thing sure, and that is, +that a pride which swings to t'other side and becomes vanity is often an +element in both. Each could learn something of the other. Lots that you +can jump across, rented to families of ten, with land a mile away that can +be bought for fifty dollars an acre, are not an ideal condition. + +On the other hand, inside the city limits of Lexington are mansions +surrounded by an even hundred acres. But at some of these, gates are off +their hinges, pickets have been borrowed for kindling, creeping vines and +long grass o'ertop the walls of empty stables, and a forest of weeds +insolently invades the spot where once nestled milady's flower-garden. + +Slowly but surely the Blue-Grass Aristocracy is giving way to purslane or +asphalt, moving into flats, and allowing the boomer to plat its fair +acres--running excursion-trains to attend auction-sales where all the lots +are corner lots and are to be bought on the installment plan, which plan +is said by a cynic to give the bicycle face. + +Just across from Ashland is a beautiful estate, recently sold at a +sacrifice to a man from Massachusetts, by the name of Douglas, who I am +told is bald through lack of hair and makes three-dollar shoes. The +stately old mansion mourns its former masters--all are gone--and a thrifty +German is plowing up the lawn, that the cows of the Douglas (tender and +true) may eat early clover. + +But Ashland is there today in all the beauty and loveliness that Henry +Clay knew when he wrote to Benton: "I love old Ashland, and all these +acres with their trees and flowers and growing grain lure me in a way +that ambition never can. No, I remain at Ashland." + +The rambling old house is embowered in climbing vines and clambering +rosebushes and is set thick about with cedars, so that you can scarcely +see the chimney-tops above the mass of green. A lane running through +locust-trees planted by Henry Clay's own hands leads you to the +hospitable, wide-open door, where a colored man, whose black face is set +in a frame of wool, smiles a welcome. He relieves you of your baggage and +leads the way to your room. + +The summer breeze blows lazily in through the open window, and the only +sound of life and activity about seems to center in two noisy robins which +are making a nest in the eaves, right within reach of your hand. The +colored man apologizes for them, anathematizes them mildly, and proposes +to drive them away, but you restrain him. After the man has gone you +bethink you that the suggestion of driving the birds away was only the +white lie of society (for even black folks tell white lies), and the old +man probably had no more intent of driving the birds away than of going +himself. + +On the dresser is a pitcher of freshly clipped roses, the morning dew +still upon them, and you only cease to admire as you espy your mail that +lies there awaiting your hand. News from home and loved ones greets you +before these new-found friends do! You have not seen the good folks who +live here, only the old colored man who pretended that he was going to +kill cock-robin, and didn't. The hospitality is not gushing or +effusive--the place is yours, that's all, and you lean out of the window +and look down at the flowerbeds, and wonder at the silence and the quiet +and peace, and feel sorry for the folks who live in Cincinnati and +Chicago. The soughing of the wind through the pines comes to you like the +murmur of the sea, and breaking in on the stillness you hear the sharp +sound of an ax--some Gladstone chopping, miles and miles away. + +Your dreams are broken by a gentle tap at the door and your host has come +to call on you. You know him at once, even though you have never before +met, for men who think alike and feel alike do not have to "get +acquainted." Heart speaks to heart. + +He only wishes to say that your coming is a pleasure to all the family at +Ashland, the library is yours as well as the whole place, lunch is at one +o'clock, and George will get you anything you wish. And back in the shadow +of the hallway you catch sight of the old colored man and see him bow low +when his name is mentioned. + +Ashland is probably in better condition today than when Henry Clay worked +and planned, and superintended its fair acres. The place has seen +vicissitudes since the body of the man who gave it immortality lay in +state here in July, Eighteen Hundred Fifty-two. But Major McDowell's wife +is the granddaughter of Henry Clay, and it seems meet that the descendants +of the great man should possess Ashland. Major McDowell has means and +taste and the fine pride that would preserve all the traditions of the +former master. The six hundred acres are in a high state of cultivation, +and the cattle and horses are of the kinds that would have gladdened the +heart of Clay. + +In the library, halls and dining-room are various portraits of the great +man, and at the turn of the stairs is a fine heroic bust, in bronze, of +that lean face and form. Hundreds of his books are to be seen on the +shelves, all marked and dog-eared and scribbled on, thus disproving much +of that old cry that "Clay was not a student." Some men are students only +in youth, but Clay's best reading was done when he was past fifty. The +book habit grew upon him with the years. + +Here are his pistols, spurs, saddle and memorandum-books. Here are +letters, faded and yellow, dusted with black powder on ink that has been +dry a hundred years, asking for office, or words of gracious thanks in +token of benefits not forgot. + +Off to the south stretches away a great forest of walnut, oak and chestnut +trees--reminders of the vast forest that Daniel Boone knew. Many of these +trees were here then, and here let them remain, said Henry Clay. And so +today at Ashland, as at Hawarden, no tree is felled until it has been duly +tried by the entire family and all has been said for and against the +sentence of death. I heard Miss McDowell make an eloquent plea for an old +oak that had been rather recklessly harboring mistletoe and many +squirrels, until it was thought probable that, like our first parents, it +might have a fall. It was a plea more eloquent than "O Woodman, spare that +tree." A reprieve for a year was granted; and I thought, as I cast my vote +on the side of mercy, that the jury that could not be won by such a young +woman as that was hopelessly dead at the top and more hollow at the heart +than the old oak under whose boughs we sat. + + * * * * * + +Ashland is just a mile south of the courthouse. When Henry Clay used to +ride horseback between the town and his farm there were scarce a dozen +houses to pass on the way, but now the street is all built up, and is +smartly paved, and the trolley-line booms a noisy car to the sacred gates +every ten minutes. + +Lexington was laid out in the year Seventeen Hundred Seventy-four, and the +intention was to name it in honor of Colonel Patterson, the founder, or of +Daniel Boone. But while the surveyors were doing their work, word came of +the battle of some British and certain embattled farmers, and the spirit +of freedom promptly declared that the town should be called Lexington. + +Three years after the laying-out of Lexington, Henry Clay was born. He was +the son of a poor and obscure Baptist preacher who lived at "The Slashes," +in Virginia. The boy never had any vivid recollection of his father, who +passed away when Henry was a mere child. + +The mother had a hard time of it with her family of seven children, and if +kind neighbors had not aided, there would have been actual want. And +surely one can not blame the widow for "marrying for a home" when +opportunity offered. Only one out of that first family ever achieved +eminence, and the second brood is actually lost to us in oblivion. + +Henry Clay was a graduate of the University of Hard Knocks; he also took +several post-graduate courses at the same institution. Very early in life +we see that he possessed the fine, eager, receptive spirit that absorbs +knowledge through the finger-tips; and the ability to think and to absorb +is all that even college can ever do for a man. I doubt whether college +would have helped Clay, and it might have dimmed the diamond luster of his +mind, and diluted that fine audacity which carried him on his way. In this +capacity to comprehend in the mass, Clay's character was essentially +feminine. We have Thoreau for authority that the intuition and the +sympathy found always in the saviors of the world are purely feminine +attributes--the legacy bequeathed from a mother who thirsted for better +things. + +From a clerk in a country store to a bookkeeper, then a copyist for a +lawyer, a writer of letters for the neighborhood, a reader of law, and +next a lawyer, were easy and natural steps for this ambitious boy. + +Virginia with its older settlements offered small opportunities, and so we +find young Clay going West, and landing at Lexington when twenty years +old. He requested a license to practise law, but the Bar Association, +which consisted of about a dozen members, decided that no more lawyers +were needed at Lexington. Clay demanded that he should be examined as to +fitness, and the blackberry-bush Blackstones sat upon him, as a coroner +would say, with intent to give him so stiff an examination that he would +be glad to get work as a farmhand. + +A dozen questions had been asked, and an attempt had been made to confuse +and browbeat the youth, when the Nestor of the Lexington Bar expectorated +at a fly ten feet away, and remarked, "Oh, the devil! there is no need of +tryin' to keep a boy like this down--he's as fit as we, or fitter!" + +And so he was admitted. + +From the very first he was a success; he toned up the mental qualities of +the Fayette County Bar, and made the older, easy-going members feel to see +whether their laurel wreaths were in place. + +When he was thirty years of age he was chosen by the Legislature of +Kentucky as United States Senator. When his term expired he chose to go to +Congress, probably because it afforded better opportunity for oratory and +leadership. As soon as he appeared upon the floor he was chosen Speaker by +acclamation. So thoroughly American was he, that one of his very first +suggestions was to the effect that every member should clothe himself +wholly in fabrics made in the United States. Humphrey Marshall ridiculed +the proposition and called Clay a demagogue, for which he got himself +straightway challenged. Clay shot a bullet through his English-made +broadcloth coat, and then they shook hands. + +When his term as Congressman expired, he again went to the Senate, and +served two years. Then he went back to the House, and through his +influence, and his alone, did we challenge Great Britain, just as he had +challenged Marshall. + +England accepted the challenge, and we call it the War of Eighteen Hundred +Twelve. + +Very often, indeed, do we hear the rural statesmen at Fourth of July +celebrations exclaim, "We have whipped England twice, and we can do it +again!" + +We whipped England once, and it is possible we could do it again, but she +got the best of us in the War of Eighteen Hundred Twelve. Henry Clay +plunged the country into war to redress certain grievances, and as a peace +commissioner he backed out of that war without having a single one of +those grievances indemnified or redressed. + +After the treaty of peace had been declared and "the war was over," that +fighting Irishman, Andrew Jackson, Irishlike, gave the British a black eye +at New Orleans, just for luck, and this is the only thing in that whole +misunderstanding of which we should not as a nation be ashamed. + +If England had not had Napoleon on her hands at that particular time, +Wellington would probably have made a visit to America, and might have +brought along for us a Waterloo. And these things are fully explained in +the textbooks on history used in the schools of Great Britain, on whose +possessions the sun never sets. + +But as Henry Clay had gotten us into war, his diplomacy helped to get us +out, and as it was a peace without dishonor, Clay's reputation did not +materially suffer. In fact, the terms of peace were so ambiguous that +Congress gave out to the world that it was a victory, and the exact facts +were quite lost in the smoke of Jackson's muskets that hovered over the +cotton bales. + +Later, when Clay ran against Jackson for the Presidency he found that a +peace-hero has no such place in the hearts of men as a war-hero. Jackson +had not a tithe of Clay's ability, and yet Clay's defeat was overwhelming. +"Peace hath her victories"--yes, but the average voter does not know it. +The only men who have received overwhelming majorities for President have +been war-heroes. Obscure men have crept in several times, but popular +diplomats--never. The fate of such popular men as Clay, Seward and Blaine +is one. And when one considers how strong is this tendency to glorify the +hero of action, and ignore the hero of thought, he wonders how it really +happened that Paul Revere was not made the second President of the United +States instead of John Adams. + +Clay was a most eloquent pleader. The grace of his manner, the beauty of +his speech, and the intense earnestness of his nature often convinced men +against their wills. + +There was sometimes, however, a suspicion in the air that his best +quotations were inspirations, and that the statistics to which he appealed +were evolved from his inner consciousness. But the man had power and +personality plus. He was a natural leader, and unlike other statesmen we +might name, he always carried his town and district by overwhelming +majorities. And it is well to remember that the first breath of popular +disfavor directed against Henry Clay was because he proposed the abolition +of slavery. + +Those who knew him best loved him most, and this was true from the time he +began to practise law in Lexington, when scarcely twenty-one years old, to +his seventy-fifth year, when his worn-out body was brought home to rest. + +On that occasion all business in Lexington, and in most of Kentucky, +ceased. Even the farmers quit work, and very many private residences were +draped in mourning. Memorial services were held in hundreds of churches, +the day was given over to mourning, and everywhere men said, "We shall +never look upon his like again." + + * * * * * + +Before I visited Lexington, my cousin, Little Emily, duly wrote me that on +no account, when I was in Kentucky, must I offer any criticisms on the +character of Henry Clay; for if I grew reckless and compared him with +another to his slightest disadvantage, I should have to fight. + +That he was absolutely the greatest statesman America has produced is, to +all Kentuckians, a fact so sure that they doubt the honesty or the sanity +of any one who hints otherwise. He is their ideal, the perfect man, the +model for all youths to imitate, and the standard by which all other +statesmen are gauged. Clay to Kentucky scores one hundred. And as he was +at the last defeated for the highest office, which they say was his +God-given right, there is a flavor of martyrdom in his history that is the +needed crown for every hero. + +Complete success alienates man from his fellows, but suffering makes +kinsmen of us all. So the South loves Henry Clay. + +He is so well loved that he is apotheosized, and thus the real man to many +is lost in the clouds. With his name, song and legend have worked their +miracles, and to very many Southern people he is a being separate and +apart, like Hector or Achilles. + +With my cousin, Little Emily, I am always very frank--and you can be +honest and frank with so few in this world of expediency, you know! We are +so frank in expression that we usually quarrel very shortly. And so I +explained to Emily just what I have written here, as to the real Henry +Clay being lost. + +She contradicted me flatly and said, "To love a person is not to lose +him--you never lose except through indifference or hate!" I started to +explain and had gotten as far as, "It is just like this," when the +conversation was interrupted by the arrival of General Bellicose, who had +come to take us riding behind a spanking pair of geldings, that I was +assured were standard bred. + +In Lexington you never use the general term "horse." You speak of a mare, +a gelding, a horse, a four-year-old, a weanling or a sucker. To refer to a +trotter as a thoroughbred is to suffer social ostracism, and to obfuscate +a side-wheeler with a single-footer is proof of degeneracy. This applies +equally to the ethics of the ballroom or the livery-stable. In Kentucky +they read Richard's famous lines thus: "A saddler! a saddler! my kingdom +for a saddler!" So when I complimented General Bellicose on his geldings +and noted that they went square without boots or weights, and that he used +no blinders, it thawed the social ice, and we were as brothers. Then I led +the way cautiously to Henry Clay, and the General assured me that in his +opinion the Henry Clays were even better than the George Wilkes. To be +sure, Wilkes had more in the 'thirty list, but the Clays had brains, and +were cheerful; they neither lugged nor hung back, whereas you always had +to lay whip to a Wilkes in order to get along a bit, or else use a gag +and overcheck. + +I pressed Little Emily's hand under the lap-robe and asked her if all +Kentuckians were believers in metempsychosis. "Colonel Littlejourneys is +making fun of you, General," said Little Emily; "the Colonel is talking +about the man, and you are discussing trotters!" + +And then I apologized, but the General said it was he who should make the +apology, and raising the carriage-seat brought out a box of genuine Henry +Clay Havanas, in proof of amity. + +It's a very foolish thing to smile at a man who rides a hobby. Once there +was a man who rode a hobby all his life, to the great amusement of his +enemies and the mortification of his wife; and when the man was dead they +found it was a real live horse and had carried the man many long miles. + +General Bellicose loves a horse; so does Little Emily and so do I. But +Little Emily and the General know history and have sounded politics in a +way that puts me in the kindergarten; and I found before the day was over +that what one did not know about the political history of America the +other did. And mixed up in it all we discussed the merits of the fox-trot +versus the single-foot. + +We saw the famous Clay monument, built by the State at a cost of nearly a +hundred thousand dollars, and with uncovered heads gazed through the +gratings into the crypt where lies the dust of the great man. Then we saw +the statue of John C. Breckinridge in the public square, and visited +various old ebb-tide mansions where the "quarters" had fallen into decay, +and the erstwhile inhabitants had moved to the long row of tenements down +by the cotton-mill. My train whistled and we were half a mile from the +station, but the General said we would get there in time--and we did. I +bade my friends good-by and quite forgot to thank them for all their +kindness, although down in my heart I felt that it had been a time rare as +a day in June. I believe they felt my gratitude, too, for where there is +such a feast of wit and flow of soul, such kindness, such generosity, the +spirit understands. + +When I arrived home I found a box awaiting me, bearing the express mark of +Lexington, Kentucky. On opening the case I found six quart-bottles of +"Henry Clay--1881"; and a card with the compliments of Little Emily and +General Bellicose. On the outside of the case was neatly stenciled the +legend, "Thackeray, Full sett, 14 vol., half Levant." I do not know why +the box was so marked, but I suppose it was in honor of my literary +proclivities. I went out and blew four merry blasts on a ram's horn, and +the Philistines assembled. + + + + +JOHN JAY + + Calm repose and the sweets of undisturbed retirement appear more + distant than a peace with Britain. + + It gives me pleasure, however, to reflect that the period is + approaching when we shall be citizens of a better ordered State, + and the spending of a few troublesome years of our eternity in + doing good to this and future generations is not to be avoided + nor regretted. Things will come right, and these States will yet + be great and flourishing. + --Letter to Washington + +[Illustration: JOHN JAY] + + +America should feel especially charitable towards Louis the Great, called +by Carlyle, Louis the Little, for banishing the Huguenots from France. +What France lost America gained. Tyranny and intolerance always drive from +their homes the best: those who have ability to think, courage to act, and +a pride that can not be coerced. + +The merits possessed by the Huguenots are exactly those which every man +and nation needs. And these are simple virtues, too, whose cultivation +stands within the reach of all. These are the virtues of the farmers and +peasants and plain people who do the work of the world, and give good +government its bone and sinew. To a great degree, so-called society is +made up of parasites who fasten and feed upon the industrious and +methodical. + +If you have read history you know that the men who go quietly about their +business have been cajoled, threatened, driven, and often, when they have +been guilty of doing a little independent thinking on their own account, +banished. And further than this, when you read the story of nations dead +and gone you will see that their decline began when the parasites got too +numerous and flauntingly asserted their supposed power. That contempt for +the farmer, and indifference to the rights of the man with tin pail and +overalls, which one often sees in America, are portents that mark +disintegrating social bacilli. If the Republic of the United States ever +becomes but a memory, like Carthage, Athens and Rome, drifting off into +senile decay like Italy and Spain or France, where a man may yet be tried +and sentenced without the right of counsel or defense, it will be because +we forgot--we forgot! + +In moral fiber and general characteristics the Huguenots and the Puritans +were one. The Huguenots had, however, the added virtue of a dash of the +Frenchman's love of beauty. By their excellent habits and loyalty to +truth, as they saw it, they added a vast share to the prosperity and +culture of the United States. + +Of seven men who acted as presiding officer over the deliberations of +Congress during the Revolutionary Period, three were of Huguenot +parentage: Laurens, Boudinot and Jay. John Jay was a typical Huguenot, +just as Samuel Adams was a typical Puritan. In his life there was no +glamour of romance. Stern, studious and inflexibly honest, he made his way +straight to the highest positions of trust and honor. Good men who are +capable are always needed. The world wants them now more than ever. We +have an overplus of clever individuals; but for the faithful men who are +loyal to a trust there is a crying demand. + +The life of Jay quite disproves the oft-found myth that a dash of Mephisto +in a young man is a valuable adjunct. John Jay was neither precocious nor +bad. It is further a refreshing fact to find that he was no prig, simply a +good, healthy youngster who took to his books kindly and gained +ground--made head upon the whole by grubbing. + +His father was a hard-headed, prosperous merchant, who did business in New +York, and moved his big family up to the little village of Rye because +life in the country was simple and cheap. Thus did Peter Jay prove his +commonsense. + +Peter Jay copied every letter he wrote, and we now have these copy-books, +revealing what sort of man he was. Religious he was, and scrupulously +exact in all things. We see that he ordered Bibles from England, "and also +six groce of Church Wardens," which I am told is a long clay pipe, "that +hath a goodly flavor and doth not bite the tongue." He also at one time +ordered a chest of tea, and then countermanded the order, having taken the +resolve to "use no tea in my family while that rascally Tax is on--having +a spring of good, pure water near my house." Which shows that a man can be +very much in earnest and still joke. + +John was the baby, scarcely a year old, when the Jay family moved up to +Rye. He was the eighth child, and as he grew up he was taught by the older +ones. He took part in all the fun and hardships of farm life--going to +school in Winter, working in Summer, and on Sundays hearing long sermons +at church. + +We find by Peter Jay's letter-book that: "Johnny is about our brightest +child. We have great hopes of him, and believe it will be wise to educate +him for a preacher." In order to educate boys then, they were sent to live +in the family of some man of learning. And so we find "Johnny" at twelve +years of age installed in the parsonage at New Rochelle, the Huguenot +settlement. The pastor was a Huguenot, and as only French was spoken in +the household, the boy acquired the language, which afterwards stood him +in good stead. + +The pastor reported favorably, and when fifteen, young Jay was sent to +King's College, which is now Columbia University, kings not being popular +in America. + +Doctor Samuel Johnson, who nowise resembled Ursa Major, was the president +of the College at that time. He was also the faculty, for there were just +thirty students and he did all the teaching himself. Doctor Johnson, true +to his name, dearly loved a good book, and when teaching mathematics would +often forget the topic and recite Ossian by the page, instead. Jay caught +it, for the book craze is contagious and not sporadic. We take it by being +exposed. + +And thus it was while under the tutelage of Doctor Johnson that Jay began +to acquire the ability to turn a terse sentence; and this gained him +admittance into the world of New York letters, whose special guardians +were Dickinson and William Livingston. + +Livingston invited the boy to his house, and very soon we find the young +man calling without special invitation, for Livingston had a beautiful +daughter about John's age, who was fond of Ossian, too, or said she was. + +And as this is not a serial love-story, there is no need of keeping the +gentle reader in suspense, so I will explain that some years later John +married the girl, and the mating was a very happy one. + +After John had been to King's College two years we find in the faded and +yellow old letter-book an item written by the father to the effect that: +"Our Johnny is doing well at College. He seems sedate and intent on +gaining knowledge; but rather inclines to Law instead of the Ministry." + +Doctor Johnson was succeeded by Doctor Myles Cooper, a Fellow of Oxford, +who used to wear his mortarboard cap and scholar's gown up Broadway. In +young Jay's veins there was not a drop of British blood. Of his eight +great-grandparents, five were French and three Dutch, a fact he once +intimated in the Oxonian's presence. And then it was explained to the +youth that if such were the truth it would be as well to conceal it. + +Alexander Hamilton got along very well with Doctor Cooper, but John Jay +found himself rusticated shortly before graduation. Some years after this +Doctor Cooper hastily climbed the back fence, leaving a sample of his gown +on a picket, while Alexander Hamilton held the Whig mob at bay at the +front door. + +Cooper sailed very soon for England, anathematizing "the blarsted country" +in classic Latin as the ship passed out of the Narrows. + +"England is a good place for him," said the laconic John Jay. + +So John Jay was to be a lawyer. And the only way to be a lawyer in those +days was to work in a lawyer's office. A goodly source of income to all +established lawyers was the sums they derived for taking embryo +Blackstones into their keeping. The greater a man's reputation as a +lawyer, the higher he placed his fee for taking a boy in. + +In those days there were no printed blanks, and a simple lease was often a +day's work to write out; so it was not difficult to keep the boys busy. +Besides that, they took care of the great man's horse, blacked his boots, +swept the office, and ran errands. During the third year of +apprenticeship, if all went well, the young man was duly admitted to the +Bar. A stiff examination kept out the rank outsiders, but the nomination +by a reputable attorney was equivalent to admittance, for all members knew +that if you opposed an attorney today, tomorrow he might oppose you. + +To such an extent was this system of taking students carried that, in +Seventeen Hundred Sixty-eight, we find New York lawyers alarmed "by the +awful influx of young Barristers upon this Province." So steps were taken +to make all attorneys agree not to have more than two apprentices in their +office at one time. About the same time the Boston newspaper, called the +"Centinel," shows there was a similar state of overproduction in Boston. +Only the trouble there was principally with the doctors, for doctors were +then turned loose in the same way, carrying a diploma from the old +physician with whom they had matriculated and duly graduated. + +Law schools and medical colleges, be it known, are comparatively modern +institutions--not quite so new, however, as business colleges, but pretty +nearly so. And now in Chicago there is a "Barbers' University," which +issues diplomas to men who can manipulate a razor and shears, whereas, +until yesterday, boys learned to be barbers by working in a barber's shop. +The good old way was to pass a profession along from man to man. + +And it is so yet in a degree, for no man is allowed to practise either +medicine or law until he has spent some time in the office of a +practitioner in good standing. + +In the Catholic Church, and also in the Episcopal, the novitiate is +expected to serve for a time under an older clergyman; but all the other +denominations have broken away, and now spring the fledgling on the world +straight from the factory. + +Several other of his children having sorely disappointed him, Peter Jay +seemed to center his ambitions on his boy John. So we find him paying +Benjamin Kissam, the eminent lawyer, two hundred pounds in good coin of +the Colony to take John Jay as a 'prentice for five years. John went at it +and began copying those endless, wordy documents in which the old-time +attorney used to delight. John sat at one end of a table, and at the other +was seated one Lindley Murray, at the mention of whose name terror used to +seize my soul. + +Murray has written some good, presentable English to the effect that young +Jay, even at that time, had the inclination and ability to focus his mind +upon the subject in hand. "He used to work just as steadily when his +employer was away as when he was in the office," a fact which the +grammarian seemed to regard as rather strange. + +In a year we find that when Mr. Kissam went away he left the keys of the +safe in John Jay's hands, with orders what to do in case of emergencies. +Thus does responsibility gravitate to him who can shoulder it, and trust +to the man who deserves it. + +It was in Kissam's office that Jay acquired that habit of reticence and +serene poise which, becoming fixed in character, made his words carry such +weight in later years. He never gave snapshot opinions, or talked at +random, or voiced any sentiment for which he could not give a reason. + +His companions were usually men much older than he. At the "Moot Club" he +took part with James Duane, who was to be New York's first continental +mayor; Gouverneur Morris, who had not at that time acquired the wooden +leg which he once snatched off and brandished with happy effect before a +Paris mob; and Samuel Jones, who was to take as 'prentice and drill that +strong man, De Witt Clinton. + +Before his years of apprenticeship were over, John Jay, the quiet, the +modest, the reticent, was known as a safe and competent lawyer--Kissam +having pushed him forward as associate counsel in various difficult cases. + +Meantime, certain chests of tea had been dumped into Boston Harbor, and +the example had been followed by the "Mohawks" in New York. British +oppression had made many Tories lukewarm, and then English rapacity had +transformed these Tories into Whigs. Jay was one of these; and in +newspapers and pamphlets, and from the platform, he had pleaded the cause +of the Colonies. Opposition crystallized his reasons, and threats only +served to make him reaffirm the truths he had stated. + +So prominent had his utterances made his name, that one fine day he was +nominated to attend the first Congress of the Colonies to be held in +Philadelphia. + +In August, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-four, we find him leaving his office +in New York in charge of a clerk, and riding horseback over to the town of +Elizabeth, there joining his father-in-law, and the two starting for +Philadelphia. On the road they fell in with John Adams, who kept a diary. +That night at the tavern where they stopped, the sharp-eyed Yankee +recorded the fact of meeting these new friends and added, "Mr. Jay is a +young gentleman of the law ... and Mr. Scott says a hard student and a +very good speaker." + +And so they journeyed on across the State to Trenton and down the Delaware +River to Philadelphia, visiting, and cautiously discussing great issues as +they went. Samuel Adams, too, was in the party, as reticent as Jay. Jay +was twenty-nine and Samuel Adams fifty-two years old, but they became good +friends, and Samuel once quietly said to John Adams, "That man Jay is +young in years, but he has an old head." + +Jay was the youngest man of the Convention, save one. + +When the Second Congress met, Jay was again a delegate. He served on +several important committees, and drew up a statement that was addressed +to the people of England; but he was recalled to New York before the +supreme issue was reached, and thus, through accident, the Declaration of +Independence does not contain the signature of John Jay. + + * * * * * + +In Seventeen Hundred Seventy-eight, Jay was chosen president of the +Continental Congress to succeed that other patriotic Huguenot, Laurens. +The following year he was selected as the man to go to Spain, to secure +from that country certain friendly favors. + +His reception there was exceedingly frosty, and the mention of his two +years on the ragged edge of court life at Madrid, in later years brought +to his face a grim smile. + +Spain's diplomatic policy was smooth hypocrisy and rank untruth, and all +her promises, it seems, were made but to be broken. Jay's negotiations +were only partially successful, but he came to know the language, the +country and the people in a way that made his knowledge very valuable to +America. + +By Seventeen Hundred Eighty-one, England had begun to see that to compel +the absolute submission of the Colonies was more of a job than she had +anticipated. News of victories was duly sent to the "mother country" at +regular intervals, but with these glad tidings were requests for more +troops, and requisitions for ships and arms. + +The American army was a very hard thing to find. It would fight one day, +to retreat the next, and had a way of making midnight attacks and flank +movements that, to say the least, were very confusing. Then it would +separate, to come together--Lord knows where! This made Lord Cornwallis +once write to the Home Secretary: "I could easily defeat the enemy, if I +could find him and engage him in a fair fight." He seemed to think it was +"no fair," forgetting the old proverb which has something to say about +love and war. + +Finally, Cornwallis got the thing his soul desired--a fair fight. He was +then acting on the defensive. The fight was short and sharp; and Colonel +Alexander Hamilton, who led the charge, in ten minutes planted the Stars +and Stripes on his ramparts. + +That night Cornwallis was the "guest" of Washington, and the next day a +dinner was given in his honor. + +He was then obliged to write to the Home Secretary, "We have met the +enemy, and we are theirs"--but of course he did not express it just +exactly that way. Then it was that King George, for the first time, showed +a disposition to negotiate for peace. + +As peace commissioners, America named Franklin, John Adams, Laurens, Jay +and Jefferson. + +Jefferson refused to leave his wife, who was in delicate health. Adams was +at The Hague, just closing up a very necessary loan. Laurens had been sent +to Holland on a diplomatic mission, and his ship having been overhauled by +a British man-of-war, he was safely in that historic spot, the Tower of +London. + +So Jay and Franklin alone met the English commissioners, and Jay stated to +them the conditions of peace. + +In a few weeks Adams arrived, still keeping a diary. In that diary is +found this item: "The French call me 'Le Washington de la Negociation': a +very flattering compliment indeed, to which I have no right, but sincerely +think it belongs to Mr. Jay." + +Jay quitted Paris in May, Seventeen Hundred Eighty-four, having been gone +from his native land eight years. When he reached New York there was a +great demonstration in his honor. Triumphal arches were erected across +Broadway, houses and stores were decorated with bunting, cannons boomed, +and bells rang. The freedom of the city was presented to him in a gold +box, with an exceedingly complimentary address, engrossed on parchment, +and signed by one hundred of the leading citizens. + +Jay spent just one day in New York, and then rode on horseback up to the +old farm at Rye, Westchester County, to see his father. That evening there +was a service of thanksgiving at the village church, after which the +citizens repaired to the Jay mansion, one story high and eighty feet long, +where a barrel of cider was tapped, and "a groce of Church Wardens" passed +around, with free tobacco for all. + +John Jay stood on the front porch and made a modest speech just five +minutes long, among other things saying he had come home to be a neighbor +to them, having quit public life for good. But he refused to talk about +his own experiences in Europe. His reticence, however, was made up for by +good old Peter Jay, who assured the people that John Jay was America's +foremost citizen; and in this statement he was backed up by the village +preacher, with not a dissenting voice from the assembled citizens. + +It is rather curious (or it isn't, I'm not sure which) how most statesmen +have quit public life several times during their careers, like the prima +donnas who make farewell tours. The ingratitude of republics is +proverbial, but to limit ingratitude to republics shows a lack of +experience. The progeny of the men who tired of hearing Aristides called +The Just are very numerous. Of course it is easy to say that he who +expects gratitude does not deserve it; but the fact remains that the men +who know it are yet stung by calumny when it comes their way. + +That fine demonstration in Jay's honor was in great part to overwhelm and +stamp out the undertone of growl and snarl that filled the air. Many said +that peace had been gained at awful cost, that Jay had deferred to royalty +and trifled with the wishes of the people in making terms. + +And now Jay had got home, back to his family and farm, back to quiet and +rest. The long, hard fight had been won and America was free. For eight +years had he toiled and striven and planned: much had been +accomplished--not all he hoped, but much. + +He had done his best for his country, his own affairs were in bad shape, +Congress had paid him meagerly, and now he would turn public life over to +others and live his own life. + +All through life men reach these places where they say, "Here will we +build three tabernacles"; but out of the silence comes the imperative +Voice, "Arise, and get thee hence, for this is not thy rest." + +And now the war was over, peace was concluded; but war leaves a country in +chaos. The long, slow work of reconstruction and of binding up a nation's +wounds must follow. America was independent, but she had yet to win from +the civilized world the recognition that she must have in order to endure. + +Jay was importuned by Washington to take the position of Secretary of +Foreign Affairs, one of the most important offices to be filled. + +He accepted, and discharged the exacting duties of the place for five +years. + +Then came the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and the election of +Washington as President of the United States. + +Washington wrote to Jay: "There must be a Court, perpetual and Supreme, to +which all questions of internal dispute between States or people be +referred. This Court must be greater than the Executive, greater than any +individual State, separated and apart from any political party. You must +be the first official head of the Executive." + +And Jay, as every schoolboy knows, was the first Chief Justice of the +Supreme Court of the United States. By his sagacity, his dignity, his +knowledge of men, and love of order and uprightness, he gave it that high +place which it yet holds, and which it must hold; for when the decisions +of the Supreme Court are questioned by a State or people, the fabric of +our government is but a spider's web through which anarchy and unreason +will stalk. + +In Seventeen Hundred Ninety-four, came serious complications with Great +Britain, growing out of the construction of terms of peace made in Paris +eleven years before. + +Some one must go to Great Britain and make a new treaty in order to +preserve our honor and save us from another war. + +Franklin was dead; Adams as Vice-President could not be spared; Hamilton's +fiery temper was dangerous--no one could accomplish the delicate mission +so well as Jay. + +Jay, self-centered and calm, said little; but in compliance with +Washington's wish resigned his office, and set sail with full powers to +use his own judgment in everything, and the assurance that any treaty he +made would be ratified. + +Arriving in England, he at once opened negotiations with Lord Grenville, +and in five months the new treaty was signed. + +It provided for the payment to American citizens for losses of private +shipping during the war; and over ten million dollars were paid to +citizens of the United States under this agreement. + +It fixed the boundary-line between the State of Maine and Canada; provided +for the surrender of British posts in the Far West; that neither nation +was to allow enlistments within its territory by a third nation at war +with another; arranged for the surrender of fugitives charged with murder +or forgery; and made definite terms as to various minor, but none the less +important, questions. + +A storm of opposition greeted the treaty when its terms were made known in +America. Jay was accused of bartering away the rights of America, and +indignation meetings were held, because Jay had not insisted on apologies, +and set sums of indemnity on this, that and the other. + +Nevertheless, Washington ratified the treaty; and when Jay arrived in +America there was a greeting fully as cordial and generous as that on the +occasion of his other homecoming. + +In fact, while he was absent, his friends had put him in nomination as +Governor of New York. His election to that office occurred just two days +before he arrived, and when he landed his senses were mystified by hearing +loud hurrahs for "Governor Jay." + +When his term of office expired he was re-elected, so he served as +Governor, in all, six years. The most important measure carried out during +that time was the abolition of slavery in the State of New York, an act +he had strenuously insisted on for twenty years, but which was not made +possible until he had the power of Governor, and crowded the measure upon +the Legislature. + +Over a quarter of a century had passed since John Adams and John Jay had +met on horseback out there on the New Jersey turnpike. Their intimacy had +been continuous and their labors as important as ever engrossed the minds +of men, but in it all there was neither jealousy nor bickering. They were +friends. + +At the close of Jay's gubernatorial term, President Adams nominated him +for the office of Chief Justice, made vacant by the resignation of Oliver +Ellsworth. The Senate unanimously confirmed the nomination, but Jay +refused to accept the place. + +For twenty-eight years he had served his country--served it in its most +trying hours. He was not an old man in years, but the severity and anxiety +of his labors had told on his health, and the elasticity of youth had gone +from his brain forever. He knew this, and feared the danger of continued +exertion. "My best work is done," he said; "if I continue I may undo the +good I have accomplished. I have earned a rest." + +He retired to the ancestral farm at Bedford, Westchester County, to enjoy +his vacation. In a year his wife died, and the shock told on his already +shattered nerves. + +"The habit of reticence grew upon him," says one writer, "until he could +not be tricked into giving an opinion even about the weather." + +And so he lived out his days as a partial recluse, deep in problems of +"raising watermelons, and sheep that would not jump fences." He worked +with his hands, wore blue jeans, voted at every town election, but to a +great degree lived only in the past. The problems of church and village +politics and farm life filled his declining days. + +To a great degree his physical health came back, but the problems of +statecraft he left to other heads and hands. + +His religious nature manifested itself in various philanthropic schemes, +and the Bible Society he founded endures even unto this day. These things +afforded a healthful exercise for that tireless brain which refused to run +down. + +His daughters made his home ideal, their love and gentleness soothing his +declining years. + +Death to him was kindly, gathering him as Autumn, the messenger of Winter, +reaps the leaves. + + * * * * * + +No one has ever made the claim that Jay possessed genius. He had something +which is better, though, for most of the affairs of life, and that is +commonsense. In his intellect there was not the flash of Hamilton, nor the +creative quality possessed by Jefferson, nor the large all-roundness of +Franklin. + +He was the average man who has trained and educated and made the best use +of every faculty and every opportunity. He was genuine; he was honest; and +if he never surprised his friends by his brilliancy, he surely never +disappointed them through duplicity. + +He made no promises that he could not keep; he held out no vain hopes. + +As a diplomat he seems nearly the ideal. We have been taught that the line +of demarcation between diplomacy and untruth is very shadowy. But truth is +very good policy and in the main answers the purpose much better than the +other thing. I am quite willing to leave the matter to those who have +tried both. + +We can not say that Jay was "magnetic," for magnetic men win the rabble; +but Jay did better: he won the confidence and admiration of the strong and +discerning. His manner was gentle and pleasing; his words few, and as a +listener he set a pace that all novitiates in the school of diplomacy +would do well to follow. + +To talk well is a talent, but to listen is a fine art. If I really wished +to win the love of a man I'd practise the art of listening. Even dull +people often talk well when there is some one near who cultivates the +receptive mood; and to please a man you must give him an opportunity to be +both wise and witty. Men are pleased with their friends when they are +pleased with themselves, and no man is ever so pleased with himself as +when he has expressed himself well. + +The sympathetic listener at a lecture or sermon is the only one who gets +his money's worth. If you would get good, lend your sympathy to a speaker, +and if, accidentally, you imbibe heresy, you can easily throw it overboard +when you get home. + +John Jay was quiet and undemonstrative in speech, cultivating a fine +reserve. In debate he never fired all his guns, and his best battles were +won with the powder that was never exploded. "You had always better keep a +small balance to your credit," he once advised a young attorney. + +When the first Congress met, Jay was not in favor of complete independence +from England. He asked only for simple justice, and said, "The middle +course is best." He listened to John Adams and Patrick Henry and quietly +discussed the matter with Samuel Adams; but it was some time before he saw +that the density of King George was hopeless, and that the work of +complete separation was being forced upon the Colonies by the blindness +and stupidity of the British Parliament. + +He then accepted the issue. + +During those first days of the Revolution, New York did not stand firm, +as did Boston, for the cause of independence. "The foes at home are the +only ones I really fear," once wrote Hamilton. + +First to pacify and placate, then to win and hold those worse than +neutrals, was the work of John Jay. While Washington was in the field, +Jay, with tireless pen, upheld the cause, and by his speech and presence +kept anarchy at bay. + +As president of the Committee of Safety he showed he could do something +more than talk and write. When Tories refused to take the oath of +allegiance he quietly wrote the order to imprison or banish; and with +friend, foe or kinsman there was neither dalliance nor turning aside. His +heart was in the cause--his property, his life. The time for argument had +passed. + +In the gloom that followed the defeat of Washington at Brooklyn, Jay +issued an address to the people that is a classic in its fine, stern +spirit of hope and strength. Congress had the address reprinted and sent +broadcast, and also translated and printed in German. + +His work divides itself by a strange coincidence into three equal parts. +Twenty-eight years were passed in youth and education; twenty-eight years +in continuous public work; and twenty-eight years in retirement and rest. + +As one of that immortal ten, mentioned by a great English statesman, who +gave order, dignity, stability and direction to the cause of American +Independence, the name of John Jay is secure. + + + + +WILLIAM H. SEWARD + + I avow my adherence to the Union, with my friends, with my party, + with my State; or without either, as they may determine; in every + event of peace or war, with every consequence of honor or + dishonor, of life or death. + --Speech in the United States Senate, 1860 + +[Illustration: WILLIAM H. SEWARD] + + +When I was a freshman at the Little Red Schoolhouse, the last exercise in +the afternoon was spelling. The larger pupils stood in a line that ran +down one aisle and curled clear around the stove. Well do I remember one +Winter when the biggest boy in the school stood at the tail-end of the +class most of the time, while at the head of the line, or always very near +it, was a freckled, check-aproned girl, who once at a spellin'-bee had +defeated even the teacher. This girl was ten years older than myself, and +I was then too small to spell with this first grade, but I watched the +daily fight of wrestling with such big words as "un-in-ten-tion-al-ly" and +"mis-un-der-stand-ing," and longed for a day when I, too, should take part +and possibly stand next to this fine, smart girl, who often smiled at me +approvingly. And I planned how I would hold her hand as we would stand +there in line and mentally dare the master to come on with his dictionary. +We two would be the smartest scholars of the school and always help each +other in our "sums." + +Yet when time had pushed me into the line, she of the check apron was not +there, and even if she had been I should not have dared to hold her hand. + +But I must not digress--the particular thing I wish to explain is that one +day at recess the best scholar was in tears, and I went to her and asked +what was the matter, and she told me that some of the big girls had openly +declared that she--my fine, freckled girl, the check-aproned, the +invincible--held her place at the head of the school only through +favoritism. + +I burned with rage and resentment and proposed fight; then I burst out +crying and together we mingled our tears. + +All this was long ago. Since then I have been in many climes, and met many +men, and read history a bit--I hope not without profit. And this I have +learned: that the person who stands at the head of his class (be he +country lad or presidential candidate) is always the target for calumny +and the unkindness of contemporaries who can neither appreciate nor +understand. + +Not long ago I spent several days at Auburn, New York, so named by some +pioneer who, when the Nineteenth Century was very young, journeyed +thitherward with a copy of Goldsmith's "Deserted Village" in his pack. + +Auburn is a flourishing city of thirty thousand inhabitants. It has +beautiful wide streets, lined with elms that in places form an archway. +There are churches to spare and schools galore and handsome residences. +Then there are electric cars and electric lights and dynamos, with which +men electricute other men in the wink of an eye. I saw the +"fin-de-siecle" guillotine and sat in the chair, and the jubilant patentee +told me that it was the quickest scheme for extinguishing life ever +invented--patented Anno Christi Eighteen Hundred Ninety-five. Verily we +live in the age of the Push-Button! And as I sat there I heard a laugh +that was a quaver, and the sound of a stout cane emphasizing a jest struck +against the stone floor. + +"We didn't have such things when I was a boy!" came the tremulous voice. + +And then the newcomer explained to me that he was eighty-seven years old +last May, and that he well remembered a time when a plain oaken gallows +and a strong rope were good enough for Auburn--"provided Bill Seward +didn't get the fellow free," added my new-found friend. + +Then the old man explained that he used to be a guard on the walls, and +now he had a grandson who occupied the same office, and in answer to my +question said he knew Seward as though he were a brother. "Bill, he was +the luckiest man ever in Auburn--he married rich and tumbled over bags of +money if he just walked on the street. He believed in neither God nor +devil and had a pompous way o' makin' folks think he knew all about +everything. To make folks think you know is just as well as to know, I +s'pose!" and the old man laughed and struck his cane on the echoing floor +of the cell. + +The sound and the place and the company gave me a creepy feeling, and I +excused myself and made my way out past armed guards, through doorways +where iron bars clicked and snapped, and steel bolts that held in a +thousand men shot back to let me out, out into a freer air and a better +atmosphere. And as I passed through the last overhanging arch where a +one-armed guard wearing a G.A.R. badge turned a needlessly big key, there +came unbeckoned across my inward sight a vision of a check-aproned girl in +tears, sobbing with head on desk. And I said to myself: "Yes, yes! country +girl or statesman, you shall drink the bitter potion that is the penalty +of success--drink it to the very dregs. If you would escape moral and +physical assassination, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing--court +obscurity, for only in oblivion does safety lie." + +All mud sticks, but no mud is immortal, and that senile fling at the name +of Seward is the last flickering, dying word of detraction that can be +heard in the town that was his home for full half a century, or in the +land he served so well. And yet it was in Auburn that mob spirit once +found a voice; and when Seward was Lincoln's most helpful adviser, and his +sons were at the front serving the country's cause, cries of "Burn his +house! Burn his house!" came to the distracted ears of wife and daughter. + +But all that has gone now. In fact, denial that calumny was ever offered +to the name of Seward springs quickly to the lips of Auburn men, as they +point with pride to that beautiful old home where he lived, and where now +his son resides; and then they lead you, with a reverence that nearly +uncovers, to the stately bronze standing on the spot that was once his +garden--now a park belonging to the people. + +Time marks wondrous changes; and the city where William Lloyd Garrison +lived in "a rat-hole," as reported by Boston's Mayor, now honors +Commonwealth Avenue with his statue. And so the sons of Seward's enemies +have devoted willing dollars to preserving "that classic face and +spindling form" in deathless bronze. + +And they do well, for Seward's name and fame are Auburn's glory. + + * * * * * + +I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that all the worry of the world is +quite useless. And on no subject affecting mortals is there so much worry +as on that of (no, not love!) parents' ambitions for their children. When +the dimpled darling toddles and lisps and chatters, the satisfaction he +gives is unalloyed; for he is so small and insignificant, his demands so +imperious, that the entire household dance attendance on the wee tyrant, +and count it joy. But by and by the things at which we used to laugh +become presumptuous, and that which was once funny is now perverse. And +the more practical a man is, the larger his stock of Connecticut +commonsense, the greater his disillusionment as his children grow to +manhood. When he beholds dawdling inanity and dowdy vanity growing lush as +jimson, where yesterday, with strained prophetic vision, he saw budding +excellence and worth, his soul is wrung by a worry that knows no peace. +The matter is so poignantly personal that he dare not share it with +another in confessional, and so he hugs his grief to his heart, and tries +to hide it even from himself. + +And thus does many a mother scrub the kitchen-floor on her knees, rather +than face the irony of maternity and ask the assistance of the +seventeen-year-old pert chit with bangs, who strums a mandolin in the +little front parlor, gay with its paper flowers, six plush-covered chairs +and a "company" sofa. + +The late Commodore Vanderbilt is reported to have said, "I have over a +dozen sons, and not one is worth a damn." I fear me that every father with +sons grown to manhood has at some time voiced the same sentiment, +curtailed, possibly, only as to numbers, and softened by another +expletive, which does not mitigate the anguish of his cry, as he sees the +dreams he had for his baby boys fade away into a mist of agonizing tears. + +And is all this worry the penalty that Nature exacts for dreaming dreams +that can not in their very nature come true? Jean Jacques Rousseau, who +wrote so beautifully on child-study, avoided the risk of failure by +putting his children into an asylum; several "Communities" since have set +apart certain women to be mothers to all, and bring up and care for the +young, and strangely, with no apparent loss to the children; and Bellamy +prophesies a day when the worries of parenthood will all be transferred to +a "committee." + +But the worry is futile and senseless, being born often of a blindness +that will not wait. Man has not only "Seven Ages," but many more, and he +must pass through this one before the next arrives. The Commodore +certainly possessed what is called horse-sense, and if his conceptions of +character had been clearer, he might have realized that in more ways than +one the abilities of his sons were going to be greater than his own. His +eldest son was, nevertheless, banished to a Long Island farm on a pension, +"because he could not be trusted to do business." The same son once +modestly asked the Commodore if he would allow him to have the compost +that had been for a year accumulating outside the Fifth Avenue barns. +"Just one load, and no more," said pater. William thereupon took twenty +teams and as many men, and transferred the entire pile to a barge moored +in the river. It was a barge-load. And when pater saw what had been done, +he said, "The boy is not so big a fool as I thought." The boy was +forty-five ere death put him in possession of the gold that the father no +longer had use for, there being no pockets in a shroud, and he then showed +that as a financier he could have given his father points, for in a few +years he doubled the millions and drove horses faster without a break than +his father had ever ridden. + +Seward's father was a doctor, justice of the peace, merchant, and the +general first citizen of the village of Florida, Orange County, New York. +And he had no more confidence in his boy William than Vanderbilt had in +his. He educated him only because the lad was not strong enough to work, +and it seems to have been the firm belief that the boy would come to no +good end. In order to discipline him, the father put the youngster in +college on such a scanty allowance that the lad was obliged to run away +and go to teaching school in order to be free from financial humiliation. +Here was the best possible proof that the young man had the germs of +excellence in him; but the father took it as a proof of depravity, and +sent warning letters to the young school-teacher's friends threatening +them "not to harbor the scapegrace." + +The years went by and the parental distrust slackened very little. The boy +was slim and slender and his hair was tow-colored and his head too big for +his body. He had gotten a goodly smattering of education some way and was +intent on being a lawyer. He seemed to know that if he was to succeed he +must get well away from the parent nest, and out of the reach of daily +advice. + +His desire was to go "Out West," and the particular objective point was +Auburn, New York. + +The father gave him fifty dollars as a starter, with the final word, "I +expect you'll be back all too soon." + +And so young Seward started away, with high hopes and a firm determination +that he would agreeably disappoint his parents by not going back. + +He reached Albany by steamboat, and embarked on a sumptuous canal packet +that bore a waving banner on which were the words woven in gold, "Westward +Ho!" + +And he has slyly told us how, as he stepped aboard that "inland palace," +he bethought him of having written a thesis, three years before, proving +that De Witt Clinton's chimera of joining the Hudson and Lake Erie was an +idea both fictile and fibrous. But the inland palace carried him safely +and surely. He reached Auburn, and instead of writing home for more money, +returned that which he had borrowed. The father, who was a pretty good +man in every way, quite beyond the average in intellect, lived to see his +son in the United States Senate. + +And the moral for parents is: Don't worry about your children. You were +young once, even if you have forgotten the fact. Boys will be boys and +girls will be girls--but not forever. Have patience, and remember that +this present brood is not the first generation that has been brought +forth. There have been others, and each has been very much like the one +that passed before. The sentiment of "Pippa Passes" holds: "God's in His +Heaven, all's right with the world." + + * * * * * + +In Eighteen Hundred Thirty-four, Seward was the Whig candidate for +Governor of New York. He was defeated by W.L. Marcy. Four years later he +was again a candidate against Marcy and defeated him by ten thousand +majority. + +Seward was then thirty-six years of age, and was counted one of the very +first among the lawyers of the State, and in accepting the office of +Governor he made decided financial sacrifices. + +Seward was a man of positive ideas, and, although not arbitrary in manner, +yet had a silken strength of will that made great rents in the mesh of +other men's desires. Before a court, his quiet but firm persistence along +a certain line often dictated the verdict. The faculty of grasping a point +firmly and securely was his in a marked measure. And any man who can +quietly override the wishes and ambitions of other men is first well +feared, and then thoroughly hated. + +One of Seward's first efforts on becoming Governor was to insure a +common-school education among the children of every class, and especially +among the foreign population of large cities. To this end he advocated a +distribution of public funds among all schools established with that +object; and if he were alive today it is quite needless to say he would +not belong to the A.P.A. nor to any other secret society. He knew too much +of all religions to have complete faith in any, yet his appreciation of +the fact that the Catholics minister to the needs of a class that no +other denomination reaches or can control was outspoken and plain. This, +with his connection with the Anti-Masonic Party, brought upon his name a +stigma that was at last to defeat him for the Presidency. Seward's clear +insight into practical things, backed by the quiet working energy of his +nature, brought about many changes, and the changes he effected and the +reforms he inaugurated must ever rank his name high among statesmen. + +By his influence the law's delay in the courts of chancery was curtailed, +and this prepared the way for radical changes in the Constitution. He +inaugurated the geological survey that led to making "Potsdam outcrop" +classic, and "Medina sandstone" a product that is so known wherever a man +goes forth in the fields of earth carrying a geologist's hammer. + +Largely through his efforts, a safe and general banking system was brought +about; and the establishment of a lunatic asylum was one of the best items +to his credit during that first term as Governor. But there was one +philological change that proved too great even for his generalship. The +word "lunacy," as we know, comes from "luna," the belief in the good old +days being that the moon exercised a profound influence on the wits of +sundry people. I'm told that the idea still holds good in certain +quarters, and that if the wind is east and the moon shows a horn on which +you can hang a flatiron, certain persons are looked upon askance and the +children cautioned to avoid them. + +Seward said that insane people were simply those who were mentally ill, +and that "Hospital" was the proper term. But the classicists retorted, +"Nay, nay, William Henry, you have had your way in many things and here we +will now have ours." It has taken us full a century officially to make the +change, and the plain folks from the hills still refuse to ratify it, and +will for many a lustrum. + +It was during Seward's administration that the "debtors' prison" was done +away with, and it was, too, through his earnest recommendation that the +last trace of law for slaveholding was wiped from the statute-books of the +State of New York. + +The question of slavery was taken up most exhaustively in what was known +as the "Virginia Controversy." This interesting correspondence can be seen +in a stout volume in most public libraries. It is a series of letters that +passed between Governor Seward of New York and the Governor of Virginia, +as to the requisition of two persons in New York charged by the Governor +of Virginia with abducting slaves. Seward made the patent point, and +backed it up with a forest of reasons in politest English, that the +accused persons being charged with abducting slaves, and there being no +such thing as slaves known in New York, no person in New York could be +apprehended for stealing slaves--for slaves were things that had no +existence. + +Then did the Governor of Virginia admit that slaves could not be abducted +in New York; but he proceeded to explain in lusty tomes that slavery +legally existed in Virginia, and that if slaves were abducted in Virginia, +the criminal nature of the act could not be shaken off because the accused +changed his geographical base. Seward was a prince of logicians: the +subtleties of reasoning and the smoke of rhetoric were to his fancy, and +although there is not a visible smile in the whole "Virginia Controversy," +I can not but think that his sleeves were puffed with laughter as he +searched the universe for reasons to satisfy the haughty First Families of +Virginia. And all the while, please note that he held the alleged +abductors safe and secure 'gainst harm's way. + +In this correspondence he placed himself on record as an Abolitionist of +the Abolitionists; and the name of Seward became listed then and there for +vengeance--or immortality. The subject had been forced upon him, and he +then expressed the sentiment that he continued to voice until Eighteen +Hundred Sixty-five, that America could not exist half-free and half-slave. +It must be a land of slaveholders and slaves, or a land of free-men--he +was fully and irrevocably committed to the cause. + +In Eighteen Hundred Forty, he was re-elected Governor. The second +administration was marked, as was the first, by a vigorous policy of +pushing forward public improvements. + +At the close of his second term Seward found his personal affairs in +rather an unsettled condition, the expenses of official position having +exceeded his income. He had had a goodly taste of the ingratitude of +republics, and philosopher though he was, he was yet too young to know +that his experience in well-doing was not unique, a fact he came to +comprehend full well, in later years. And so he did that very human +thing--declared his intention of retiring permanently from public life. + +Once back at Auburn, clients flocked to him, and he took his pick of +business. And yet we find that public affairs were in his mind. Vexed +questions of State policy were brought to him to decide, and journeys were +made to Ohio and Michigan in the interests of men charged with +slave-stealing. There was little money in such practise and small honors, +but his heart was in the work. + +In Eighteen Hundred Forty-four, Seward entered with much zest into the +canvass in behalf of Henry Clay for President, as he thought Clay's +election would surely lead the way to general emancipation. + +In Eighteen Hundred Forty-eight, he supported General Taylor with equal +energy. When Taylor was elected, there proved to be a great deal of +opposition to him among the members from the South, in both the Senate and +the House of Representatives. The administration felt the need of being +backed by strong men in the Senate--men who could think on their feet, and +carry a point when necessary against the opposition that sought to +confuse and embarrass the friends of the administration with tireless +windmill elocution. + +From Washington came the urgent request that Seward should be sent to the +United States Senate. In Eighteen Hundred Forty-nine, he was chosen +senator and from the first became the trusted leader of the administration +party. + +The year after Seward's election to the Senate, President Taylor died and +Vice-President Fillmore (who had the happiness to live in the village of +East Aurora, New York) succeeded to the office, but Seward still remained +leader of the Anti-Slavery Party. + +Seward's second term as United States Senator closed in Eighteen Hundred +Sixty-one. In Eighteen Hundred Fifty-five, when his first term expired, +there was a very strenuous effort made against his re-election. His strong +and continued anti-slavery position had caused him to be thoroughly hated +both North and South. He was spoken of as "a seditious agitator and a +dangerous man." + +But in spite of opposition he was again sent back to Washington. Small, +slim, gentle, modest and low-voiced, he was pointed out in Pennsylvania +Avenue as "one who reads much and sees quite through the deeds of men." + +Men who are well traduced and hotly denounced are usually pretty good +quality. No better encomium is needed than the detraction of some people. +And men who are well hated also have friends who love them well. Thus +does the law of compensation ever live. + +In Eighteen Hundred Fifty-six, there was a goodly little demonstration in +favor of Seward for President, but the idea of running such a radical for +the chief office of the people was quickly downed; and Seward himself knew +the temper of the times too well to take the matter very seriously. + +But the years between Eighteen Hundred Fifty-six and Eighteen Hundred +Sixty were years of agitation and earnest thought, and the idea that +slavery was merely a local question was getting both depolarized and +dehorned. The non-slaveholding North was rubbing its sleepy eyes, and +asking, Who is this man Seward, anyway? The belief was growing that +Seward, Garrison, Sumner and Phillips were something more than +self-seeking agitators, and many declared them true patriots. In every +town and city, in every Northern State, political clubs sprang into being +and their battle-cry was "Seward!" It seemed to be a foregone conclusion +that Seward would be the next President. When the convention met, the +first ballot showed one hundred seventy-three votes for Seward and one +hundred two for Lincoln, the rest, scattering. But Seward's friends had +marshaled their entire strength--all the rest was opposition--while +Lincoln was an unknown quantity. + +When the news went forth that Lincoln was nominated, Seward received the +tidings in his library at Auburn; and the myth-makers have told us that +he cried aloud, and that the carved lions on his gateposts shed salty +tears. But Seward knew the opposition to his name, and was of too stern a +moral fiber to fix his heart upon the result of a wire-pulling convention. +The motto of his life had been: Be prepared for the unexpected. It may be +that the lions on the gateposts shed tears, and it is possible there was +weeping in the Seward household--but not by Seward. + +He entered upon a hearty and vigorous campaign in support of +Lincoln--making a tour through the West and being greeted everywhere with +an enthusiasm that rivaled that shown for the candidate. + +Seward said to his wife, when the news came that Lincoln was nominated: +"He will be elected, but he will have to face the greatest difficulties +and carry the greatest burdens that ever a man has been called to bear. He +will need me, but look you, my dear, I will not serve under him. I must be +at the head or nowhere." + +Lincoln knew Seward, and Seward didn't knew Lincoln. And so after the +Convention Lincoln journeyed down East. It took two days to go from +Chicago to Buffalo, and there were no sleeping-cars; and then Lincoln went +on from Buffalo to Auburn--another day's journey. Lincoln wore his +habitual duster and the tall hat, a little the worse for wear. He +telegraphed Seward he was coming, and, of course, Seward met him at the +station in Auburn. Lincoln got off the car alone, unattended, carrying his +carpetbag, homemade, with the initials "A.L." embroidered on the side by +the fair hands of Fannie Anna Rebecca Todd. + +Seward and his two sons--William and Frederick--met the coming President, +and the boys laughed at the dusty, uncouth, sad and awkward individual, +six feet five, who disembarked. + +The carriage was waiting, but Lincoln refused to ride, saying, "Boys, +let's walk," and so they walked up the hill, in through past the stone +gateposts where the lions stood that shed tears. Seward ran ahead into the +house and said to his wife: "Look you, my dear, we have misjudged this +man. Do not laugh. He is the greatest man in the world!" + +Three months later, Seward met Lincoln by appointment in Chicago; and from +that time on, to the day of Lincoln's death, Seward served his chief with +hands and feet, with eyes and ears, and with brain and soul. When Lincoln +was elected, his wisdom was at once manifest in securing Seward as +Secretary of State. The record of those troublous times and the masterly +way in which Seward served his country are too vivid in the minds of men +to need reviewing here, but the regard of Lincoln for this man, who so +well complemented his own needs, is worthy of our remembrance. Seward was +the only member of Lincoln's first Cabinet who stood by him straight +through and entered the second. + +Early in April, Eighteen Hundred Sixty-five, Seward met with a serious +accident by being thrown from his carriage and dashed against the +curbstone. One arm and both jaws were fractured, and besides he was badly +bruised in other parts of his body. On April Thirteenth, Lincoln returned +from his trip to Richmond, where he had had an interview with Grant. That +evening he walked over from the White House to Seward's residence. The +stricken man was totally unable to converse, but Lincoln, sitting on the +edge of the bed and holding the old man's thin hands, told in solemn, +serious monotone of the ending of the war; of what he had seen and heard; +of the plans he had made for sending soldiers home and providing for an +army whipped and vanquished, and of what was best to do to bind up a +nation's wounds. + +Five years before, these men had stood before the world as rivals. Then +they joined hands as friends, and during the four years of strife and +blood had met each day and advised and counseled concerning every great +detail. Their opinions often differed widely, but there was always frank +expression and, in the main, their fears and doubts and hopes had all been +one. + +But now at last the smoke had cleared away, and they had won. The victory +had been too dearly bought for proud boast or vain exultation, but victory +still it was. + +And as the strong and homely Lincoln told the tale the stricken man could +answer back only by pressure of a hand. + +At last the presence of the nurse told Lincoln it was time to go; in grave +jest he half-apologized for his long stay, and told of a man in Sangamon +County who used to say there is no medicine like good news. And rumor has +it that he then stooped and kissed the sick man's cheek. And then he went +his way. + +The next night at the same hour a man entered the Seward home, saying that +he had been sent with messages by the doctor. Being refused admittance to +the sick-chamber, he drew a pistol and endeavored to shoot Seward's son +who guarded the door; but being foiled in this he crushed the young man's +skull with the heavy weapon, and springing over his body dashed at the +emaciated figure of Seward with uplifted dagger. A dozen times he struck +at the face and throat and breast of the almost dying man, and then +thinking he had done his work made rapidly away. + +At the same time, linked by Fate in a sort of poetic justice, with the +thought that if one deserved death so did the other, Hate had with surer +aim sent an assassin's bullet home--and Lincoln died. + +Weeks passed and the strong vitality that had served Seward in such good +stead did not forsake him. Men of his stamp are hard to kill. + +On a beautiful May-day, Seward, so reduced that a woman carried him, was +taken out on the veranda of his house and watched that solid mass of +glittering steel and faded blue that moved through Pennsylvania Avenue in +triumphal march. Sherman with head uncovered rode down to Seward's home, +saluted, and then back to join his goodly company, and many others of +lesser note did the same. + +Health and strength came slowly back, and happy was the day when he was +carried to the office of Secretary of State and, propped in his chair, +again began his work. Another President had come, but meet it was that the +Secretary of State should still hold his place. + +Seward lived full eleven years after that, seemingly dragging with +unquenched spirit that slashed and broken form. But the glint did not fade +from his eye, nor did the proud head lose its poise. + +He died in his office among his books and papers, sane and sensible up to +the very moment when his spirit took its flight. + + + + +ABRAHAM LINCOLN + + The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, + but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the + living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which + they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is + rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining + before us, that from these honored dead we take increased + devotion to the cause for which they gave the last full measure + of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall + not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a + new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the + people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth. + --Speech at Gettysburg + +[Illustration: ABRAHAM LINCOLN] + + +No, dearie, I do not think my childhood differed much from that of other +good healthy country youngsters. I've heard folks say that childhood has +its sorrows and all that, but the sorrows of country children do not last +long. The young rustic goes out and tells his troubles to the birds and +flowers, and the flowers nod in recognition, and the robin that sings from +the top of a tall poplar-tree when the sun goes down says plainly it has +sorrows of its own--and understands. + +I feel a pity for all those folks who were born in a big city, and thus +got cheated out of their childhood. Zealous ash-box inspectors in gilt +braid, prying policemen with clubs, and signs reading, "Keep Off the +Grass," are woeful things to greet the gaze of little souls fresh from +God. + +Last Summer six "Fresh Airs" were sent out to my farm, from the Eighth +Ward. Half an hour after their arrival, one of them, a little girl five +years old, who had constituted herself mother of the party, came rushing +into the house exclaiming, "Say, Mister, Jimmy Driscoll he's walkin' on de +grass!" + +I well remember the first Keep-Off-the-Grass sign I ever saw. It was in a +printed book; it wasn't exactly a sign, only a picture of a sign, and the +single excuse I could think of for such a notice was that the field was +full of bumblebee-nests, and the owner, being a good man and kind, did not +want barefoot boys to add bee-stings to stone-bruises. And I never now see +one of those signs but that I glance at my feet to make sure that I have +shoes on. + +Given the liberty of the country, the child is very near to Nature's +heart; he is brother to the tree and calls all the dumb, growing things by +name. He is sublimely superstitious. His imagination, as yet untouched by +disillusion, makes good all that earth lacks, and habited in a healthy +body the soul sings and soars. + +In childhood, magic and mystery lie close around us. The world in which we +live is a panorama of constantly unfolding delights, our faith in the +Unknown is limitless, and the words of Job, uttered in mankind's early +morning, fit our wondering mood: "He stretcheth out the north over empty +space, and hangeth the earth upon nothing." + +I am old, dearie, very old. In my childhood much of the State of Illinois +was a prairie, where wild grass waved and bowed before the breeze, like +the tide of a summer sea. I remember when "relatives" rode miles and miles +in springless farm-wagons to visit cousins, taking the whole family and +staying two nights and a day; when books were things to be read; when the +beaver and the buffalo were not extinct; when wild pigeons came in clouds +that shadowed the sun; when steamboats ran on the Sangamon; when Bishop +Simpson preached; when Hell was a place, not a theory, and Heaven a +locality whose fortunate inhabitants had no work to do; when Chicago +newspapers were ten cents each; when cotton cloth was fifty cents a yard, +and my shirt was made from a flour-sack, with the legend, "Extra XXX," +across my proud bosom, and just below the words in flaming red, "Warranted +Fifty Pounds!" + +The mornings usually opened with smothered protests against getting up, +for country folks then were extremists in the matter of "early to bed, +early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." We hadn't much +wealth, nor were we very wise, but we had health to burn. But aside from +the unpleasantness of early morning, the day was full of possibilities of +curious things to be found in the barn and under spreading +gooseberry-bushes, or if it rained, the garret was an Alsatia unexplored. + +The evolution of the individual mirrors the evolution of the race. In the +morning of the world man was innocent and free; but when +self-consciousness crept in and he possessed himself of that disturbing +motto, "Know Thyself," he took a fall. + +Yet knowledge usually comes to us with a shock, just as the mixture +crystallizes when the chemist gives the jar a tap. We grow by throes. + +I well remember the day when I was put out of my Eden. + +My father and mother had gone away in the one-horse wagon, taking the baby +with them, leaving me in care of my elder sister. It was a stormy day and +the air was full of fog and mist. It did not rain very much, only in +gusts, but great leaden clouds chased each other angrily across the sky. +It was very quiet there in the little house on the prairie, except when +the wind came and shook the windows and rattled at the doors. The morning +seemed to drag and wouldn't pass, just out of contrariness; and I wanted +it to go fast because in the afternoon my sister was to take me somewhere, +but where I did not know, but that we should go somewhere was promised +again and again. + +As the day wore on we went up into the little garret and strained our eyes +across the stretching prairie to see if some one was coming. There had +been much rain, for on the prairie there was always too much rain or else +too little. It was either drought or flood. Dark swarms of wild ducks were +in all the ponds; V-shaped flocks of geese and brants screamed overhead, +and down in the slough cranes danced a solemn minuet. + +Again and again we looked for the coming something, and I began to cry, +fearing we had been left there, forgotten of Fate. + +At last we went out by the barn and, with much boosting, I climbed to the +top of the haystack and my sister followed. And still we watched. + +"There they come!" exclaimed my sister. + +"There they come!" I echoed, and clapped two red, chapped hands for joy. + +Away across the prairie, miles and miles away, was a winding string of +wagons, a dozen perhaps, one right behind another. We watched until we +could make out our own white horse, Bob, and then we slid down the hickory +pole that leaned against the stack, and made our way across the spongy sod +to the burying-ground that stood on a knoll half a mile away. + +We got there before the procession, and saw a great hole, with square +corners, dug in the ground. It was half-full of water, and a man in bare +feet, with trousers rolled to his knees, was working industriously to bail +it out. + +The wagons drove up and stopped. And out of one of them four men lifted a +long box and set it down beside the hole where the man still bailed and +dipped. The box was opened and in it was Si Johnson. Si lay very still, +and his face was very blue, and his clothes were very black, save for his +shirt, which was very white, and his hands were folded across his breast, +just so, and held awkwardly in the stiff fingers was a little New +Testament. We all looked at the blue face, and the women cried softly. The +men took off their hats while the preacher prayed, and then we sang, +"There'll be no more parting there." + +The lid of the box was nailed down, lines were taken from the harness of +one of the teams standing by and were placed around the long box, and it +was lowered with a splash into the hole. Then several men seized spades +and the clods fell with clatter and echo. The men shoveled very hard, +filling up the hole, and when it was full and heaped up, they patted it +all over with the backs of their spades. + +Everybody remained until this was done, and then we got into the wagons +and drove away. + +Nearly a dozen of the folks came over to our house for dinner, including +the preacher, and they all talked of the man who was dead and how he came +to die. + +Only two days before, this man, Si Johnson, stood in the doorway of his +house and looked out at the falling rain. It had rained for three days, so +that they could not plow, and Si was angry. Besides this, his two brothers +had enlisted and gone away to the War and left him all the work to do. He +did not go to War because he was a "Copperhead"; and as he stood there in +the doorway looking at the rain, he took a chew of tobacco, and then he +swore a terrible oath. + +And ere the swear-words had escaped from his lips, there came a blinding +flash of lightning, and the man fell all in a heap like a sack of oats. + +And he was dead. + +Whether he died because he was a Copperhead, or because he took a chew of +tobacco, or because he swore, I could not exactly understand. I waited for +a convenient lull in the conversation and asked the preacher why the man +died, and he patted me on the head and told me it was "the vengeance of +God," and that he hoped I would grow up and be a good man and never chew +tobacco nor swear. + +The preacher is alive now. He is an old, old man with long, white +whiskers, and I never see him but that I am tempted to ask for the exact +truth as to why Si Johnson was struck by lightning. + +Yet I suppose it was because he was a Copperhead: all Copperheads chewed +tobacco and swore, and that his fate was merited no one but the living +Copperheads in that community doubted. + +That was an eventful day to me. Like men whose hair turns from black to +gray in a night, I had left babyhood behind at a bound, and the problems +of the world were upon me, clamoring for solution. + + * * * * * + +There was war in the land. When it began I did not know, but that it was +something terrible I could guess. I thought of it all the rest of the day +and dreamed of it at night. Many men had gone away; and every day men in +blue straggled by, all going south, forever south. + +And all the men straggling along that road stopped to get a drink at our +well, drawing the water with the sweep, and drinking out of the bucket, +and squirting a mouthful of water over each other. They looked at my +father's creaking doctor's sign, and sang, "Old Mother Hubbard, she went +to the cupboard." + +They all sang that. They were very jolly, just as though they were going +to a picnic. Some of them came back that way a few years later and they +were not so jolly. And some there were who never came back at all. + +Freight-trains passed southward, blue with men in the cars, and on top of +the cars, and in the caboose, and on the cowcatcher, always going south +and never north. For "Down South" were many Rebels, and all along the way +south were Copperheads, and they all wanted to come north and kill us, so +soldiers had to go down there and fight them. + +And I marveled much that if God hated Copperheads, as our preacher said He +did, why He didn't send lightning and kill them, just in a second, as He +had Si Johnson. And then all that would have to be done would be to send +for a doctor to see that they were surely dead, and a preacher to pray, +and the neighbors would dress them in their best Sunday suits of black, +folding their hands very carefully across their breasts, then we would +bury them deep, filling in the dirt and heaping it up, patting it all down +very carefully with the back of a spade, and then go away and leave them +until Judgment-Day. + +Copperheads were simply men who hated Lincoln. The name came from +copperhead-snakes, which are worse than rattlers, for rattlers rattle and +give warning. A rattler is an open enemy, but you never know that a +copperhead is around until he strikes. He lies low in the swale and +watches his chance. "He is the worstest snake that am." + +It was Abe Lincoln of Springfield who was fighting the Rebels that were +trying to wreck the country and spread red ruin. The Copperheads were +wicked folks at the North who sided with the Rebels. Society was divided +into two classes: those who favored Abe Lincoln, and those who told lies +about him. All the people I knew and loved, loved Abe Lincoln. + +I was born at Bloomington, Illinois, through no choosing of my own, and +Bloomington is further famous as being the birthplace of the Republican +party. When a year old I persuaded my parents to move seven miles north to +the village of Hudson, that then had five houses, a church, a store and a +blacksmith-shop. Many of the people I knew, knew Lincoln, for he used to +come to Bloomington several times a year "on the circuit" to try cases, +and at various times made speeches there. When he came he would tell +stories at the Ashley House, and when he was gone these stories would be +repeated by everybody. Some of these stories must have been peculiar, for +I once heard my mother caution my father not to tell any more "Lincoln +stories" at the dinner-table when we had company. + +And once Lincoln gave a lecture at the Presbyterian Church on the +"Progress of Man," when no one was there but the preacher, my Aunt Hannah +and the sexton. + +My Uncle Elihu and Aunt Hannah knew Abe Lincoln well. So did Jesse Fell, +James C. Conklin, Judge Davis, General Orme, Leonard Swett, Dick Yates and +lots of others I knew. They never called him "Mister Lincoln," but it was +always Abe, or Old Abe, or just plain Abe Lincoln. In that newly settled +country you always called folks by their first names, especially when you +liked them. And when they spoke the name, "Abe Lincoln," there was +something in the voice that told of confidence, respect and affection. + +Once when I was at my Aunt Hannah's, Judge Davis was there and I sat on +his lap. Years afterward I boasted to Robert Ingersoll that when I wore +trousers buttoned to a calico waist I used to sit on the lap of David +Davis, and Colonel Ingersoll laughed and said, "Now I know you are a liar, +for David Davis didn't have any lap." The only thing about the interview +I remember was that the Judge really didn't have any lap to speak of. + +After Judge Davis had gone, Aunt Hannah said, "You must always remember +Judge Davis, for he is the man who made Abe Lincoln!" + +And when I said, "Why, I thought God made Lincoln," they all laughed. + +After a little pause my inquiring mind caused me to ask, "Who made Judge +Davis?" And Uncle Elihu answered, "Abe Lincoln." + +Then they all laughed more than ever. + + * * * * * + +Many volunteers were being called for. Neighbors and neighbors' boys were +enlisting--going to the support of Abe Lincoln. + +Then one day my father went away, too. Many of the neighbors went with us +to the station when he took the four-o'clock train, and we all cried, +except mother--she didn't cry until she got home. My father had gone to +Springfield to enlist as a surgeon. In three days he came back and told us +he had enlisted, and was to be assigned his regiment in a week, and go at +once to the front. He was always a kind man, but during that week when he +was waiting to be told where to go, he was very gentle and more kind than +ever. He told me I must be the man of the house while he was away, and +take care of my mother and sisters, and not forget to feed the chickens +every morning; and I promised. + +At the end of the week a big envelope came from Springfield marked in the +corner, "Official." + +My mother would not open it, and so it lay on the table until the doctor's +return. We all looked at it curiously, and my eldest sister gazed on it +long with lack-luster eye and then rushed from the room with her check +apron over her head. + +When my father rode up on horseback I ran to tell him that the envelope +had come. + +We all stood breathless and watched him break the seals. He took out the +letter and read it silently and passed it to my mother. + +I have the letter before me now, and it says: "The Department is still of +the opinion that it does not care to accept men having varicose veins, +which make the wearing of bandages necessary. Your name, however, has been +filed and should we be able to use your services, will advise." + +Then we were all very glad about the varicose veins, and I am afraid I +went out and boasted to my play-fellows about our family possessions. + +It was not so very long after, that there was a Big Meeting in the +"timber." People came from all over the county to attend it. The chief +speaker was a man by the name of Ingersoll, a colonel in the army, who was +back home for just a day or two on furlough. Folks said he was the +greatest orator in Peoria County. + +Early in the morning the wagons began to go by our house, and all along +the four roads that led to the grove we could see great clouds of dust +that stretched away for miles and miles and told that the people were +gathering by the thousands. They came in wagons and on horseback, carrying +babies; two boys on one horse were common sights; and there were various +four-horse teams with wagons filled with girls all dressed in white, +carrying flags. + +All our folks went. My mother fastened the back door of our house with a +bolt on the inside, and then locked the front door with a key, and hid the +key under the doormat. + +At the grove there was much hand-shaking and visiting and asking after the +folks and for the news. Several soldiers were present, among them a man +who lived near us, called "Little Ramsey." Three one-armed men were there, +and a man named Al Sweetser, who had only one leg. These men wore blue, +and were seated on the big platform that was all draped with flags. Plank +seats were arranged, and every plank held its quota. Just outside the +seats hundred of men stood, and beyond these were wagons filled with +people. Every tree in the woods seemed to have a horse tied to it, and the +trees over the speakers' platform were black with men and boys. I never +knew before that there were so many horses and people in the world. + +When the speaking began, the people cheered, and then they became very +quiet, and only the occasional squealing and stamping of the horses could +be heard. Our preacher spoke first, and then the lawyer from Bloomington, +and then came the great man from Peoria. The people cheered more than ever +when he stood up, and kept hurrahing so long I thought they were not going +to let him speak at all. + +At last they quieted down, and the speaker began. His first sentence +contained a reference to Abe Lincoln. The people applauded, and some one +proposed three cheers for "Honest Old Abe." Everybody stood up and +cheered, and I, perched on my father's shoulder, cheered too. And beneath +the legend, "Warranted Fifty Pounds," my heart beat proudly. Silence came +at last--a silence filled only by the neighing and stamping of horses and +the rapping of a woodpecker in a tall tree. Every ear was strained to +catch the orator's first words. + +The speaker was just about to begin. He raised one hand, but ere his lips +moved, a hoarse, guttural shout echoed through the woods, "Hurrah'h'h for +Jeff Davis!!!" + +"Kill that man!" rang a sharp, clear voice in instant answer. + +A rumble like an awful groan came from the vast crowd. My father was +standing on a seat, and I had climbed to his shoulder. The crowd surged +like a monster animal toward a tall man standing alone in a wagon. He +swung a blacksnake whip around him, and the lash fell savagely on two gray +horses. At a lunge, the horses, the wagon and the tall man had cleared the +crowd, knocking down several people in their flight. One man clung to the +tailboard. The whip wound with a hiss and a crack across his face, and he +fell stunned in the roadway. + +A clear space of full three hundred feet now separated the man in the +wagon from the great throng, which with ten thousand hands seemed ready to +tear him limb from limb. Revolver shots rang out, women screamed, and +trampled children cried for help. Above it all was the roar of the mob. +The orator, in vain pantomime, implored order. + +I saw Little Ramsey drop off the limb of a tree astride of a horse that +was tied beneath, then lean over, and with one stroke of a knife sever the +halter. + +At the same time fifty other men seemed to have done the same thing, for +flying horses shot out from different parts of the woods, all on the +instant. The man in the wagon was half a mile away now, still standing +erect. The gray horses were running low, with noses and tails +outstretched. + +The spread-out riders closed in a mass and followed at terrific speed. The +crowd behind seemed to grow silent. We heard the patter-patter of barefoot +horses ascending the long, low hill. One rider on a sorrel horse fell +behind. He drew his horse to one side, and sitting over with one foot in +the long stirrup, plied the sorrel across the flank with a big, white-felt +hat. The horse responded, and crept around to the front of the flying +mass. + +The wagon had disappeared over a gentle rise of ground, and then we lost +the horsemen, too. Still we watched, and two miles across the prairie we +got a glimpse of running horses in a cloud of dust, and into another +valley they settled, and then we lost them for good. + +The speaking began again and went on amid applause and tears, with +laughter set between. + +I do not remember what was said, but after the speaking, as we made our +way homeward, we met Little Ramsey and the young man who rode the sorrel +horse. + +They told us that they had caught the Copperhead after a ten-mile chase, +and that he was badly hurt, for the wagon had upset and the fellow was +beneath it. Ramsey asked my father to go at once to see what could be done +for him. + +The man, however, was quite dead when my father reached him. There was a +purple mark around his neck: and the opinion seemed to be that he had got +tangled up in the harness or something. + + * * * * * + +The war-time months went dragging by, and the burden of gloom in the air +seemed to lift; for when the Chicago "Tribune" was read each evening in +the post-office it told of victories on land and sea. Yet it was a joy not +untinged with black; for in the church across from our house, funerals had +been held for farmer boys who had died in prison-pens and been buried in +Georgia trenches. + +One youth there was, I remember, who had stopped to get a drink at our +pump, and squirted a mouthful of water over me because I was handy. + +One night the postmaster was reading aloud the names of the killed at +Gettysburg, and he ran right on to the name of this boy. The boy's father +sat there on a nail-keg, chewing a straw. The postmaster tried to shuffle +over the name and on to the next. + +"Hi! Wha--what's that you said?" + +"Killed in honorable battle--Snyder, Hiram," said the postmaster with a +forced calmness. + +The boy's father stood up with a jerk. Then he sat down. Then he stood up +again and staggered his way to the door and fumbled for the latch like a +blind man. + +"God help him! he's gone to tell the old woman," said the postmaster as he +blew his nose on a red handkerchief. + +The preacher preached a funeral sermon for the boy, and on the little +pyramid that marked the family lot in the burying-ground they carved the +words: "Killed in honorable battle, Hiram Snyder, aged nineteen." Not +long after, strange, yellow, bearded men in faded blue began to arrive. +Great welcomes were given them; and at the regular Wednesday evening +prayer-meeting thanksgivings were poured out for their safe return, with +names of company and regiment duly mentioned for the Lord's better +identification. Bees were held for some of these returned farmers, where +twenty teams and fifty men, old and young, did a season's farm-work in a +day, and split enough wood for a year. At such times the women would bring +big baskets of provisions, and long tables would be set, and there were +very jolly times, with cracking of many jokes that were veterans, and the +day would end with pitching horseshoes, and at last with singing "Auld +Lang Syne." + +It was at one such gathering that a ghost appeared--a lank, saffron ghost, +ragged as a scarecrow--wearing a foolish smile and the cape of a +cavalryman's overcoat with no coat beneath it. The apparition was a youth +of about twenty, with a downy beard all over his face, and countenance +well mellowed with coal-soot, as though he had ridden several days on top +of a freight-car that was near the engine. + +This ghost was Hiram Snyder. + +All forgave him the shock of surprise he caused us--all except the +minister who had preached his funeral sermon. Years after I heard this +minister remark in a solemn, grieved tone: "Hiram Snyder is a man who can +not be relied on." + + * * * * * + +As the years pass, the miracle of the seasons means less to us. But what +country boy can forget the turning of the leaves from green to gold, and +the watchings and waitings for the first hard frost that ushers in the +nutting season! And then the first fall of snow, with its promise of +skates and sleds and tracks of rabbits, and mayhap bears, and strange +animals that only come out at night, and that no human eye has ever seen! + +Beautiful are the seasons; and glad I am that I have not yet quite lost my +love for each. But now they parade past with a curious swiftness! They +look at me out of wistful eyes, and sometimes one calls to me as she goes +by and asks, "Why have you done so little since I saw you last?" And I can +only answer, "I was thinking of you." + +I do not need another incarnation to live my life over again. I can do +that now, and the resurrection of the past, through memory, that sees +through closed eyes, is just as satisfactory as the thing itself. + +Were we talking of the seasons? Very well, dearie, the seasons it shall +be. They are all charming, but if I were to wed any it would be Spring. +How well I remember the gentle perfume of her comings, and her warm, +languid breath! + +There was a time when I would go out of the house some morning, and the +snow would be melting, and Spring would kiss my cheek, and then I would be +all aglow with joy and would burst into the house, and cry: "Spring is +here! Spring is here!" For you know we always have to divide our joy with +some one. One can bear grief, but it takes two to be glad. + +And then my mother would smile and say, "Yes, my son, but do not wake the +baby!" + +Then I would go out and watch the snow turn to water, and run down the +road in little rivulets to the creek, that would swell until it became a +regular Mississippi, so that when we waded the horse across, the water +would come to the saddlegirth. + +Then once, I remember, the bridge was washed away, and all the teams had +to go around and through the water, and some used to get stuck in the mud +on the other bank. It was great fun! + +The first "Spring beauties" bloomed very early in that year; violets came +out on the south side of rotting logs, and cowslips blossomed in the +slough as they never had done before. Over on the knoll, prairie-chickens +strutted pompously and proudly drummed. The war was over! Lincoln had won, +and the country was safe! + +The jubilee was infectious, and the neighbors who used to come and visit +us would tell of the men and boys who would soon be back. The war was +over! + +My father and mother talked of it across the table, and the men talked of +it at the store, and earth, sky and water called to each other in glad +relief, "The war is over!" + +But there came a morning when my father walked up from the +railroad-station very fast, and looking very serious. He pushed right past +me as I sat in the doorway. I followed him into the kitchen where my +mother was washing dishes, and heard him say, "They have killed Lincoln!" +and then he burst into tears. I had never before seen my father shed +tears--in fact, I had never seen a man cry. There is something terrible in +the grief of a man. + +Soon the church-bell across the road began to toll. It tolled all that +day. Three men--I can give you their names--rang the bell all day long, +tolling, slowly tolling, tolling until night came and the stars came out. +I thought it a little curious that the stars should come out, for Lincoln +was dead; but they did, for I saw them as I trotted by my father's side +down to the post-office. + +There was a great crowd of men there. At the long line of peeled-hickory +hitching-poles were dozens of saddle-horses. The farmers had come for +miles to get details of the news. + +On the long counters that ran down each side of the store men were seated, +swinging their feet, and listening intently to some one who was reading +aloud from a newspaper. We worked our way past the men who were standing +about, and with several of these my father shook hands solemnly. + +Leaning against the wall near the window was a big, red-faced man, whom I +knew as a Copperhead. He had been drinking, evidently, for he was making +boozy efforts to stand very straight. There were only heard a subdued buzz +of whispers and the monotonous voice of the reader, as he stood there in +the center, his newspaper in one hand and a lighted candle in the other. + +The red-faced man lurched two steps forward, and in a loud voice said, +"L--L--Lincoln is dead--an' I'm damn glad of it!" + +Across the room I saw two men struggling with Little Ramsey. Why they +should struggle with him I could not imagine, but ere I could think the +matter out, I saw him shake himself loose from the strong hands that +sought to hold him. He sprang upon the counter, and in one hand I saw he +held a scale-weight. Just an instant he stood there, and then the weight +shot straight at the red-faced man. The missile glanced on his shoulder +and shot through the window. In another second the red-faced man plunged +through the window, taking the entire sash with him. + +"You'll have to pay for that window!" called the alarmed postmaster out +into the night. + +The store was quickly emptied, and on following outside no trace of the +red man could be found. The earth had swallowed both the man and the +five-pound scale-weight. + +After some minutes had passed in a vain search for the weight and the +Copperhead, we went back into the store and the reading was continued. + +But the interruption had relieved the tension, and for the first time that +day men in that post-office joked and laughed. It even lifted from my +heart the gloom that threatened to smother me, and I went home and told +the story to my mother and sisters, and they too smiled, so closely akin +are tears and smiles. + + * * * * * + +The story of Lincoln's life had been ingrained into me long before I ever +read a book. For the people who knew Lincoln, and the people who knew the +people that Lincoln knew, were the people I knew. I visited at their +houses and heard them tell what Lincoln had said when he sat at table +where I then sat. I listened long to Lincoln stories, and "and that +reminds me" was often on the lips of those I loved. All the tales told by +the faithful Herndon and the needlessly loyal Nicolay and Hay were current +coin, and the rehearsal of the Lincoln-Douglas debate was commonplace. + +When our own poverty was mentioned, we compared it with the poverty that +Lincoln had endured, and felt rich. I slept in a garret where the winter's +snow used to sift merrily through the slab shingles, but then I was +covered with warm buffalo-robes, and a loving mother tucked me in and on +my forehead imprinted a goodnight kiss. But Lincoln at the same age had no +mother and lived in a hut that had neither windows, doors nor floor, and a +pile of leaves and straw in the corner was his bed. Our house had two +rooms, but one Winter the Lincoln home was only a shed enclosed on three +sides. + +I knew of his being a clerk in a country store at the age of twenty, and +that up to that time he had read but four books; of his running a +flatboat, splitting rails, and poring at night over a dog-eared law-book; +of his asking to sleep in the law-office of Joshua Speed, and of Speed's +giving him permission to move in. And of his going away after his "worldly +goods" and coming back in ten minutes carrying an old pair of saddlebags, +which he threw into a corner saying, "Speed, I've moved!". + +I knew of his twenty years of country law-practise, when he was considered +just about as good and no better than a dozen others on that circuit, and +of his making a bare living during that time. Then I knew of his gradually +awakening to the wrong of slavery, of the expansion of his mind, so that +he began to incur the jealousy of rivals and the hatred of enemies, and of +the prophetic feeling in that slow but sure moving mind that "a house +divided against itself can not stand. I believe this Government can not +endure permanently half-slave and half-free." + +I knew of the debates with Douglas and the national attention they +attracted, and of Judge Davis' remark, "Lincoln has more commonsense than +any other man in America"; and then, chiefly through Judge Davis' +influence, of his being nominated for President at the Chicago Convention. +I knew of his election, and the coming of the war, and the long, hard +fight, when friends and foes beset, and none but he had the patience and +the courage that could wait. And then I knew of his death, that death +which then seemed a calamity--terrible in its awful blackness. + +But now the years have passed, and I comprehend somewhat of the paradox +of things, and I know that this death was just what he might have prayed +for. It was a fitting close for a life that had done a supreme and mighty +work. His face foretold the end. + +Lincoln had no home ties. In that plain, frame house, without embellished +yard or ornament, where I have been so often, there was no love that held +him fast. In that house there was no library, but in the parlor, where six +haircloth chairs and a slippery sofa to match stood guard, was a marble +table on which were various giftbooks in blue and gilt. He only turned to +that home when there was no other place to go. Politics, with its +attendant travel and excitement, allowed him to forget the +what-might-have-beens. Foolish bickering, silly pride, and stupid +misunderstanding pushed him out upon the streets and he sought to lose +himself among the people. And to the people at length he gave his time, +his talents, his love, his life. Fate took from him his home that the +country might call him savior. Dire tragedy was a fitting end; for only +the souls who have suffered are well-loved. + +Jealousy, disparagement, calumny, have all made way, and North and South +alike revere his name. + +The memory of his gentleness, his patience, his firm faith, and his great +and loving heart are the priceless heritage of a united land. He had +charity for all and malice toward none; he gave affection, and affection +is his reward. + +Honor and love are his. + + * * * * * + +SO HERE ENDETH "LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES OF AMERICAN STATESMEN," BEING +VOLUME THREE OF THE SERIES, AS WRITTEN BY ELBERT HUBBARD: EDITED AND +ARRANGED BY FRED BANN; MCMXXII + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES OF THE +GREAT, VOLUME 3 (OF 14)*** + + +******* This file should be named 13911.txt or 13911.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/9/1/13911 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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