feeling among the moneyed classes, though it might be transitory, and to be controlled by the possibilities of the passing moment. He met the gigantic daily outlay without even a temporary interruption, and the country grew rich, not only nominally in an inflated currency, but actually in a great development of material resources, beneath his management of the treasury. To find fault with him, and to talk of the "might have been,” seems unworthy; also unsatisfactory, since the consequences of a different policy are wholly matter of supposition. Charles Sumner, the preacher of the crusade, stands for the moral element. Possibly his most important work came before the war. But the prestige which he had gained made him a man to be reckoned with, and he had a following of fervent and resolute men in the country so numerous that his support was essential and his opinions had to be treated with respect. The career of Charles Francis Adams in England will be read for the first time in the life which forms a part of this series. It has been written by his son, of course with every possible advantage, and it is one of the most interesting chapters in the history of the civil war. Of him, too, it may be said that he seems to have been specially raised up for precisely the duty which he had to fulfill. A blunder on the part of our envoy to Great Britain would have possibly led to consequences which one trembles to contemplate even in imagination. The services of Franklin in France and the positive good of the French alliance in the Revolution, may be compared with the services of Mr. Adams in England and the negative advantage of non-interference by England on behalf of the South in the civil war. Mr. Adams's coolness, his unerring judgment, and the prestige of his name, in combination, made him the one man in the United States who ought by fitness to have held his post. That he did hold it was, perhaps, one of the two or three essential facts which together made Northern success possible, by the elimination of unfair and extrinsic causes of defeat. One part only of the picture remains to be drawn, the House of Representatives. It is by no means conducive to a cheerful patriotic pride to contemplate the general throng of the politicians of the country during the war. In plain truth, they did themselves little credit. Amid the excitement of the times they utterly failed to appreciate their true position, their personal and official limitations. They could not let military matters alone; they did not often recognize the boundaries of their own knowledge, and the proper scope of their usefulness. They intermeddled ceaselessly, embroiled everything, and as a consequence they obstructed success in the field almost as much as if they had been another Confederate army. It has been with some difficulty that any one from among them has been found whose life it was desirable to write. But Thaddeus Stevens was really a man of great power and note. Intense and earnest, he exerted a magnificent influence in the way of encouragement and inspiration. He adhered, if not altogether so closely as he ought, yet at least more closely than did many others, to the proper sphere of his duties as a civilian. Influential in oratory, skillful in political management, masterful in temperament, and of unflinching loyalty, he was long the genuine leader of the House. In recalling the several members of that body he stands forth as the one striking and dominant figure. Nor did his activity cease with the war; he continued preeminent in the questions which immediately succeeded it, so that the reconstruction of the country, without which our story would be incomplete, finds its proper place in his biography. Therewith, I think, the series reaches completion. JOHN T. MORSE, JR. September, 1898. |