till they sailed again, this Commonwealth first appeared to question the right, and to protect her mariners. The Legislature resolved to test the constitutionality of the enactment. In conformity with the resolution, the lamented Gov. Briggs appointed the Hon. Samuel Hoar to proceed to Charleston to procure evidence, and institute legal proceedings. He arrived there November, 1844. His threatened life, and expulsion from the city with his daughter, is the brief history of his mission.

The memorable Compromise of 1850, followed by slave-hunting at the North, was no less repugnant to the true heart of Massachusetts because her greatest statesman approved it on the ground of a constitutional demand not only, but that of conciliation and peace. The Nebraska Bill inaugurated a reign of terror in Kansas, among whose persecuted pioneers New-England emigrants were largely represented. But no event ripened more rapidly the general sentiment of the State than the trial and rendition of Anthony Burns in early June, 1854. The peaceful trial in the court-room, the armed soldiery escorting the victim to the UnitedStates cutter "Morris" without molestation, while the Commonwealth throbbed to her extremities with indignation over the intended insult, illustrated, as nothing had done before, her hatred to the system that offered it, and her indestructible love of order. The majesty of law awed the descendants of Revolutionary heroes into silence, while, like the divine Friend of the poor, one of his disciples was led, as a lamb to the slaughter, from freedom to bloody bondage.

May 22, 1856, the outrage upon Massachusetts and the nation, in its Capitol, was repeated by Senator Brooks in his cowardly and ruthless attack upon Charles Sumuer. When he lay apparently near death from the wounds inflicted upon his head, the State that sent him to the senate-chamber was moved with inexpressible emotions of grief and horror. The question was not, whether the remarkable speech on the Barbarism of Slavery was faultless in thought and delivery: it was enough to know that the murderous blows laid upon the brow of her senator were intended to express the domineering hate of the oppressor toward the Commonwealth not only, but the liberty-loving North; while it struck down the right of free discussion everywhere.

The very next year, the Dred Scott decision was rendered by Chief Justice Taney, against whose inhumanity Justice Curtis, from Massachusetts, gave his decided opinion, although himself a warm personal friend of Daniel Webster, and belonging to the conservative school.

The clergy and the churches, with comparatively few exceptions, have always shown that fealty to the principles of righteousness in the State, which distinguished the days of colonial heroism in the pulpit and in the assemblies of the people.

Thus nearly two hundred and fifty years of conflict with legalized wrongs, and of intelligent thought upon human rights and well-being, had prepared Massachusetts to meet bravely the second great life-struggle of Freedom on this continent. When the popular election of 1830 elevated to the presidency a man, who, in the minds of the people, will ever be associated with Washington, the trial-hour of Nationality came, and found her ready for it.

It will be seen by reference to Congressional records, that of the score of antislavery measures, which, during the four years of war, swept away the defences of oppression reared by the national legislation during fifty years, more than half of them were introduced by members from the single State of Massachusetts, whose prompt support of other bills was not unfrequently the influence that secured their passage. The abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, the great work of national emancipation, and the Bureau of Freedmen, are forever associated with the names of Massachusetts Congress-men. It is not an occasion for proud comparison with other States, but an historical fact to which we point the friends of freedom the world over, whenever the unfounded sneer is aimed at New England.

The recognition of this providential position occasionally appears in the record of public affairs made by the columns of the newspaper press. When the triumphant vindication of the principles of our Government by the popular elections of 1865 was known, the leading papers of Philadelphia had expressions of congratulation like those we quote in this connection:

To commence with the extreme East, we find that the stanch old Commonwealth of Massachusetts, whose consistency is as eternal as the waves of her bay, has, of course, rolled up her old majority in favor of the cause of freeSmall in size, small in population, when compared with her sisters, she is great in brain, and large of heart; and her action yesterday was only what we had cause to expect from her record in the past, and her attitude throughout the darkest hour of our national life.

Such a history suggests responsibilities corresponding with the greatness of the work committed to the Commonwealth in the training of her children for the duties before them, not only to

the South, but to the mighty West, throughout whose empire of material resources they are to be no inconsiderable power in its progress and character.

The influence of the State in the national councils, the work done by her Congress-men there, and the action of the local government at home, will appear more fully in the sketches of her leading statesmen when the Rebellion broke, like the storm upon the fisherman's bark of Galilee, on the Ship of State. No ship can go down with Him on board who guided the "Mayflower' over the wintry deep; but it was well that we had skilful and faithful men to man our richly-freighted vessel when the tempest came, an assurance that a kind Providence will continue to conduct it through the turbulent waters yet around it, onward in its course of glory and blessing.

CHAPTER II.

MASSACHUSETTS STATESMEN IN THE REBELLION.

Influence of the Leading Minds of the State upon the Nation.
His Birthplace. Enters College.

- Gov. John A. Andrew. - Graduates, and studies Law in Boston. - His Antislavery Position. In the Legislature. — Governor of the State during the Civil War. His Earnest and Active Loyalty. - Tributes to his Character.

A

MONG the inscriptions in Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia, not far from that of "The Nation's Birthplace," and between two quaint, very high-backed chairs, each bearing the words, "Continental Congress, 1774," shine the golden letters which make this record of the past:

"Within these walls

Henry, Hancock, and Adams
Inspired the

Delegates of the Colonies

With nerve and sinew for the

Toils of war,

Resulting in our National Independence."

Side by

Hancock and Adams were Massachusetts statesmen; and their names suggest again, by their association with the Virginia orator, the relation of the States to each other then and now. side in the glorious pre-eminence of eloquent and influential statesmanship stood the Bay State and the Old Dominion in the Revolutionary War. In the civil conflict, the one was still first in active loyalty, and its expression in the character, and power to guide the people, of her political leaders; while the other was both the first and the last great battle-field of Treason.

We have already glanced at the history of Massachusetts from the voyage of the "Mayflower" (and even before that vessel set sail) to the establishment of the Republic; and this is not the place to dwell upon the illustrious names that link the early years of the nation's existence with those of attempted suicide by a portion of her vast empire. We must be content with brief sketches of the most conspicuous actors in the suppression of the terrible revolt; and we begin fittingly this roll of honor with

his Excellency JOHN ALBION ANDREW, the twenty-first governor of Massachusetts since 1780.

He was born in Windham, Me., May 31, 1818. His boyhood was free from vices, and of a cheerful, sprightly, and studious character. Graduating at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, in 1837, he removed to Boston, and entered upon the study of law.

In 1840, he was admitted to the bar.

Thoroughly antislavery, he met every step of its aggressions with his protest, wherever his voice could speak for freedom.

In 1850, the passage of the Fugitive-slave Law called forth his warmest opposition to the enactment, and its enforcement in Massachusetts. He felt then, what few will deny now, that the measure was an intended test of slave-power, and an insult to the Commonwealth.

In 1858 he was elected to the Legislature, where his course was entirely consistent in the advocacy of human rights.

He was a delegate, in 1860, to the Republican Convention which nominated Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency, and voted for him.

The same year, he was elected Governor of Massachusetts by the largest popular vote ever cast for a candidate for that office. He foresaw, in the agitation at the South which followed the election of Mr. Lincoln, the beginning of a fearful conflict, and began to prepare for it. The militia of the State was summoned to the armories and the drill, and nothing omitted necessary to place it on a footing of efficiency. The unequalled foresight and prompt action displayed by the Governor will necessarily further appear in the annals of "Massachusetts in the Field."

Gov. Andrew was re-elected in 1861 with but feeble opposition, and successively in 1862, '63, and '64; and then declined to be again a candidate. His term of office expiring in January, 1866, he could rest from the herculean labor of carrying the State through the four years of war. He had given himself with untiring assiduity to the work of making the Commonwealth ever ready, as she was always willing, to stand in the front rank of the States, in cheerful sacrifice of all things, if required, to crush treason, and save the Republic by rescuing it from the grasp of a domineering tyranny, whose boast was that it took the fresh-moulded image of God from his hand, and stamped upon it, in the hour of its birth, "Goods and chattels personal.”

In the conference of loyal governors at Altoona, Penn., September, 1862, he was conspicuous in hopeful, ardent patriotism, and