Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][merged small]

ecstatic!" "That," quickly replied McNulta, "is the very moment when he gets into battle."

"No, damn it," said Oglesby, "it is the very moment he gets out!"

In his early manhood, Oglesby spent some years abroad. His pilgrimage extended even to Egypt, up the Nile, and to the Holy Land.

Few persons at that time having visited the Orient, Oglesby's descriptions of the wonders of the far-off countries were listened to with the deepest interest. With both memory and imagination in their prime, it can easily be believed that these wonders of the Orient lost nothing by his description. Soon after his return he lectured in Bloomington. The audience were delighted, especially with his description of the Pyramids.

None of us had ever before seen or heard a man who had actually, with his own eyes, beheld these wonders of the ages. Near the close of his lecture, and just after he had suggested the probability of Abraham and Sarah having taken in the Pyramids on their wedding trip, some one in the audience inquired:

"Who built the Pyramids ?"

[ocr errors]

Oh, damn it," quickly replied the orator, "I don't know who built them; I asked everybody I saw in Egypt and none of them knew!"

For much that is of interest in the career of Governor Oglesby I am indebted to his honored successor in office, my neighbor and friend, Hon. Joseph W. Fifer- than whom the country has had no braver soldier and the State no abler Chief Executive.

XXXVIII

THE ONE ENEMY

CALEB CUSHING'S POLITICAL CAREER HIS GREAT AMBITION A SEAT URON THE SUPREME BENCH HIS APPOINTMENT THEREΤΟ

THE

HIS ONE ENEMY DEFEATS HIS CONFIRMATION.

"He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,
And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere."

HE truth of the above couplet has rarely had more forcible illustration than in the case of the late Caleb Cushing of Massachusetts. In politics he was successively Whig, Democrat, and Republican. During his first political affiliation, he was a Representative in Congress; in the second a member of Pierce's Cabinet; and in the third a Minister abroad. He was an eminent lawyer, and for a term ably discharged the duties of Attorney-General of the United States. His one ambition was a seat upon the Supreme Bench.

This was at length gratified by his appointment as Chief Justice of the Great Court. Unfortunately he had, years before, given mortal offence to Aaron A. Sargent, then recently admitted to the bar. The latter soon after moved to California, and became in time a Senator from that State.

When the appointment of Cushing came before the Senate for confirmation, his one enemy was there. The appointee had long since forgotten the young lawyer he had once treated so rudely, but he had not been forgotten. The hour of revenge had now come. After a protracted and bitter struggle, Sargent, of the same political affiliation as Cushing, succeeded in defeating the confirmation by a single vote. The political sensation of the hour was the Senator's prompt message to his defeated enemy:

"Time at last sets all things even;

And if we do but watch the hour,
There never yet was human power
Which could evade, if unforgiven,
The patient search and vigil long,
Of him who treasures up a wrong.'

[ocr errors]

XXXIX

CONTRASTS OF TIMES

TRAVELLING IN 1845 COMPARED WITH THAT OF THE PRESENT DAY.

HILE I was Assistant Postmaster-General, Senator

W Whitthorne, of Tennessee, called at the Department

to see me on official business. Seated at a window overlooking the Capitol, he remarked that the chords of memory were touched as he entered the room; that when barely of age, he occupied for a time a desk as a clerk just where he was seated.

He then told me that at the time of the Presidential election in 1844 he was a law student in the office of Mr. Polk, and by his invitation came on with him to Washington. The journey of the President-elect, from Nashville to Washington, was in February, 1845, just prior to his inauguration. He was accompanied by the members of his immediate family, his law student Mr. Whitthorne, and the Hon. Cave Johnson, who was soon to hold a position in his Cabinet. The journey to Washington, as Senator Whitthorne told me, was of two weeks' duration: first, by steamboat on the Cumberland and the Ohio to Pittsburg; thence by stage coach to the national Capitol.

At the time mentioned, railroads scarcely had an existence south of the Ohio and west of the Alleghanies; and save the single wire from Washington to Baltimore, no telegraph line had been constructed.

How striking the commentary, alike upon human accomplishment, and upon opportunity under our free institutions, is here presented! The wearisome and hazardous journey of half a month by steamboat and stage coach had been succeeded by one in palace car of a day and a night of comparative ease and safety, and the clerk had risen from a humble place in the Department to that of Senator from one of the great States of the Union.

XL

ENDORSING THE ADMINISTRATION

DIFFICULTY EXPERIENCED BY DEMOCRATIC MEMBERS IN PROCURING APPOINTMENTS FOR THEIR CONSTITUENTS A NEW MEMBER THREATENS TO FRAME RESOLUTIONS OF CONDEMNATION - HE DOES THE VERY OPPOSITE AN EXPLANATORY ANECDOTE.

TH

HE Democratic members of the forty-ninth Congress who yet survive will probably recall something of the difficulty they experienced in procuring for aspiring constituents prompt appointments to positions of honor, trust, and profit, under the then lately inaugurated administration. An earnest desire was felt, and vehemently expressed at times, by those who had been long excluded from everything that savored of Federal recognition, for sweeping changes all along the line.

A new member of the House, from one of the border States, believing that his grievances were far too heavy to be meekly borne, made open declaration of war, and asserted with great confidence and with the free use of words nowhere to be found in "Little Helps to Youthful Beginners," that at the approaching Democratic convention of his State, resolutions of condemnation of no uncertain sound would be adopted. Some conciliatory observations, which I ventured to offer, were treated with scorn, and the irate member, still breathing out threatenings, hastily turned his footsteps homeward.

A few mornings later, I was agreeably surprised to find in The Post a telegram to the effect that upon the assembling of the convention aforementioned, the honorable gentlemen above designated, securing prompt recognition from the chair, had, under a suspension of the rules, secured the unanimous adoption of a resolution enthusiastically and uncon

« PreviousContinue »