CHAPTER XVII

.

THE PRESIDENCY OF GENERAL GRANT--THE REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE.

In the presidential election of 1868 Mr. Chandler was even more than usually active, both as an organizer and speaker. He delivered nearly forty addresses in his own State, which gave to the Grant and Colfax ticket 31,492 majority, and elected a Republican Congressman in each of its six districts. The Legislature chosen at the same time had 66 Republican majority upon joint ballot, and re-elected Mr. Chandler for his third Senatorial term, the Democratic vote being cast for the Hon. Sanford M. Green of Bay City. In the Republican caucus there was practically no opposition to Mr. Chandler's renomination, and he received on the first and only ballot 78 votes, 13 other ballots being cast for seven gentlemen by way of personal compliment. The inauguration of President Grant, on March 4, 1869, renewed Mr. Chandler's influence with the executive branch of the government, and the political and personal friendship between him and the modest, resolute, and illustrious soldier who succeeded Andrew Johnson grew mutually stronger and more appreciative from that day.

Very much of the legislation of President Grant's first term, which received Mr. Chandler's vigilant attention and absorbed no small share of his energy, related to the details of the public business, and furnishes no biographical material of permanent interest. He supported the Fifteenth Amendment in all its stages, and also the Civil Rights bills, which he regarded as incomplete, but still as the taking of steps in the direction of justice.[34] It was his firm purpose to contribute his share toward making American citizenship mean something, for both black and white, and, if life was spared, to cease not his labors until the humblest freeman in the United States should be in firm possession of every natural and constitutional right, should have free access to an honest ballot-box, should suffer no proscription for his political opinions, and should be amply protected in his liberty to think, say, go, and do as he pleased within the limitations laid down by law for the regulation of the conduct of all. The battle, in which he was so eager and stalwart a leader, will not be finished until that result is forever secured.

Early in General Grant's term the friends of Edwin M. Stanton determined to secure for him such an official appointment as should be congenial to his tastes and guarantee him an adequate support in old age. His iron constitution resisted the enormous labors of the civil war successfully. For many months he worked from fifteen to twenty hours in each day; his assistant secretaries were energetic and trained men of affairs, but their strength successively gave way in attempting to keep up with their chief. When the strain was finally withdrawn, it was perceived that his own powers were greatly exhausted. Rest restored their tone somewhat, and he made one or two legal arguments and public addresses, which showed that his intellectual vigor was undiminished, but these efforts were followed by extreme nervous prostration. Under these circumstances, Mr. Stanton's friends determined to secure for him a judicial appointment. For such a position he was qualified by eminent professional attainments, and this fact and the permanency of tenure made the tender of a place upon the bench grateful to him. Accordingly, when Judge Grier resigned his position as a member of the Supreme Court, Mr. Stanton's appointment to the vacant Associate Justiceship was at once urged upon President Grant. Mr. Chandler was very active in this matter and pressed it with all his energy. The effort was successful, and on Dec. 20, 1869, this nomination was sent to the Senate and promptly confirmed. Four days afterward, and before his commission was made out, Mr. Stanton's overtaxed constitution broke down, and he died after a brief illness, in the fifty-fifth year of his age, as thorough a sacrifice to the nobility of his own patriotic devotion during the war as the bravest soldier who fell on any of its battle-fields. During his fatal illness, Mr. Chandler was a frequent watcher at his bedside, and was one of the last persons with whom the dying statesman conversed. After his death it was found that the man who had controlled the disbursement of hundreds of millions had died poor, and had not left an estate adequate to the support of his children. Congress directed a year's salary of a Justice of the Supreme Court to be paid to his heirs. Mr. Chandler and others of his friends also set on foot a movement to raise a national memorial fund. A meeting of Republicans was called at the residence of Congressman Samuel Hooper of Massachusetts, and a committee was there appointed who collected over $140,000 (Mr. Chandler contributing $10,000 and President Grant $1,000), which was invested in United States bonds and placed in the hands of a few trustees, of whom Surgeon-General Barnes of the army was chairman, for the benefit of the Stanton family.

During General Grant's term the subject of "war claims" commenced to attract national attention. Originally the Republican Congresses dealt liberally with the South in the matter of compensation for damages inflicted upon its loyal citizens during the rebellion. By a series of carefully-guarded laws (and by a few private relief measures passed to meet exceptional cases) a large sum was paid to residents of the rebel States who suffered war losses, and were able to produce satisfactory proof of their fidelity to the Union. In this matter the national government certainly went to the extreme verge of generosity. The experience attending the disbursement of the money thus appropriated established conclusively the fraudulent and outrageous character of a large percentage of these claims. In thousands of cases investigation showed conclusively that arrant rebels were willing to swear that they had been "Union men," and that small losses had, by false affidavits, been magnified into great sums. As reconstruction broke down, and the survivors of the rebellion gained in strength at the Capitol, a new danger arose. No statute of limitations barred the indefinite presentation of claims to Congress, and it soon became evident that, not merely Southern loyalists, but avowed rebels who suffered losses in the war were looking to the general government for compensation for the damages which their own treason had invited. The movement on the Treasury in their interest did not take on the form of an attack in front, but by the flank. It commenced with plausible applications for the "relief" of Southern institutions and corporations, and not of individuals. It further manifested itself in propositions for such a relaxation of the terms of the laws and regulations governing this class of claims as would abolish all distinctions of "loyalty" and put the "Confederate" upon an equal footing with the Union applicant for this kind of "relief." The precise dimensions of this scheme, which has been well characterized as "an attempt to make the United States pay to the South what it cost it to be conquered in addition to what it cost to conquer it," have not yet fully appeared, but the cloven hoof has been sufficiently revealed to justly arouse and alarm the loyal sentiment of the North. Mr. Chandler's record upon this question affords a striking illustration of the soundness of his judgment as to the scope and tendency of any particular line of public policy. When this subject first demanded attention, he took the position which his party substantially assumed ten years later. His clear and practical mind saw what the consequences would be of any general reimbursement of war losses, and he strenuously resisted the taking of any false steps at the outset. Thus, on March 2, 1865, upon the bill to pay Josiah O. Armes for the destruction of property within the rebel lines, he said in the Senate:

I hope this bill will not pass the Senate.... If you pass it, if you set this precedent, if you say to every rebel and every loyal man, and every man throughout the South, by the passage of this bill, that you intend to pay for every dollar of property that has been destroyed by order of our generals, you will give a more fatal blow to the credit of the government than by any other act that you can perform in this body. I should look upon the passage of this bill as a national calamity, and one that we cannot afford at this time to bring on our heads. It will do more to shake the faith of our own citizens and of the moneyed centers of the world in the credit of your securities than any other act you could perform.

In his address before the Republican caucus which renominated him for the Senate in January, 1869, he also said:

The moment this government begins to allow claims for damages accruing to individuals during the war in the South, it is placed in a position of great peril. Every rebel in the South who lost a haystack or barn by fire during the war will prove his loyalty and secure damages. It requires the greatest vigilance to prevent some of these claims from being allowed, as they are continually being pressed upon Congress, and probably will be for many years. The laws of war do not require nor justify the allowance of this class of claims even to loyal men. If they are loyal, then they have served the government, and that is compensation enough. If they are disloyal, they have no claim.

These quotations indicate his original position on this issue, taken in the days when it had received but the slightest public attention. They are exactly in the line of the vigorous utterances upon the same topic which formed one of the important features of his public addresses in 1879, when the subject had aroused marked popular interest, and other leaders had stepped up to the platform he had so long occupied.

But Mr. Chandler did more than strenuously oppose the payment of the "war claims" of Southern disloyalists; his farsightedness placed in their path a serious practical obstacle. In 1873, a Colonel Pickett, who had been confidentially connected with the War Department of the "Confederacy," came to Washington and offered to sell to the authorities a vast quantity of the archives of the rebel government, which he had secreted before the capture of Richmond. Congress was not in session, and the Secretary of War, having no authority in law, refused to buy the documents. Mr. Chandler was in that city at the time, and Pickett was referred to him as a man of means and as one who would be apt to appreciate the importance of such a purchase. After one or two calls, Mr. Chandler determined that the matter deserved investigation at least. He asked for a schedule of the documents and for a statement of their prices. Pickett promptly furnished the former and offered to sell them for $250,000. Mr. Chandler, after a careful examination of the schedule, replied with a proposition that, if the papers corresponded with the list furnished, he would pay $75,000 for them. This offer was at last accepted, and Mr. Chandler deposited that sum in a Washington bank, subject to Pickett's order after a thorough examination of the documents had been made. Confidential clerks were at once set at work upon them, and it was found that they even surpassed their owner's representations as to value. The purchase was therefore completed, and the documents became the private property of Mr. Chandler, who had them locked up in a vault. When Congress met, a bill was passed authorizing the Secretary of War in general terms to purchase the archives of the Confederate government if it was ever possible, and appropriating $75,000 for this purpose. As soon as the bill became a law Mr. Chandler transferred the documents to the Secretary of War, and they are now in the possession of that department and constitute one of the most valuable and useful features of its record of the rebellion. The amount that has been saved to the government by this purchase, in furnishing evidence to defeat rebel claims, already exceeds many-fold the original price. Case after case in the Quartermaster-General's office, before the Southern Claims Commission, and before the Court of Claims has been defeated by evidence found among these papers.[35] One single conspicuous instance in which they saved to the Treasury more than four times their entire cost attracted much deserved attention at the time. On Nov. 16, 1877, an effort was made by leading Southern Democrats in the House of Representatives to pass under a suspension of the rules, and without debate, a joint resolution, ordering the immediate payment of several hundred thousand dollars to mail contractors in the rebel States who forfeited their contracts at the commencement of the rebellion. An objection from the Hon. Omar D. Conger prevented action on that day, but the resolution came up again on Feb. 15, 1878. Representative John H. Reagan of Texas, who had been the Postmaster-General of the rebel Cabinet, then took charge of the measure, and assured the House that the resolution was a purely formal matter, that it only provided for the payment of liabilities incurred before the war commenced, and that the rebel government had never paid these men for the same services. The Hon. Edwin Willits of Michigan, by a timely examination of the phraseology of the resolution, discovered that it provided for the payment of these contractors, not down to the actual beginning of the rebellion, but until May 31st, 1861, many weeks after the rebel government had been formed and after the firing upon Fort Sumter. Calling attention to this fact, he obtained the further postponement of the consideration of the resolution. When it came up again (on March 8, 1878) Mr. Willits came to the House armed with a volume of the rebel statutes and with important extracts from documents contained in the rebel archives. With this evidence he demonstrated in ten minutes' time, beyond question, that the rebel government had assumed the payment of this class of claims, that it confiscated United States money and applied it to that purpose, that the men so paid agreed to refund to the rebel treasury any money subsequently given them on this account by the United States, and that the joint resolution was but an attempt to pay a second time contracts already paid and also properly declared forfeited through treason. The scene attendant upon this _expose_ was a dramatic one, and it resulted in the virtual abandonment then of the measure by those who were responsible for it. This result would not have been possible, had not the rebel archives thus opportunely yielded up their secrets. Their possession by the government is undoubtedly worth millions to the Treasury.

In 1871, the second term of Jacob M. Howard, as Senator from Michigan, expired, and Thomas W. Ferry, then a member of the House of Representatives, was chosen as his successor. With his new colleague Mr. Chandler's relations were always close and cordial, and upon the questions of reconstruction, equal rights, and the national supremacy their accord was complete. Mr. Ferry rapidly attained distinction in the upper branch of Congress, and was for several successive years the President _pro tempore_ of the Senate. The death of Vice-President Wilson in 1875 made him Acting Vice-President of the United States, and he held that responsible position throughout the trying weeks of the electoral dispute of 1876-'7, when his good sense, the perfect discretion of his course, and the dignity and impartiality with which he discharged duties of the gravest character amid vast and dangerous excitement, both deserved and received universal praise. Mr. Ferry was re-elected during this critical period, and, as Mr. Chandler's term as Secretary of the Interior was then about to close, it was suggested in some quarters that Michigan should send him back to the Senate in Mr. Ferry's stead. The quality of Mr. Chandler's fidelity as a friend and of his estimate of Mr. Ferry's public usefulness were shown in the fact that, anxious as he avowedly was to become again a Senator, these suggestions obtained from him only peremptory negatives, and his advice and influence contributed to Mr. Ferry's unopposed re-election. Mr. Howard died suddenly at Detroit from apoplexy shortly after the close of his Senatorial service. As further illustrating the nature of the friendship existing between him and his colleague from Michigan, and the estimation in which he was held by the eminent men with whom he came in contact, this private letter from Mr. Chandler to President Grant, with an endorsement made thereon by the latter, is here given:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 21, 1870.

MY DEAR SIR: Secretary Cox has done my colleague an unintentional but a serious injury.

In 1869 the whole Michigan delegation united in recommending the Rev. W. H. Brockway, one of the most popular Methodist clergymen in the State, for Indian Agent.

He was nominated and confirmed, but acquiesced in the transfer of Indian affairs to the military. Since the adjournment of Congress, my colleague made a personal request to the Secretary of the Interior, that the Rev. Mr. Brockway be commissioned as Indian Agent for Michigan. Instead of sending the commission, he has sent a man from New Jersey to attend to our Indian affairs. This has given offense to the most numerous and powerful religious denomination in the State and seriously injured my colleague. I ask for my colleague that the New Jersey commission may be immediately revoked, and Mr. Brockway may be at once commissioned....

It is really important that this be done at once. Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

Z. CHANDLER.

_To President U. S. Grant._

AUTOGRAPHIC ENDORSEMENT BY PRESIDENT GRANT.

Referred to the Secretary of the Interior.

I think Mr. Brockway might with great propriety be assigned to the Indian agency in his own State, to which he has once been appointed and confirmed.

He is a minister, and therefore the new rule adopted will not be violated by his appointment.

I want, besides, to accommodate Senator Howard, whom I regard as an able supporter of the Republican party and of the Administration.

Sept. 22, 1870. U. S. GRANT.

Mr. Chandler was a member of one or two of the special Congressional committees appointed to investigate those atrocious political murders which made infamous the return of the disloyal classes to power in the South. This general subject received no small share of his attention; the facts which investigation disclosed deepened his conviction of the essential barbarity of much that passes for civilization in that section, and added to the inflexibility of his opposition to a political system, which was responsible for the atrocious crimes of the Ku-Klux-Klan, "the Mississippi plan," the White League, and the "rifle clubs," and for the horrible massacres of Colfax and Coushatta, of Hamburg and Ellenton.

Two of his speeches in the Senate in 1871 and 1872 attracted general attention and were widely republished. One of them was delivered on January 18, 1871, in reply to Mr. Casserly of California, who had challenged a comparison between the records of the Republican and Democratic parties. In the course of twenty minutes Mr. Chandler rapidly sketched the services of the Republican party in defeating the Democratic plot to surrender the territories to slavery, in crushing a Democratic rebellion, in emancipating four million slaves, in building a trans-continental railway to the Pacific coast, in inviting the settlement of the Great West by a homestead law, in establishing the national banking system, in maintaining the public credit against Democratic attack, and in reconstructing the South on the basis of freedom and loyalty. He closed as follows:

These measures were carried, not with the Democratic party, but in spite of the Democratic party. Sir, we are not to be arraigned here and put on the defensive, certainly not by that old Democratic party.

And now, Mr. President, they ask us to do what? To forgive the past and let by-gones be by-gones. You hear on the right hand and on the left, from every quarter, "Let by-gones be by-gones; let us forget the past and rub it out." Sir, we have no disposition to forget the past. We have a record of which we are proud. We have a record that has gone into history. There we propose to let it stand. We never propose to blot out that record. There are no thousand years in the world's history in which so much has been accomplished for human liberty and human progress as has been accomplished by this great Republican party in the short space of ten years. Blot out that record? Never, sir, never! It is a record that will go down in history through all times as the proudest ever made by any political party that ever existed on earth. But, sir, do gentlemen of the Democratic party want to blot out their record? I do not blame them for wanting to, for that record is a record of treason. It, too, has gone into history, and there it must stand through all ages. Sir, the young men of this country are looking at these two records, and they are making up their minds as to which they desire their names to go down to history upon; and I am happy to say that of the young men now coming upon the stage of action, nine out of every ten are joining this great Republican party. They desire that their record shall be associated with those who saved this great nation, and not with those who attempted its overthrow. The day is far distant when that old Democratic party that attempted to overthrow this government will again be entrusted with power by the people of this nation.... Mr. President, if this record of the two

## parties does not please my Democratic friends, I have only to say

to them that they made it deliberately and they have got to stand by it.

On June 6, 1872, Mr. Chandler replied in the Senate to that part of Mr. Sumner's elaborate attack upon General Grant in which he declared that Edwin M. Stanton had said, in his last days, "General Grant cannot govern this country." The excessive egotism, which marred Mr. Sumner's character and which inspired that unfortunate speech, was always a cause of impatience with Mr. Chandler, and this display of it aroused his anger. In his reply, he challenged squarely the credibility of Mr. Sumner's statement. He first read from Mr. Stanton's reported speeches, to show that their enthusiastic and repeated commendation of General Grant by name proved that Mr. Sumner's assertion that Mr. Stanton had also said, "In my speeches I never introduced the name of General Grant; I spoke for the Republican cause and the Republican party," was exactly contrary to the fact. He then proceeded:

Mr. President, I had occasion with Mr. Wade, formerly Senator from Ohio, as member of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, to see Mr. Stanton, I think once a day on an average, during the whole war, and I was in the habit of visiting him up to the time of his death, and never, under any circumstances, did he express in my presence any but the highest opinion of General Grant, both as to his military capacity and as to his civil capacity.

Mr. President, on the Friday before the death of E. M. Stanton, I had occasion to visit him in company with two friends, members of the other House, one Hon. Judge Beaman, then a member for Michigan, the other Judge Conger, now a member from Michigan. We had that day a long interview of not less than an hour and a half, wherein Mr. Stanton expressed the highest opinion of President Grant, both as to his military and civil capacity. I awaited an interview with these parties before making this statement, and their recollection is the same as my own. I have likewise held two or three interviews with Senator Wade since then, and his recollection of the expressions of the late E. M. Stanton is equally strong as my own to-day. Mr. Stanton said, in the presence of two witnesses, "The country knows General Grant to be a great warrior; I know he will prove a great civilian." ...

Mr. President, the relations between the President of the United States and the late Secretary Stanton were of remarkable kindliness. Never did I hear either express any but the highest esteem and regard for the other.... I think the last interview he ever had was the interview with me in the presence of these two living witnesses.... Surgeon-General Barnes was his attending physician at the hour of his death. According to his testimony, from the hour I last saw him up to the time of his death, there was no change, so far as can be known.

In another part of this speech the President is arraigned as a great gift-taker. Sir, General Grant was a great taker. Few men have ever been as eminent as takers. He took Fort Donelson with some twenty or thirty thousand soldiers; and he took Shiloh, and took Vicksburg, and took the Wilderness, and took Murfreesboro' and Appomattox and all the rebel material of war. He, with his army, took the shackles from 4,000,000 slaves. And, sir, after he had taken the vitals out of the rebellion, he was urged by his friends to accept a small donation to take himself out of the hands of poverty, a thing that has been done by all nations and by all grateful peoples in all ages of the world. Sir, he is to be arraigned as a great gift-taker because he accepted the voluntary contributions of a grateful people!

Why, sir, there were few men of capacity, few men of fitness to occupy positions under this government who did not subscribe, gratefully, anxiously subscribe, to that fund to relieve U. S. Grant from his poverty. And yet, he is to be arraigned here as a gift-taker, as though that was a crime!

Mr. President, there are two classes of people in this world, and we see specimens of them both. We have great _o-ra-tors_ and great men of business. On this floor our _o-ra-tors_ have occupied the time of this session to the exclusion of business, and while these _o-ra-tors_ have been wasting the time of this body to the detriment of the business of the nation, willing to indulge in windy orations at the expense of the government, U. S. Grant, President of the United States, has been managing the affairs of this nation better than they were ever managed before. While your _o-ra-tors_ were here delivering windy words, he was paying the national debt faster than these _o-ra-tors_ could count it. While they were _o-ra-ting_, he was negotiating treaties and attending to the civil service of the nation. While they were _o-ra-ting_ on this floor during the war, he was winning victories in the bloodiest part of the fight. And now, while they are _o-ra-ting_ on this floor, he is endearing himself to the hearts of the whole people of this land as no other man ever did. Stanton was prophetic; he is not only great in war, but he is greater as a civilian.

The act of March 3, 1873, which raised the annual salaries of Congressmen from $5,000 to $7,500, gave also to this increase a retroactive effect and made it apply to the members of Congress who passed the measure and whose official terms ended on that very day. Public opinion did not approve of any aspect of this change, but it condemned vehemently the voting by Congressmen to themselves of $5,000 each for services already rendered and in addition to liberal salaries fixed at the time of their acceptance of office. So emphatic were the manifestations of popular wrath at both this act and its methods, that the next Congress promptly repealed "the salary grab," as it was commonly called. Mr. Chandler's integrity and good sense kept him from any participation in this obnoxious performance. He opposed the increase of compensation earnestly in the Senate, voted against it at all stages of the contest, and refused to accept his "back pay." When the bill had been passed and the increased salary had been placed to his credit on the Senate books, he went to the Treasury with his colleague and they deposited the difference between the old and the new rate to the credit of the government, writing the following letter to the Secretary of the Treasury:

WASHINGTON, March 28, 1873.

SIR: Herewith find drafts on the Treasury, one of $3,906.80 payable to Z. Chandler, the other of $3,920, to T. W. Ferry, being avails of retroactive increase of salary passed during the expiring days of and for the Forty-second Congress, and this day placed in our hands by the Secretary of the Senate.

Not willing to gain what we voted against, we request that the same be applied toward the cancellation of any of the six per cent. interest-bearing obligations of the nation. Lest such return be distorted into possible reflection upon the propriety of dissimilar disposition by others, you will oblige us much by giving no publicity to the matter. Very respectfully, yours,

Z. CHANDLER, T. W. FERRY.

The amount refunded was the exact difference between the sums allowed under the old and the increased rate. The new law gave an increase of salary for the term, without mileage. The old law allowed $5,000 less salary, but gave mileage in addition. Mr. Chandler and Mr. Ferry took the amount due them under the old system, and returned the additional sum which was allowed them under the new. The spirit of scrupulous honesty which dictated this proceeding is shown in the last sentence of the joint letter, asking that publicity might not be given to their

## action. They took this step voluntarily and not under any constraint

from public opinion.

In the general elections of 1870 and 1872 Mr. Chandler was exceedingly

## active, making the usual number of public addresses, and also

devoting much time to organization and to the general distribution of political literature. The latter branch of party effort had become the special province of the Republican Congressional Committee. For more than twenty years there have been two distinct executive organizations within the Republican party, independent of each other, but always working in harmony, namely: The National Committee, and the Congressional Committee. The latter is composed of a Representative in Congress from each State, chosen by the Republican members of the respective delegations. No man can serve upon this committee unless he holds a seat in Congress, and States which have no Republican Congressmen are unrepresented in its membership. Mr. Chandler and James M. Edmunds were the founders of the Congressional Committee as a practical and influential working body; their plans and efforts first made it a power in American politics, and it remained under their joint control until Mr. Chandler became chairman of the National Committee. The special objects which it aimed to accomplish were the securing of a uniform treatment of political topics by newspapers and speakers throughout the country, and the circulation (under the franking privilege, or otherwise) of instructive and timely documents. During the reconstruction era it also devoted much attention to the work of Republican organization in the South, where special efforts were necessary to form into effective voting masses the emancipated slaves, not yet freed from the blindness of bondage or familiar with the responsibilities of citizenship. But the great aim of the committee--all else that it did was subsidiary to that--was the circulation of political literature. This end it sought to reach by two methods: First, by the publication and mailing to individuals and to local committees in all parts of the country of such Congressional speeches as treated thoroughly and effectively any phase of the current political situation; second, by furnishing the Republican press, through the medium of weekly sheets of carefully prepared matter, with accurate information as to the facts underlying existing issues and with suggestions as to their best treatment before the people. Obviously this work could be done to much better advantage at Washington than elsewhere, for the capital city is the focus of the thousand currents of political opinion and the depository of the official statistics of the nation. Hence it was deemed wise to establish a system of guidance from that point of the public discussions of each national campaign, so that increased intelligence, cohesion, and efficiency could be given to the general attack on the enemy; this idea--which is, in brief, that the systematizing of the political education of the people is an important element of well-planned party warfare--James M. Edmunds always held tenaciously; aided by Mr. Chandler's friendship, influence, means, and co-operation, he proved its soundness most conclusively.

Early in his Senatorial service Mr. Chandler was made the chairman of this committee, and Mr. Edmunds its secretary. The two men were admirably matched. Mr. Edmunds was a natural planner, keen in his intuitions, shrewd in observation, and a skillful judge of the bearing and tendency of party and public policies. In determining what was the most promising line of attack, where the weakest points of the enemy's lines were to be found, wherein the strength of any position lay, or what strategy would make victory the most certain and complete, he had no superior. When his acute and experienced judgment was reinforced by Mr. Chandler's vigor in execution, influence with public men, and large wealth great results never failed to follow. These two men quickly made the Congressional Committee one of the most powerful agencies of party warfare known in American politics. In many campaigns its influence was almost literally felt in every Northern township, and its labors were not without some effect, more frequently greater than less, in unifying and invigorating the contest in every Congressional district from Maine to Texas and Florida to Oregon. Its work was done quietly, but most thoroughly; its managers rather shunned than courted publicity; and the people at large, who were informed and inspired by its labors, knew nothing of its methods and activity, hardly the fact of its existence. From 1866 to 1874 Mr. Chandler was very active in connection with this committee, and never failed to provide the agencies and the resources for the adequate carrying on of its work. When its treasury grew empty his private check made good any deficiency, and repeatedly his advances upon its account reached tens of thousands of dollars. His confidence in Secretary Edmunds was implicit, and the latter's mature recommendations never failed because of any lack of means. In 1870 the work of this committee was especially productive; its value became much more clearly apparent then than had ever been the case before, and Mr. Chandler repeatedly said to the President and other Republican leaders, "Judge Edmunds is the Bismark of this campaign." In 1872 Mr. Edmunds first suggested the necessity of meeting the Greeley movement by the thorough searching of the files of the New York _Tribune_ and of Mr. Greeley's record, for the ample material therein contained which would make impossible his support by the Democratic masses. Mr. Chandler approved of this plan, and promised that the money needed should be forthcoming. Before all the work was completed, his advances had reached nearly $30,000. At times, in the course of efforts of this character, Mr. Edmunds guided the pens of upward of three hundred writers gathered under his general supervision, while the results of their labors informed the editorial pages of thousands of Republican newspapers, and thus reached millions of voting readers. For some time, also, a monthly periodical named _The Republic_ was issued, which preserved in durable form the most careful and elaborate articles prepared under the committee's supervision. This work of the political enlightenment of the people, clearly the most rational agency of party warfare, has never been executed on this continent with the thoroughness, intelligence and efficiency which marked the labors of the Congressional Committee when Mr. Chandler was at its head and Mr. Edmunds was its executive officer.

[Illustration: JAMES M. EDMUNDS.]

The man whose name is so closely coupled in these pages with that of Mr. Chandler deserves the grateful and lasting remembrance of the Republican party. James M. Edmunds was a natural politician of the best type. Patriotic instincts and sincere convictions were interwoven with his nature. The party whose tendencies satisfied those instincts, and whose policies most nearly accorded with those convictions, he served loyally and with rare capacity; more than this, he served it unselfishly. He cared nothing for prominence, and never sought after reputation. He made no speeches, he rarely shared in any public demonstration, he held no conspicuous positions, he manifested no personal ambition, but for twenty years he was the trusted counselor of famous men at the capital, his influence was felt in national legislation and party movements, and important events with which his name never was and never will be connected received the impress of his acute observation and sagacious judgment. Especially in Republican political management was he a wise and strong "power behind the throne." Mr. Edmunds was a native of Western New York, but emigrated to Michigan in 1831. He was for many years a prominent business man at Ypsilanti, Vassar and Detroit, in that State, and was always politically active. The Whigs sent him repeatedly to the Legislature, and made him their (unsuccessful) candidate for Governor in 1847. He was chairman of the Republican State Central Committee from 1855 to 1861, and Controller of the city of Detroit for two of those years. At the commencement of Mr. Lincoln's administration he removed to Washington, and was there successively Commissioner of the General Land Office, Postmaster of the Senate, and Postmaster of the city of Washington. Personally he was a tall and spare man, exceedingly plain in his manners and simple in his tastes, utterly without either the liking for or faculty of display, retiring in disposition, firm of purpose, of strict integrity, and exact in his dealings and habits. Mr. Edmunds's remarkable strength as a politician consisted in his experience, in his lack of any personal aspirations, in his skill in controlling men and the accuracy of his judgment as to their motives, and in an almost prophetic ability to reason out the probable direction and effect of any given plan of action. He became a man whom those charged with great responsibilities could profitably and safely consult, and his well-considered and shrewd advice often had decisive weight at the White House, on the floors of Congress, and in the private councils of eminent men. Outside of the Congressional Committee, he did much campaign work in directing organization and suggesting plans. He was one of the founders of the Union League, and directed its operations during the years of its great political usefulness in the South. It may be said without exaggeration that no single member of the Republican party ever rendered it services as great and as slightly requited as were those of James M. Edmunds.

Mr. Chandler's close friendship with Mr. Edmunds covered a period of nearly half a century, and included an implicit confidence in the man himself and in his prudence and the sagacity of his judgment. The comment made upon their intimacy by one who knew them both well was, "Sometimes it seemed to me that no man could be as wise as Mr. Chandler believed that Judge Edmunds was." They were in almost constant consultation upon public questions, their co-operation was ever hearty, and this friendship the Senator valued as a priceless possession. "In death they were not divided;" the dispatch, which announced that Mr. Chandler's busy life had ended so suddenly in Chicago, came to Mr. Edmunds while infirm in health; it affected him powerfully, and his spirit did not pass from under the shadow of this blow; within a few weeks his own death followed.

FOOTNOTES:

[34] To a letter of confidence and congratulation, written to him at the time of his last Senatorial election, by a committee of the colored citizens of East Saginaw, Mich., Mr. Chandler replied (under date of Feb. 20, 1879): "I hope to be able to assist in the grand but unfinished work of securing equal political rights for every citizen of this country, black as well as white, South as well as North."

[35] The value of this class of documents will further appear from two quotations from the official "Digest of the Report of the Southern Claims Commission upon the Disallowed Claims," only two being taken where many might be. "Claim No. 193" was preferred before this Commission by W. R. Alexander of Dickson, Ala., for $13,443, for cotton and horses furnished to the Union army. Mr. Alexander produced evidence to show, and swore himself, that he had been a consistent Union man. The Digest (1 vol., p. 55) says: "Among the papers of the rebel government found at Richmond is a letter, now in the War Department, a copy of which Adjutant-General Townsend has furnished to us. It reads as follows:

"'DICKSON, Ala., August 1, 1861.

"SIR: I have heard that the War Department was scarce of arms, and I have taken it upon myself to look up all the old muskets I can find and I now send them to you, and I hope they will kill many a Yankee. I have had one musket fixed to my notion, which I send with the others for a model. All here are delighted with our victory, both white and black. Yours, respectfully,

WM. R. ALEXANDER.

"P. S. I send these guns, ten in number, to the Ordnance Department, Richmond, Virginia.

W. R. A.

_"The Hon. L. P. Walker."_

"On October 11, 1872, the counsel for the claimant, John J. Key, Esq., appeared before the Commissioners and requested that the claim be withdrawn, admitting the disloyalty of the claimant. The claim is rejected."

* * * * *

"Claim 135" was preferred by J. P. Levy of Wilmington, N. C., for $10,000. After he had sworn to his own loyalty, he was called upon to face some letters found in the rebel archives. The Commission say (p. 33, 1 vol., Digest): "The original letters were furnished the Commission by the War Department from the captured rebel archives, and copies of several of them were filed with this report.... We have in them the claimant at the outbreak of the war calling upon the rebel government to punish the superintendent of his brother's plantation for insulting the rebel flag; and, again, asking the rebel Congress to pass a law granting him his brother's plantation on account of his signal service to the rebel cause; and, again, offering a ship, to be commanded by himself, for the rebel service; also, tendering for the benefit of the rebel army, patent fuse train and soda baking-powders, and boasting and complaining of the large amount due him from the rebel government for supplies for the rebel army. And now this shameless traitor, perjurer and swindler comes before us and swears, with brazen effrontery, that the government of the United States owes him, as a loyal adherent to the cause of the Union and the government throughout the war of the rebellion, for supplies furnished the army, the sum of $10,000. We reject this claim."

##