some person among his counsellors who had the full confidence of the leaders in Congress. The Judge strongly appreciated that view. When he called upon President Grant his first conversation consisted in urging upon him very strongly the selection of Governor Boutwell. He supposed then that it would be quite unlikely that the President would take two men from the same State and supposed that selection would require his own refusal of the offer of the office of Attorney-General. President Grant said that he would think it over and not decide the question that day. The next morning he sent for the Judge and said: "Judge, I think I would like to have you take the oath of office." He handed the Judge his commission. The Judge looked at it and saw that it was not signed. He said: "I think perhaps it would be better if you were to sign it." Grant laughed and complied with the suggestion. Judge Hoar's first official duty was to give an opinion upon the question whether Mr. Stewart, who had been nominated for Secretary of the Treasury, could under the law undertake the office. Mr. Stewart proposed to make some conveyances of his business in trust, by which he should part with his legal title to it while he held the office of Secretary of the Treasury and come back to it again after his term ended. But the Attorney-General advised the President that that was impracticable, and the result was the withdrawal of Mr. Stewart's name and the appointment of Mr. Boutwell a day or two afterward.

I have had some serious differences with Mr. Boutwell since he left the Democratic Party after his term of service as Governor. They have, I believe, never been differences of political principle. My differences of opinion with him have been mainly upon the question what individuals were fit to be trusted with political office and power, and with the leadership in political parties, and upon the question whether certain men and influences were to be tolerated, or whether the public safety required unsparing warfare upon them. So, while we have agreed in general as to policies, we have always had an entirely different set of friends and companions.

16 VOL. I.

Mr. Boutwell has borne an honorable part in our history. His titles to a place in the grateful memory of his countrymen are not likely to be overlooked.

One of them deserves special mention. I am but repeating what I said many years ago. As a leading member of the House of Representatives, and as Secretary of the Treasury under President Grant's Administration, he had, of course, a large influence upon our financial history. He saw very early the importance of devoting every resource of the country to the reduction of the National debt. It was not with him, as I understand it, a question whether a little saving could be made in the way of taxes by postponing the payment until the rate of interest should be less or the National resources greater. He saw that it was important that the people should not get accustomed, as the English people are, to consider a National debt as something that was to continue always. He saw that it was important to the character of the people, as to an individual, that they should be impatient and restless under the obligation of debt, and should consider it alike the Nation's first duty and its greatest pride and luxury to get rid of the burden. This has always been the temper of the State of Massachusetts, of her towns, and, in general, of her citizens.

Accordingly he insisted that the debt should be reduced so rapidly that the people would take pride in having paid it, and would be relieved from the temptation of listening to the specious and seductive arguments of persons contriving dishonest methods of getting rid of it by issuing fiat money, or any device of direct or indirect repudiation. Many persons can remember in what dangerous forms this temptation came, and how many men, who otherwise deserve to be held in high esteem, yielded to it wholly or partly. Mr. Boutwell's powerful influence was a very important factor in attaining the result in which we all now take so much satisfaction, and keeping the American people in the path of duty and honor.

William A. Wheeler, of New York, entered the House in 1869. I soon became very well acquainted with him, an

acquaintance which ripened into a very intimate friendship. He was a very serious, simple-hearted and wise man. There was no man in his time who had more influence in the House. His ancestors dwelt in my native town of Concord in the early generations, and in Lincoln, which had been part of Concord. One of the family emigrated to Vermont. Wheeler's father went from Vermont to Malone, New York, where he was born, and where he was left by his father an orphan in very early youth. The widow and children were without any property whatever, but got along somehow. Wheeler got an education, spending two or three years in college, and became the foremost man in his part of New York. The people of his district were in character and way of thinking very much like our best Massachusetts constituencies. Wheeler had little respect for the devious and selfseeking politics which are supposed to have been needed for success in that State. He very much disliked Roscoe Conkling, and all his ways. Conkling once said to him: "Wheeler, if you will join us and act with us, there is nothing in the gift of the State of New York to which you may not reasonably aspire." To which Wheeler replied: "Mr. Conkling, there is nothing in the gift of the State of New York which will compensate me for the forfeiture of my own self respect."

Mr. Wheeler was one of the sub-committee, of whom Mr. Frye and myself were the other two Republican members, to inquire into the condition of the legality of the Kellogg State Government of Louisiana. He suggested what is known as the Wheeler compromise, the acceptance of which by both sides was due to his influence and capacity for conciliation. The compromise consisted in an agreement to allow the Republican State officers to remain in office during the remainder of their terms, without turbulent or factious opposition, to submit quietly to their authority on the one hand, and that the two Houses of the Legislature, on the other hand, should seat the Democratic contestants whom our sub-committee found entitled to their seats. This compromise in reality gave effect to the opinion of the committee, as if they had been a tribunal of arbitration. Of course

they had no authority to enforce their opinion against the objection of either party.

As soon as the nomination of President Hayes was declared in the Convention of 1876, I spent a very busy hour in going about among the delegates whom I knew, especially those from the Southern States, to urge upon them the name of Mr. Wheeler as a suitable person for VicePresident. I have no doubt I secured for him a great many votes, and that those votes secured him his election. Mr. James Russell Lowell was a Massachusetts delegate. He was a little unwilling to vote for a person of whom he had no more knowledge. I said to him: "Mr. Lowell, Mr. Wheeler is a very sensible man. He knows the 'Biglow Papers' by heart." Lowell gave no promise in reply. But I happened to overhear him, as he sat behind me, saying to James Freeman Clarke, I think it was: "I understand that Mr. Wheeler is 'a very sensible man.'"'

Wheeler was one of the best parliamentarians and one of the best presiding officers I ever knew. He had no children. It is pathetic to remember the affection which existed between him and his wife. Their long living together had brought about a curious resemblance. She looked like him, talked like him, thought like him, and if she had been dressed in his clothes, or he had been in hers, either might have passed for the other. When she died Wheeler seemed to lose all interest in this world, shut himself off from all ordinary activities, and died a year or two after, I suppose with a broken heart.

CHAPTER XVI

POLITICAL CONDITIONS IN 1869

WHEN the Republican Party came into power in 1869 under its great and simple-hearted President, it found itself confronted with very serious duties. They were enough to fill ordinary men in ordinary times with dismay. The President was without political experience. He had never held civil office. He had voted but twice in his life. He had voted the Whig ticket once and the Democratic ticket once. So he could not justly be charged with being an offensive partisan. He had no experience in business except in a humble way and in that he had been unfortunate. Congress and the President could only act under the restraint of a written Constitution. Everything done by either must pass the ordeal of the Supreme Court, a majority of whose members then had no sympathy with a liberal interpretation of the National powers. The Chief Justice had been a great Republican leader. But he had quarrelled with Lincoln, and was an eager aspirant for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency.

Of the eight years after the inauguration of Lincoln more than four had been years of actual war and more than five passed before formal declaration of peace. During all this time nothing could be considered but the preservation of the Union. From the end of the War to the accession of President Grant, Congress and the President had been engaged in a struggle with each other for power. President Johnson had been impeached and put on trial before the Senate. So there could be no important legislation from the summer of 1866 until March, 1869, that did not command the assent of two thirds of both Houses.

Yet the feeling everywhere among Republicans in Washington and throughout the North was of exultant and con