1818 CHAPTER IV. MASSACHUSETTS REPRESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS. Ex-Gov. George S. Boutwell's Early Life. - Entrance upon Public Service. - The Advocate of Popular Education and Universal Freedom. - Speech on extending the Right of Suffrage to the Colored Men. The Hon. Thomas D. Eliot's Birth and Boyhood.- - Graduates at Columbia College, and studies Law. - In Congress. - Address and Speeches on the great Questions of War and Freedom. · The Hon. A. H. Rice. The Hon. Samuel Hooper. - The Hon. H. L. Dawes.-The Hon. John B. Alley.The Hon. D. W. Gouch.- The Hon. W. B. Washburn. - The Hon. Oakes Ames. GEORGE S. BOUTWELL. G EORGE S. BOUTWELL was born in Brookline, Norfolk His boyhood was spent upon a farm, amid whose quiet labors he formed habits of industry, and secured a good physical constitution. In early youth, he engaged in mercantile pursuits; rising from the errand-boy's place to the control of extensive business. After nearly twenty years' experience in intensely practical occupation of his energies, he studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1836. In 1842, Mr. Boutwell was chosen to the Legislature of the State, where he was an able and efficient member for seven years. In 1849-50, he held the position of Bank Commissioner. In 1851, the people elected him Governor of Massachusetts. Mr. Boutwell was also a member of the Constitutional Convention of the Commonwealth in 1853. Perhaps his noblest, greatest work for the State was his active and earnest service as Secretary of the Board of Education for eleven years. He was for six years member of the Board of Overseers of Harvard College. When, in the spring of 1861, the rising storm of rebellion shook the national capital with excitement, he was a delegate from Massachusetts to the Peace Congress called to calm the strife; and, while he deprecated war, he was true to the principles and trust of his native State. From July, 1862, to March, 1863, he was Commissioner of Internal Revenue, and, in the autumn of the former year, was chosen representative to Congress, and placed on the Judiciary Commit tee. In 1864, he was a delegate to the Republican Convention at Baltimore which renominated for the Presidency Abraham Lincoln. On no occasion, perhaps, has he won higher admiration and regard, by a single effort, than on that of the discussion of negro suffrage, Jan. 18, 1866, in the House of Representatives. The members seemed to be in a careless mood, when the word passed around that "Gov. Boutwell is going to speak." As he rose to his feet, a sudden stillness spread over the hall; and the tried friend of the laboring classes, the advocate of popular education, and the eloquent pleader for the rights of the oppressed African, commenced one of his finest and most powerful extemporaneous speeches. He said,— Mr. Speaker,It is only recently that I entertained the purpose to speak at all upon this bill, and it was my expectation to avail myself of the kindness of the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee to divide with him the time allotted him by the rules of the House; but I accept the opportunity now presented of speaking, before the previous question is demanded, to state certain views I entertain on this bill. I may say, in the beginning, that I am opposed to all dilatory motions upon this bill. I am opposed to the restrictions moved by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hale), because I see in them no advantage to anybody, and I apprehend from their adoption much evil to the country. It should be borne in mind, that, when we emancipated the black people, we not only relieved ourselves from the institution of slavery, we not only conferred upon them freedom, but we did more, recognized their manhood, which, by the old Constitution and the general policy and usage of the country, had been, from the organization of the Government until the Emancipation Proclamation, denied to all of the enslaved colored people. As a consequence of the recognition of their manhood, certain results follow in accordance with the principles of this Government; and they who believe in this Government are by necessity forced to accept these results as a consequence of the policy of emancipation which they have inaugurated, and for which they are responsible. But to say now-having given freedom to this people that they shall not enjoy the essential rights and privileges of men, is to abandon the principle of the Proclamation of Emancipation, and tacitly to admit that the whole emancipation policy is erroneous. we After showing clearly the inherent, divinely given right of the emancipated bondmen to share in the elective franchise, and the dangerous power left in the hands of those who are still disloyal by withholding it, he closed with great force and impressive ness: I have thus given, with less preparation than I ought to have made for the discussion of a question like this, the views I entertain upon this subject. But, beyond this, when we proclaimed the emancipation of the slaves, and put their lives in peril for the defence of the country, we did in effect guarantee to them substantially the rights of American citizens and a Christian posterity; and heathen countries will demand how we have kept that faith. Mr. Speaker, we are to answer for our treatment of the colored people of this country; and it will prove in the end impracticable to secure to men of color civil rights, unless the persons who claim these rights are fortified by the polit ical right of voting. With the right of voting, every thing that a man ought to have or enjoy of civil rights comes to him. Without the right to vote, he is secure in nothing. I cannot consent, after all the guards and safeguards which may be prepared for the defence of the colored men in the enjoyment of their rights, I cannot consent that they shall be deprived of the right to protect themselves. One hundred and eighty-six thousand of them have been in the army of the United States. They have stood in the place of our sons and brothers and friends; they have fallen in defence of the country; they have earned the right to share in the Government; and, if you deny them the elective franchise, I know not how they are to be protected : otherwise you furnish the protection which is given the lamb when commended to the wolf. There is an ancient history, that a sparrow, pursued by a hawk, took refuge in the chief assembly of Athens, in the bosom of a member of that illustrious body, and that the senator in anger hurled it violently from him. It fell to the ground, dead; and such was the horror and indignation, because of that incident, of men in that ancient but not Christianized body, living in the light of nature and reason only, that they immediately expelled the brutal Areopagite from his seat, and from the association of legislators. What will be said of us, not by Christian, but by heathen nations even, if, after accepting the blood and sacrifice of these men, we hurl them from us, and allow them to be the victims of those who have tyrannized over them for centuries? I know of no crime that exceeds this; I know of none that is its parallel: and, if this country is true to itself, it will rise in the majesty of its strength, and maintain a policy, here and elsewhere, by which the rights of the colored people shall be secured through their own power. "In peace, the ballot; in war, the bayonet." men It is a maxim of another language, which we may well apply to ourselves, that, where the voting register ends, the military roster of rebellion begins; and, if you leave these four millions of people to the care and custody of the men who have inaugurated and carried on this Rebellion, then you treasure up for untold years the elements of social and civil war, which must not only desolate and paralyze the South, but shake this Government to its very foundation. After the proposed amendments were voted down, the original ill, which provides, that, from all laws prescribing the qualifica tions of voters in the District of Columbia, the word "white" be stricken out, and that hereafter no person shall be disqualified for voting on account of color, came to the final vote. New England moved in solid column for the measure; and, of a hundred and seventy ballots cast, only fifty-four were against it. Enthusiastic applause followed, when the outburst was checked, and the House adjourned. Mr. Boutwell is in the full activity of his powers of mind and body, and, it is hoped, may long continue to serve the country that will always hold him in grateful remembrance. His presence is dignified, his manner pleasing, and his nature genial. HON. THOMAS D. ELIOT. Hon. Thomas D. Eliot was born in Boston, March 20, 1808. His father was William G. Eliot, who subsequently became a resident of Washington, D.C., having an official position in the Treasury Department. His mother was the daughter of the Hon. Thomas Dawes, of Boston, who was for several years a Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. He is brother of Rev. William G. Eliot, D.D., of St. Louis. His boyhood was passed in Washington. He entered Columbia College, and, the year before he graduated, delivered an English oration at the first commencement of that institution. At his graduation, 1825, he was appointed to deliver the Latin salutatory addresses of the anniversary. Rev. Baron Stow, D.D., and the Rev. Robert Cushman, D.D., were among his classmates. He soon after became a student at law in the office of his uncle, the Hon. William Cranch, Chief Justice of the Circuit Court of the United States of the District of Columbia. In the year 1830, he went to New Bedford to complete his law studies with the Hon. C. H. Warren, whose partner he became after his admission to the bar. When, several years later, Mr. Warren was appointed Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, Mr. Eliot's widening professional practice claimed so exclusively his attention, that he neither sought nor had time for political preferment. The people, however, desired his services as their representative, and, still later, their senator, in the General Court. His professional duties and his devotion to his family induced him to decline a proffered Congressional nomination, until his prosperous career as a lawyer made a new field of activity a pleasant relaxation from professional labor, and an inviting sphere of public usefulness. In 1854, he was chosen to complete the unexpired term of the Hon. Zeno Scudder, representative in Congress from his district; and took his seat in the Capitol when the discussion attending the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was at its height. Always on the side of freedom, his speeches at this crisis of intense interest and feeling were earnest and eloquent. July 28, 1854, Mr. Eliot asked leave to introduce a bill in the House of Representatives to repeal the Fugitive-slave Law: and, on motion to suspend the rules, the ayes were 45; the nays, 120. This was the first bill offered for the repeal of that law. Mr. Eliot had always been a firm Whig, attached to the liberal wing of the party, but centring his hopes upon the success of that political organization. The whirlwind of Americanism swept that party out of existence in the fall of 1854, and with it disappeared from Congress the Massachusetts delegation. Mr. Eliot shared the universal fate; and his term closed in March,. 1855. Upon the dissolution of the Whig party, he united with those members of various organizations who desired to found the Republican party; and in the proceedings at Boston which resulted in the Convention at Worcester in the fall of 1855, and the nomination of Hon. Julius Rockwell, he bore a prominent part. From that time he has acted constantly and zealously with the Republicans. At the State Convention of 1857, he was unanimously nominated as their candidate for the office of AttorneyGeneral; but the duties of this office were less to his taste than his professional practice, and he declined the nomination. He has also declined offers of judicial station in the Court of Common Pleas and on the new Superior Bench. It would not be easy to find one whose life has been devoted more faithfully and closely to his profession. In the practice of many years, he has well deserved the confidence of his clients by the careful preparation which he has given to their cases out of court, as well as the earnestness with which their causes have been tried. For some time, he and Ex-Gov. Clifford have been confessedly at the head of the bar in Southern Massachusetts. Outside of his profession, his life has been chiefly spent in his home. A less pleasant one might have stimulated him to more ambitious achievements. He was re-elected to Congress from his old district in 1860. In the Thirty-sixth Congress, Mr. Eliot took a high and consistent position as a Republican, representing a district which "embraces within its limits the first harbor made by our Pilgrim |