Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2

George Frisbie Hoar

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• Publié par: mefong
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 31
• Langue: English

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Project Gutenberg's Autobiography of Seventy
Years, Vol. 1-2, by George Hoar
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Title: Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2
Author: George Hoar
Release Date: October 15, 2006 [EBook #19548]
[Last updated on May 30, 2007]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG
EBOOK AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SEVENTY ***
Produced by Ed Ferris
[Frontispiece: v1.jpg]
SENATOR GEORGE F. HOAR
From a photograph taken in 1897
Copyright, 1897, by H. Schervee, Worcester,Mass.
[Title page]
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF SEVENTY YEARS
BY GEORGE F. HOAR
WITH PORTRAITS
VOLUME I.
NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1903
[Dedication]
TO
MY WIFE AND CHILDREN
THIS RECORD OF A LIFE WHICH
THEY HAVE MADE HAPPY
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
[Table of Contents]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY
CHAPTER II ROGER SHERMAN AND HIS
FAMILY
CHAPTER III SAMUEL HOARCHAPTER IV BOYHOOD IN CONCORD
CHAPTER V FAMOUS CONCORD MEN
CHAPTER VI FARM AND SCHOOL
CHAPTER VII HARVARD SIXTY YEARS AGO
CHAPTER VIII 1849 TO 1850—FOUNDATION OF
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY— DANIEL WEBSTER
CHAPTER IX LIFE IN WORCESTER
CHAPTER X POLITICAL HISTORY OF
MASSACHUSETTS FROM 1848 TO 1869
CHAPTER XI THE KNOW NOTHING PARTY AND
ITS OVERTHROW
CHAPTER XII ELECTION TO CONGRESS
CHAPTER XIII SUMNER AND WILSON
CHAPTER XIV PERSONALITIES IN DEBATE
CHAPTER XV THE NATIONAL HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES IN 1869
CHAPTER XVI POLITICAL CONDITION IN 1869CHAPTER XVII RECONSTRUCTION
CHAPTER XVIII COMMITTEE SERVICE IN THE
HOUSE
CHAPTER XIX SALMON P. CHASE
CHAPTER XX ADIN THAYER
CHAPTER XXI POLITICAL CORRUPTION
CHAPTER XXII CREDIT MOBILIER
CHAPTER XXIII THE SANBORN CONTRACTS
CHAPTER XXIV BENJAMIN F. BUTLER
CHAPTER XXV BELKNAP IMPEACHMENT
CHAPTER XXVI ELECTORAL COMMISSION
CHAPTER XXVII FOUR NATIONAL
CONVENTIONS, 1876
CHAPTER XXVIII FOUR NATIONAL
CONVENTIONS, 1880CHAPTER XXIX FOUR NATIONAL
CONVENTIONS, 1884
CHAPTER XXX FOUR NATIONAL
CONVENTIONS, 1888
CHAPTER XXXI SATURDAY CLUB
CHAPTER XXXII THE WORCESTER FIRE
SOCIETY
APPENDIX I.
APPENDIX II.
[Text]
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SEVENTY YEARS
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY
Everybody who reads this book through will wonder
that a man who ought to be able to tell so much
has really told so little.
I have known personally and quite intimately, or
have known intelligent and trustworthy persons
who have known personally and quite intimately,
many men who have had a great share in the
history of this country and in its literature for a
hundred and thirty years.In my younger days there were among my kindred
and near friends persons who knew the great
actors of the Revolutionary time and the time which
followed till I came to manhood myself. But I did
not know enough to ask questions. If I had, and
had recorded the answers, I could write a very
large part of the political and literary history of the
United States. I never kept a diary, except for a
few and brief periods. So for what I have to say, I
must trust to my memory. I have no doubt that
after these volumes are published, there will come
up in my mind matter enough to make a dozen
better ones.
I invoke for this book that kindly judgment of my
countrymen which has attended everything I have
done in my life so far. I have tried to guard against
the dangers and the besetting infirmities of men
who write their own biography. An autobiography,
as the word implies, will be egotistical. An old
man's autobiography is pretty certain to be
garrulous. If the writer set forth therein his own
ideals, he is likely to be judged by them, even when
he may fall far short of them. Men are likely to
think that he claims or pretends to have lived up to
them, however painfully conscious he may be that
they are only dreams which even if he have done
his best have had little reality for him.
There is another danger for a man who tells the
story of great transactions, in which he has taken
part, whether legislative, executive, military, or
political, or any other, in which the combined action
of many persons was required for the result. He isapt to claim, consciously or unconsciously, that he
himself brought the whole thing about.
"Papa," said the little boy to the veteran of the Civil
War,
"Did anybody help you to put down the Rebellion?"
This peril specially besets narrators in their old age.
I am afraid I can hardly escape it.
I once heard General George H. Thomas relate to
a brilliant company at a supper party, among whom
were Chief Justice Chase, General Eaton,
Commissary General in two wars, Senator
Trumbull, William M. Evarts, Joseph Henry, John
Sherman, his brother the General, and several
other gentlemen of equal distinction, the story of
the battles of Nashville and Franklin. The story was
full of dramatic interest. Yet no one who heard it
would have known that the speaker himself had
taken part in the great achievement, until, just at
the end, he said of the Battle of Nashville that he
thought of sending a detachment to cut off Hood's
army at a ford by which he escaped after they
were defeated, but he concluded that it was not
safe to spare that force from immediate use in the
battle. "If I had done it," he added, with great
simplicity, "I should have captured his whole army.
There is where I made my mistake."
The recollections of the actors in important political
transactions are doubtless of great historic value.
But I ought to say frankly that my experience has
taught me that the memory of men, even of goodand true men, as to matters in which they have
been personal actors, is frequently most
dangerous and misleading. I could recount many
curious stories which have been told me by friends
who have been writers of history and biography, of
the contradictory statements they have received
from the best men in regard to scenes in which
they have been present.
If any critic think this book lacking in dignity, or
wisdom, or modesty, it is hoped that it may, by way
of offset, make up for it in sincerity. I have so far
lived in the world without secrets. If my
countrymen, or the people of Massachusetts, have
trusted me, they have fully known what they were
doing. "They had eyes and chose me."
I have never lifted any finger or spoken a word to
any man to secure or to promote my own election
to any office. I do not mean to criticise other men
who advance their honorable ambition for public
service or exert themselves to get office for which
they think themselves fit. It was the "high Roman
fashion." It has been the fashion in England
always. English gentlemen do not disdain a
personal solicitation for political support, and think
no harm in it, to which no American gentleman
would for a moment stoop.
It has been the custom in other parts of the
country almost from the beginning of the
Government. But what I think a better custom has
prevailed in Massachusetts. I arrogate to myself no
virtue in this respect. I only say that it has been mysupreme good fortune to be the son of a
Commonwealth among whose noble and high-
minded people a better and more fastidious habit
has prevailed.
The lesson which I have learned in life, which is
impressed on me daily, and more deeply as I grow
old, is the lesson of Good Will and Good Hope. I
believe that to-day is better than yesterday, and
that to-morrow will be better than to- day. I believe
that in spite of so many errors and wrongs and
even crimes, my countrymen of all classes desire
what is good, and not what is evil. I repeat what I
said to the State Convention of Massachusetts
after the death of President McKinley:
"When I first came to manhood and began to take
part in public affairs, that greatest of crimes,
human slavery, was entrenched everywhere in
power in this Republic. Congress and Supreme
Court, Commerce and Trade and Social Life alike
submitted to its imperious and arrogant sway. Mr.
Webster declared that there was no North, and
that the South went clear up to the Canada line.
The hope of many wise and conservative and, as I
now believe, patriotic men, of saving this country
from being rent into fragments was in leaving to
slavery forever the great territory between the
Mississippi and the Pacific, in the Fugitive Slave
Law, a law under which freemen were taken from
the soil of Massachusetts to be delivered into
perpetual bondage, and in the judgment of the
Supreme Court which declared it as the lesson of
our history that the Negro had no rights that a