east. He closed by the prediction that the time was not far distant when the positions of the parties would be reversed, and warned the majority that when that time should come its own measure would be meted out in return. The fulfillment of Mr. Chandler's prediction was foreshadowed at the opening of the second session of the thirtyfifth congress, in December, 1858. The Michigan senator was then added to the committee, while Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Maine, were also represented, giving the north a majority. From that time throughout his career in the senate, Mr. Chandler was a member of this committee, and during the period of its greatest usefulness, was its chairman. When, on the twenty-fourth day of January, 1861, the vice-president filled the vacancies caused by the retirement of various southern senators, the committee became fully purged of the obstructionist element and was thenceforth one of the most efficient as it is one of the most important of the senate standing committees. One of the writers who contributed to the extended biography of Mr. Chandler, published by the Detroit Post and Tribune in 1880,* says of Mr. Chandler's service as chairman of this committee: Mr. Chandler's business principles were carried out in his committee work as thoroughly as they had been in his mercantile career. He believed that what was worth doing at all, was worth doing well It was the custom of the senate committee on commerce, to assemble formally, once a week, for the consideration of such petitions and bills as had been referred to it for action. Whenever the appointed meeting arrived, Mr. Chandler was always in his seat, while the other members but rarely displayed anything like his promptitude. It annoyed the chairman to have anyone late, and it was his custom to proceed with business as soon as a quorum was present, or, if no quorum appeared within fifteen or twenty minutes, to assume that there was one, and commence work. No protests against this measure were ever made by the tardy or absent members. The services of Mr. Chandler in the cause of internal improvement stand second only to his loyal defense of the national existence, and greatest of all his accomplishments in this direction was the building of the ship canal at the St. Clair flats, which he compassed by the persistent effort of many years. On the fourteenth day of January, 1858, he gave notice of his intention to introduce a bill "making an additional appropriation for deepening the channel at St. Clair flats." The bill was introduced, referred to the committee on commerce and that committee, then in common with the senate majority, hostile to internal improvements and to northern enterprise, persistently ignored it. On the twenty-fourth of April, Mr. Chandler introduced a bill instructing the committe to report back the bill for action. On May 3, he called up his resolution and demanded a vote. This demand caused a hot debate, involving the right of the senate to coerce a committee. The result was the substantial defeat of the effort to compel a report. He then introduced a bill appropriating fifty-five thousand dollars for the same purpose, which was laid on the table without reference. Later in the session he succeeded in procuring the addition *The writer of this sketch desires to acknowledge of the item to the civil appropriation a large indebtedness to this work. bill, but the senate struck it out under menace of a veto. During the following session he secured the taking of his bill from the table, its passage in the senate and also in the house, using every personal effort to overcome the strong opposition there developed. The President withheld his signature from the bill and thus defeated it. In the thirty-sixth congress, the persistent senator's bill again made its appearance. Buchanan Buchanan sent in a message February 2, assuming the position that river and harbor improvements should be made by the respective states, and that the specific work at St. Clair flats, should be done at the joint expense of Michigan and Upper Canada. The absurdity of this view is obvious, considering how trifling is the interest of Michigan in the work, when compared with the total benefit conferred. During the remainder of the session Mr. Chandler worked constantly and vainly to secure consideration of the bill. The second session of the thirtysixth congress faced imminent war, and the matter shared the fate of every measure of the kind, lying in abeyance until the tide of victory set northward, when it was revived, and with the aid of his colleagues, its originator easily won a victory. The canal was completed in the year 1871, and stands a splendid monument to the persistency and loyalty of its deviser. This extended account of the history of the improvement of the St. Clair flats is defensible by reason of the importance of the work accomplished, but still more for the light it gives upon Mr. Chandler's methods. The same skill and determination entered into every effort of his public life. Upon questions relating to the currency, Mr. Chandler was from first to last upon the right side, and showed a profound familiarity with the economical and historical literature of the subject. He recognized the necessity of the act making "greenbacks" legal tender-a necessity involving the preservation of the government. He maintained, however, that the issue of greenbacks should be held to the lowest possible amount, and exchanged for a sounder currency at the earliest moment. He looked upon taxation as the only legitimate recourse for supplying the means of war to the government and sustaining its credit as a borrower in foreign markets. In his speeches protesting against later issues of greenbacks, he foretold their depreciation which should drive coin out of circulation and make it a commodity of speculation and, during the past decade, turned the light of the experience of the sixties upon the inflation craze of the day, with telling effect. He was an original supporter of the national banking system, both as furnishing a market for government bonds, and for its permanent excellence as a means of supplying a paper currency. He opposed the making of the United States treasury a bank of issue, worked earnestly for the resumption of specie payments and was only dissatisfied with the bill passed in 1875, which compassed that result, because he believed the time set for resumption to be unnecessarily remote. These general principles directed his every act and word in relation to finance. And now for the second phase of Mr. Chandler's dual career as a business senator" and a "war senator." The election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency precipitated the execu tion of the ripe plot of secession. South Carolina took the lead on the twelfth of November, 1860, by ordering the election of a convention to adopt an ordinance of secession, and other cotton states followed her lead very closely. Buchanan sent to congress, upon its meeting on the third day of December, a message in which he made the astounding statement that "no power to coerce into submission a state which is attempting to withdraw or has actually withdrawn from the confederacy, has been delegated to congress or any other department." South Carolina, always first in every seditious work, "withdrew" on the twentieth day of December, the Southern Confederacy was formed on the fourth day of February, the seizure, or base surrender of government forts, arsenals and other property, the defection of its military officers, the resignation of southern members of congress and of the cabinet, and the hurrying preparations on the part of the south for active war went on, while Buchanan sat inactive, and loyal men trembled lest the capital should be seized before a patriot President could be inaugurated. Among northern people there were, at the outset, three classes-those who favored acquiescence in Buchanan's monstrous doctrine and permitting the seceding states to peaceably withdraw; those who favored bribing them by concession to return, and those who demanded that secession should be treated as rebellion, and stamped out thoroughly and at once. Mr. Chandler belonged heart and soul to the third class. He had foreseen secession for three years, while many others preferred to regard the threats of disunionists as idle bluster. When the act of secession came, and the first state, arms in hand, announced itself severed from the Union, he considered the act of rebellion complete. It did not need the repeated thefts of government property that followed, or the firing on Sumter to constitute an "overt act." Had a Jackson sat in the chair disgraced by Buchanan, South Carolina would again have received prompt and effective discipline, and with the full approval of the Michigan senator. He arose at once to the emergency, and men instinctively stood aside to give place to the natural leader whom the occasion had raised up. He strained every effort to unite and arouse the north; he spoke rarely in the senate during the winter of 1860-61, but in the private conferences of the friends of freedom was hourly at work, urging a stern and prompt suppression of the rebellion and punishment of the traitors. He afterward said that could he have had his way no man who proclaimed treason on the floor of the senate should have gone free from the capitol. It was in these trying days, while straining every nerve to defeat the plans 352 MAGAZINE OF WESTERN HISTORY. of the leaders of rebellion, that Mr. Chandler formed a friendship for Edwin M. Stanton, then attorney-general in Buchanan's cabinet, but loyally working to arouse the President to a sense of his duty. This friendship grew with every day. During Stanton's incumbency of the war department, Mr. Chandler was one of the few men who never hesitated to approach him in any mood, nor feared to address him in plain English at all times. He had much to do, also, with securing for him the appointment to the supreme bench, which came to him as he lay upon his death-bed, having burned out his life in magnificent service to the govern ment. He imbibed, at the same time, a distrust of Senator Seward's firmness and wisdom, which grew to dislike in later years, and he always deemed both his distrust and dislike to have been fully vindicated by events. Whenever Mr. Chandler did speak during that momentous session of the senate, it was to assail treason and its promoters with the crushing force of which he was peculiarly the master. He denounced "traitors in the cabinet and imbeciles in the President's chair" with no effort at euphemism. He opposed the so-called Crittenden compromise, and condemned the peace congress, called at the suggestion of Virginia sympathizers with the south, for the procuring of peace with any sacrifice of honor. Largely through his influence Michigan was one of the five northern states which took no part in this gathering, but when, as its deliberations neared a close, and there was fear that it might reach some damaging conclusion, it seemed desirable to strengthen the number of uncompromising Union men in its membership, he and Kinsley S. Bingham, his colleague, transmitted by telegraph to Governor Blair the request of prominent loyal men, that the Michigan legislature should send a delegation to the congress. Mr. Chandler supplemented his dispatch with the following letter: WASHINGTON, D. C., February 11, 1861. My Dear Sir: Governor Bingham and myself telegraphed you on Saturday, at the request of Massachusetts and New York, to send delegates to the peace or compromise congress. They admit that we were right and they were wrong; that no Republican states should have sent delegates, but they are here and cannot get away. Ohio, Indiana and Rhode Island are caving in, and there is danger of Illinois; and now they beg of us, for God's sake, to come to their rescue and save the Republican party from rupture. I hope you will send stiff backed men or none. The whole thing was gotten up against my judgment and advice, and will end in thin smoke. Still I hope, as a matter of courtesy to some of our erring brethren, that you will send the delegates. Truly your friend, His Excellency Austin Blair. 2. CHANDLER. P. S. Some of the manufacturing states think that a fight would be awful. Without a little bloodletting, this Union will not, in my estimation, be worth a rush. WALTER BUELL. [To be Continued.] |