WILLIAM PITT FESSENDEN,
was born in Boscawen, New Hampshire, on the 16th of October,
1806. He was the oldest son of General Samuel Fessenden.
From 1806 to 1809 he lived in Fryeburg, Maine, when he went
to New Gloucester, where his father was practicing law, and
where he passed his early life till seventeen years of age.
At a very early age he exhibited uncommon mental powers, and
ardent love for reading, and great precocity in preparing for
college. His studies were recited to the students in his
father's office, and his future eminence was predicted even in
his boyhood. At the age of eleven he had mastered the
preparatory studies for college, but his father sent him to
Fryeburg that he might spend a year on his uncle's farm.
At this time he is described as a slender and handsome boy,
possessing great quickness of apprehension, a strong memory,
ardent feelings, and great conscientiousness. He entered
Bowdoin College when he was twelve years old, and was graduated
before he was seventeen. He at once began his law studies
in the office of Honorable Charles S. Davies, a
distinguished lawyer of Portland, and his father's friend.
Here he remained nearly three years, when he went to New York
and studied six months in the office of his uncle, Thomas
Fessenden, after which he returned to Portland and
finished his four years' preparatory study in his father's
office. When twenty-one years of age he was admitted to
practice, and opened an office in Bridgeton, Maine, where he
remained two years. In 1829 he returned to Portland, and became
a member of his father's firm. In the mean time, besides
studying hard in his profession, he devoted much attention to
speaking and writing. When nineteen years old he delivered an
address before the Portland Benevolent Society. At twenty-one
he delivered the Fourth-of-July oration in Portland, and in the
following year an oration before the literary societies of
Bowdoin College, at Commencement. During the next two years,
before he was twenty-five, he prepared and delivered several
other orations before different societies, on music, on
temperance, on the drama, and on the necessity of a
well-organized militia, and wrote numerous political and
literary articles for the newspapers, some of which were widely
copied. At this time he refused a nomination to Congress, but in
the same year, 1831, accepted a nomination, and was elected to
the Legislature from Portland. In the Legislature, although one
of the youngest members, he at once took the position of a
leading member and an able debater, making speeches upon
questions connected with the Northeast Boundary, upon legal and
constitutional questions, and upon the proposition to instruct
the Senators and Representatives in Congress from Maine to vote
against the renewal of the charter of the United States Bank. In
this speech, besides defending the constitutionality of that
measure, and exhibiting a comprehension of financial
principles, he uttered a declaration memorable in the light of
his subsequent action upon the impeachment of President
Johnson, that upon questions of general interest he would never
be controlled by instructions from the Legislature as to his
conduct as a Member of Congress. He left the Legislature with
the reputation of a leader in his party, an able lawyer, and a
ready and accomplished debater. The following year he devoted
himself to his profession, having been defeated in the election.
The next year, 1834, he moved to Bangor, at once taking the
first rank in a bar which numbered among its members the
brilliant Jack Rogers; Appleton, afterward chief-justice; Kent
and Cutting, both for a long time judges of the Supreme Court;
and Hamlin, then beginning his distinguished career. In 1835 he
returned to Portland, and in 1836 he formed a law partnership
with William Willis, the historian of Portland, and of " The
Courts and Lawyers of Maine." This partnership was very
successful, and lasted for twenty years. Mr. Fessenden at once
took a prominent position, and successfully contested the
leadership of the bar with his distinguished father. He was a
most diligent student, uniting patient investigation to an
intuitive quickness of comprehension. As an advocate he was
equally convincing before courts as well as juries. His style of
speaking was without ornament, and remarkable for brevity,
clearness, simplicity, and power of reasoning. He modelled his
speaking upon the style of Benjamin Orr, one of the ablest
lawyers of his day in New England, whose mode of speaking was as
terse, plain, and irresistible as Jeremiah Mason's. His
professional business became absorbing, and though keenly
interested in politics, he refused all office for several years.
In 1837 he was invited by Daniel Webster to accompany him upon
his Western tour. This invitation he accepted, going through
Pennsylvania to Wheeling, thence down the Ohio to Louisville,
stopping at Lexington to enjoy the hospitalities of Henry Clay,
meeting John J. Crittenden and Garrett Davis, who, like himself,
afterward became leading Whigs. From Louisville the party
proceeded down the Ohio to St. Louis, and returned home by way
of Chicago, (then a village), and Buffalo. He again refused a
nomination for Congress, but in 1839 he consented to again sit
in the Legislature, and though in a minority, was, on account
of his legal abilities, placed at the head of the Judiciary
Committee and the Committee on the Revision of the Statutes. In
1840 he accepted a nomination for Congress and was elected,
running largely ahead of his ticket, and being the only Whig
elected from that district until the overthrow of the Democratic
party by the antislavery agitation. In Congress he distinguished
himself in debate, and made speeches upon the Bankrupt Bill, the
Army Bill, and the Loan Bill. Refusing a renomination he
returned to his profession with increased reputation, and
devoted himself arduously to its practice. In 1845 and 1846 he
again sat in the Legislature to look after measures in which his
city was interested, and received the compliment of a nomination
by his party for United States Senator. During this period he
argued many important causes at the bar, one of which, before
the United States Supreme Court at Washington, gave him a
national reputation among lawyers, and was pronounced by Daniel
Webster to be the best argument he had heard in twenty years.
In this case he succeeded in obtaining the reversal of a
decision by Judge Story in the court below against his client.
While not holding political office during this period, he warmly
advocated Whig principles by frequent speeches upon the stump.
Although not an Abolitionist, like his father, he was strongly
antislavery in his political principles. In 1832 he was a
delegate to the National Convention which nominated Henry Clay
for President. In 1840 and 1848 he was a member of the Whig
National Conventions, and advocated the nomination of Daniel
Webster. In 1852 he was again a delegate to the Whig National
Convention, and on account of his opposition to slavery voted
against the platform which indorsed the compromise measures of
1850. He was nominated for Congress in 1850 against his refusal
to be a candidate. The election was very close, and by an error
in the returns was given to his opponent, the Honorable John
Appleton, whose apparent majority was only thirty, but Mr.
Fessenden refused to contest the seat. In 1850 he was solicited
to be a candidate for United States Senator, it being thought
that the antislavery men held the balance of power, but he
declined to stand, and Mr. Hamlin was finally chosen by the
votes of the antislavery members. In 1853 the antislavery
agitation became fiercer than ever before by the introduction
into Congress of the Nebraska Bill, which admitted slaveholders
with their slaves into those Territories from which slavery had
been prohibited by the Missouri Compromise. The excitement
caused by this measure led to Mr. Fessenden's election, from his
known hostility to slavery, to the United States Senate in
February, 1854, in which body he took his seat on February 23.
The Senate was then strongly Democratic, and that party was
never more ably represented in that branch of Congress.
Benjamin, Jefferson Davis, Toombs, and Douglas dictated the
national politics, while the antislavery Senators, few in
numbers and helpless to resist the measures forced upon the
Senate, could only demonstrate the wrong of the Democratic
policy and appeal to the country. The few Northern men who
denounced the aggressions of slavery were haughtily told that
their course would cause a dissolution of the Union. The
antislavery members, though few, were soon to prove themselves
able to uphold the cause of the North; Among them were Seward,
and Chase, and Collamer, and Sumner. When Mr. Fessenden entered
the Senate the Nebraska Bill was pending, and was approaching
the final vote. The country was convulsed by it. Mr. Fessenden
did not intend to make a speech, and had not prepared _____. But
on the 3d of March, a few days after he had entered the body, at
one o'clock in the morning, when the vote was taken, he made a
short speech of an hour's length against the bill, which
electrified the Senate, and made him at once one of the leading
men in it. The speech proved him to be a ready and able debater,
and was marked by those characteristics which afterward shone so
conspicuously in the Senate. It was bold, intrepid, and clear;
and the interrogatories of his opponents were met so promptly
and completely that, in the language of Mr. Sumner, " all
present felt that a champion had come."
The compromise measures of 1850, the enforcement of the fugitive
slave laws, and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, followed
by the attempt to fasten a slave constitution upon Kansas, broke
up the old parties and brought on the rise of the Republican
party. Mr. Fessenden was one of the first to advocate a new
party, and exerted himself to have it organized, taking an
active part in the campaign of 1855 in Maine—the first year in
which the new party tried its strength at the polls. It was
defeated, but in 1856 it swept the State by a larger majority
than ever before known in the politics of Maine, bringing into
power that party which has controlled the State since that time
and the National Government since 1861. In all these movements
Mr. Fessenden was conspicuous. In the Senate he was a recognized
leader and the ablest debater of the new party. Mr. Trumbull
declared in his obituary address to the Senate that his party
always felt that there need be no apprehension when Mr.
Fessenden maintained their side in a political discussion.
During the session of 1856-57, pending the debate upon the
President's Message, Mr. Fessenden defended the Republican
Party, criticised the Message, and in encounters with the
leading slaveholders displayed anew his skill and readiness in
debate. His speech at the ensuing session upon the relations of
this country with Great Britain under the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty
as affected by the principles of international law received the
highest praise, particularly from Mr. Clayton, who was
Secretary of State, under whom the treaty was made. Mr.
Fessenden was foremost in the debate upon the Lecompton
Constitution in 1858, criticising the opinion of the Supreme
Court in the case of _________ Scott, and showing his mastery of
constitutional principles. In this discussion Benjamin, Toombs,
and Davis undertook to interrogate him, but he proved himself
able to meet all his antagonists. Maine had now become a strong
Republican State. That party controlled all the Congressional
districts, and held the Legislature by an overwhelming majority.
Mr. Fessenden's first term having expired, the Legislature in
1858 again elected him United States Senator for a full term of
six years without the formality of a previous nomination. During his service in the Senate he had represented his party
on the Finance Committee, and had thus been familiarizing
himself with those duties connected with the appropriations for
the different branches of the Government which made him so
prominent during the coming conflict. The Finance Committee at
that time, as well as during the long period while Mr. Fessenden
was its chairman, had charge of all bills touching taxation and
revenue, as well as of all appropriations for the Government,
though these duties have since been divided between two
committees. Mr. Hunter of Virginia had been chairman till 1861.
He was a very able and upright statesman. To show how little
even the ablest men comprehended the magnitude of the coming
struggle, it maybe related that in conversation with Mr.
Fessenden one day Mr. Hunter remarked that he did not believe
the North would permit the Government to go to war with the
South to prevent secession, on account of its cost. ''Why," said
Mr. Hunter, "it would cost you one hundred millions." The real
cost of the war has been estimated at eighty times this amount,
of which the Government spent about four billions. Nor does
this estimate include the expenditure by the South.
In the struggle of i860 Mr. Fessenden labored zealously for the
election of Lincoln and Hamlin, making numerous speeches and
assisting in carrying his own State, which went for Lincoln and
Hamlin with a tremendous majority. He was a member of the Peace
Congress in i860, though he did not anticipate any results from
its deliberations. Upon the secession of the Southern States, by
which the Senate fell into the control of the Republicans, he
was at once placed at the head of the Committee on Finance. This
position was regarded as the leading position in the Senate, and
in time of war was especially so. In ordinary times, from the
fact that the appropriation bills are reported to the Senate by
the chairman, and their discussion managed by him, he
necessarily becomes the leader in the Senate, controlling and
directing its course of business. The position requires not only
a statesman of the greatest abilities, wisdom, and debating
powers, but the highest tact, the most painstaking industry, and
the most unquestioned integrity. These requirements are
increased tenfold in time of war, when enormous appropriations
are incessantly called for, and every industry of the country
has to be strained to the utmost by the burdens of taxation and
revenue. Mr. Chase had become the Secretary of the Treasury of
the new Administration, and requested Mr. Fessenden to visit
him in Washington before the assembling of Congress in June, in
order to confer with him upon the financial measures for
supplying the Government with means to crush the gathering
Rebellion. During the ensuing session, Mr. Fessenden, as
Chairman of the Finance Committee, reported to the Senate the
various bills of supply for the Government, advocating their
passage, and speaking upon the subjects of revenue, taxation,
fortifications, pay of the army, the army bill, to increase the
Quartermaster Department, to amend the militia act, the conduct
of the war, arrests by the State Department, powers of Congress,
railroad and telegraph lines, Benjamin Stark, the extension of
the Capitol, confiscation of property, on ways and means, as
well as upon the numerous appropriation and deficiency bills.
His labors during the Rebellion were overwhelming, and no man in
Congress was more completely absorbed in public duties which
permitted no time for rest or relaxation. These labors increased
with the progress of the war as new means had to be devised for
raising an enormous revenue. Mr. Fessenden opposed the bill
making the Treasury notes a legal tender, considering the
proposition unconstitutional in principle and unnecessary at the
time. When the bill came to the Senate, he proposed an amendment
striking out the legal-tender clause, making a speech against
it, but his amendment was defeated. Possessing a delicate
physical organization, the close of the long sessions would find
him much exhausted in strength; but in July, 1864, at the most
gloomy period of the war, the close of the session did not bring
him his usual period of repose. At a moment when a call for
loans by Secretary Chase had met with no response, when gold was
at its highest point since the beginning of the Rebellion, when
the power of the Treasury to borrow and the capacity of the
people to lend had apparently been exhausted, when Grant was
pausing before Richmond and Atlanta had not yet fallen, the
Treasury Department suddenly became vacant by the resignation of
Mr. Chase. It was the darkest hour of the Rebellion. Gold rose
to 280. Congress was upon the point of adjourning, and Mr.
Fessenden was worn out by an unusually long and laborious
session. Feeling the vital importance of a Secretary of the
Treasury who would give confidence to the country, he called to
advise the President, when the latter informed him of his own
nomination to the position. Mr. Fessenden at once refused it,
saying that his health demanded repose. He returned to his
rooms, wrote a letter declining the place, and handed it to Mr.
Lincoln. This letter the President refused to accept. In the
mean time the nomination as Secretary of the Treasury had been
sent in to the Senate before Mr. Fessenden had come into the
body. It immediately went into executive session, and the
appointment was instantly and unanimously confirmed. The
appointment met with the enthusiastic approbation of the
nation. To the appeals of the President and of members of
Congress Mr. Fessenden still opposed a negative, but the appeals
from all portions of the country to step into the breach and
save the sinking credit of the nation overcame his unwillingness
to take the post. He accepted in obedience to a universal public
pressure. On the day that his acceptance became known, gold,
which was at 280, fell to 225, with no bidders. The press
declared that no other man in America could succeed Mr. Chase in
his arduous and trying labors with so little misgiving as Mr.
Fessenden. The situation of the Treasury seemed well-nigh
desperate. Just previous to his resignation Mr. Chase had
without success tried to raise a loan of fifty millions from the
banks. The demands upon the Treasury were largely in excess of
the estimates of the year. The suspended requisitions upon the
Treasury were ninety-one millions. The demands for the next
three months exceeded three hundred millions. The daily
expenditure was two and a half millions. The daily income was
but little over half a million. General Grant was conducting his
operations upon an enormous scale, and possessing the
confidence of the Government, every effort was being made to
give a final blow to the Rebellion. Feeling that the condition
of the Treasury and the unsettled immediate future of the
country forbade any public declaration as to any inflexible
course of action, Mr. Fessenden only declared that he would
issue no more currency; that the temporary obligations must be
paid as soon as possible; that there should be no addition to
the variety of forms of indebtedness ; and that the policy of
his predecessor as to the reserved power of reducing the
interest on the public debt should be adhered to. He first
visited New York in the hope of obtaining fifty millions from
the associated banks in exchange for fifty millions of bonds;
but the banks, which had responded with generous patriotism to
the previous calls by the Government, were too much exhausted to
comply with this new demand. He then offered thirty-two millions
of six-per-cent gold bonds remaining unsold, and proposed to
receive in payment compound-interest notes at par with accrued
interest. This proposition was universally opposed by bankers ;
but Mr. Fessenden was firm in his resolution, and was afterward
assured by these same bankers that his decision nearly doubled
the amount of subscriptions, and at higher rates than would
otherwise have been offered. On July 25 he offered a national
loan at seven and three tenths interest, but the subscriptions
were not enough to prevent the suspended requisitions from
attaining in September the sum of one hundred and thirty
millions. Renewed appeals were again addressed to the banks and
private bankers on behalf of the seven and three tenths loan;
but in spite of every effort, the Government securities
continued to depreciate ; receipts were far behind expenditures,
and few suspected the desperate condition of the Treasury. The
Secretary delivered to the paymasters of the army a liberal
proportion of the 7.30 bonds of the smaller denominations, which
were to be tendered to the soldiers in part payment of their
dues, if they chose to accept them. The soldiers responded
loyally, and to that extent relieved the Treasury, and furnished
the patriotic exhibition of the soldiers fighting for the
country, and loaning their pay to maintain the war. To add to
the embarrassments of the Department while the daily receipts
were not one third sufficient to meet the daily expenses ; an
animated discussion was kept up in the public journals and in
the correspondence of the Secretary as to how he should
appropriate the daily receipts, and in highly dictatorial
language the newspapers and bankers wished to dictate the
course of the Treasury. At this point the certificates of
indebtedness had reached two hundred and forty-seven millions,
and could be purchased at ninety-two cents on the dollar.
Subscriptions to the 7.30 loan had ceased; the clamor for money
was incessant, accompanied by imperious demands for a further
issue of currency on an unrestricted sale of bonds at any prices
which might be offered. To prevent the rapid depreciation of
Government securities, Mr. Fessenden suspended the further
issue of certificates of indebtedness, withdrew the six-per-cent
gold bonds from the market, and made another appeal to the banks
and the people for the 7.30 loan. The banks, however, were
exhausted ; and, convinced that other measures must be resorted
to to popularize the loan, Mr. Fessenden decided to call to his
assistance the agency of Jay Cooke, the patriotic banker, who
had in the previous year so successfully negotiated the five
hundred millions of six-per-cent bonds, The effect of these
measures was to save the Treasury from threatened bankruptcy.
The long-dormant 10.40 loan revived, and subscriptions were made
to the extent of one hundred and seventy-two millions, when it
was withdrawn from the market. The 7.30 loan became popular,
while the successes of Sherman and the situation at Petersburg
gave promise of a break in the dark clouds of Rebellion. It must
be remembered that the amended tax laws, in the passage of which
Mr. Fessenden had borne so large a part, were only just
beginning to operate, and the astonishing revenues from this
source were then only beginning to come into the Treasury.
Having prepared for present demands by the successful issue of
the 7.30 loan, Mr. Fessenden was obliged to mature measures for
a corresponding scale of expenditure for another year, as at
this time the Rebellion was not subdued; and lastly he prepared
and matured the bill passed March 3, 1865, which supplied
deficiencies by a renewed authority for loans, as well as the
power requisite for rearranging and consolidating the public
debt as it should stand at the end of the war. Under this bill
every species of non-conditioned indebtedness carrying currency
interest, as well as all kinds of non-interest-bearing
obligations of whatever character, and subsequently as they fell
within the control of the Secretary all bonds carrying a higher
rate of interest than five per cent, might be funded first into
10.40 bonds at five per cent interest, and after ten years from
the date of first issue into four-and-a-half and four per cents.
In the mean time the victories of Grant and Sherman were making
the financial affairs of the nation more promising, and Mr.
Fessenden, according to his understanding with President
Lincoln
when he entered the Cabinet, resigned the Treasury on the 3d of
March, to re-enter the Senate, to which he had been re-elected
for a full term of six years. The Senate again placed him at the
head of the Finance Committee.
The Congress which met in December, 1865, was confronted with
grave and difficult duties. The rebel States, with all the
powers of their State and Confederate governments. and with the
support of all their people, had levied a war of the greatest
magnitude, by land and sea, against the United States for
upwards of four years. During this period the rebel armies had
besieged the national capital, had invaded the loyal States, had
destroyed more than two hundred and fifty thousand loyal
soldiers, and had imposed a national burden of more than three
and a half billions of dollars. Nor did they cease to prosecute
the war until their armies had been destroyed or captured, their
State and Confederate governments obliterated, their territory
overrun, and their people reduced to the condition of enemies
conquered in war. This was their position according to the law
of nations, and had been established by judicial decisions, as
well as recognized by the President and the various branches of
the Government in numerous public documents, proclamations, and
speeches. Before Congress had met, however, President Johnson
had inaugurated a policy for restoring the rebel States to their
federal relations, which would have permitted them to re-enter
the Union without securing to the country the fruits of the
overthrow of the Rebellion, or providing adequate safeguards for
the future. Conquered enemies feeling a bitter hostility to the
government would have been seen at once participating in making
laws for their conquerors. The conquered rebels could have
changed their theatre of operations from the battle-field where
they had been overthrown, to the halls of Congress, and thus
have seized upon the government they had fought to destroy. The
national treasury, the army of the nation, its navy, its forts
and arsenals, the whole civil administration, its pensioners,
the widows and orphans of those who had perished in the war, its
public honor, peace, and safety, would all have been turned over
to its recent enemies, and without such conditions as in the
opinion of Congress the security of the country and its
institutions might demand. This policy appeared to be fatal to
those great objects for which the country had toiled so long and
won at so vast a sacrifice. Immediately upon the assembling of
Congress, the Joint Committee of Reconstruction, consisting of
fifteen members from both Houses, was appointed to inquire into
the condition of the rebel States, to consider the powers of
Congress in the premises, and to report the measures to provide
for the future peace and safety of the country. Mr. Fessenden
was made the chairman of this committee, presided over its
deliberations, and prepared the report on Reconstruction, which
has been pronounced one of the ablest state papers ever
submitted to Congress. This report indicated the powers of
Congress over the rebel States, defined their true position
under public law, and pointed out the measures demanded by the
situation. These measures consisted in changes in the
Constitution to determine the civil rights and privileges of all
citizens in all parts of the Republic, in fixing representation
upon an equitable basis, in protecting the loyal people against
future claims for the expenses incurred in support of Rebellion
and for manumitted slaves, together with several bills designed
to carry these provisions into effect. As chairman of the
committee, Mr. Fessenden reported these measures to the Senate,
and defended them in debate, making several speeches upon the
subject of Reconstruction. The amendments reported were the
result of a mutual concession of conflicting opinions, and did
not go as far as Mr. Fessenden desired. These amendments
reduced the representation of States in proportion as they
denied the elective franchise to their citizens, for any reason
except participation in rebellion or crime. He felt that
constitutional changes should be based not only upon principles,
but that such principles should be direct and positive in their
terms, instead of procuring ends by indirect means. Accordingly,
his own opinion was in favor of a plain amendment abolishing all
civil or political distinctions on account of color in all the
States. He offered a proposition to this effect; but other
members of the committee, commonly regarded as more radical than
he, opposed it upon the ground that they doubted if it would be
accepted. Having made the Constitution conform to those
principles of freedom established by the war, he considered it
best for the true welfare of the Southern States to hold them
under military governments until they applied themselves for
admission, with constitutions which conformed to the demands of
Congress, and with their people in a condition to govern
themselves. He was apprehensive that if those States were
admitted at once, with the most intelligent part of their people
disfranchised for participation in the Rebellion, that
misgovernment and disorder would follow. In one of the last
letters he wrote, Mr. Fessenden declared that he regarded with
apprehension the admission of the Southern States, and feared
that the country would find that it had caught a Tartar. The
event justified his prediction. His views proved to be correct.
No one can now deny that it would have been far better for the
country, for the Republican Party, to have furnished good
governments to the Southern States under military rule, and
saved them from political adventurers and the corruption of
ignorant legislatures.
During this Congress, in addition to his labors as Chairman of
the Reconstruction Committee, Mr. Fessenden also performed the
arduous duties of Chairman of the Committee on Finance, and
also made numerous speeches upon the Tax Bill, the
Appropriation Bills, the Civil Rights Bill, the Internal
Revenue Bill, and on many other topics, with eloquent eulogies
on his old friends, Senators Collamer and Foot, with whom he had
been intimately associated through the Kansas struggle and the
fiercest fires of the civil war.
Mr. Fessenden now occupied the most commanding position in the
Senate. As a debater he was confessedly without an equal, and
this supremacy was recognized alike by friend and foe. His great
experience, his knowledge of legislation, his authority upon all
financial questions, and the power he had displayed in his
report upon Reconstruction, united to the highest type of public
character, had given him a position of extraordinary influence
in his party and in Congress, when he was called upon in the
discharge of his duty to imperil his party standing, to lose his
popularity, and to expose himself to a storm of abuse and
obloquy such as has been rarely encountered by a public man in
this country. President Johnson had from the beginning of his
administration incurred the suspicion of hostility to the
cherished designs of those who elected him. The Republicans
became greatly irritated at finding an enemy in one they had
chosen, and an adversary to those measures they justly regarded
as necessary to peacefully restoring the Southern States upon a
broad and durable basis. The idea of impeachment was eagerly
seized upon by many Republicans as a means of removing an
obstacle to reconstruction of the Southern States. In 1867 the
House of Representatives, by an able committee, had investigated
most of the alleged offences for which the President was tried
in the following year, and which formed the basis of the tenth
and eleventh articles, upon which alone a conviction was
expected at the trial; and had by a majority of two to one voted
against impeachment for those offences. In the excitement of the
trial the public forgot that a Republican House had voted
against these articles in the preceding year, and now violently
demanded a conviction for offences which had within twelve
months been voted insufficient. The immediate cause of the
attempt to get rid of the President by impeachment was the
removal of Secretary Stanton. The first eight of the eleven
articles of impeachment alleged against the President were based
upon the idea that such removal was a violation of the
Tenure-of-Office Act, whereas in fact Mr. Stanton had been
expressly exempted by the terms of the Act from its operation.
This was not only expressed by the language of the Act, but was
so stated in debate when the Act was under discussion. Mr.
Thaddeus Stevens, the leading manager, had stated in the House
of Representatives that he regarded the first ten articles as
worthless, and therefore urged the adoption of the eleventh
article, although that article was made up of those offences
which in the preceding year had been investigated and abandoned
by the House of Representatives. Mr. Fessenden showed that the
President had the right under the Constitution and the laws to
remove Mr. Stanton from office, and that, a vacancy thus
existing, he had the lawful right to appoint General Thomas to
perform the duties ad interim. The first eight articles
accordingly had no foundation. The ninth article was disproved
by the evidence; and the remaining two were based upon the
President's speeches against the Republican majority in
Congress, in which he asserted that this Congress was a Congress
of only a part of the States. This statement was literally true,
though he nowhere denied the constitutionality of that branch of
the Government, but on the contrary recognized it in all his
public acts. His denunciation of the party which controlled
Congress was not as severe as the denunciation its members were
constantly levelling at him ; and while his speeches were
offences against good taste, they were not unlawful, and could
not justify the removal from office of the constitutionally
elected Chief Magistrate. So great, however, had become the
excitement, that every Republican Senator was threatened with
political destruction if he did not vote with his party. Every
sort of pressure by threats, by appeals, the imputation of base
and criminal motives, and every form of intimidation were used
to compel Senators to vote for conviction. Mr. Fessenden, Mr.
Grimes, Mr. Henderson, Mr. Trumbull, Mr. Fowler, Mr. Van Winkle,
and Mr. Ross, seven Republican Senators, and enough by one vote
to prevent conviction, refused to be controlled by party
dictation in a proceeding which they justly regarded as
judicial, and in which they had solemnly sworn to try the
President according to the law and the evidence. Owing to his
commanding position in the Senate, Mr. Fessenden became the
principal target, against which was directed every shaft of
ridicule and denunciation. He pronounced the President " not
guilty" upon all the articles. For a season his popularity with
his party was shaken, though he justly felt that upon the
correctness of his course in this great trial he was willing to
stake his reputation. At this distance of time it is generally
conceded that the attempt to impeach the President was a grave
mistake, and that his removal from office under the articles
would have been not only a violation of law, but a stab at the
heart of the Constitution. The opinion he pronounced received
the warmest commendation of some of the ablest jurists of his
party, and the Hon. Benjamin R. Curtis, regarded as the ablest
judge of his day, wrote to Mr. Fessenden after the trial that he
" could say to him with entire sincerity that no man in his
life had been in a position to render so great a service to
constitutional liberty as he had rendered, and that he had
completely performed the work." Upon the adjournment of Congress
Mr. Fessenden returned home to take part in the pending
Presidential election, making numerous speeches throughout his
State. His first speech was made in the City Hall in Portland to
a great audience, many of whom had come from curiosity to see
what would be his reception. The enthusiasm of his welcome
proved that at home at least Mr. Fessenden still retained the
confidence and regard of his constituents.
The session of the following winter of 1868-69 was the last
scene of his public labors. It was, as usual, a laborious one
for him. During the session he made many speeches upon the
questions before the Senate, especially upon the condition of
the South, the necessity of a well-regulated force to control
the disorders in the Southern States, on the suffrage amendment,
the various appropriation bills, and upon the bill to strengthen
the public credit. This bill was the legislative declaration
that the principal of the five-twenty bonds should be paid in
gold. Since the close of the war the payment of the public debt
had become the pre-eminent question, and the dishonest and
delusive notion that although the bonds had their interest
payable in gold the principal might nevertheless be paid off in
paper money, had been advocated by many politicians. This notion
became very popular, and even some leading Republicans
maintained that the letter of the contract permitted it. The
Democratic Party made it a plank in their platform in the State
of Ohio during the campaign of 1868. It was the first step
toward an era of inflation and repudiation. In a speech
delivered at midnight on the floor of the Senate shortly before
adjournment, Mr. Fessenden denounced all such methods as
dishonest in form and essence, and as conduct which would not be
tolerated in a private individual.
He maintained that under the proper rules for the construction
of statutes there was no doubt that the principal and interest
should be paid in coin. He favored the bill because he wished to
dissipate all such clouds as are overshadowing the credit of the
country, and because he wished a legislative declaration that
the great party which had borrowed the money and promised to pay
it should keep its faith intact.
Early in September, 1869, Mr. Fessenden became suddenly ill from
a rupture of the intestines, resulting from a chronic disease
contracted at the National Hotel in Washington in 1856. All
efforts to save him were fruitless, and he died on the morning
of September 8, one week after the illness began. Mr. Fessenden
was married in 1832 to Ellen, the youngest child of James
Deering, a distinguished merchant of Portland. She died in 1856.
They had five children—four sons and a daughter: the latter died
in infancy. His oldest son, James Deering Fessenden, was
educated as a lawyer; entered the U. S. army as captain of a
company of sharp-shooters ; served in South Carolina, in the
West, and in Virginia, rising to the rank of brigadier and
brevet major-general ; and at the close of the war returned to
the practice of his profession. His second son, William H., also
volunteered, but was compelled by ill-health to abandon the idea
of service. His third son, Francis, entered the army in 1861 as
captain, served in the West, in Virginia and Louisiana, rose to
the rank of major-general of volunteers, and was placed on the
retired list, with the rank of brigadier and brevet
major-general on account of wounds received in battle. Samuel,
the youngest son, also volunteered in the War of the Rebellion,
was made a second lieutenant of artillery in a Maine battery,
and was mortally wounded at the battle of Groveton on the 31st
of August, 1862.
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