"The camp-meeting was lighted up, the trumpet blown, I rose in the stand and required every soul to leave the tents and come into the congregation. There was a general rush to the stand. I requested the brethren, if ever they prayed in their lives, to pray now. My voice was strong and clear, and my preaching was more of an exhortation than anything else. My text was: "The gates of h.e.l.l shall not prevail." In about thirty minutes the power of G.o.d fell upon the congregation in such a manner as is seldom seen; the people fell in every direction, right and left, front and rear.
It was supposed that not less than three hundred fell like dead men in mighty battle; and there was no need of calling mourners, for they were strewed all over the camp ground. Loud wailings went up to Heaven from sinners for mercy, and a general shout from Christians so that the noise was hear afar off."
That it was by no means an unusual occurrence for those who came to scoff to remain to pray will appear from the same book:
"Just as I was closing up my sermon and pressing it with all the force I could command, the power of G.o.d suddenly was displayed, and sinners fell by scores all through the a.s.sembly. It was supposed that several hundred fell in five minutes; sinners turned pale; some ran into the woods; some tried to get away, and fell in the attempt; some shouted aloud for joy."
The horror of Brother Cartwrights for "immersionists" and Calvinists of every degree, appears throughout his entire book. That his righteous soul was often sorely vexed because of them is beyond question. That his cup had not been drained to the dregs will appear from a new element he encountered when sent across the Ohio to the Scioto conference.
"It was a poor and hard circuit at that time, and the country round was settled in an early day by a colony of Yankees. At the time of my appointment I had never seen a Yankee, and I had heard dismal stories about them. It was said they lived almost entirely on pumpkins, mola.s.ses, fat meat, and Bohea tea; moreover that they could not bear loud and zealous sermons, and that they had brought on their learned preachers with them, and were always criticising us poor backwoods preachers."
The "isms" our circuit-rider now encountered would have appalled a less resolute man. He seems, however, to have gotten along fairly well except with one "female," who, from all accounts, was given over in about equal parts to "universalism" and "predestinarianism."
This troublesome female, that he candidly admitted he had _a hard race to keep up with,_ he has left impaled for all time as a "thin-faced, Roman-nosed, loquacious, glib-tongued Yankee."
Something of the antagonism of the different persuasions in the good old pioneer days, may be gathered from the tender farewell taken by Brother Cartwright of a former a.s.sociate, one Brother D., "who left the Methodists, joined the Free-will Baptists, left them and joined the New Lights, and then moved to Texas, where I expect the devil has him in safe keeping long before this time!"
It would be idle to suppose that Peter Cartwright was a mere visionary or dreamer. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
He was abundantly possessed with what, in Western parlance, is known as "horse sense." He was a student of men, and kept in close touch with the affairs of this world. His shrewdness, no less than his courage, was a proverb in his day. Upon one occasion, at the beginning of his sermon before a large audience, he was more than once interrupted by the persistent but ineffectual attempt of a saintly old sister to shout. Annoyed at length, turning to her he said: "Dear sister, never shout as a matter of duty; when you can"t help it, then shout; _but never shout as a mere matter of duty!"_
At a camp-meeting on the banks of the c.u.mberland in the early years of the last century, an attempt was made by a band of desperadoes to create a disturbance. To this end their leader, a burly ruffian, stalked to the front of the pulpit, and with an oath commanded Cartwright to "dry up." Suspending divine service for a few minutes, and laying aside his coat, the preacher descended from the pulpit and springing upon the intruder, felled him to the earth and belabored him until the wretch begged for mercy. The precious boon was withheld until the now penitent disturber, after promising to repent, had been given the humblest seat in the "amen corner." This all satisfactorily completed, and his garment replaced, the minister, scarcely ruffled by the trifling incident, re-entered the pulpit, and with the words, "As I was saying, brethren, when interrupted," continued his discourse.
This little sketch would be unpardonably incomplete if the important fact were withheld that Peter Cartwright had a relish for politics, as well as for salvation. He was more than once a member of the General a.s.sembly of Illinois, and be it said to his eternal honor his speech and vote were ever on the side of whatever conduced to the best interests of the State. In him the cause of education, and the asylums for the unfortunate, had ever an earnest advocate.
Though many years his senior, he was the contemporary of Abraham Lincoln, and a resident of the same county. Mr. Lincoln was, in 1846, the Whig candidate for Representative in Congress. The district was of immense area, embracing many counties of Central Illinois. Newspapers were scarce, and the old-time custom of joint discussions between opposing candidates for high office were still in vogue. Mr. Lincoln"s unsuccessful compet.i.tor was none other than the subject of this article. The great Whig leader and his Democratic antagonist--"My friend the Parson," as Mr. Lincoln familiarly called him--were soon engaged in joint debate. It is to be regretted that there is no record of these debates. There is probably no man now living who heard them. But what rare reading they would be at this day, if happily they had been preserved.
The earnest, inflexible parson,--even then "standing upon the Western slope,"--backed by his party, then dominant in the national government, upon the one side; the comparatively youthful lawyer, whose fame was yet to fill the world, upon the other. No doubt, daily upon "the stump" and at night at the village taverns, the changes were rung upon the then all-absorbing subjects, the Walker Tariff, the War with Mexico, and the Wilmot Proviso. These questions belong now to the domain of history; as do indeed issues of far greater consequence, upon which Lincoln and an antagonist more formidable than Cartwright crossed swords a dozen years later.
At the Democratic State Convention, which a.s.sembled in Springfield in the early spring of 1860, a resolution instructing the Illinois delegates to support Stephen A. Douglas for nomination to the Presidency at the approaching National Convention was adopted amidst great enthusiasm. Immediately upon its adoption, a delegate called attention to the fact that the venerable Peter Cartwright was present, and said he knew the Convention would be glad to hear a word from him. Immediately "Cartwright," "Cartwright," "Cartwright,"
was heard from all parts of the chamber. From his seat, surrounded by the Sangamon County delegates, near the central part of the hall, Mr. Cartwright arose, and with deep emotion, and scarcely audible voice, began:
"My friends and fellow-citizens, I am happy to be with you on the present occasion. My sun is low down upon the horizon, and the days of my pilgrimage are almost numbered. I have lived in Illinois during the entire period of its history as a State. I have watched with tender interest its marvellous growth from its feeble condition as a Territory, until it has reached its present splendor as a State. I have travelled over its prairies, slept with only the canopy of heaven for a covering; I have followed the trail of the Indians, fought the desperadoes, swam the rivers, threaded the almost pathless forests, in order that I might carry the tidings of the blessed Gospel to the loneliest cabin upon the border. Yes, my friends, for seventy long years, amid appalling difficulties and dangers, I have waged an incessant warfare against the world, the flesh, the devil, _and all the other enemies of the Democratic party!"_
XVIII CLEVELAND AS I KNEW HIM
CLEVELAND"S SPEECH ACCEPTING HIS NOMINATION--MR. BLAINE"S FRUITLESS TOUR AS A CANDIDATE--CLEVELAND"S INSIGHT INTO HUMAN CHARACTER--HIS TARIFF-REDUCTION MESSAGE--WITHDRAWAL OF THE HAWAIIAN ANNEXATION TREATY--HIS VENEZUELAN MISSION--HIS ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE SCIENCE OF GOVERNMENT--HIS QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOCIAL LIFE AND FOR SERVING THE COUNTRY.
Upon the adjournment of the Democratic National Convention of 1884, which had nominated Mr. Cleveland for the Presidency, in company with other delegates I visited him at the Executive Mansion at Albany, New York. The Hon. William F. Vilas was the chairman of our committee, and the purpose of the visit to notify Mr. Cleveland, officially, of his nomination to the great office. I saw him then for the first time.
He was then Governor of New York, having been but recently elected by an unprecedented majority. I recall him distinctly on this occasion as he responded to the eloquent speech of Colonel Vilas.
Standing near him at the time were three men well known at a later date as members of his cabinet and his closest friends, Daniel Manning, William C. Whitney, and Daniel S. Lamont.
Cleveland"s response to the speech of notification was in dignified, forceful phrase, and at once challenged public attention and gave the keynote to the memorable contest which immediately followed. In some of its aspects it was a Presidential struggle the like of which we may not again witness. As the day of election drew near, the excitement increased in intensity, and no efforts that gave hopes of success were spared by the opposing party managers.
The defection from his ranks by what in campaign publications of the day was known as the "mugwump" element, caused Mr. Blaine to venture upon a hazardous tour of speech-making. Enthusiastic audiences gathered around the brilliant Republican candidate during his Western tour. This, however, as the sequel showed, was time and energy wasted; Illinois and Ohio were safely in the Republican column, and the real battle-ground was New York state. Homeward bound at length from this strenuous pilgrimage demanded by no party necessity, Mr. Blaine was fated during his brief sojourn in New York to listen to the now historical words of Burchard, words which in all human probability proved the political undoing of the candidate to whom, with the best intentions, they were earnestly addressed.
New York, as has been its wont before and since, proved the pivotal State. For many days after the election the result was still in doubt. Party feeling was intense, and the result hinged upon the narrow margin in the vote of Blaine and Cleveland in one State.
During the strenuous days that pa.s.sed from the election until the authoritative announcement of the result, one man alone, amid the high tide of party pa.s.sion, remained calm. To all appearances unmoved, Grover Cleveland sat in his office day after day, no detail of official duty failing to receive his careful attention. The fact just stated is explanatory of much in his subsequent career.
When first nominated for the Presidency, Mr. Cleveland had little personal knowledge of public men outside of his own State.
How rapidly he acquired the information necessary to a successful administration of the government was indeed a marvel. It was no "Cleveland luck" or haphazard chance that called into his first Cabinet such men as Bayard, Manning, Garland, Vilas, and Whitney. It can safely be a.s.serted that Mr. Cleveland was an excellent judge of men and of their capacity for the particular work a.s.signed them. As if by intuition, he thoroughly understood after a single interview the men with whom he was brought in contact. As an object lesson a better appointment to high office has rarely been made than that of Fuller to the chief justiceship of the great court. No less fortunate was his selection of Vilas to the responsible position of Postmaster-General.
And yet both of these gentlemen were personally strangers to Mr. Cleveland when he was first named for the Presidency. His appointments to important diplomatic positions likewise strikingly ill.u.s.trated his aptness in forming a correct estimate of men from whom his appointees were to be chosen.
No inc.u.mbent of the Presidency was ever less of a time-server than Cleveland. "Expediency" was a word scarcely known to his vocabulary.
Recognizing alike the dignity and responsibility of the great office, he was in the highest degree self-reliant. None the less he at all times availed himself of the wise counsel of his official advisers. In matters falling within their especial province their determination was, except in rare instances, conclusive. In no sense was his mind closed against the timely counsel of his friends.
Far from being opinionated, in the offensive sense of the word, the ultimate determination, however, was after "having taken counsel from himself."
The incident contributing perhaps more than any other to his defeat in 1888 was his tariff-reduction message to Congress one year prior to that election. An abler state paper has rarely been put forth.
It was a clear, succinct presentation of existing economic conditions; in very truth an unanswerable argument for tariff reduction. It is not yet forgotten how promptly this message was denounced by the entire opposition press as a "free-trade manifesto," and how this cry increased in voice and volume until the close of the Presidential contest. And yet, in sending this message to Congress, Mr. Cleveland was entirely consistent with himself. Its utterances were in clear accord with the platform upon which he had been nominated and with his letter of acceptance. It is one of the anomalies of politics that the clear-cut sentences measurably instrumental in compa.s.sing his defeat in 1888, were upon the banners of his triumphant partisans in the campaign of 1892.
In the year last named, Mr. Cleveland was for the third time the candidate of his party for the Presidency. His nomination, by a two-thirds vote, was upon the first ballot, and marked an era in the history of national conventions. His candidacy was bitterly antagonized by the delegation from his own State, his name being presented by Governor Abbott of New Jersey. It is a fact of much significance that neither in the platform upon which he was nominated, nor in the letter of acceptance, was there the slightest departure from his emphatic utterances upon the tariff in the memorable message of 1887. The salient issues of the campaign were "tariff reform" and hostility to the then pending "Force bill."
From first to last Mr. Cleveland was in close consultation with the leaders of his party and advised as to every detail of the contest. The result was a vindication of his former administration and an unmistakable endors.e.m.e.nt of the tenets of the Democratic faith.
In this brief sketch, there can be but slight reference to the important questions which now for four years engaged his attention.
Almost his first official act after his second inauguration was the withdrawal from the Senate of the Hawaiian Annexation Treaty recently submitted by President Harrison for ratification. Firmly believing that the late United States Minister to the unfortunate island had at least acquiesced in the overthrow of the Hawaiian Government, President Cleveland, with the hope that he might measurably repair the wrong, recalled the Annexation Treaty, as stated. In his message of withdrawal were the words: "A great wrong has been done to a feeble and independent State." This almost forgotten incident is now recalled only to emphasize the spirit of justice that characterized his dealings with foreign Governments.
And yet history will truly say of him that, while just to other Governments, no President has more firmly maintained the rights of his own. This a.s.sertion finds verification in the Venezuelan message, which, for the moment, almost startled the country. By many it was for the time believed to be the prelude to war. In very truth, as the sequel proved, it was a message of peace. It was a critical moment, and the necessity imperative for prompt, decisive action. If the Monroe Doctrine was to be maintained, Great Britain could not be permitted arbitrarily to divest Venezuela of any portion of her territory. The arbitration proposed by President Cleveland, resulting in peaceable adjustment, established what we may well believe will prove an enduring precedent. One sentence of the memorable message is worthy of remembrance by the oncoming generations: "The Monroe Doctrine was intended to apply to every stage of our national life, and cannot become obsolete while our Republic endures."
I had excellent opportunities to know Mr. Cleveland. I was a member of the first and third conventions which named him for the Presidency, and actively engaged in both the contests that resulted in his election. As a.s.sistant Postmaster-General during his first term, and Vice-President during the second, I was often "the neighbor to his counsels." I am confident that a more conscientious, painstaking official never filled public station. In his appointments to office his chief aim was to subserve the public interests by judicious selections. The question of rewarding party service, while by no means ignored, was immeasurably subordinate to that of the integrity and efficiency of the applicant. He was patriotic to the core, and it was his earnest desire that the last vestige of legislation inimical to the Southern States should pa.s.s from the statute books.
He did much toward the restoration of complete concord between all sections of the country.
Mr. Cleveland possessed a kind heart, and was ever just and generous in his dealings. Wholly unostentatious himself, the humblest felt at ease in his presence. Possibly no inc.u.mbent of the great office was more easily accessible to all cla.s.ses and conditions. Courteous at all times, no guards were necessary to the preservation of his dignity. No one would have thought of an undue familiarity.
He was a profound student of all that pertained to human affairs.
He had given deep thought to the science of government, and was familiar with the best that had been written on the subject. Caring little for the light literature of the day, his concern was with the practical knowledge bearing upon existing conditions and that might aid in the solution of the ever-recurring problems confronting men in responsible positions. He loved to talk of the founders of the Government, and of the matchless instrument, the result of their wise deliberations, declared by Gladstone, "the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time from the brain and purpose of man." The Const.i.tution was in very truth "the man of his counsel," and, in my opinion, no statesman in ancient or modern times so challenged his profound admiration as did James Madison.
Mr. Cleveland was sociable in the best sense of that word, and the cares of state laid aside, in the company of friends he was an exceedingly agreeable companion. While by no means the best of story-tellers himself, he had a keen appreciation of the humorous and ludicrous phases and incidents of life. I shall not soon forget an evening I spent with him in company with Governor Proctor Knott of Kentucky. The greatest story-teller of the age was at his best, and the delight of the occasion was, as Cleveland declared, "beyond expression."
More than once I have been a guest in his home. During the campaign of 1892, when his a.s.sociate on the national ticket, I spent some days in conference with him at Gray Gables. The memory of that long-ago visit lingers yet. He was the agreeable host, the gentleman; more than that, the tender, considerate husband, the kind, affectionate father. It has never been my good fortune to cross the threshold of a more delightful home.
I saw Mr. Cleveland last upon the occasion of his visit to Arbor Lodge, Nebraska, to deliver an address at the unveiling of a statue of the late Sterling Morton, former Secretary of Agriculture. The address was worthy of the occasion, and indeed a just and touching tribute to the memory of an excellent man, an able and efficient Cabinet Minister. In my last conversation with Mr. Cleveland upon the occasion mentioned, he spoke feelingly of our old a.s.sociates, many of whom had pa.s.sed away. I remember that the tears came to his eyes when the name of Colonel Lamont happened to be mentioned.
During our stay at Arbor Lodge, the beautiful Morton home, by invitation of the superintendent, Mr. Cleveland visited the State Asylum for the Blind at Nebraska City. In his brief address to the unfortunate inmates of the inst.i.tution, Mr. Cleveland mentioned the fact that in his early life he had been for some time a teacher in an asylum for the blind, and spoke of his profound interest in whatever concerned their welfare. I have heard him many times, but never when he appeared to better advantage, or evinced such depth of feeling as upon this occasion.
The pa.s.sing of Cleveland marks an epoch. He was indeed a striking figure in American history. Take him all in all, we may not look upon his like again. The "good citizenship," an expression frequently on his lips, to which he would have his countrymen aspire, was of the n.o.blest, and no man had a clearer or loftier conception of the responsible and sacred character of public station.
With him the oft-quoted words, "A public office is a public trust,"
was no mere lip-service. His will be a large place in history. His administration of the government will safely endure the test of time.
"Whatever record leaps to light, He never can be shamed."
In victory or defeat, in office or out, he was true to his own self and to his ideals. His early struggles, his firmness of purpose, his determination that knew no shadow of wavering, his exalted aims, and the success that ultimately crowned his efforts have given him high place among statesmen, and will be a continuing inspiration to the oncoming generations of his countrymen.
XIX A UNANIMOUS CHOICE FOR SPEAKER
A MEETING OF PROSPECTIVE SPEAKERS--DR. ROGERS WITHIN SIGHT OF THE GOAL OF HIS AMBITION--HE STATES THE GROUND OF HIS HOPE--THE FOUNDATION PROVES TO BE ONLY SAND--A TEMPEST CALMED BY THE DOCTOR.