Project Gutenberg's Fifty Years of Public Service, by Shelby M. Cullom

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Title: Fifty Years of Public Service

Author: Shelby M. Cullom

Release Date: October 20, 2007 [EBook #23097]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIFTY YEARS OF PUBLIC SERVICE ***

Produced by Ed Ferris

Transcriber's notes:

The dieresis is transcribed by a preceding hyphen. Caps and small caps have been set as upper and lower case. Names have been corrected

Chapter VIII: "La Fayette", Indiana, kept as a contemporary variant spelling. McPherson, "clerk of the house" changed to "Clerk of the House" (of Representatives).

LoC call number: E661.C9

FIFTY YEARS OF PUBLIC SERVICE

[Frontispiece]
Photo, by Prince Tota, Washington, D. C.
[Facsimile signature]
SMCullom

FIFTY YEARS OF PUBLIC SERVICE

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF SHELBY M. CULLOM SENIOR UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM ILLINOIS

WITH PORTRAITS

SECOND EDITION CHICAGO A. C. McCLURG & CO. 1911

Copyright A. C. McCLURG & Co. 1911

Published October, 1911
Second Edition, December, 1911

PRESS OF THE VAIL COMPANY COSHOCTON, U. S. A.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER
     I Birth to Admission to the Bar, 1829 to 1855
    II Service as City Attorney at Springfield, 1855 and 1856
   III Election to the Illinois Legislature: Lincoln-Douglas
          Debates, 1856 to 1858
    IV Other Distinguished Characters of that Day, 1858 and 1859
     V Nomination of Lincoln and Douglas for the Presidency, 1859
          and 1860
    VI Speaker of the Illinois Legislature, and a Member of
          Congress, 1860 to 1865
   VII Lincoln, 1860 to 1864
  VIII Notables in the Thirty-ninth Congress, 1864 to 1870
    IX The Impeachment of President Johnson
     X Speaker of the Legislature, and Governor, 1871 to 1883
    XI Grant
   XII General John A. Logan
  XIII General John M. Palmer
   XIV Governor Richard J. Oglesby
    XV Senatorial Career, 1883 to 1911
   XVI Cleveland's First Term, 1884 to 1887
  XVII Cleveland's Defeat and Harrison's First Term, 1888 to 1891
 XVIII Cleveland's Second Term, 1892 to 1896
   XIX McKinley's Presidency, 1896 to 1901
    XX Roosevelt's Presidency, 1901 to 1909
   XXI Interstate Commerce
  XXII John Marshall Harlan
 XXIII Members of the Committee on Foreign Relations
  XXIV Work of the Committee on Foreign Relations
   XXV The Interoceanic Canal
  XXVI Santo Domingo's Fiscal Affairs
 XXVII Diplomatic Agreements by Protocol
XXVIII Arbitration
  XXIX Titles and Decorations from Foreign Powers
   XXX Isle of Pines, Danish West Indies, and Algeciras
  XXXI Congress under the Taft Administration
 XXXII Lincoln Centennial: Lincoln Library
XXXIII Consecutive Elections to United States Senate
 XXXIV Conclusion

Index

LIST OF PORTRAITS

S. M. Cullom
Shelby M. Cullom, while a Law Student
Richard Yates
Stephen A. Douglas
Abraham Lincoln
James G. Blaine
Andrew Johnson
Shelby M. Cullom, while Governor of Illinois
Ulysses S. Grant
John A. Logan
John M. Palmer
Richard J. Oglesby
Grover Cleveland
James A. Garfield
William McKinley
William Howard Taft
Cushman K. Davis
William P. Frye
John C. Spooner
Theodore Roosevelt
Elihu Root

FOREWORD

"Oh, that mine adversary had written a book!"

Such was the exclamation of one who, through the centuries, has been held up to the world as the symbol of patience and long suffering endurance, and who believed that he thus expressed the surest method of confounding an enemy.

I have come to that age in life where I feel somewhat indifferent as to consequences, and, yielding to the suggestions and insistence of friends, I determined that I would undertake to write some recollections, as they occurred to me, of the men and events of my time.

Naturally, to me the history of the period covered by my life since 1829 is particularly interesting. I do not think that I am prejudiced when I assert that while this period has not been great in Art and Letters, from a material, scientific, and industrial standpoint it has been the most wonderful epoch in all the world's history.

About the period of my birth General Andrew Jackson was first elected President of the United States. Jackson to me has always been an interesting character. Theodore Roosevelt has declared very little respect for him, and has written deprecatingly—I might say, even abusively—of him. But the truth is, there were never two Presidents in the White House who, in many respects, resembled each other more nearly than Jackson and Roosevelt.

Jackson was sixty-one years old when elected President—an unusually old man to be elected to that high office; and he had served his country during the War of the Revolution. When I consider this the thought occurs to me, How young as a Nation we are, after all. Why, I date almost back to the Revolution! President Taft jocularly remarked to me recently: "Here's my old friend, Uncle Shelby. He comes nearer connecting the present with the days of Washington than any one whom I know." And I suppose there are few men in public life whose careers extend farther into the past than mine.

During my early life the survivors of the Revolutionary War, to say nothing of the War of 1812, were very numerous and abundantly in evidence. Up to that time, no man who had not served his country in some capacity in the Revolutionary War had been elevated to the Presidency, and this was the case until the year 1843.

During the year 1829 the crown of Great Britain descended from King George IV to King William IV. That reign passed away, and I have lived to see the long reign of Victoria come and go, the reign of Edward VII come and go, and the accession of King George V. Charles X ruled in France, Francis I in Austria (the reign of Francis Joseph had not yet begun), Frederick William III in Prussia, Nicholas I in Russia; while Leo XII governed the Papal States, the Kingdom of Italy not yet having come into existence. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland had not yet a population of 24,000,000, all told.

From the dawn of this epoch may well date the practical beginning of a long cycle of political and intellectual upheaval, and the readjustment of relations which go to make up world-history, arriving at a culmination in our great Civil War.

In the last half-century—nay, I might say, within the last