During a political debate in the old Whig days, one of his Democratic brother senators made a long harangue in favor of Martin Van Buren as a candidate for the Presidency, and in the course of his speech referred to Mr. Van Buren as ``the Curtius of the Republic.'' Upon this Dickinson jumped up, went to some member better educated in the classics than himself, and said, ``Who in thunder is this Curtis that this man is talking about?'' ``It isn't Curtis, it 's Curtius, ``was the reply. ``Well, now, ``said Dickinson, ``what did Curtius do?'' ``Oh,'' said his informant, ``he threw himself into an abyss to save the Roman Republic.'' Upon this Dickinson returned to his seat, and as soon as the Democratic speaker had finished, arose and said: ``Mr. President, I deny the justice of the gentleman's reference to Curtius and Martin Van Buren. What did Curtius do? He threw himself, sir, into an abyss to save his country. What, sir, did Martin Van Buren do? He threw his country into an abyss to save himself.''
Rarely, if ever, has any scholar used a bit of classical knowledge to better purpose.
Another leading figure, at a later period, was a Democrat, Fernando Wood, mayor of New York, a brilliant desperado; and on one occasion I saw the henchmen whom he had brought with him take possession of a State convention and deliberately knock its president, one of the most respected men in the State, off the platform. It was an unfortunate performance for Mayor Wood, since the disgust and reaction thereby aroused led all factions of the Democratic party to unite against him.
Other leading men were such as Charles O'Conor and John Van Buren; the former learned and generous, but impracticable; the latter brilliant beyond belief, but not considered as representing any permanent ideas or principles.
During the campaign of 1848, as a youth of sixteen, I took the liberty of breaking from the paternal party;my father voting for General Taylor, I hurrahing for Martin Van Buren. I remember well how one day my father earnestly remonstrated against this. He said, ``My dear boy, you cheer Martin Van Buren's name because you believe that if he is elected he will do something against slavery: in the first place, he cannot be elected;and in the second place, if you knew him as we older people do, you would not believe in his attachment to any good cause whatever.''
The result of the campaign was that General Taylor was elected, and I recall the feeling of awe and hope with which I gazed upon his war-worn face, for the first and last time, as he stopped to receive the congratulations of the citizens of Syracuse;--hope, alas, soon brought to naught, for he, too, soon succumbed to the pressure of official care, and Millard Fillmore of New York, the Vice-President, reigned in his stead.
I remember Mr. Fillmore well. He was a tall, large, fine-looking man, with a face intelligent and kindly, and he was noted both as an excellent public servant and an effective public speaker. He had been comptroller of the State of New York,--then the most important of State offices, had been defeated as Whig candidate for governor, and had been a representative in Congress. He was the second of the accidental Presidents, and soon felt it his duty to array himself on the side of those who, by compromise with the South on the slavery question, sought to maintain and strengthen the Federal Union. Under him came the compromise measures on which our great statesmen of the middle period of the nineteenth century, Clay, Webster, Calhoun, and Benton, made their last speeches. Mr. Fillmore was undoubtedly led mainly by patriotic motives, in promoting the series of measures which were expected to end all trouble between the North and South, but which, unfortunately, embraced the Fugitive Slave Law; yet this, as I then thought, rendered him accursed. I remember feeling an abhorrence for his very name, and this feeling was increased when there took place, in the city of Syracuse, the famous ``Jerry Rescue.''
CHAPTER IV
EARLY MANHOOD--1851-1857
On the first day of October, 1851, there was shuffling about the streets of Syracuse, in the quiet pursuit of his simple avocations, a colored person, as nearly ``of no account'' as any ever seen. So far as was known he had no surname, and, indeed, no Christian name, save the fragment and travesty,--``Jerry.''
Yet before that day was done he was famous; his name, such as it was, resounded through the land; and he had become, in all seriousness, a weighty personage in American history.
Under the law recently passed, he was arrested, openly and in broad daylight, as a fugitive slave, and was carried before the United States commissioner, Mr. Joseph Sabine, a most kindly public officer, who in this matter was sadly embarrassed by the antagonism between his sworn duty and his personal convictions.
Thereby, as was supposed, were fulfilled the Law and the Prophets--the Law being the fugitive slave law recently enacted, and the Prophets being no less than Henry Clay and Daniel Webster.
For, as if to prepare the little city to sacrifice its cherished beliefs, Mr. Clay had some time before made a speech from the piazza of the Syracuse House, urging upon his fellow-citizens the compromises of the Constitution; and some months later Mr. Webster appeared, spoke from a balcony near the City Hall, and to the same purpose; but more so. The latter statesman was prophetic, not only in the hortatory, but in the predictive sense; for he declared not only that the Fugitive Slave Law must be enforced, but that it WOULD be enforced, and he added, in substance: ``it will be enforced throughout the North in spite of all opposition--even in this city--even in the midst of your abolition conventions.'' This piece of prophecy was accompanied by a gesture which seemed to mean much; for the great man's hand was waved toward the City Hall just across the square--the classic seat and center of abolition conventions.
