"That the retirement of the Hon. Schuyler Colfax from the Speaker's Chair, after a long and faithful discharge of his duties, is an event in our current history which would cause general regret, were it not that the country is to have the benefit of his matured talents and experience in the higher sphere of duty to which he has been called by a majority of his countrymen. In parting from our distinguished Speaker, the House records with becoming sensibility its high appreciation of his skill in parliamentary law ; of his promptness in administering and facilitating the business of this body; of his urbane manners; and of the dignity and impartiality with which he has presided over the deliberations of the House. He will carry with him into his new field of duty and throughout life the kind regards of every member of this Congress."

Mr. Johnson retired from the Presidency at the same time, pardoning the last of the assassins who had made him President. Said a wit of the times: "He owes a good deal, he has nothing, the rest he bequeaths to the poor." His political estate was entirely dissipated. Since the return of the Speaker from the Pacific, certainly until the course of Johnson made Grant's election to the Presidency inevitable, Colfax, from his character and position, had, perhaps, been the most influential of the President's opponents, and history must record that the President was beaten at every turn, and that he deserved to be beaten, because he was on the wrong tack. Events had now given Grant the Republican leadership, and Colfax accepted second place with a loyalty that never wavered, and that postponed the capture of the White House by the Democracy for twelve years-from 1872 to 1884.

CHAPTER XI.

FORTY-FIRST CONGRESS.

1869-1871.

DECLINES TO BE GENERAL SOLICITOR FOR OFFICE, ALIENATIONS.VISITING, EAST AND WEST, A SECOND PACIFIC TOUR, SPEECH AT SALT LAKE CITY.-AN Old Friend IN TROUBLE." THE ADVOCATE OF ALL GOOD CAUSES."-ALL MEN HIS READERS.-CANVASSES INDIANA. HIS RETIREMENT ANNOUNCED.-Response.-CHRISTMAS-tide. -ATTACK OF VERTIGO IN THE SENATE, SOLICITUDE OF THE COUNTRY.-A BREATH OF PRAIRIE AND PINE FOREST.-ASKED TO RESIGN THE VICE-PRESIDENCY AND BECOME SECRETARY OF STATE.HIS MOST INTIMATE FRIENDS DRIFTING INTO OPPOSITION ΤΟ GRANT.-GREELEY'S AND BOWLES'S CANDIDATE.-AN EMBARRASSING POSITION FOR A LESS LOYAL MAN.-GUARDING AGAINST MISUNDERSTANDING WITH THE PRESIDENT.

ON taking the Chair of the Senate as Vice-President, Mr. Colfax said that he realized the delicacy as well as the responsibilities of the position. Most of the Senators were his seniors in age; he had not been chosen their presiding officer by them; he should need their assistance and forbearance. "Pledging to you all a faithful and inflexible impartiality in the administration of your rules, and earnestly desiring to co-operate with you in making the deliberations of the Senate worthy of its historical renown, I am ready to take the oath of office.

There was great pressure on him for recommendations to office, applicants supposing his power over patronage increased, whereas it was diminished. Under the usage he had always had the disposal, or, at least, great influence in the disposal, of the offices in his district. Now he had no district, or rather, his district was the whole country, and the power of appointment to office was vested not in

the Vice-President, but in the President. He was willing to join with members or Senators in recommending unobjectionable applicants for places, but he declined to become a general solicitor for office, and this was the unhappy cause of misunderstanding and alienations. Writ ing to his friend, Mr. Wetherbee, of San Francisco, he says: "I believe with Mr. Jefferson, when he was VicePresident, that intermeddling by a Vice-President with a President's patronage is officious and unwise; and I have kept out of all the imbroglios as to office everywhere, as a matter of principle and propriety. If it has alienated friends, I regret it very much, but cannot help it."

One alienation was much talked of, and merits notice. The Senate caucus had nominated a new Public Printer vice John D. Defrees. "It was a combination of Southern Republican Senators," Colfax wrote his mother, "who were after the offices of Sergeant-at-Arms and Executive Clerk, and got them, Fenton-whose friend was nominated over Defrees-and Morton, who wanted to pay off Defrees for going to Indianapolis, as he had against my protest, to work against Morton's election." The life-long friendship of the two men was well known, and the movement to oust Defrees was kept from Colfax's knowledge. When he heard of it, he said to his Secretary, Will Todd: "I could not have felt it more keenly had it been aimed at myself, and had I known of it, I would have done all I could to prevent it." He asked Mr. Todd to say this to Defrees, if he met him during the day, he himself having to go to his place in the Senate. It chanced that for that evening a number of Congressmen were under engagement to dine with him at his house. The next evening, after dinner, the first hour at his command, he set out to call upon and sympathize with his old friend. He was met by a messenger from Mrs. Defrees, returning to him some presents he had given the family, a telegram of thanks he had sent to Mr. Defrees at Chicago in 1868, and a card bearing on one side "Mr. and Mrs. Defrees," and on the other message implying that he was an unfaithful friend. No explanation had been sought or awaited, and

the incident in all its details had been telegraphed all over the country.

In a card published by Mr. Defrees,' he says that the next day Mr. Colfax was informed by a mutual friend on his (Defrees's) authority that he was not blamed for not preventing the action of the Senate caucus," but because he had not shown any interest in the result after it had taken place, and that the card and presents had been sent to him by Mrs. Defrees of her own accord, without my approval, and much to my regret. To this explanation, given in all kindness, he simply remarked that as my name was on the card (the Mr.' had not been erased by Mrs. D.), I must be responsible."

Whoever was responsible, the result was that Colfax was held out to the world as an ingrate by his oldest friend. He felt inexpressibly wronged. "I don't want to see Defrees or Mrs. Defrees," he wrote his mother, "or hear any explanation of this unparalleled insult. I have no malice in me about this or anything else, shamefully treated as I feel that I have been, but I do not intend to ever allow him to converse with me about it." Mr. Defrees professed an equal disinclination to a reconciliation.

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But when, in after years, a great trial fell upon Mr. Colfax, Mr. Defrees wrote about him in such terms that I was glad," says Colfax, "the first time I met him, to tender him my thanks; and, shaking hands together, the unpleasant alienation of the past four years ended, and, I trust, forever."

:

Congress, having modified the Tenure-of-Office Act at President Grant's request, and passed a new reconstruction act for the three still recalcitrant States, adjourned in April. The Vice-President and his wife spent the summer visiting first in Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa; then in the East, "to show Mrs. Colfax New England in June;" finally, on the Pacific Slope, with nearly the same party as in 1865. His wife accompanied him; ex-Lieutenant-Governor Bross was accompanied by his daughter Jessie; and Mrs. Calhoun (now Runkle), then on the staff of the New 1. In the South Bend Tribune of April 13th, 1872.

York Tribune, took Mr. Richardson's place. Mrs. Colfax's sister Marcia and Mr. and Mrs. Sam Bowles were of the party. Mrs. Calhoun was invited on the request of Miss Jessie Bross.

Chicago celebrated the completion of the first Pacific railroad on the 10th of May, the day the last spike was driven. Having all his life taken a keen interest in the growth and development of the West, and particularly in the construction of an overland railroad, the Vice-President was naturally called on for the principal glorification speech at the evening meeting on that occasion. He dwelt with fervor on the magnificence of the work and on the unique and commanding position it gave this country, fronting on the two main oceans, half way between the old continents. The successful close of the war and the construction of this road, he said, opened a new chapter in national progress and power. We were no longer giant without bones," as Talleyrand once called us. America had now its spinal railroad, its ribs of iron, its nerves of electric wires. It would number its hundred millions of prosperous happy people by the end of the century; and beyond that its greatness and grandeur, if only wisdom ruled in its counsels, would be "what my poor tongue might in vain attempt to portray on this joyful night."

a

Passing through Lafayette, Ind., where he was compelled to hold a popular levee, he arrived May 20th at the capital of Illinois on a visit to his friend, C. H. Smith, the Springfield Journal greeting him as follows: "He can truly say that he never planted a thorn in any human heart. Yet is he a man of great positiveness and energy of conviction. The people have seen him these many years in the strong light that beats upon a politician, and they have never discovered in his conduct the first speck of meanness or corruption, nor the least employment of his great influence for his personal advantage. It was this that nominated him at Chicago, the popular will tearing like cobwebs the artfully constructed rings of the party managers."