CHAPTER III.

THIRTY-FOURTH CONGRESS.

1855-1857.

AFFAIRS IN KANSAS.-TWO MONTHS' BALLOTING FOR SPEAKER.-SAVES THE BATTLE AT CRITICAL MOMENTS.-APPOINTED ON THE ELECTIONS COMMITTEE. WHAT THE HOUSE SPECIAL COMMITTEE FOUND IN KANSAS.-GIVES NOTICE OF PROVISO TO THE ARMY BILL.-GREAT SPEECH AGAINST THE ENFORCEMENT OF THE BOGUS LAWS.-A MILLION COPIES CIRCULATED.-IN THE EARLY CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICAN CAUCUSES.-CORRESPONDENCE WITH PUBLIC MEETINGS.-SUMNER ASSAULTED.-ARMY BILL LOST BETWEEN THE TWO HOUSES.EXTRA SESSION, THE HOUSE BEATEN.-RECEPTION AT HOME.-CANVASS FOR RE-ELECTION, ELECTION DAY AT SOUTH BEND.-Short SESSION, THE HOUSE AND THE ADMINISTRATION.-FREE SUGAR.-A CONGRESSIONAL PANIC.

IN December, 1855, Mr. Colfax took his seat in the House of Representatives of the Thirty-fourth Congress, a body in some respects not unlike the Hampden Parliament, which began the rescue of English liberty from the grasp of kingly prerogative. Betrayed by the Senate and the President, this House was the first rallying-point of the Northern people. Here they were to begin to make head for freedom, to lay their approaches for the capture of the other branches of the Federal Government, which, however, they were to win only through the madness of the slave power. Few young men ever entered the House better fitted to play an important part. His personal endowments and bearing made him a general favorite. A born politician, he was even more a philanthropist. His love of country was intense, his love of mankind a living force, moving him to incessant activity for the common weal. All good causes had appealed to him for advocacy since before his majority, and never in vain. Always on

the wing, he knew everybody who was worth knowing. Accomplished at all points, a good parliamentarian, a sagacious political manager, active, vigilant, at his best in a crisis, true to his friends and to his convictions, unassuming, careless of display or of personal advantage, his methods winning rather than compelling, but none the less effective on that account-every impulse of his nature, strengthened by his training, was enlisted in the great struggle for freedom now opening. His advent in the House, with that of several other young men of kindred sentiments and equal enthusiasm, marked an era like "the coming" of Clay in 1811, but an era of far grander issues and proportions.

The struggle of 1854, for the restoration of the slavery restriction of 1820, was now become a struggle of personal forces, of the respective colonizing powers of North and South. In the spring of 1855 Governor A. H. Reeder, having taken a census and districted the Territory, the Missourians of the neighboring border invaded Kansas and elected a Legislature, which met later and adopted the slave code of Missouri for Kansas, with such additions and modifications as the stress of their self-appointed task seemed to them to require. This Legislature provided for the election of a delegate to Congress, and in the fall the Missourians again invaded Kansas and elected Mr. John W. Whitfield to that office. A few of the pro-slavery settlers joined in these proceedings, but none of the freeState settlers. This fall, 1855, the latter took a part in organizing the Territory, by forming and adopting a State constitution, and electing Governor Reeder to Congress, he having been superseded by Wilson Shannon, of Ohio, because he could not go the necessary lengths in outrage. Governor Shannon declared publicly on his way out that he was in favor of establishing slavery in Kansas.

From this attitude and action of the Free-Soilers, the Missourians saw that they must redouble their efforts or lose their prey. "Kansas must be slave or Missouri free," said their leader, Senator Atchison, then acting VicePresident, and the watchword passed along the Missouri

border, "Hang the leaders, and give their besotted followers a stated time to leave." Violence began by shooting down in cold blood the free-State settlers, shielding the murderers, and arresting the friends of the slain for burying them. The sheriffs and local administrative officers were not elected, but appointed by the usurping Legislature. The United States Marshal and all other Federal officers were in the plot. The holding of meetings to denounce these proceedings, and the liberation of innocent men illegally held in custody, were made the pretext by Governor Shannon for calling out the militia. The Territory was soon full of predatory bands from Missouri. The settlers standing together in self-defence, the Governor called on the President for troops to sustain his authority. Such was the state of affairs in Kansas when Congress met.

A bare majority of the House were opponents of the ruling policy; but they had been elected as Republicans, as anti-Nebraska Democrats, as Know-Nothings: the former two on the paramount issue, the latter without reference to it, but in extremity sharing the views of their respective sections. The opposition had as yet held no National Convention, there was no organization, no recognized authority. At informal conferences it was decided not to have a caucus, for fear it might do more harm than good. Assembled December 3d, Mr. John W. Forney, of Pennsylvania, Clerk of the preceding House, called the roll, a quorum responded, and a two months' balloting for Speaker began, the Administration Democrats voting for Mr. W. A. Richardson, of Illinois; Republicans, after the twenty-fifth ballot, for Mr. N. P. Banks, of Massachusetts; and the Know-Nothings for Mr. H. M. Fuller, of Pennsylvania, with scattering votes for several others. They were new men in Washington, for the most part, impressed with the dignity of their office, animated by an earnest purpose. Without a Speaker or rules, presided over by a secondary officer of a former House, fresh from a hot fight on the stump, they met daily, chatted together, took their seats at the proper time, and balloted without a breach of decorum. The balloting was varied by discursive debate,

under the practice, by common consent, of members explaining their votes as their names were called.

'No one except those engaged in that struggle," writes Colfax years afterward,'" realized its lights and shadows, its hours of depression and its hours of hope, the gloom of its almost failure and the exhilaration of its final triumph. Surrounded by a hostile population at the Capital, which did not hesitate at open denunciation wherever you met them, the Congressional galleries crowded with those who glared inimically at the friends of freedom, as the contest went on day after day, and week after week, and, finally, month after month, the department officers and clerks scarcely concealing their hostility, as members transacted with them the business of their constituents, and without pay, for no dollar of Congressional salary can be drawn except on the signature of the Speaker, the friends of freedom voted, from December to February, that one name, whose owner, Banks, finally, and for the first time, organized the committees of the House in favor of human rights and in opposition to the demands of American slavery."

He tells how "about a dozen Representatives from different parts of the Union, without any special appointment or commission, except their love for the cause, met privately at each other's rooms every other night, to compare notes as to the varying aspects of the canvass; to detect as quickly as possible any danger of a break in the column of one hundred and seven, which had been concentrated on Banks (for a break would surely have ended in defeat), and to devise means to preserve that united action so necessary to success. The one hundred and seven were of all shades of opinion. Often some member, wearied with the length of the struggle, or not heartily in accord with it, would declare impulsively that at the next session he would break and vote for some one else. But the next day he would show to his associates telegrams from his leading friends at home, adjuring him to stick to Banks,' and so the threatened danger was averted. Not 1. The New York Independent, article on Anson Burlingame.

once only, but a score of times, was this timely appeal made by this laborious committee through the telegraph to distant constituencies, who watched from afar this great contest with deep solicitude." But he ascribes their final success to Mr. Greeley's editorials in the New York Tribune more than to any other single agency. Denouncing desertion and applauding backbone, these articles rang out through the country like a trumpet-blast, morning after morning, consolidating public opinion behind every Banks member, till those who had been doubtful and wavering at the outset became as firm and unyielding as the boldest. "God bless all you good fellows at Washington !"' Mr. Sam Bowles, of the Springfield, Mass., Republican, writes Colfax, December 26th. "You are making a great fight, and one of more importance and of vaster consequence than most people imagine. It is settling the next Presidential election and the new order of things, politically, for the next generation. Don't be in a hurry-— there's time enough for it all."

About the 20th of December a spicy debate occurred. The South put up speaker after speaker to warn the North that if the Missouri prohibition was restored it would lead to the dissolution of the Union. Positions were defined on both sides and on all hands. Question and cross-question flew forth and back, and retort and repartee. A day or two afterward, Mr. Stanton, of Ohio, moved the adoption of the plurality rule-that the candidate receiving the highest vote, even if less than a majority, be Speaker. The motion failed, 107 to 114.

On the 25th, the House having adopted a resolution for a continuous session until a Speaker should be elected, Mr. Lewis D. Campbell, of Ohio, thinking there must be a presiding officer of higher rank than the Clerk, if they would have order in night sessions, without consultation with the Republicans, who had supported him for the Speakership up to the twenty-sixth ballot, offered a resolution "that Mr. Orr, of South Carolina, be requested to preside over the House till a Speaker should be elected." A motion to table this resolution failed by twenty major