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James Sidney Rollins, memoir / by William Benjamin Smith.

James Sidney Rollins, memoir / by William Benjamin Smith. Smith, William Benjamin, 1850-1934. 400dpi TIFF G4 page images University of Kentucky, Electronic Information Access & Management Center Lexington, Kentucky 2002 b92-261-31825973 Electronic reproduction. 2002. (Beyond the shelf, serving historic Kentuckiana through virtual access (IMLS LG-03-02-0012-02) ; These pages may be freely searched and displayed. Permission must be received for subsequent distribution in print or electronically. James Sidney Rollins, memoir / by William Benjamin Smith. Smith, William Benjamin, 1850-1934. Printed at the De Vinne Press, New York : 1891. 317 p., [4] leaves of plates : port. ; 26 cm. Coleman Microfilm. Atlanta, Ga. : SOLINET, 1995. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm. (SOLINET/ASERL Cooperative Microfilming Project (NEH PS-20317) ; SOL MN05064.02 KUK) Printing Master B92-261. IMLS This electronic text file was created by Optical Character Recognition (OCR). No corrections have been made to the OCR-ed text and no editing has been done to the content of the original document. Encoding has been done through an automated process using the recommendations for Level 1 of the TEI in Libraries Guidelines. Digital page images are linked to the text file. Rollins, James S. (James Sidney), 1812-1888. Missouri Politics and government. University of Missouri History. United States Politics and government 1861-1865. sin Wemoriam J. S. R Qnmnoir anb WtAceilanp -, 4 Z -,/ I JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS MEMOIR BY WILLIAM BENJAMIN SMITH, A. M., PH. D. (GOETTINGEN) PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS AND ASTRONOMY UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI opsxa aEXXcoY aovwv. SOPHOKLES. NEW-YORK PRINTED AT THE DE VINNE PRESS 'So, Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year i8oi, by J. H. ROLLINS, C. B. ROLLINS, C. B. ROLLINS, AND E. T. ROLLINS In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington TO ALL WHO ADMIRE PUBLIC SPIRIT INCESSANTLY ACTIVE IN ADVANCING THE COMMON WEAL WHO HONOR BROAD STATESMANSHIP INFORMED BY LOFTY PATRIOTISM ATTEMPERED BY FIRM CONSERVATISM WHO REVERENCE A LIFE OF DEVOTION UNMATCHED IN ARDOR UNEXCELLED IN ACHIEVEMENT TO THE CAUSE OF HIGHER EDUCATION WHO ESTEEM THE JUST FAME OF THE DEAD) A SACRED LEGACY TO POSTERITY T-O BE GUARDED JEALOUSLY FROM ANY CORRUPTION OF PASSION OR PREJUDICE THIS VOLUME OF RECORD OF APPRECIATION OF TESTIMONY IS DEDICATED This page in the original text is blank. CONTENTS BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH PAGE ANTECEDENTS . . . . . . . . . . . I EARLY LIFE . . . . . 3 THE LEGISLATOR .. 8 THE PARTY LEADER ..22 IN THE NATIONAL LEGISLATURE .. 31 PATER UNIVERSITATIS MISSOURIENSIS . . 40 PRESIDENT OF TIIE BOARD OF CURATORS . . . 50 THE MAN ..68 NOTES ... 77 Two VOICES 8S ANALECTA 117 FROM "REPLY TO MR. GOOE " . . . . 121 LETTER TO MR. DUNN . ..124 ON TIlE REBELLION 1...33 LETTER TO ELECTORS .. . 155 FREEDOM OF SPEECH . . .i6i ON THlE OBJECTS OF THE WAR .. . 185 ON TFIE THIIRTEENTH AMENNDMENT 196 THE ARMY ANiD TIlE NAVY .. . 222 TIlE GREAT STRUGGLE ENDED .. . 226 LETTER TO SENATOR MIUENCH .. . 234 VINDICATION OF BOONE COUNTY . . . 239 LETTER TO THE BOONE COUNTY COURT .. 244 PLEA FOR THE FARMERS, MECHANICS, AND MINERS OF MISSOURI 252 ADDRESS BEFORE TIlE CONGRESSIONAL CONVENTION 274 FROM ADDRESS BEFORE THE ALUM.NI ASSOCIATION . . .287 LETTER TO THE AMISSISSIPPI RIVER IMPROVEMENT CONVENTION . 289 PRESENTATION OF PORTRAIT .. . 296 PRESENTATION OF BUST. . . 307 MISCELLANEA ...310 This page in the original text is blank. 3[amco RPbney 3Rotttnz. ANTECEDENTS. THE modern School of Naturalists, having settled to its satis- faction the general doctrine of descent with modification, has of late fallen into two hostile camps over the question as to how the modification is brought about. Onl the one hand, these attach supreme importance to heredity, and trace back to spontaneous variations in the germ-plasm, and to natural selection therefrom, all the peculiarities that establish themselves firmly through suc- cessive generations; on the other hand, those accent the environ- ment with special emphasis, and find in its steady play on the organism the fonls et origo of every distinguishing quality, whether of individual, or variety, or species. It is not for the historian to compose this strife of savants. Per- haps both parties are right and both wrong: right in what they affirm, wrong in what they deny. Certain it is that the biographer can not safely leave out of account either inheritance or surroundings in estimating the complex of influences that mold the hero into what he is; and no less certain that while time, place, and circumstance may often appear completely regulative of the whole life of action, yet many a turn of conduct, many an element of character, becomes fully intelligible only in the light that emanates from the ancestral tomb. TIuE subject of this memoir, James Sidney Rollins, was born at Richmond, the county seat of Madison County, Kentucky, on the I JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. X9th of April, 1812. His father, Dr. Anthony Wayne Rollins, whose name, an echo from Ticonderoga and Stony Point, is resonant of the martial achievements of the pioneers of liberty and civiliza- tion in the New World, was a native of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, whither his father's father, Henry Rollins, had immi- grated from Tyrone County, Ireland, after the outbreak of the Revolution, but not too late to signalize his native love of freedom under the flag of Independence, on the field of Brandywine. His grandmother, the wife of Henry Rollins, was a Scotch woman, nze Carson, a lifelong Presbyterian, both in faith and in nationality a typical character. Her own Caledonian thrift, energy, and serious- ness, rigidity of opinion and resoluteness of purpose, she has transmitted in ample measure, though tempered or disguised by gentler qualities, to her remoter descendants. Such qualities in James Sidney were the rich legacy from his mother, Sallie Harris, ndec Rodes, a woman whose nature was graced and life adorned in high degree with all feminine excellence. Her father, Robert Rodes, first as magistrate by appointment of Patrick Henry, Governor of Virginia, then as Quarter Session Judge of Madison County under commission from Isaac Shelby, first Gov- ernor of Kentucky, lastly as Circuit Judge, for nearly a full genera- tion discharged with eminent acceptance the important, difficult, and delicate duties of criminal, civil, and equity jurisdiction, maintaining till the end the confidence and esteem not only of the State author- ities and of the people at large, but also of a bar distinguished for learning and still more for native ability. He was not merely, however, an upright judge whose well-considered rulings were sel- dom amended by the Court of Appeals; he was conspicuously a man of affairs, full of enterprise and fond of adventure, a natural leader among men. Thus, in 1777, at the age of eighteen, amid the great national travail, we find him a volunteer in a campaign against the Indians of East Tennessee; two years later, while yet a boy, he is chosen captain of a large company of volunteers, and marches from Albemarle County, Virginia, to the defense of the eastern coast; and in 1783 he is elected commandant of an expedition to Kentucky, yet unredeemed from barbarism. His birthplace, Albe- marle County, Virginia, tells the story of his lineage and blood. His father was a landed proprietor in that picturesque valley, a fair 2 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. reflection in the New World of the well-to-do English gentry, a good liver, of imposing physique, abounding in animal spirits, delighting in the horse as his daily companion, basking lovingly if only half-consciously in the glories of mountain, forest, and stream more in capacity than in achievement. Thus it appears that James Sidney Rollins, like so many who have signalized themselves in history, drew the current of his life from many fountains. On the paternal side two streams of Celtic blood, a Scotch and an Irish, were mingled: the one contributing the firmness, the persistence, the earnestness, the shrewdness, the sagacity, the sense of opportunity that conquer success in every undertaking; the other softening these rugged virtues with the genial humor, the quick sympathy, the generous impulses, the large benevolence that everywhere and at all times ennoble the true son of Erin. In life and in death this inheritance in the veins of the father, Dr. Rollins, was not divided, as his beneficent career as physician, but still more his remarkable bequest hereafter to be mentioned, bears ample witness. Side by side, however, with this mingled stream there coursed through the veins of the son, James Sidney, the full tide of Saxon blood, with its strength, its courage, its audacity, its lust of combat and conquest, and its delight in power. These were a mother's gift, received from her father to be delivered to her son. Two distinct races contend with almost equal right in the books of the learned for the glory of being the original Aryans and of having sown in Europe the germs of western and modern civiliza- tion: the Celto-Slavic, tall, brawny, broad-headed, ruddy alike of hair and of skin ; the Teutonic, taller still, huge of limb, light of hair, above all, however, long-headed. The brawn and brain of these two races march forward together to the subjugation of the planet; and it is no empty rhetoric nor fulsome laudation, but naked histor- ical fact, that their bloods met in the veins of James Sidney Rollins, and in just proportion. EARLY LIFE. PERHAPS the most distinguishing feature in the character of Dr. A. W. Rollins was the remarkably high estimate that he set upon 3 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. learning, especially upon scholastic attainment. Though nothimself by profession a scholar, but dedicated to a bread-and-butter science that of all the learned callings in this land at present most discredits learning and makes least pretensions to scholarship among its devo- tees, while at the same time borrowing most largely of its methods and ideas from pure science, Dr. Rollins yet rounded his whole life into an example of the benefit of collegiate training and into an elo- quent and yearly more effective plea for its encouragement. The straitened circumstances of his early youth could not deter him from attempting, nor prevent him from at last accomplishing, the full course of liberal study offered by Jefferson College, Pennsylva- nia. Each new addition to his own education he at once utilized- monetized, in fact-by teaching others and so procuring means for his own further advancement. Thus, step by step, he conquered for himself a -wide range not only of liberal but also of professional cul- ture, and long after he had firmly established himself in a lucrative practice he voluntarily surrendered this hard won vantage-ground and betook himself, harried by the love of the best, to Philadelphia, there to learn the most then to be known in America, at the feet of the celebrated Dr. Benjamin Rush. It was no ladder of knowledge that round by round he ascended, but rather a vertical wall of rock, where each successive niche had to be painfully cut out and afforded only a precarious foothold. These severe struggles of his early man- hood left deep traces in the mind and heart of Dr. Rollins, and the Aid Fund to the struggling youth of Boone County attests at once his generous sympathy with intellectual aspiration and his far-sighted wisdom in devising means for its encouragement.' It would have been strange if such a father had not availed him- self of the best facilities then offered, in the education of his first-born son. In fact, so early did James Sidney begin and so vigorously did he prosecute liberal studies-the humanities, as they are finely called-at Richmond Academy, that when only fifteen he was found fit to enter the sophomore class in Washington College, Pennsyl- vania-So it was in the morning; but in this noonday of intelligence and culture the young man can scarcely enter the freshman class at eighteen, the complaint is rife that he can not get into active life before twenty-five or twenty-six, and it is seriously proposed to cut off the last year of the academic course ! Do we really learn so 4 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. 5 much more in high school and college now than then, and have we improved so little in methods that our knowvledge by three years outruns our wisdom Or, perchance, are we bound hand and foot with red tape, sepulchred in " grades," and overwhelmed with the frills and furbelows of learning -Trio years after his matriculation at Washington the young Rollins, now a senior, followed his Pres- ident, Dr. Wylie, to the State University of Indiana, at Blooming- ton, where he graduated at the age of eighteen and with the honors of his clas. Insufficient induction has led some to maintain that academic leaders are seldom heard of afterwards, being content to rest upon their collegiate laurels. At least, such was not the case with young Rollins. Following his father to Missouri, whither the latter had already gone partly at the suasion of paternal affection, his daughter having formed an alliance with Dr. James H. Bennett of Columbia, Missouri, partly at the instance of failing health, which might find recruit or restoration under new climatic conditions, and partly doubtless at the suggestion of the pioneer's love of adven- ture and the unknown, which is also the vonderful, the young man spent one year in caring for the large farm of his father, two years in the private study of the law in the office of Abiel Leonard, after- wsards a Supreme Judge of Missouri, and then, returning to Kentucky, he completed the lawv course at Transylvania, Lexington, gradua- ting in the spring of 1834 at the age of t-wenty-two. A life of unre- mittent, arduous, and exhaustive labor prolonged in full activity beyond seventy years, no less than his commanding physique, attests sufficiently the general strength and hardihood of young Rollins's bodily constitution; yet it is likely that his health had felt unfavorably the protracted application of so many years, and still more probable that his alert, vigorous, adventurous spirit, rejoicing in action rather than in reflection, was cramped and sicklied in the close atmosphere of the law-office; certain it is that, though the young Rollins, having now gathered together and marshalled his forces for the battle of life, began successfullythe practice of the lawv in Columbia, yet his insecure health forbade complete devotion to his profession. At first he sought partial relaxation and diversion in husbandry in the suburbs of Columbia; btit with the outbreak of the Black Hawk war his restless spirit eagerly embraced an oppor- tunity for action, and having enlisted as a volunteer he served as JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. aide-de-camp on the staffof Major-General Richard Gentry. There was little glory to be won by the Missouri troops in this campaign in defence of their northeastern border, save from the faithful dis- charge of monotonous duty, and on its close Major Rollins, as he was henceforth called, resumed actively his profession. Still his restive nature sought other outlet for its energies, and in connection with his law-partner, Thomas Miller, he began and for many years continued to edit the Columbia Patriot, devoted to the principles and interests of the Whig party. The organ was most fitly named, for pride in his country, glory in his country, and love of his coun- try were always the regnant emotions in the soul of Rollins. And now he began to liberate himself more and more from the drudgery of the law and to emerge into notice conspicuously in his true un- taught and unlearned character as an hommne d'affaires, the creator of ideas, the originator of enterprises, the leader of men. It was April the 26th, 1836, when the first railroad convention ever held west of the Mississippi assembled in St. Louis. It was an unusual and striking tribute to the ability and enthusiasm, but not less, we suspect, to the recognized scholarship and literary skill, of the young man of twenty-four, that he should have received respectful hearing, even, in a council where the cautious wisdom of age and experience rather than the ardor of youth would naturally have been directive; much more that he should have guided its deliberations and in fact moulded its decisions. He was appointed chairman-with such able associates, afterward highly distinguished, as Edward Bates and Hamilton R. Gamble-of the committee to memorialize Congress, and he drafted the first petition asking the national legislature for a grant of public lands in aid of the system of internal improvement projected by the convention. How extensively this idea has since been adopted by that body, and with what far reaching and mo- mentous consequences to our whole commercial and even govern- mental polity, is long since a matter of history. From this point on it is affairs of great public import, rather than the concerns of private clients, that engage the attention and fas- cinate the regard of Rollins. Not that he abandoned the practice of the law, nor that he ever neglected or failed to serve diligently the interest of a client; far from it, his practice became extensive 6 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. 7 and remunerative, and was successful; but he came more and more to deal en g;ros with legal questions, the technical details of the pro- fession had little attraction for him, and he willingly resigned their care to otlhers. The question will naturally arise, whether this par- tial divorce from his own chosen calling, and this increasing devo- tion to alien pursuits, were wise in motive or justified in issue. It is out of question that he thereby deliberately renounced the high- est eminence in his profession. Themis no more than any other goddess will tolerate a divided worship; her especial favors she reserves for her exclusive adorers. But the preliminary question is, weas Rollins formed by nature to excel greatly at the bar The answer would seem to be that he had been endowed with a capacious and flexible intellect actuated by uncommon zeal and energy; that he had attained a broad and generous culture, a large and sufficiently accurate comprehension of the principles of jurisprudence; that he was fertile of resource and unusually ready and persuasive of speech. It is hardly possible, then, that such a combination of qualities set and kept in motion by ambitious and steadily directed industry should not have carried him forward to eminence in any walk of public life. In particular, as an advocate in criminal courts he could not have failed of great distinction. Nevertheless, all these endow- ments were of a very general nature, adaptable rather than adapted to the specific work of the lawyer, while the distinctive features of the born barrister were not prominent in his character. The patient assiduity in research, the loving delight in endless details, the wide and ready mastery of precedent, the microscopic keenness of intel- lectual vision, the dogged persistence in attack, the unyielding obstinacy in defense-all these qualities, the seal and stamp of nature's attorney, were not preeminently his. In the arena of the law his triumphs were feats of strength rather than of agility. On the other hand, in the world of action, of politics and economics, of commerce and enterprise, of legislation and of education, he brought to the matters in hand not only all the qualities usually and naturally called into requisition, but a largeness of intelligence, a height and breadth of conception, a liberality and idealism of spirit, and a sense of the future, that made him not only a con- spicuous actor in one generation, but a memorable benefactor of many. x JANIES SIDNEY ROLLINS. THE LEGISLATOR. AT the outset of his political career Mr. Rollins was called on to make choice between the two great political parties, Whig and Democratic, that for so many years divided the suffrages and alter- nately directed the destinies of the American people. This is not the place either to criticize or to characterize the tenets of those organizations, now become historic. At that time the " American idea" (so called by Henry Clay) of protection to manufactures, especially " infant" ones, dominated the Whig councils; though remarkably enough the ablest lawyer, the most eloquent orator, the adroitest diplomat, the most skillful financier of the party and of the Union, the illustrious Webster, was a pronounced Free Trader. In 1824 he had riddled Protectionism with resistless logic and merciless sarcasm; that policy having been adopted, however, against his vehement protest, he thenceforward lent it, as a fait accomnip/i, a half-hearted support at the demand of his constituents. The Democratic party was regarded as the bulwark of the slave power. At a later period its extreme southern wing developed a social faction of slaveholders, bent on disunion and their own de- struction ; even as the extreme northern wing of the Whig developed a faction equally bent on disunion and the ruin of somebody else, far wiser, however, in its own generation. But then and ever since, albeit blindly led and grossly compromised by their chieftains, the masses of both parties, North and South, have been devoted, and perhaps equally devoted, to the Union. Born in Kentucky, his father an ardent Whig and admirer of Clay, it was natural that Rollins should range himself under the banner of the " great com- moner," and honorable that he should follow it to the end. By so doing, however, he made a large, though perhaps not conscious, sacrifice of political ambition. He cast his fortune with a minority that became gradually more and more hopeless, and condemned himself finally to political insulation. The misfortune of his choice, judged by the standard of official preferment, did not display itself in his earlier and merely local canvasses, where personal quality is wont to be a more significant factor. In the first of these, at the JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. age of twenty-six, he was easily elected to represent Boone County in the State Legislature. The session of 1838-39 was an important one, and offered him ample opportunity, which he was not slow in seizing, to "make by force his merit known.' Here it was, in fact, that he met and learned to know his ideal love, the Higher Education, and pledged himself her champion zealously and for life. The-germ, shall we call it -nay, rather the gemmule, of a seminary of higher learning, the mere suggestion of a university as a desideratum of the future, had long lain dead or dormant in the organic law of the State. In the famous ordinance of 1787, by which Virginia ceded the great Northwest Territory to the General Gov- ernment, Thomas Jefferson had expressly stipulated on behalf of one of the high contracting parties that-" Art. 3. Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happi- ness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." In organizing the Territory of Missouri, part of another splendid gift of Jeffersonian diplomacy to the Federal Union, in 1812, Congress had adopted literally this provision, and defined it more precisely by the clause added -" and provided for from the public lands of the United States in said Territory, in such man- ner as Congress may deem expedient." The ample provision " deemed expedient " by the wisdom of Congress, for the establish- ment and maintenance of a " university, or seminary of learning," consisted of two townships of land, 46,030 acres, from which was realized on a hasty and inconsiderate sale the munificent sum of 78,000! ! Thus far the Congressional Act of February 17, 1818, and the Enabling Act of March 6, 1820; herein the State, of course, acquiesced, both by the ordinance of July 19, 1820, and in the Con- stitution of like date. This instrument declares that there shall be a " university for the promotion of literature and the arts and sciences." The Constitution of 1865 declares that "The General Assembly shall establish and maintain a State University, with de- partments for instruction in teaching, in agriculture, and in natural science, as soon as the public school fund will permit." It would appear that the author, the Hon. C. 1). Drake, cared for no other " departments for instruction " than the three mentioned, or that he apprehended that these might be left out in the organization of the University; but what college even, not to say university, ever 2 9 JAMES' SII)NEY ROLLI.XS. omitted "natural science" from its curriculum Thc new Con- stitution of 1875 is more and less explicit: " The annual income of the public school fund, together with so much of the ordinary revenue of the State as may be by law set apart for that purpose, shall be faithfully appropriated for establish- ing and maintaining the free public schools and the State University, and for no other uses or purposes whatsoever. ' The General Assembly shall, whenever the public school fund will permit and the actual necessity of the same may require, aid and maintain the State University now established with its present departments." In such a gingerly, inadequate, perfunctory. and sometimes unin- telligible manner (witness the obscure reference of " the same ") do our constitutions acknowledge and provide for the supreme intel- lectual interests of the State ! Far be it from us to depreciate the wisdom that indeed recognized the rights of mind and the necessity of higher education in the early legislation already quoted. But to speak of such vague pro- visions as in any proper sense founding the University now in our midst is to misread the facts of history or to use words with slight regard to exactness of meaning. These provisions contain at best and at most but a prophecy of a university. All that any one could safely infer from any or all of the enactments in question would be that sometime in the indefinite future, if the State Legisla- ture s/hould fulfil its obligations, there would be in some wise founded and somehow maintained a State University. But how often has such a body been known to fulfil its obligations Assuredly- a scrupulous regard for them is not one of its noteworthy frailties. As a matter of fact the General Assembly has never discharged the whole duty thus imposed on it, nor until comparatively recent years any very considerable measure thereof. Not until 1827 were the townships set apart for the " seminary of learning," and even under far wiser administration the amount realizable from them would have been ridiculously inadequate to the establishment and main- tenance of a college, much more of a university. Granted, then, that far-sighted early legislation contained the promise and potency of a higher educational life, there was yet needed the long and patient brooding of wise statesmanship to quicken it; granted that 10 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. the framers of our Constitution had cherished the imagination of a seminary of Icarning, it remained for some later lawgiver to embody their fancy in a positive statute, to give it form and substance, " a local habitation and a name." It was no mere accident, but a part of the eternal fitness of things, that this high privilege and sacred duty fell to the lot of James Sidney Rollins. No more than his father devoted to purely intcl- lectual pursuits, he had inherited allthatfather's deep reverence for learning, and thereto he added an extraordinary and unflagging zeal for its advancement. A slaveholder himself by an accident of lat- itude, he had been educated on the soil, and was familiar with the traditions, of freedom. His father had been born and reared in the atmosphere of a respectable college, and almost in sight of his maternal grandfather's home there had welled forth at the touch of Jefferson that copious fountain of knowledge which beyond all others has ennobled and invigorated our southern civilization. He xvas only nmore exceedingly' zealous of the traditions of the fathers, then, when he laid before the House of Representatives at Jefferson City a bill - which was passed the 8th of February, 1839, the first he ever drafted and the first that advanced the pledge of the Constitution one step towards fulfilment- for fixing the site of the State University. By the introduction, by the eloquent, effective, and successful advo- cacy, of this measure young Rollins declared and constituted himself the especial protagonist of the higher education. It was no popu- lar cause that he thus openly espoused. No system of common schools, even, was then nor for many years afterwards known in the State. Massachusetts, even though in the third century of her ex- istence, rich with Old World culture, a land of scholars and authors, men of letters and men of science, was just then, under the guidance and urgence of Horace Mann, beginning to bring her schools into order. Missouri was still given over to illiteracy. After making all proper discount, then, for the enthusiasm of youth flown with professional degrees and academic honors, we must still yield admiration and gratitude without reserve to the high-hearted, wide-minded, far-sighted statesmanship that boldly allied itself under such conditions indissolubly with an abstraction, with an in- tellectual interest that even now, at the remove of half a century, one-third of our populace regard with distrust or disfavor, and whose I I JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. just prerogatives it is even yet the part of policy to let rest largely in abeyance. With the passage of the Rollins bill for fixing its site, the drama of the University's history was opened. The following scene was one of unique and even thrilling interest, and in it the hero was again the principal actor. It was the intent of the bill to secure a central seat for the great seminary, and its location was offered openly as a prize to the " place presenting the most advantages to be derived to the said University, keeping in view the amount subscribed, and locality and general advantages "; but this generous competition was restricted expressly to the six river-counties of Cole, Cooper, Howard, Boone, Callaway, and Saline. And now began a contest that for animation might remind one of a steam- boat race on the lower Mississippi, and that might have appeared to an outsider as almost ludicrous in its intensity, if the dignity and ideal character of the stakes had not lent it gravity and importance. Never in the days of chivalry was a lady wooed by knights or trou- badours with more romantic devotion than the future University by the rival counties. A distinguished citizen of victorious Boone, of large reputation and of great abilities, Gen. Odon Guitar, in a happier portion of his address commemorating the Semi-Centennial of the University and published in the August number of the Uni- zersity Mfagaz-ie (New York), has set forth the struggle in bold and striking relief. From the account given by this eye-witness it would seem that emulation glowed with a fervor far beyond that of even political animosity. Meetings were held in every church, at every crossroads, in every school-house; subscriptions were pledged and doubled and raised again ; the air resounded with stirring appeals to pride of county, to glory in learning, to commercial ambition. Very eloquent, too, they must have been-at least very effective, for the people were aroused, rich and poor alike, to a veritable frenzy of liberality. Some attained and even surpassed the high-water mark set by the widow in Gospel story, giving not only all they had but even discounting largely the future. Indeed, Boone County seemed set unalterably on securing the prize at any hazard; the subscription list, which was redeemed to the last farthing, was closed only when the total of 1 17,900 was satisfactorily ascertained to be far in excess of the amount pledged by any rival, and was ready to be reopened in case of exigence. Rightly to appreciate 1 2 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. the full significance of this donation to an enterprise in which the most could have at best but a distant reversionary material interest, we must remember that the population of the county was but 13,300, so that the average subscription was nearly 9 ! For what conceivable undertaking promising no distinct and but little indirect financial return would it now be possible to raise an average sub- scription of even 3 And yet, while the population has merely doubled itself, the wealth has been multiplied in far higher ratio. No very rich man lived in the county; the wealthiest were merely well-to-do-the largest subscription was of 3,ooo. The annual burden of io,ooo interest was then assumed by poverty cheerfully and voluntarily; now the yearly load of 300 taxation is borne by wealth reluctantly, with chafings and with many sighs. Then a population of I3,000 spontaneously endowed the University with nearly 120,000-with a yearlyincome of 10,ooo; now a popula- tion nearly two hundred times as great and individually four times as wealthy will not endow it with i,ooo,ooo-with a yearly income of 40,000. The muscles of power are indeed enlarged eight-hundred-fold; but the nerves of will are shrunk to the one- two-hundredth of their former dimensions. Of all men young Rollins felt the deepest and liveliest interest in the location of the University. It was just and reasonable that he should desire to see the tender plant set out in his own vicinage, on his own commons, where, and where only, the same hand that planted might also water and prune and in every way foster. Located else- where than in Columbia, it was impossible that the University should enjoy the daily and hourly watch-care with which he tended it for more than a generation, and with more than paternal affection. No wonder then that in this exciting canvass the cause of his county was committed to his keeping; able, active, and honored coadju- tants he had in number, whose names illumine the chronicle of the University; but it was the contagion of his own ardor that above all enkindled the zeal of others. Not only his words but equally his deeds attested his earnestness. His father, a recent immigrant, sub- scribed z,5oo; himself, a novitiate in law with few causes and there- fore presumably with not very many effects, subscribed 2,000. But it is the nature of " influence " to propagate itself outward in ex- panding circles ; what we do immediately ourselves is at most but trivial compared with what we do mediately through others. For 1 3 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. months the young legislator devoted himself untiringly and almost exclusively in every honorable way, by public appeal and by private persuasion, to the magnanimous enterprise of swelling the subscrip- tion of Boone County to dimensions unattainable by any rival, so as to make assurance doubly sure and secure the coveted prize beyond all peradventure. His undisputed rank as forefighter in this gen- crous contest was officially recognized and proclaimed when the County Court of Boone by order of May 28, 1839, appointed " Jas. S. Rollins commissioner on the part of this county to meet with the com- missioners appointed to locate the State University, at the seat of government, etc.," Sinclair Kirtley being named as alternate. Eighteen hundred and thirty-nine must always be counted as the anuZs mhirabilis in the records of Boone County. In appreciating properly the extraordinary munificence of that year's donation, it is necessary to remember that the period was one of deep and wide- spread monetary depression. In 1837 a financial panic of fearful and unexampled intensity had paralyzed the commerce of the coun- try, and in 1839 there was felt a recurrence of the shock, less severe but even more dispiriting. It was not indeed the first time that a people, from the lowest prostration of material prosperity, had roused itself to erect a fabric of immaterial greatness, less imposing to the eye of flesh, but more substantial, enduring and impregnable to the assaults of time and circumstance. It was in 1809, after the military pride of Prussia had " slipped into ashes " at Jena, and her political supremacy had vanished with the peace of Tilsit, that the Royal Friedrich Wilhelm University was founded at Berlin and forthwith began the regeneration of Germany. Highly, however, though we may honor the men of '39, the question will still recur to the cool critical mind-In what measure shall we ascribe their generosity and the zealotry of Rollins on the one hand to unselfish love of learning, veneration for culture, pride and delight in the things of mind, and on the other to calculating commercial foresightand personal ambi- tion of success The question is unanswerable, but no apportion- ment of motives need much disturb us. There is a broad and wise selfishness that almost counterfeits unselfishness itself. While some of us may hesitate to answer yes to the poet's question: Is selfishness,- For time a sin,- spun to eternity, Celestial prudence 1 4 JAMES SID)NEY ROLLINS. yet certainly a simultaneous pursuit of one's own and of others' real interests along parallel lines is a high and laudable form of human action, if not the highest attainable or practicable under existing con- ditions. Is it not indeed a problem of civilization, of practical Chris- tianity, to show clearly to the world that enlightened Elgoism and Altruism, so far from being mutually exclusive, are in reality onee Be all this as it may, the site was chosen, the corner-stone was laid July 4, 1840; the building began to rise; an accomplished scholar, a zealous teacher, a thoroughly excellent man, Prof. John H. Lathrop, LIL.. D., of Hamilton College, N. Y., was elected President; for two years the University tabernacled in a tent, but on the 4th of July, 1843, the main edifice, erected at a cost of about 8o,000,- a vast sum for that time and place--was impressively dedicated, and President Lathrop inaugurated his administration in great wisdom, with high aims and with genuine eloquence. But even the three years in the tent had not been spent vainly, if we may judge by the first graduates in Arts, of November 28, 1843, Robert L. Todd and Robert B. Todd: the latter on the Supreme Bench of the State of Louisiana; the former a banker, for twenty-five years Secretary, for thirteen of these years member, of the Curatorial Board of the University, her wise counsellor, her firm supporter, her devoted son at every stage of her history, a gentleman whom the multifarious cares of engrossing commercial activities have in no wise availed to divorce from intellectual interests, whose zest has never palled for the things of nlind," and who amid the deepening snows of winter yet preserves that spring-tide freshness, that summer sunshine of the breast, which is born and nurtured of love and culture of literature and the arts. Did the seminary thus planted amid so much devotion, enthusiasm, and self-sacrifice, thus rooted and grounded in every civic virtue, thus tended to its first noble fruitage uinder omens so auspicious - did it redeem its early promise, did it grow and flourish from sea- son to sesson in perfected symmetry, in wdaxing beauty and strength The unvarnished truth is, it did not. It neither withered nor died, nor ceased to grow and yield its fruit in its season. BIut its growth has not been rapid nor steady-above all, has not been natural and symmetric; it has not as yet lifted aloft and conspicuous from afar the straight and stately stem of learning, not deformed at base and I j JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. along the trunk by an unpruned growth of adventitious shoots, but waving at the top its wealth of foliage and of fruit. The fault, or rather the misfortune, did not lie, at least in earlier years, in any in- dividual, certainly not in President Lathrop nor in his constant friend, adviser, and supporter, Major Rollins, to whom he resorted for counsel and help in every matter of difficulty or delicacy, who, all along the road of his duty, was both a staff for his hand and a lamp for his feet. Nay, it was to be sought and easily found in the condi- tions of time and place, which were throughout the State altogether unfavorable to the success of any such lofty educational emprise. The unwearied zealotry of Rollins had for a moment and in two or three counties apparently reversed these conditions, turning the coldest apathy into the warmest sympathy. But it was impossible that this intense interest should prove more than temporary and local. The majority glowed with no native and intrinsic but only with reflected ardor, and the young enthusiast had no mission to the Gentiles, no call to preach the Gospel of culture to the outlying counties of the State. The population of the commonwealth was over 382,000; of Boone County it was 13,000. Theselatter had given the University about 9 apiece; had the rest been willing to give an average of but i,-that is, taxed themselves scarcely ten cents per annum,-the University would have started forth with a sufficient building and with a productive endowment of 500,ooo, which would have lifted it at once beyond the arrows and the tongues of men, would have launched the vessel fully manned and perfectly ap- pointed. Such a University would have made Missouri to the South and West all and more than all that Massachusetts and Vir- ginia and Michigan have been to the North and East; by the law of attraction, to him that hath shall be given, equally potent in the material and in the immaterial world, it would have attracted to it- self larger and larger endowments, it would have given the State glory and prestige at home with honorable fame abroad, it would very possibly have saved the State, though not indeed the nation, from the disaster of internecine war. Instead of all this, however, what did the State do for the University Simply nothing at all! So far was she from emulating the munificence of Boone County, that the unexpectedly great amount of the gift was held apparently to relieve all other counties from the duty of doing anything at all. Since 16 JA.MES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Boone has done sufficient, why should the others do any more Such would seem to have been the reasoning. Far worse, however, than merely negative was the working of this neglect and indiffer- ence of the State at large in comparison with the eager interest, self- ish or unselfish, of a single county. For it inevitably invested the " State University" with a certain supposed merely local character and significance that to this day it has not been able to shake off, that has fitted and cramped it like a genuine shirt of Nessus, for evil only, evil everywhere, and evil continually. The University came in fact to be regarded not as a State but as a county institution, and any favor shown it-nay, even the scantiest recognition of its con- stitutional rights-was held and is even yet held in many quarters to be an act of special grace and condescension to Boone! ! To wrestle with such wrong-headedness is like struggling with Antaxus: every fall is a source of new strength and a summons to a new encounter. But more; this pernicious misconception has borne a progeny more baneful even than itself. The facts of the case seem to have been first forgotten and then inverted. In this perverse imagination it is not the county that endowed the State University but the State that endowed a county college! ! What prerogative has Boone over Pike or Clay, Phelps or Cole, Adair or Johnson The location of a University in Columbia is looked upon as a gift of over-generous partiality, of indefensible favoritism, not as a franchise dearly bought, put up and sold for an extravagant price at public auction! So thoroughly has the virus of the "spoils systemn" infected all forms of our national life, so completely has the notion of public trust been displaced by that of public crib, that even a University is regarded as only secondarily an organ of general improvement, of universal benefaction, but primarily as an instrument of public plunder. But the misconception, narrow selfishness, and short-sighted parsimony that for so many years have dwarfed, stunted, and de- formed the University, and therewith the whole educational system of the State, serve only to set in clearer relief by contrast the en- lightened, philanthropic, and prophetic statesmanship that presided at its planting. Such, then, so brilliant and so beneficent, was the entrance of Rollins into public life. It was, in truth, no mere rhetoric that declared at the semi-centennial celebration of July 4, 1890, osten- f7 1 8 JJAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. sibly designed to revive the memories of '39, that the very stones in the building were stamped with the name of Rollins; certain it is that whatever else may come or go, his mystic presence will abide forever, inexpulsible as the ether, and pervade the structure from basis to cupola. In 1840 the services of Mr. Rollins to his county, to the State, and to education were fittingly recognized by his constituents, who returned him to the Legislature by a large and increased majority. In that, the Eleventh General Assembly, there was an unusual assemblage of talent. The compeers of Rollins numbered in their ranks not a few who attained great note and prominence in the history of the State. Such were Gen. A. W. Doniphan, D. R. Atchison, T. L. Anderson, L. V. Bogy, J. G. Miller, S. B. Churchill, Bev. Allen-nearly all of whom preceded him in joining the majority. How the young man of twenty-eight sustained himself in such presence may justly be inferred from the political eminence at which he soon afterward found himself. The University build- ing was then in process of construction, and naturally no important University interest seems to have called for consideration. But there was ample subject for discussion and resolution. The great WVhig dogma of ' internal improvement" came up under various forms for consideration; the ardent spirit of Rollins, full of zeal for " progress," embraced it without reserve, and its slogan resounded eloquently from his lips. Judge as we may this political and economic creed, it is impossible not to admire the courage, the energy, the earnestness, the breadth and elevation of view, as well as the vigor and plausibility of argument brought to its defense by its champion. The debates of this session confirmed and extended to the borders of the State the reputation of Rollins as a forensic disputant; but they did not associate his name with any legisla- tion comparable in importance with that of the University Act of the previous session. After the adjournment sine die, he returned to Columbia and resumed successfully the practice of the law. From this wise com- parative retirement, where his powers were rapidly maturing, he once more emerged after three years, in i84-4, as delegate to the National Whig Convention assembled in Baltimore. The nomina- tion of his illustrious chief and admired prototype, Henry Clay, JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. was to him like a clarion call to battle, and in the memorable cam- paign of that year he canvassed the State in vigorous and effective support of his leader and in defense of the national policy of his party. The result, for a long time in doubt, is well known. The defection of the Free-Soil party in New York lost that " pivotal " State to the Whigs by the narrowest of margins and relegated Mr. Clay to private life. But the powerful political oratory of Rollins had done him much credit and had prepared his wvay to higher preferment. In i846 the Whigs of Audrain and Boone counties sent him to the State Senate by a flattering majority. And now once more did education generally, and the University especially, find their single champion in a position to serve them. For four years both, and the latter notably, had languished. The State had made no effort to meet its constitutional obligations, nor had it the feeblest disposition to do so. It had been content to send a committee biennially to look at the patient, feel his pulse, and note his temperature. The committee came, examined, looked wise, went back, and reported the apparent facts. But neither diagnosis was made nor treatment suggested. Yet the symptoms were plain and unmistakable. The University was suffering from imperfect nutrition, it was smitten with mnarasinues, it was dying of inanition. The mass of brick and mortar was indeed imposing, but the endow- ment of about ioo,ooo was quite unequal to the support of the Faculty, which had to eke out a precarious existence from the fees of the students. Such was the state of the case xwhen Senator Rollins moved the appointment of a committee to examine into the con- dition and prospects of the University. His able coadjutor in the House wvas Col. WV. F. Switzler, who has faithfully and efficiently served the University in so many capacities, as legislator, as curator, as editor, and who of late years, as Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, clothed himself with distinction that made even the axe of the heads- man pause and hesitate. The committee did its duty, and the report, written by Rollins, discovered the evil that afflicted the University in the utter want of support vouchsafed by the State, but more especially in the debts hanging over it that were " par- alyzing its energies and lessening its means of usefulness." The remedy that he proposed was, of course, State aid, the only rational or even possible one. In amount it was entirely inadequate, and 19 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. no one knew this better than he; yet it reached or rather surpassed the full measure of liberality of which the Assembly was capable. But the report went much further: it recognized distinctly the re- mote as well as the proximate cause of the disorder. The schools throughout the State were unable to supply the University with students properly prepared for collegiate studies. One reason was that there was very little interest felt in education, higher or lower, generally throughout the State; the other was that the majority of the teachers were bunglers, devoid alike of professional intelligence and of professional skill. The report animadverts upon this state of the case and proposes very rational means for correcting the evil, namely, to create a class of professional teachers, appointed and sent, as candidates preparing themselves for pedagogy, to the Uni- versity, there to be fitted especially for such work, under written pledge to devote themselves for a " certain specified time to teach- ing " after completing the prescribed course. Here, then, we have clearly expressed, not only the idea of making teaching a profession calling for careful preliminary professional training, the idea from which all of our Normal Schools have more recently sprung, but we have very feasible means proposed to reach the very desirable end. In order to secure the proper professional training at the University, the report recommends the establishment at the University of a chair of the " Theory and Practice of Teaching." The salary to go with this new chair was fixed at iooo, to be paid out of the Common School Fund. The amount seems pitiful, at least when we consider what must be the attainments and abilities of the man who should fill and not merely occupy such a chair. He must be an almost universal scholar, a master of all knowledge; for what could he say that was worth saying about either theory or practice of teaching geometry, unless himself a geometer or of teaching Greek, unless himself a Grecian But mere knowledge, no matter how broad or deep or exact, could not avail. Such a professor must be a psychologist, a metaphysician as well; he should be familiar with the form as well as the content of the processes of thought with which the teacher has to deal; he must be deeply versed in pedagogic and educational theories; he must be an able expositor, an inspiring teacher, a philosophic thinker. - Not even then were the services of such a man to be secured at such a 20 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. salary, unless indeed by some strange and lucky accident. But to any such criticism Rollins would doubtless have answered with good and sufficient reason: " It was on account of the hardness of their hearts that I did this thing; but in my own thought and purpose it was not so." In truth, despite his earnest advocacy, the Legislature was unwilling to do even this trifle for the University; the task of its own higher education the State was unwilling to touch even with one of its little fingers. At the next session, in an elab- orate and well reasoned memorial of the Board of Curators to the General Assembly, signed by J. S. Rollins, J. H. Lathrop, W. A. Robards, committee, Major Rollins again brought forward his measure and this time secured its passage, but only in a maimed and modified form. Instead of the precise, comprehensive, and perfectly intelligible designation " Theory and Practice of Teach- ing," there was substituted the conventional symbolism " Normal Professorship," and the scanty Seminary Fund instead of the much larger Common School Fund was taxed with the maintenance of the chair, though it was the common schools that were to reap at least the primary benefit. What the Assembly, in fact, did was to concede the justness of Rollins's idea, and then to refuse all aid in its realization. The reasoning was very succinct, and worthy of the sepulchral logician in Hamlet: " The thing is right, and we, the State, ought to do it for you; argal, we '11 make you do it yourself for us." Such was the genial manner in which the General Assem- bly contrived to meet its constitutional obligation " to support a University for the promotion of literature and the arts and sciences." It is interesting to note at this point by how many years the theory of Rollins preceded, outran the practice of the State. That was nearly half a century ago; yet even now there is no such chair, no professor of Pedagogy in the University ; the subject is taught, or rather of necessity shunted, perfunctorily and under constant protest, as a trivial and irrelevant appendage to the chair of English. And yet its high importance in the college curriculum, especially for the development of primary and secondary instruction, is daily more clearly recognized. Says the Nation, whose deliverances are so apt to be significant, in an article on " Four Educational Meet- ings," under date of July 17, 1890: " At all these meetings the 2 1 22 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. necessity of reform in Normal training, and the fundamental necessity of better qualification for teachers, were emphasized." It was not alone, however, the great cause of human progress, whether materially in the construction of bridges and railways and opening up the highways of commerce by land and by water, and in all other forms of " internal improvement," or spiritually, in founding, maintaining, developing the various educational agencies, primary, secondary, and especially higher, for freeing, enlightening, ennobling the mind of man -it was not this cause alone, however worthy or important, that enlisted the legislative efforts of Rollins in its behalf: the cause of humanity, helpless, hopeless, miserable, "smitten of God and afflicted," was equally near and sacred to his heart. The bill for the establishment of the first asylum ever founded in the State-the one at Fulton-for the insane, found in him its especial champion. In fact, his earnest, prolonged, and successful advocacy of a liberal policy, both educational and eleemosynary, does almost equal credit to his head and to his heart. THE PARTY LEADER. IT was not strange that Major Rollins should now find himself at the head of his party in the State. No arts of demagogue, no tricks of politician, no skill of party manager, but desert and service had wvon him that distinction. He had echoed no popular cry, had mounted no wave of transient emotion, had ingratiated himself with no controlling interest or influence. The measures he had urged in no wise appealed to the masses, but rather repelled them by calling for expenditure of money. It is not the fading temporalities that so readily catch the untaught eye of the voter, but the unseen eternalities of truth and mercy that had engaged his closest atten- tion. Nevertheless, his energy, his ability, his fealty to the doctrines of his party, his distinguished legislative record, his knightly though courteous and affable bearing, yet more than all perhaps his persua- sive popular oratory, recommended him irresistibly to the convention, and he was nominated for Governor in I848. He was but thirty-six years of age, not yet at the mid round of the ladder of life, and JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. hitherto had been the favorite of fortune in his political aspirations. But now it was that Nemesis, whose watchful jealousy rarely forgets, began to overtake him. For no State was more firmly anchored to Democratic moorings than Missouri. To wrest her therefrom was an attempt, to say the least, sufficiently courageous. The Democratic nominee was a worthy opponent, the Hon. Austin A. King. The candidates agreed to a joint canvass of the State, a plan that undoubtedly presented then, and would seem to present now, a great many very marked advantages. The characteristic absurdity of political warfare is the immense waste of ammunition on "dead ducks." At a great Democratic "rally," heralded and advertised by all the devices of the printing-press, celebrated and accented by all the " pomp, pride, and circumstance " of the blare of brass and the tramp of processions, involving the outlay of hun- dreds of dollars in the importation of " distinguished speakers " and other necessary " legitimate expenses," the great bulk of the at- tendance will already be safely and certainly Democratic: the per- suasion is lost on persons already persuaded, the argument on minds already convinced. It is not sinners but the righteous that are called to repentance; those of another political complexion attend in small numbers, and listen on the outskirts under manifest disad- vantages. Besides this, the statements of the speaker, however false, misleading, or exaggerated, pass unchallenged; his reasonings, however fallacious, go unexposed -a circumstance that makes neither for the orator's nor for the auditors' good. In the "joint canvass" both of these evils are corrected, the mass-meeting is converted into a deliberative assembly, the inflammatory harangue into an argumentative appeal, the monotony of assertion must be somewhat broken by attempts at proof, and the insipidity of the address is flavored by the zest and relish of debate. Such a canvass would have peculiar charm for Rollins, who was disposed perhaps too little to arouse, animate, and organize his supporters, but rather to convince, persuade, or at least conciliate his opponents. The contest fell in a presidential year and one of exceeding interest. Eight years before, the Whigs had been overwhelmingly successful in a campaign of merely popular enthusiasm inspired by martial memories, personal magnetism, social and sectional prejudice, and political catch-songs, under a m ilitary hero and by the help of methods 2 3 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. that had at least the merit of novelty. Four years after this victory, the fruits of which Death snatched away from them prematurely, they had been barely defeated under an orator, a statesman, and above all a popular leader. They now once more forsook the pen for the sword, argument for exhortation, the senate-chamber for the tented field, the party leader for the popular hero, in the nomination of Gen. Zachary Taylor, a nomination, said the justly disappointed and disgusted Webster, "not fit to be made." Once more it was to be a campaign of acclaim and enthusiasm, and once more it was suc- cessful, buta Pyrrhus victory thatbrought ultimate ruin to the victors. But though on this occasion Major Rollins found himself, on national issues, supporting a chance candidate, the accident of Buena Vista, yet he did not lower his own canvas to catch the gale of popular feeling; on the contrary he conducted it throughout in the high regions of genuine statesmanship. The contest was a most exciting one. Like some perpetual tornado it swept over the State, shifting rapidly from town to town, from county to county, its center of dis- turbance. Here to-day, yonder yesterday, from far and near the scattered rural populace of both parties surged together to wait upon the high argument, to disperse and reassemble elsewhere to- morrow, following the progress of the candidates. Rollins pitched his contention aloft upon the plane of education and internal im- provement, themes already familiar to him through a decade's ad- vocacy, and grown dearer to his heart with each successive victory and defeat; themes, however, that even to this day, after the lapse of half a century, have a strange and foreign and unlovely accent to many ears in every region of this proud commonwealth. The echoes of that loud strife were long since extinguished among us, its very memory is the pale and faded possession of a dwindling few. But the seed of enlightened and liberal State policy was not all strewn among thorns, by the wayside, or on stony ground; some fell upon good ground and yields year after year a most plenteous harvest. The immediate issue of the struggle, foreseen from the first, nor at any time doubtful, was the election of King; but a full share of honor, if no lot in the fruits of victory, fell to Rollins, whose power- fully persuasive oratory, which won for him the sobriquet of " silver- tongued," had made very deep inroads upon the old-time Democratic majority. The Whigs in the Fifteenth General Assembly, 1848-9, 24 JAMES SII)NEY ROLLINS. 23 cast their vote for Major Rollins as candidate for the United States Senatorship. This was, indeed, an empty honor, for the Democrats easily controlled that body and elected D. R. Atchison; but it -was none the less gratifying to its recipient as an expression at once of gratitude to him for party services and of unshaken confidence in him as a party leader. Major Rollins now resumed the active practice of his profession, the law. Though by nature incurably averse to the humdrum of the office, impatient of plea and counterplea, of replication and rejoinder, of demurrer and the countless other forms of the law's delay, yet the breathing realities, the warm human interests and sympathies, of criminal practice attracted him mightily and enlisted his highest fac- ulties. He was a most potent advocate, and his sway over the minds of ajury was imperious; his services wveretherefore in greatldemand, and nearly every criminal case of much importance sought him with- in a circle of ample and lengthening radius. But neither his educa- tional nor his political interest suffered abatement. In 1850 he re- ceived and accepted an appointment by Millard Fillmore-which able, judicious, and patriotic statesman had acceded to the Presidency made vacant by the death of Gen. Taylor, July 9, 1850-on the Board of Examiners to visit West Point and report upon its con- dition. In 1852 he was an elector on the Whig Presidential ticket and canvassed the State with his usual vigor and ability. The great party, twice successful under a military chieftain, and never other- wise, had now rejected finally its supreme intellect, Daniel Webster, and once more sought to dazzle the eyes of the nation with the glamour and eclat of martial achievement. It nominated a warrior still more renowned than Taylor, Gen. Vinfield Scott, the victor of Cerro Gordo, of Cherubusco, and of Chapultepec. But such an or- ganism is too complicate to live long without its head, and the XX'hig party' was even then in the agonies of dissolution. Rollins had now devoted fourteen years of political activity to the earnest propagation of the principles of that party, and its collapse at this epoch ultimate- ly involved his own political destinies. However, the disaster was not immediately felt; important triumphs at the polls yet awaited him, but henceforth there remained for him no secure political foot- hold. A graver and more terrible question than had ever yet divided the American people was now advancing insupportably to the front 4 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. in all political discussions. It was the question of slavery. The founders of the Republic had beheld it from afar, with fear and trem- bling, as a speck no bigger than a man's hand on the rim of the south- ern sky. For the first thirty years of the national life it hung low on the horizon, the many were lulled into a sense of security, the wiser few looked upon it with awe and with bated breath. Suddenly in 1820, at the enchanted word .11issouri, it loomed aloft, dark and muttering and tinged with lightning. The second generation of political prophets, led by Calhoun and Webster, but especially by Clay, the great High Priest of Compromise, sought to lay the hor- rid phantom by all sorts of sacrifices and incantations. But in vain year by year it grew more threatening, "more dreadful and de- formed." The heart of the people was hot within them; while states- men were musing, the fire burned. Within three years the illustrious trio had all sunk to night in its ominous shadow; now, in 1854, it darkened all the west, while the whole country resounded with fierce debate of the question as to the right of Congress to exclude slavery from the territorieF. Major Rollins was himself a slaveholder, but this fact did not obscure his logical perception of the constitu- tional powers of Congress, nor his political sense of the importance and propriety of their exercise. He maintained with boldness that it was both the logical right and the political duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in the Territories. The proslavery Democrats denied both. On these questions a sharp issue was joined, and there followed a most spirited contest for the State Legislature. Rol- lins was elected, with Odon Guitar, a young lawyer of great promise, as his colleague. Such a result, achieved in a slaveholding com- munity, was justly regarded everywhere with surprise and with peculiar satisfaction by his constituents and in fact by all except " rule-or-ruin " adherents of proslaveryism. The legislative ses- sion that followed, 1854-55, was one of peculiar interest both to the State and to the nation. A United States Senator was to be chosen, and three aspirants presented themselves: Benton, Atchison, Doni- phan. Of these Rollins supported the last, as the Whig candidate, with great earnestness, and in the course of the contest he was led into a Controversy with 'Mr. Goode, who had been sent to Jefferson City by St. Louis, clothed with the reputation of a " great constitutional lawyer." He professed allegiance to the Whig party, yet he had 26 JAMES SII)NEY ROLLINS. voted for Pierce as against Scott, whose nomination, while it repelled the Northern, had failed to conciliate the Southern, element of tl-e party. Goode, who, as a Southern Whig, that made at least occa- sional pilgrimages to the tomb of Calhoun, had received eight votes in caucus for speaker, and had given the party nominee for Senator, Col. Doniphan, a very questionable support, had also allowed him- self to make an elaborate attack on Rollins in a speech extended through two joint sessions of the two houses of the General Assem- bly. To this assault Mr. Rollins replied in a compact speech of an hour, replete with all the elements of forensic eloquence, with logic, with sarcasm, with lofty sentiments of patriotism, with generous in- dignation at political inconsistency-all held in place and directed in movement by an exhaustive knoledge and ready mastery of all the material facts of history germane to the discussion. The ora- tion, which was not only a personal defense but also a general con - fession of political faith, was received on all hands with rapt attention, was repeatedly interrupted by general and prolonged applause, and left behind it a profound and abiding impression. It confirmed in - disputably the position of Rollins in the forefront of impassioned ar- gumentative oratory in the State of Missouri, and may be read even now again and again, from beginning to end, with lively interest. In 1836 Colonel Thomas Hart Benton, after thirty years' distin- guished, useful, and patriotic continuous service in the Senate of the United States, having failed of reelection in 185o and again in 1854 offered himself as a candidate for Governor, thus seeking directly at the hands of the people that vindication of his conduct in refusing to follow the lead of Calhoun which had been denied him by the representatives in the Legislature. The campaign that followed was sufficiently remarkable. Benton had been honored by the people of .Missouri as no other man in her history; in return he had glorified her name in the halls of national legislation by the side of Massachu- setts, of Kentucky, and of South Carolina; if he did not quite attain unto the first three, he was easily prince among the thirty: now at last, far wiser than his party, having stepped aside and called Ave aiquc I a/, unto it in its swift race to ruin, he threw himself upon the mercies of the ballot, the richest in years and honors, the ripest in wisdom and experience, the ablest in native strength of mind and character, of a departing generation of statesmen. Everywhere his -/7 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. candidacy was received with great enthusiasm. But the Democratic party, always admirable in organization, maintained its ranks almost unbroken, and a third party - that fatal fallacy in the logic of votes -the " Native American," by diverting a part of Benton's natural support, succeeded in electing his competitor, the Hon. Trusten Polk, by a small plurality. Immediately upon his inauguration, however, this gentleman was elected by the Democrats to the United States Senate. Another election for Governor was ordered, and the late victors nominated the Hon. Robert M. Stewart, a brilliant man, of re- markable talents highly cultivated. Once more the eloquent Whig of Columbia was chosen as banner-bearer of a now disrupted political organization. What the matchless prestige, the measureless energy, the endless resources of Benton had failed to compass, was now pro- posed as a prize to the seductive rhetoric of Rollins. As in 1848, so now again the rivals met on the hustings in a joint canvass. All the powers of the orator, physical and mental, imaginative and argumen- tative, were at their culmination, and he led the forlorn hope com- mitted unto him with romantic chivalry. Few such contests in the history of any State have stirred up such deep and widespread interest. The ballots were finally cast, but as the returns came in the suspense was not relieved but was made intenser than ever; for it appeared that the vote was almost exactly equally divided. And now began a strange, unheard of, and inexplicable delay in obtaining returns from a number of counties. At last, at the very limit of popular patience, a result was announced, a majority of two hundred and thirty for Stewart! The friends of Mr. Rollins have always in- sisted that there was foul play, that he really won a glorious victory, and that the returns were manipulated so as to convert it into a scarcely less glorious defeat. It would be difficult or impossible to make good these charges, but we who live in a day when such sinis- ter political methods have been reduced to an art and are practiced as a profession, to the complete annulment or reversal ofthe popular will, must regard their truth as antecedently probable and the circum- stances of thecase as extremely suspicious. Bethis as it may, all 'The larger towns and easily accessible districts cast majorities for Rollins, and his election was announced at first and confidently. Gradually, hobwcver, the remoter counties began to throw one by one their excesses into the other scale. For eight weeks the beam trembled as under the hand of a skilf.l chemist, and at last tipped by the merest minim for thb Demo- crats, osvrloadcd by the tardy returns from the backw-oods' precincts. 28Y JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. the honor if none of the advantage of triumph fell to Mr. Rollins. He had done what none had been able to do before him; he had ad- vanced the standard of his party, humbled and disheartened by an uninterrupted succession of defeats, to the very verge of victory ; he had tugged like a Titan, and had loosened if not indeed wrenched away from her moorings an empire commonwealth, from the verv first insolubly anchored to Democracy. With this brilliant bu t futile achievement the twenty years' service of Major Rollins to Whiggism was ended; he now ceased to be a leader of the party, fo- there ceased to be any such party to be led. " Now of deeds done," saith Pindar, -whether they be right or wrong, not even Time the father of all can make undone the ac- complishment "; yet it is a curious and interesting, and not altogether unprofitable, speculation to look into the possibilities as well as intc the actualities of history ; to inquire what new channel the stream of events might have sought or dug out if, while trembling along some critical watershed, some chance pebble had deflected it this way rather than that. Let us suppose, then, that the count of votes, fair or unfair, had been varied by scarcely more than one in a county, that only one hundred and sixteen had been transferred to the Whig from the Democratic column. 'hen Rollins would have been elected Governor. As an administrator he was quite equal to himself as an orator, conceiving boldly and broadly, master- ing details with readiness, and executing with dispatch. In the fourth year of his quadrennium he would have found himself in a commanding political position, the chief executive of an important State, with the unique prestige of having won it out of party weak- ness by his own personal strength. In these days such a position would certainly attract, in those elder days it would most probably have attracted, to itself the gaze of the wvhole nation. Moreover, it would have been both geographically and politically median. In the disintegration of parties that proceeded apace from X852 to i86o all their ties wvere relaxed, and Rollins both could and would have made ready political alliances with all but the extremists of both North and South. A slaveholder himself, and ready to protect the " institution " to the full extent of the law, he was yet averse to its extension; while captivated by the plausible note of popular sovereignty and respect for the people's will heard in the Kansas- 2.) 30 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Nebraska Act, he yet deplored the act itself as unwise in its provis- ions. Above all, however, he recognized that the only hope of slavery lay in prudence, conciliation, and a respite to agitation. One by one, as Calhoun in his last and greatest speech had vividly set forth, the ties between North and South had been snapping; only one was now left, the Democratic party. Love for the Union was with Rollins an absorbing and controlling passion; with that party, at least with that section of it which loved the Union more than all " institutions of the States," and which subsequently shed its blood not less than others freely in defense of the Union - with that party he would have found in the nascence of dissociation his almost certain affinity. On him the Whig remnant that voted for Bell and the moderate Democrats who voted for Douglas, along with many who followed the evil star of Breckenridge, could have united with mutual advantage, with the least possible concession, and with- out the surrender of any principle, and his political eminence would have designated him as the natural focus of such a union, while cer- tainly his abilities would not have unfitted him. Had wisdom even in moderate measure guided the councils of these moderate partisans, such a concentration might have been effected. Without any help from the Southern Democrats the Bell and Douglas parties would together have outnumbered the Republicans by ioo,ooo, and have at least thrown the election of a President into the House of Repre- sentatives. Here the selection of Mr. Lincoln would have been quite impossible, and not less so the election of Breckenridge; the only possible choice among the three would have been the middle one. How successfully he could have mediated between the ex- tremists is not easy to say ; but that pacific counsels would have prevailed and that the rupture would have been averted for at least four years longer seems certain ; or even if the seven Gulf States had rashly seceded, the upper tier of four might still have been held within the Union with such a sympathetic mediator in the President's chair. In any case, with the great mid-lying, Union-loving States in control of all branches of the Government, it seems hardly pos- sible that some wiser policy should not have been devised than that which paid for every negro slave three times in coin, ten times in blood, and a hundred times in the distortion and deformation of our social and political system. Certainly it is'not forgotten that a great JIAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. many ifs stand here in the way, nor that the probability of the compound event is far less than of any component; and the reader is left to form his own judgment of the likelihood of any such com- bination as is here suggested. But whatever might have been its indirect incidence upon national politics, the election of Rollins in 1857 would surely have brought with it a benediction to the State of Missouri. Her position in the conflict would have been far less equivocal, her course would have been kept steadily in line with that of the other loyal States; her soil would not have drunk the blood of her sons nor sprouted therefrom a perennial harvest of implacable animosities; her name would have been spared at least in large measure the odious celebrity of guerrilla warfare and banditti outrage; and all this, not to speak of the general non-political ad- vantages of a vigorous, progressive. and enlightened administration.2 IN THE NATIONAL LEGISLATURE. NONNE of these things, however, were destined to be. The genius of fatuity was now presiding over the destinies of the southern Democrats. As their powers of enforcing their demands grew less and less, the demands themselves increased in extravagance. From his venerated sepulchre the idea of Calhoun stretched out over all the party an absolute sceptre. It was not enough to repeal the Missouri Compromise; Congress must not only not restrict, it must positively protect slavery, in the territories. But the spirit which the great political wizard, Douglas, had conjured up in the Kansas- Nebraska bill, the greatest legislative blunder in American history, though he could not control he would not follow; the Democratic party fell in twain asunder, and the autumn of i86o sawv four Presi- dential tickets in the field. Of these only one, the Republican, was conscious of its destiny; the other three were at cross purposes and clashed like ignorant armies by night. Was it the pride of political consistency that induced Rollins to cast in his lot with the Constitutional-Union party under Bell and Everett, the remnant saved from the disSolution of the Whig party, the scarce seven thousand -for surely from the first its cause was utterly hopeless. At any rate he offered himself for Congress upon that ticket. His 3 1 32 JANMES SIDNEY ROLL.INS. opponent was the Hon. John B. Henderson, a lawyer of signal ability, famous as the author of the Thirteenth Amendment abolish- ing slavery. But at this time he professed a political creed widely different. He was a follower of Douglas, the Independent Demo- crat. Neither of these gentlemen had at heart any sympathy with slavery; both would resist its aggressions, but neither would advance beyond the Constitution and the law. Of the twain Rollins would make the less obeisance to the Southern fetish. In their hearts both doubtless concurred in the aims, though not in the methods, of the Republican party. But the constituency was largely com- posed of slaveholders, and any avowal or confession of antislavery sentiment would have been instantly fatal, not only to their present aspirations, but also to their future usefulness and influence. The Northern concept of the slave was that of a " person held to labor or bondage"; but the Southern concept was entirely different and far grosser, namely, of a piece of chattel property, like a horse, or cow, or table, or sofa. Hence the slaveholder regarded the aboli- tionist as little better than a highway robber, and all the native Anglo-Saxon sensitiveness concerning " rights of property" was aroused at the mere hint of emancipation. In this extreme irri- tability, this genuine hyperaesthesia of the proslavery conscience, it was no less necessary to be wise as serpents than to be harmless as doves. It is a gentle hand that must be set to a festering wound. No wonder, then, that the candidates had to lay their words with scrupulous exactness in the balance, and that neither could quite escape the charge, though both perhaps the guilt, of insincerity. At length the delicate egg-dance was accomplished, the polls were closed, and the eloquence of Rollins, so often borne down by over- weighty odds, was this time clearly triumphant. The same day witnessed the consummation of Democratic folly in the election of Mr. Lincoln by a clear majority of fifty- seven in the Electoral Col- lege, but by a popular plurality only of 480,195 over and against a total majority of 944, 149! No Southern interest was yet in danger, for neither of the other branches of Government, legislative and judicial, could pass into Republican hands before the last days of Mr. Lincoln's administration. Nevertheless, the Southern leaders deliberately threw away their vantage-they descended from the hills to fight on the plain. The abstract right of secession was too JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. dear not to be exercised; since man has the rig/ti to shear the wolf plainly it is also his couty to shear it !It was a sad, proud privilege conceded to South Carolina, to start the race toward ruin by the "ordinance of secession," passed December 20, I86o. Her six light-hearted sisters followed in quick succession, and four others, less frivolous, with reluctant step at last joined their company, being oppositely electrified by the call of President Lincoln for 75,000 volunteers. Such was the status of affairs when in July, 1861, Mr. Rollins took his seat at the called session of the Thirty-seventh Congress. He lost no time in defining and declaring his attitude, which he main- tained firmly and consistently through four years, the most trying and arduous in the history of the Republic. Difficult indeed was the position of every legislator, but for none more difficult than for the Columbia statesman. His feet stood in slippery places that took hold of the ways of death. The constituency that he represented was in- deed loyal to the general Government and opposed to secession; but the right to coerce a seceding State was conscientiously questioned by many who loved the Union perhaps not less than some in New England, who hailed the secession of South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida with a chorus of thanksgiving, shouting: "The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice. The Covenant with Death is annulled ; the Agreement with Hell is brokiei to pieces." It was indeed the middle and western States that were especially ready to expend blood and treasure in defense of national unity, as their high percentage of enlistment of soldiers, considerably higher than in the northeastern States, clearly shows. Even Missouri, though thou- sands of her sons cast their lots with the Confederacy, yet swelled the ranks of the Federal armies with 0og,111 fighting men, a number scarcely less in proportion to white population than was furnished, with the help of 53,ooo,ooo in bounties, by ultra- patriotic New England. Of these only 1031 are reported as held to service on draft, while only 1638 furnished substitutes or paid commission. The war record of Missouri is indeed as creditable as that of Massachusetts, let her defamers say what they will. It was no reproach to the constituency of Mr. Rollins that many of them believed in State sovereignty and the right of secession; or if reproach it was, least of all men could the New England extremist 33 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. level it at them. For no new logical maxim had been propounded, no new principle of interpretation had been discovered, since the Hartford Convention (1814), when New England showed herself ready to " adopt the furthest stretch of State sovereignty, as stated in the Kentucky Resolutions." But to the North and East the war was known only as a distant, however harsh and painful, echo; while the very air of Missouri shook with the uproar. No material interest of theirs was in any wise endangered by any issue of the war; but even a blind man might see that the success of the national arms must at least gravely imperil half the fortune of the slave- holder. Add to this, that the insult, injury, oppression, atrocious outrage, and murderous violence to which a helpless populace, whose utmost offense was a certain human " sympathy " with friends and relatives, were subjected at the hands of an alien invading soldiery, often passed the bounds both of description and of endurance, and it will appear that if the loyalty of the Northern abolitionist was a human virtue, the loyalty of a border slaveholder was a virtue almost divine. Such a slaveholder, loyal under the most exasper- ating conditions, was James Sidney Rollins. He lent the general Government a whole-hearted, vigorous, and courageous support, voting for all war measures and defending them in speeches of earnest and impressive eloquence. At this point it may be well to characterize more fully than has thus far been done the position of Mr. Rollins in the great national crisis. He was, above all things else, sincerely and passionately a Union man. His Unionism was primarily an emotion of the heart, and only in second line a theory of the head. The idea of a mighty people, one and indivisible, " lapped in universal law," sublime in strength beyond all fear of attack, glorious in all the arts of peace, happy in all the blessings of prosperity, its will an ordi- nance, its voice an oracle, its home the broad and fertile bosom of a continent, traversed up and down this way and that everywhither by the streams of commerce filling every artificial as well as every natural channel -this splendid imagination enthralled his fancy and engrossed his affections. It possessed his mind while he was yet a youth, nor relaxed its hold in his declining years. He found a subtile music like that of the spheres in the columns that told of our progress in material greatness, and the numbers of the statistician 34 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. were to him scarcely less harmonious than the numbers of the poet. On the other hand, the vision of a dismembered nation, of two hos tile republics or a score of petty snarling principalities, of the tides of internal commerce broken and foaming against the walls of custom-houses-this hateful apparition repelled and dismayed him. No amount of logic could reconcile him to it. The metaphysical refinements and grammatical subtleties by which Calhoun might confound even Webster rebounded harmless from his practical in- telligence-they were for him but the insanity of dialectic. The act of acceding to might involve the right to secede from in a country school match, but not in a continental Republic. It could never have been the mind of the fathers to suspend the destinies of the nation on the construction of a prepositive particle. Such broad and common-sense generalizations were enough for Rollins; but they were reenforced by his studies of classic history, which showed him how frail were the leagues and confederacies among the independent Greek States, and how easily they went down before the first shock of Roman power. Hence it was that he regarded Disunionists at the South and Disunionists at the North, Toombs and Phillips, Calhoun and Garrison, with equal abhorrence. As he scouted the metaphysical fanaticism that possessed the one, so he disowned the moral fanaticism that ruled the other. With slavery as an institu- tion of society, as an element of civilization, he had little sympathy. He honored free labor, and his preference was to see all labor free. He never escaped nor perhaps was solicitous to escape the imputa- tion of being at heart an Emancipationist. A large slaveholder himself, however, and a kind master, he did not perhaps recognize in slavery all its potencies for evil, and he yielded no large place to sentiment in his practical treatment of the matter. With him the supreme question was, " How preserve the Union" While the extreme North shouted, " Human freedom first and Union after- wards," and the extreme South answered, " State sovereignty first and Union afterwards," the voice of Rollins was, " Union first and all other things afterwards." He would save the Union with slavery, he would save the Union without slavery; with or without, in any case, he would save the Union. Such was the end that he proposed, and in the pursuit of this end he was perfectly consistent, though, to be sure, not always uniform in his recommendations of means to 3 5 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. attain it. Such uniformity, however, is to be neither desired nor commended. The most practicable way is not always a straight one: the path that winds along the side of a mountain may yet lead us safely and most easily to the top. But while Mr. Rollins wan beyond many hearty and efficient in his support of the Administration in its war policy, in its determin- ation to suppress the Rebellion at any sacrifice of men and money, he was by no means blind or indiscriminate. He recognized clearly that there are some things more precious than blood, more costly than treasure: and he well knew from history how often the neces- sity of the nation has been the opportunity of the tyrant. While pledging his own State to the last drop of blood, to the last ounce of treasure, in defense of the Union, the pride of mankind, the hope of humanity, he did not forget that the rights of American citizen- ship are sacred and inviolable. Accordingly, when the zeal, without knowledge, of Colfax proposed to expel Mr. Long of Ohio for the utterance of treasonable sentiments in the House of Representatives, Mr. Rollins sprang forward to the defense of the " Freedom of Speech " in a remonstrance equally lofty in patriotism and impas- sioned in eloquence. It was a brave and magnanimous act, especially in a man whose constituents were currently reported as disloyal. Again, when the policy of enlisting negroes in the Federal ranks was first promulgated, Mr. Rollins, who, however immovably set on extin- guishing the insurrection, however determined at every hazard to fly the Stars and Stripes, though in tatters, over every inch of Southern soil, could not forget that he was himself a Southron, and who would not without need offend the prejudices nor wound the feelings of his brethren -Mr. Rollins arose in the House and entered his strenuous protest. We all remember with what an outburst of in- dignant declamation " that old man eloquent," the immortal Chatham, greeted the proposal to employ Indians in warfare "against our brethren in America, endeared to us by every tie that can sanctify humanity." In like manner 'Mr. Rollins maintained that it was both needless and impolitic thus to irritate to incurable resentment the minds of the Southrons by an attempt to overrun them with a hireling soldiery of their own slaves and racial inferiors. This protest is particularly worthy of note as containing a distinct announcement of his own long-cherished hope of a complete emancipation. What 36 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. practical method he would have recommended we are left to guess at. Most likely some plan of gradual manumission and qualified admittance to the right of suffrage would have finally realized his grand idea of universal freedom and citizenship. He who regards the formidable features that the race problem presents now in this the third decade of freedom, can scarcely repress the idle wish that some other plan had been tried than the one that was actually adopted. But it was not only in Congressional debate that Mr. Rollins dis- played boldness and independence as well as ability: he was equally outspoken in his strictures on the Executive. The Proclamation of Emancipation was in his judgment defensible only as a military necessity, but was legally void and impotent- vox etprwteresa nihil; and the issue would seem to have justified his opinion. It must not be inferred, however, that Major Rollins ever indulged in anycaptious criticism of the Executive, or failed at any moment to lend it in ample measure a cordial support. On the contrary, his relations with the President were at all times of the most unreserved and intimate nature, who found in him a tried and trusty and sagacious adviser, and who relied on him with especial confidence in all matters per- taining to the difficult and delicate administration in Missouri. In the autumn of 1 862 Mr. Rollins was once more the conservative candidate for Representative from the Ninth District. His opponent was Colonel A. Krekel on the Radical ticket, afterward rewarded for his distinguished party service by the United States District Judge- ship for the Western District of Missouri, an office that he greatly honored-a gentleman of uncompromising integrity and very con- siderable legal ability and attainment, but narrow, intense, and par- tisan in doctrine and feeling even as Rollins was broad, generous, and national. Hitherto it had been the joy and strength of the latter to conduct his canvasses personally, on the htstings. But that course was now altogether impracticable, such was the distracted condition ofthecountry. Accordingly he addressed a kind of general epistle or encyclical letter to his constituents, in which he vindicated his course of conduct as hitherto pursued and outlined it for the immediate fu- ture. This letter, as being the most carefully written, is also perhaps the most chaste and elegant of Rollins's literary productions that remain to history. The result of the contest could not be otherwise interpreted than as a very cordial indorsement of his patriotic but 37 38 JAMES SIDNEsi ROLLINS. conservative bearing in Congress. All but two counties (St. Charles and Warren) gave him very considerable majorities; the vote of the soldiers in the field -was also cast in his favor, and he was reelected to his seat by the very great excess of 5,426. He signalized his re- turn to Washington by an oratorical effort of great merit, which com- manded the prolonged attention of the House of Representatives and extorted the highest encomiums from the Chief Executive of the nation. The occasion was as follows: The Hon. John B. Hender- son, whom Rollins in i86o had met and defeated at the polls after an animated contest, had now far more than recouped himself for that popular rebuff by a stroke of higher good fortune which sent him to the United States Senate. In the national struggle of i86o Henderson had supported Douglas, who was charged, though per- haps unjustly, with being the Northern tool of the Southern Demo- crats, whose senatorial campaign against Lincoln has become historic, and who made such fatal and fatuous concessions to slavery in his Kansas-Nebraska bill with its doctrine of " squatter sovereignty." He did indeed close untimely his mistaken career with a vigorous plea for national unity; his last words became the rallying cry of the War Democracy, and for this great service at the end we may for- give the errors of a lifetime. He was neither, let us remember, the first nor the last man that has thought to play with fire without get- ting burned. But his views were peculiarly acceptable to Missouri, which cast her electoral vote for him, and it is very significant of the great strength of Rollins in a popular canvass, that he was able to carry the Ninth District, of slaveholding counties, against such a magical name as Douglas and against such a pleader as Henderson. But this latter gentleman had wisely discerned the signs of the times, and now leaping boldly upon the swift crest of events, he brought forward by resolution in the Senate that Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution which should immortalize his own name and abolish American slavery forever. His resolution was lost in the House, June 15, 1864, by a vote of 94 ayes to 64 nays, thus failing of two- thirds; but Mr. Ashley having changed his vote and moved to re- consider, the resolution once more came before the House, and, pending the same, Mr. Rollins, who had originally voted nay, arose on the 13th of January, 1865, and defended his intention to change his vote in the speech already mentioned, a speech that may be said JAMES SI)NEX ROLLIN,.3 to have closed his Congressional career with high honor and distinc- tion. He had not grown too old to learn; he had always lent an atten- tive ear to the logic of facts, the persuasion of history; he affected no pride of consistency; but when he changed his mind it was with a frank, open, and honest avowal of reasons. It was not merely, however, the war and its incidents, countless and important as they were, that engaged the attention of Mr. Rollins while a member of the national legislature. Internal improvement, the development of the material resources of the country, but still more the advancement of its educational and intellectual interests, subjects that enlisted his earliest efforts and provoked his first appear- ance in public, he did not now, amid the clash of arms, for a moment forget or suffer to lie in abeyance. The Agricultural College bill, appropriating a vast public domain to the endowment of colleges for the more especial promotion of such studies as bear more or less directly upon agricultural and mechanical pursuits and tend to elevate the plane of rural and other industrial life, found in him an advocate both able and earnest; and it was his persistent contention that all the public lands, with reservations only in favor of preemp- tion and the homestead, should be devoted to the cause of education. This was not all, however. It was on the 5th of February, 1862, that he proved himself to be the legitimate successor of Benton, by introducing the celebrated " Bill to aid in constructing a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean, and to secure to the Government the use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes." It was much discussed and variously amended, but suffered no substantial modification; finally, in July, 1862, it received the Presidential signature, and under its provisions the three great Pacific railways, the Union, the Kansas, and the Central, came into existence. So it was, with blood in the South and with iron in the West, that the States were cemented together. Thus, regard it as you may, the Congressional career of Mr. Rollins appears to have been equally industrious and honorable. Missouri has rarely been without able representation at Washington. For thirty years Benton was a close second only to the very first; Schurz, Henderson, Blair, and others attained high and well deserved national reputations; Vest and Cockrell, the latter in fidelity and industry, the former in boldness and brilliance, stand conspicuous 39 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. among their fellows; while R.. P. Bland, though the chief apostle of financial heresy and economic delusion, is yet By merit raised to that bad eminence. Nevertheless, it is doubtful whether the best and highest interests of the whole people have, during any equal period, been more care- fully conserved or more zealously promoted at Washington by any Missourian than by James Sidney Rollins during the four eventful years of his Congressional incumbency. One of the most pleasing incidents with which his life of toil at the Capitol was varied was a visit to Boston as member of the Com- mittee of the House on Naval Affairs, at invitation of the merchants of that city. The committee met with a brilliant reception at the Revere House, the Hon. Edward Everett presiding, and it fell to Mr. Rollins to deliver the most elaborate response on the occasion,- though no less distinguished men than Judge Kelly and Gen. Gar- field were his associates,-a response marked at once by felicity of thought and propriety of diction. PATER UNIVERSITATIS MISSOURIENSIS. " An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man."-Emezrson. MR. ROLLINS withdrew voluntarily from public life on the expira- tion ofthe XXXVIIIth Congress. During his absence atWashington through four years of civil strife his affairs at home had fallen into great disorder, and his presence and personal attention were imper- atively required for the reconstruction of his private fortunes. But his great abilities, his large experience, and his wide knowledge of men and affairs could not long be allowed to rest in idleness or seclusion. In less than two years-in fact, at the next election in I866-the citizens of Boone County, by an almost unanimous vote, returned him to the State Legislature. The office could indeed no longer bring him any honor, nevertheless such an expression of confidence from those who knew him best set a new and impressive seal of popular approval to his Congressional record. The position, moreover, was really a most important one. A new Constitution, an emanation from the head and heart of the Hon. Charles D. 40 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Drake, had been adopted in 1865, and all the laws of the State had to be revised into consistence with its provisions. All the wisdom, adroitness, conservatism, and magnanimity of such a patriot as Rollins were now needed to temper the radicalism that was rampant at the Capitol. It was in this important Assembly that he opened a long series of services to the University that not only reestablished that seminary on a solid foundation, but also placed the keystone in the arch of his own fame. Friends of education, at least of the common schools, were not wanting in that body, as indeed they have rarely been wanting in Republican conclaves, and with these he cooperated heartily and efficaciously in organizing the system of public schools in the State; but as a friend of the University he was almost alone. The flame of life in this seminary was indeed barely flickering. For six years the devotion of President Lathrop and his few faithful colleagues had fed it with precious but scanty oil. He at last had departed, in his final moments clasping the hand of his true yoke-fellow, Rollins, whose ear it was that caught the last accents, in consciousness of duty done, that fluttered from his lips)s His successor-elect, Dr. Daniel Read, found every interest of the University in a dismal plight: its attendance shrunk to one hundred, its annual income to seven thousand, its corps of teachers to six; its buildings in ashes or falling to ruin, having been made the barracks of a Federal soldiery; itself a bone of political contention, and the prey of local factions: encumbered with a debt of 20,ooo, and so discredited that its warrants were at 40 per cent. discount; nay, more and far worse, the party in power was intensely hostile to the whole institution as having its site in a town reported to be disloyal. In vain had Col. W. F. Switzler, as member of the Constitutional Convention held in St. Louis, 1865, sought to secure recognition of the University as the " seminary of learning " contemplated in the Constitution ; his proposition was lost by a decisive vote. The deep degradation into which the University had fallen was in part the immediate and necessary result of that intestinal strife which had so torn the vitals of society throughout Missouri ; in part, however, it was a more remote but equally certain result of that settled indif- ference towards the concerns of higher education which so long affected the public mind of the State and which in many sections still affects it. Perhaps, indeed, it was too much to expect of border 6 41 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. culture, of inchoate civilization, that it should lift its thoughts to art, literature, and science, when such a grave and instant and desperate problem as African slavery lay unsolved before it. Nearly twenty years had now elapsed since Mr. Rollins had been in a public position to champion the cause of the University, though all the while, in private station, as citizen, he had fostered the disin- herited child of the State with the friendliest attentions. Now, how- ever, upon resuming his seat in the halls of legislation he showed all his old-time ardor in its behalf. It was he who framed, introduced, and pressed forward to successful issue all the measures for the relief of the University. Such were the appropriation of io,ooo to re- build the president's house, which had been destroyed by fire, and, what was far more considerable, of 13 per centum of the State's revenue, less 25 per centum of the same already designated for the support of the common schools. It was not alone that this wise en- actment secured an addition of about i6,ooo yearly for the main- tenance of the University, thus at one stroke more than trebling its annual income, but much more significantly it secured a distinct and unequivocal recognition from the State itself that the seminary seated at Columbia was the University of the State of Missouri which the State was constitutionally pledged to maintain-a recognition res- olutely denied to the pleading of Switzler in i865, nor hitherto at any time more than passively conceded. Up to March the X ith, 1867, when this bill became a law, life and death had been casting dice over the University. It was meet that the same statesman whose youthful enthusiasm had founded it should now, twenty-eight years later, in a rugged crisis redeem it by his maturer wisdom. An ad- mirable feature of this statute was the increasing provision that it made for the increasing wants of the University, keeping step with the increasing resources of the State; too good it was, indeed, to last, and subsequent legislation has failed to preserve it. There was still another act framed by the same hand, promoted by the same persons, passed at the same session, and approved on the same day-the act establishing the Normal Department in the University. This measure was wisely conceived and well intended to bring gradually into being a special class of teachers not only equipped with adequate knowledge, but carefully instructed in the highest art of their profession; its immediate reaction would be upon 42 JAMES SII)NEV ROLLINS. the primary and secondary schools throughout the State, while only its remoter effects could be felt in the increased and improved attendance at the University; but its final utility would, of course, depend mainly upon the manner of its execution. Even this was not all, however. It was during this session of the General Assembly that Mr. Rollins brought forward a bill to estab- lish the Agricultural and Mechanical College as a department of the University, and to vest in the Board of Curators the 330,000 acres of land with which the Act of Congress of July 2, 1862, had endowed it, an act that he himself had aided in passing. Mr. Rollins urged the passage of this important bill by all manner of suasion, but a minority of the House remained unshakably rooted in hostility to Boone County, pleading the disloyalty of its citizens, though possibly controlled by a straiter patriotism, and determined not to promote even its educational interests. As early as January 24, i866. in a letter to State Senator Muench, Mr. Rollins had over- borne every rational objection to the union of the College with the Universitv, and had shown the mutual advantages to be derived from their association; in a speech in the House, March 9, 1867, he had vigorously refuted the charge of peculiar disloyalty brought against his fellow.-citizens. All, however, was of no avail, and on the 20th of March, 1867, by a vote of 62 ayes to 57 noes the bill failed of a majority of the whole House. Rollins had no desire to return to the Legislature, being much chagrined by the defeat of this measure, but the nominee of his party, the Conservative, for the Senatorial District of Audrain, Boone, and Callaway Counties, Mr. David H. Hickman, having been disfranchised, his own name was substituted against his ws ishes almost on the eve of the election. The rival candidate was no other than the Supervisor of Registration, Mr. Conklin, who, unal- terably set on preserving the ballot free from every taint of disloyalty, had in conjunction with the county registrars disfranchised four out of every five voters by erasing their names from the lists of regis- tration! He had blundered egregiously, however, on the side of moderation, in not erasing the fifth one also, for the returns showed him defeated by a large majority. It was nothing but human nature that he should appeal to the Legislature, which was of his own political complexion, to save him from the consequences of his own 43 44 JAMES SIDNiEY ROLLINS. misplaced confidence and excessive generosity. Long and bitterly he contested the election, but it was too late; the error was irrepar- able, and the Senate finally by a unanimous vote confirmed the election of Rollins. It was then proposed to present Mr. Conklin a consolation purse of 208 (mileage) as a slight recognition of his brilliant and conscientious, however partial and ineffective, efforts to preserve the ballot immaculate from infection of treason. The beneficiary of his laxity, Mr. Rollins, with singular lack of magnan- imity, opposed the motion, emphasizing such trivial though well- attested and finally conceded facts, as that Mr. Conklin was all along consciously ineligible to the office in question; that he was consciously disqualified as a voter; that in taking the oath as Super- intendent of Registration he had consciously sworn falsely; that he had fled from Missouri to Iowva and from Iowa to Missouri to escape military service in the United States army. Such purely ethical considerations might, indeed, when presented with vehemence, move a sympathetic gallery to applause; but not so easily a Senate, sedate and accustomed to look below the merely moral character down into the political inmport of an action. By a vote of 21 to 9 the resolution was carried. Let us hope that the amount sufficed and was piously applied to deliver him by railway finally and forever from an inappreciative constituency. And now once more began the struggle over the location of the Agricultural and Mechanical College, in the introduction by Mr. Rollins of his bill to engraft it on the University. The intensity of the opposition had not in the mean time abated, neither was it of a nature to be broken by any weight of argument. Otherwise the reiterated proofs of Rollins and Russell, Switzler, Todd, and Read, in the forum and in the press, would have been enough. But they were not nearly sufficient, and availed in no wise to shake the inter- ested prejudices of the average legislator. When his victim proved plainly to the hotel-keeper that his bill was exorbitant beyond all reason, the latter smiled sweetly and replied, " But, my dear friend, you see I need the money." The administration of the whole body of public trusts was regarded as an enormous Christmas pie; and why should Boone County, having already pulled out one of the finest plums, insist on pulling out another Perceiving that the bill could not pass in a form unmutilated by amendments, Mr. Rollins JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. now began to make judicious concessions, and chief among them that one-fourth of the proceeds from the sale of land should be given to a School of Mines, which was afterward founded at Rolla as part of the University. Other provisos required certain large gifts of land and money from the County of Boone, which together actually reached the sum of 9o,ooo. The fact was that an eager rivalry for the location of the College had sprung up amonga numberofcounties, and bids of as much as 2oo,ooo were made by Jackson, Greene, and others. Against sLch conpetition the very adroitest management was necessary to secure the consolidation of the highest institutes of learning at Columbia. The ideal problems of pure mathematics may often be solved exactly; the actual problems that arise in its applica- tions can at best be solved only approximately. So in civics and the higher politics the ends of exact Justice and Right must be kept clearly and steadily in viewer and must be constantly aimed at; but wve must often rest content with only partial attainment. Com- promise is necessary to practical statesmanship, which is always more or less a wise opportunism. The original bill, decorated with twenty-four amendments, was put to final vote and carried on the ioth of February, 1870, wherewith a legislative contest of four years was ended. It remained to arouse the people of his county to meet the obligations imposed by the enactment, by no means a light or easy matter. To this task Mr. Rollins addressed himself in an elaborate letter to the CountyJudges, tinder date of March 14, 1870, the Assembly being yet in session, in which he defends his concessions and urges the county to action by convincing reasons. He also repels the charges of interested motives that had been brought against him, and vindicates the uprightness and straightforwardness of his conduct. The response of his fellow- citizens was gratifying. All the conditions of the bill were promptly met, and the Agricultural and Mechanical College was permanently engrafted upon the University. So bitter, however, was the disap- pointment of the rival counties that a call for separation has more than once made itself heard, though of course not heeded. If the College has not quite flourished according to ardent wishes, not to say reasonable expectations, the explanation is not to be sought in its amalgamation with the University, but rather in the inadequacy of State support, as also in a certain congenital logical error, a confu- 45 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. sion of notions, which afflicts both it and its fellows throughout the Union. The sales of land have thus far reached the sum of 312,000; about 60,ooo acres remain unsold, which may raise the total to 400,000. The recent Act of Congress, which has just received the Presidential signature, will yield at the maximum, when deduction is made for the support of a negro Seminary, about 20,000 per year, equivalent to an additional sum of 400,000 invested at 5 per centum. Accordingly, this important measure has practically endowed the University at the hands of the general Government with 700,000. If the Experiment Station, as succursal to the Agricultural College, be counted with its income of 1 5,000, the yield of 300,000, it will ap- pear that the total consequential practical endowment secured to the University at Columbia from the general Government by four years of legislative struggle on the part of Rollins and those about him foots up the very considerable sum of 1,000,000. This was much the most difficult of all his legislative achievements, and he would have been the last man to depreciate the valuable and even essential aid which was rendered by Read and Russell, Switzler and Todd, not to mention others no less zealous. There yet remained much, however, to be done before the recon- struction of the University could be considered accomplished and its continued existence assured. It has been said that, when Amer- icans wish to build a monument, the first thing they do is to appoint a committee to collect the money, and the second is to inquire what became of the money that the committee collected. Mr. Rollins, however, was equally solicitous to gather up funds for the Univer- sity and to provide safeguards against their dispersion. Accordingly he framed, introduced, and urged to final passage a bill, approved February 9, 1870, for the safe investment of the old Seminary fund of 122,000 at six per centum per annum, a bill which, with the far more comprehensive one of 1883, his keen financial sense reckoned as among the most important ever framed in the interest of the University; and now in the Twenty-sixth General Assembly, through whose session his Senatorship of four years extended, he brought forward and successfully advocated an act approved March 29, 1872, which directed the Governor to cause to be issued one hundred and sixty-six coupon bonds of one thousand dollars each, payable in twenty years from July t, 1872, with interest at five per centum per annum. Of this issue, 35,000 wvent to the School of lines at Rolla, 46 JAMES SIDNEV ROLLINS. 31,000 towards liquidation of debt and completion of the Science Building, and 1i0oo,o to the permanent endowment of the Univer- sity. Now, at last, a moderate income being secured beyond per- adventure for the "seminary of learning" as result of the struggle prolonged through thirty-three years, Mr. Rollins took the decisive step of making all higher learning except the strictly professional, practically free to the youth of Missouri, by the act approved April i, 1872, which fixes the matriculation fee ata maximum often dollars. Herewith, then, was the wide round of his direct legislative service in behalf of the University completed, and by a deed clearly marked with the nobleness and generosity of his character. Surely, then, it was not strange nor in any degree unnatural or extraordinary, that, on the expiry of the session of the General Assembly and the return of Major Rollins to his home in Columbia, all such as felt deep or immediate interest in the University should be moved as by a com- mon impulse to some public recognition of the unique relation toward that Seminary in which Mr. Rollins had fairly placed himself by virtue of a long record of meritorious offices-a record that may safely chal- lenge parallel in the lives of friends of learning in America. The stu- dents assembled in mass convention, and adopted with unanimity and enthusiasm the following resolutions reported by Henry XV. Ewing: Resolned, That as representing a portion of the youth of the State of Missouri, we tender to the Hon. James S. Rollins our thanks for his eminent services in both branches of the Legislature to the cause of public education in our State. .Secondf. That as students of the State University, we are especially indebted to him for long continued and unwearied efforts to establish a State University on a firmand enduring basis -an institution of broad and universalculture, wshich with its Sclhool of Mines and other industrial and professional departments svill be both a blessing and an honor to the State of Missouri. Thirdi. '[hat we tender him ourcongratulations on the proud achievement which has crosned his efforts in behalf of the University, and that we honor the present Legislature for its liberality and enlightened patriotism in the establishment and upholding of institutions which constitute the true glory of a commonwealth. f1i orlh. That in honoring Major Rollins and expressing to him our grateful acknosvledgments, we by no means forget, nor pass by, the Representatives of this county and other members of both branches of the legislature, whose names we shall ever delight to honor for their zeal and efforts in behalf of those measures which have given a firm foundation to our University. Fifth. That werrejoiceinthegeneralprogressofenlightenedsentimentamongall classes, and trust that the day is not far distant when Missouri will stand among the first of our American States for those great institutions which adorn and ennoble modern civilization; and to this end, as sons of Missouri, we consecrate our lives. 47 48JAIES SIDNEY ROLLINS. The Faculty voted a public expression of thanks, in rendering which before a large audience the President, Dr. Daniel Read, made use of the following language: MAJOR ROLLINS: In behalf of the Faculty of this University, I am author- ized and directed in this public manner, in the presence of this Board of Curators, of the students, and of this assembled multitude, to tender to you the expression of their heartfelt thanks for your preeminent services to this institution of learn- ing -services begun in the years of your early manhood, continued in the fullness and maturity of middle life, and increased with the experience and wisdom of advancing years. Especially, sir, we thank you for this best crowning effort in devising and secur- ing the late act of the Legislature by which our University is placed upon a firmer and more secure basis. In honoring you, sir, we by no means ignore or forget the labor of others, es- peciallyof ourhonored curators, J. W. Barrett, Henry Smith, Col. S. G. Williams, nor of the representatives of this county, Messrs. Newman and Bass, and many others from different parts of the State whom I cannot name on this occasion. Especially in connection with this bill the name of the Hon. Senator Morse, of Jefferson, deserves consideration and honor, as, but for his intervention and know- ledge as an experienced legislator, we should, at the present at least, have failed of our just right. But, sir, we know that in every struggle you were the leader - the corypheus of the measure. We, who have had some experience, know full well the cost of such success- the labors by night and by day-the contests, the misgivings, the hope, the fear; but you have the satisfaction of knowing that it is an achievement, not only for this generation, but for all generations to the end of time. When the struggle is over, and your nervous system becomes relaxed after unw onted tension, and you look back upon the legislative battle and its victory, what amount of money (if money could be put into the balance) would induce you to encounter all that you passed through to wsin success But, sir, you have higher and better reward, and when all the strife and contests of party politics are over with you, when personal antagonisms are forgotten, or remembered only to remind you how small and worthless they were, you will then feel that the founding and upbuilding of this University was worthy the best efforts of your life. You will feel a just and proud satisfaction. By others it will be said and written of you -' on sibiseidjatrire. " Your life, sir, will be crowned with the blessings of the young men and young women of the State of Missouri; and after you have passed away your name and memory will be cherished as a public benefactor. The prayer of this Faculty is that you may live to see the University all that you have labored to make it, and that your own life may be as long and happy as it has been honored and useful. Still more emphatic, and most decisive of all, was the action of the Board of Curators. Prof. Edward Wryman of St. Louis, himself a 48 JAMES SII)NEN ROLLINS. distinguished educator, presented the following preamble and resolutions: Whereas, The long and continued services of the Hon. James S. Rollins, com- mencing thirty-four years ago in the introduction of a bill by him in the House of Representatives of the General Assembly of this State providing for the location of the State University, and the various measures since that time of wnhich he has been the author and earnest and able advocate, terminating with the act passed at the last session of the Legislature making provision for the payment of the debts of the institution, enlarging its library, completing the Scientific Building, and adding to its permanent endowment, deserve a proper recognition and ac- knowledgment by this Board; be it therefore Resolved, That this Board are deeply impressed with the value of the important services rendered by Hon. J. S. Rollins and other friends of education, in plac- ing the University of Missouri upon a solid and permanent foundation, where the youth of the State may enjoy equal advantages for higher education with the youth of other States of the Union. Second. That he has won the honorable title of " Pater Universatis Mfissouri- e-sis," and that the thanks of this Board are hereby tendered to him for his great efforts to promote the prosperity, usefulness, and success of this institution. Third. That the Secretary of this Board cause to be prepared in some suitable form a copy of the foregoing resolutions, signed by the Vice-President and the Secretary, and with the seal of the University attached, and presented to the Hon. James S. Rollins in the name of this Board. These resolutions were recommended to the Board in earnest remarks and brief recitals of history by Prof. Wyman, the Rev. John D. Vincil, and Col. NV. F. Switzler, and were carried unanimously. Btlt not any nor all of these official recognitions of the unique distinction of Major Rollins with respect to the University wvere felt to express adequately the personal gratitude, esteem, and affec- tion with which his high desert in the matter of education had in- spired the patrons of learning in all parts of the commonwealth. It was a happy thought, therefore, on the part of a number of friends both of the man and of the cause that he had made so especially his own, to present to the Board of Curators for permanent location in the University building a life-size portrait of Major Rollins, exe- cuted by that distinguished " Missouri artist," George C. Bingham. These gentlemen intrusted the matter to a committee of eleven, who directed a Letter of Presentation to the Board of Curators, through its Vice-President, the Hon. Elijah Perry, in which letter the labors of Major Rollins in behalf of the University were briefly 7 49 50 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. but impressively recounted. The Board accepted the gift by the following resolution, June 26, 1873: Resolved, That we accept with gratitude the proposed donation, as one emi- nently fitting and appropriate, and as commemorative of the life and labors of a distinguished citizen who, by his eminent public services, and especially by his earnest and untiring efforts in the cause of education, has endeared himself to the masses of the people, and has deservedly commanded the highest considera- tion of the members of this Board. On the same day at two P. m. the lion. W. F. Switzler, a worthy second to Rollins in the multitude and devotion of his services to the University, pronounced the address of presentation; the response of acceptance from the Board was delivered by Mr. A. J. Conant of St. Louis, while a few well-chosen words of acknowledg- ment from Major Rollins himself rounded gracefully the ceremonies of this pleasing incident. PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF CURATORS. THE sketch in hand is not a history, much less a chronicle; the order of thought rather than of time is intentionally followed, and no apology is offered for now momentarily reverting the gaze back upon certain events anterior to some already noted. These may not be passed over wholly without remark, for their testimony is valu- able to the breadth of view with which Mr. Rollins regarded the problems of public education, and to the liberal, far-sighted, and effective policy that he brought to their solution. We have seen how early he conceived the notion of forming a special class of trained professional educators who were to make teaching a life- work, to take the place of the transient throng of lawyers, preachers, physicians, and politicians in chrysalis, who follow teaching mere- ly as a temporary makeshift, who don the didactic gown as the insect its cocoon while awaiting transfiguration into some nobler form of being. The West is even now following his far lead in this matter at a slow but accelerated pace. His interest in this eleva- tion of teaching to the full rank and dignity of a learned (rather of the learned) profession did not abate with the establishment of a i Normal Professorship " at the University; but as Chairman of the JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. 5 1 Committee on Education he reported a bill that called into being the State Normal Schools at Warrensburg and Kirksville - institu- tions that have flourished greatly in spite of inadequate support by the State, that have undoubtedly shed far and wide a beneficent influence, and that have already accomplished a work of vast mo- ment in raising the average of fitness among the teachers in the State, however wanting it may be found even yet when weighed in the balance of our just desires. Another act, not so much of enlightened and sagacious statecraft as of generous humanity, which illumined the close of Rollins's career as legislator, and is fit to be ranked with his earlier advocacy of a similar measure, was his vigorous and successful support of the bill establishing an Asylum for the Insane at St. Joseph. One such in- cident in the career of a law-maker may mean little or nothing at all; but they become full of significance and determinative when strewn thick along the whole course of conduct from beginning to end. It was in 1869 that Governor McClurg nominated Major Rollins a Curator of the University of the State of Missouri. To him who bears in mind the facts of the University's history as already set forth, it must be apparent that every consideration both of utility and of propriety must not only have indicated this nomination, but also have pointed to him with fixed and unerring finger as the man of all men fitted to be President of the Board of Curators, and he was indeed elected to this position in June, 1869, a position that he held continuously from that date until his resignation, enforced by ill health, on his seventy-fifth birthday, April 19, 1886. This pres- idency was in itself but a little thing; it was what its incumbent chose to make it. Of salary, emoluments, perquisites, of every material attraction it was bare utterly. Perhaps it did indeed clothe its occupant with honor and distinction, but the honor was entirely empty and the distinction not very generally desirable. It did not lift him aloft and conspicuous in the eyes of the people, inviting their regard and wooing their suffrages; it did not arm him with the long, keen, and flexible weapon of political influence. The President of the Board of Curators was then, and is now, to the majority of elec- tors, more a myth than a reality; at best their notions of him are pale and formless; he has no patronage to distribute, and is wide off from the line of official promotion. Moreover, in the administration JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. of such an office there was ample room for choice of policy. He might choose, from love of ease or from uncertainty of conviction, from lack of clearly elaborated ideas or from want of interest in a duty unrelated to his own happiness or success in life, to discharge it in a rather perfunctory manner, to drift listlessly with the stream of events, to affect a cautious laissez faire, to make of himself a mere parliamentary convenience or even a mere machine to register and execute helplessly the will of another; and against such a worldly- wise election of policy it would be difficult to make any severe crit- icism hold fast. On the other hand, he might take his duties alto- gether more seriously; he might magnify his episcopate of higher culture; he might conceive of his trust as a high and holy and most important one; he might lay all its cares close to his heart and bind them about the neck of his memory; he might mark out distinctly a line of policy and might rack his brain daily to advance thz University along it. It was natural, yea, inevitable that Major Rollins-such were his antecedents-should take this latter more earnest view of his functions, and through the half-generation of his incumbency he maintained it consistently. Perhaps no other Univer- sity in the Union has ever enjoyed for so long a period uninterrupt- edly in its general extra-scholastic administration the assiduous fostering and nurturing care of one man so thoroughly competent and so entirely devoted; certainly no other has ever needed it more. It is the single, towering, isolated peaks, the Matterhorns, the Everests, the Chimborazos, that catch the eye, that engage the interest, that en- thrall the imagination of artist, of savant, and of poet. Yet, after all, these are but small and insignificant fractions of the whole mountain- range that lifts them clearly into ether on its shoulders; the great mass of elevation lies scarcelynoticed onlyalittlebelow,amid nameless plateaus and countless humbler summits. In estimating the average of altitude, it is these latter that control and regulate; the glittering min- arets count but little in the vast cathedral of nature. So, too, it is the lofty deeds of legislation for the University that fasten the gaze in contemplating the career of Rollins, and that transmit his name and fame to posterity. Yet these form but the merest fraction of the grand bulk of his services, which, like the Andes, stretch broad and long through the whole history of that seminary. It is these,-the daily solicitude, the nightly watch-care, the unwearied vigilance, the 5 2 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. unresting concern that trod many ways in the windings of thought, the ever-wise counsel, the always ready assistance lent in plenteous measure freely and to all alike, but above all the inextinguishable ardor of devotion which consumed brain and heart,-it is these, all long since fused into one undistinguished whole, that constitute the mass of his services and that raise their general level so exceeding high. In all his manifold relations to the personnel of the Univer- sity he seems to have borne himself far above all considerations of private preference, of partisan prejudice, of political or ecclesiastical affiliation. Such feelings were certainly as native to his breast as to another's; otherwise he had been more or less than human. But they were held in check and submissive to an all-dominating zeal for the advancement of the University. The relation of a man to the University was the important one that swallowed up all others. The views, political or other, of the chief members of the instructing or the governing staff might have been, and in fact sometimes were, directly counter to his own; their modes of thought and of action might accord ever so little with those he most approved: all of these things, however, could move him not greatly nor disturb the deeper harmony of that common interest that to him was supreme. " What then " he might say with the Apostle; "only that in some wise, whether by this or by that, the University is furthered ; in this, it is, I rejoice, yea, and rejoice I will." Such a complete subjection of natural impulses to a single emotion would scarcely have been possible, even with the best intentions, to a man more zealous as a partisan, of a narrower intellectual horizon, or of less liberal mood than Rollins. The devotion, the tireless industry in the pursuit of the University's good here claimed for him wvas a matter of common notoriety in his lifetime; it is a possession of memory inalienable among his surviving contemporaries; it has been repeatedly recog- nized distinctly and impressively, officially and otherwise; and now to attempt to set it forth more clearly in evidence would be a super- fluous argument, to prove at midday that the sun does shine. Let it suffice, then, to remark that both Lathrop and Read, throughout their administrations, Icaned confidently upon him as upon an " un- bending invincible pillar "; his home was their constant and familiar resort; and in separation their intercourse with him by mail was almost daily and of the most unreserved and intimate nature. In the case 5 3 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. of Dr. Read, the affectionate trust, the absolute reliance he had so long placed in Major Rollins assumed at last a form that was pos- itively pathetic. This eminent teacher, a Nazarite from the womb of his Alma Mater consecrated wholly to the cause of culture, whose contributions to the theory and the practice of University education, extending through full half a century, if reckoned in all dimensions, have hardly yet been surpassed by those of any other man in the Mississippi Valley,- Dr. Daniel Read survived by two years his res- ignation of the Presidency of the University. During this time he traveled much over the United States, from St, Louis to Boston, but his heart tarried all the while with Rollins in Columbia; and so ac- customed was he to divide every hope and fear, every joy and grief, every doubt, conjecture, and reflection, every care and responsibility, with his faithful yoke-fellow, that the habit, become a second nature, pursued him everywhere, and found a partial satisfaction only in a most voluminous and elaborate correspondence, which lays bare the inmost recesses of his soul, even to the thoughts and intents of his heart, and while clearly revealing the noble and majestic proportions of his character, at the same time exhibits him as clinging with more than fraternal tenderness and tenacity to Rollins, even as the vine is wedded indissolubly to the elm. This latter, meanwhile, though broken in health, and laden with bodily infirmity, was ren- dering an equally hearty, vigorous, and effective support to the ad- ministration of Dr. Read's successor, President Laws,- for whom, in the year 1881, he secured an appointment on the Board of Visitors to the United States Military Academy at West Point, to report on its condition, who spent evenings on evenings, untold in number, in conversation with him touching the general management of the University, and whose letters are strewn with such epithets as " in- domitable " and " amazing," applied to the energy with which he would further the interests of the University, no less than with ex- pressions of friendly concern lest his zeal should quite outrun his physical endurance. But while Major Rollins had thus withdrawn his well-worn mind and body from the battle of public life, and was dedicating the re- mainder of his days more and more exclusively to the worship of his earliest love, the University, must we infer that he had lost in- terest in national politics, and that the circle of his sympathies con- 54 JAMES SIDINE ROLLINS. tracted with the natural shortening of his span of life Far from it! This was the day of the " Missouri Policy." Several men of very great ability, of lofty and patriotic ambition, of wide sympathies and of restless energy, had obtained the ascendancy in the politics of the State, and were potent ferments in the politics of the nation. Conspicuous among them were Gratz Brown, Carl Schurz, and that brilliant Harry Hotspur, Frank Preston Blair. This latter had been one of the most valiant officers in the Federal army-; by his cour- age, his decision, his energy at the outbreak of the Civil War, he had helped as almost no other man to retain Missouri in the Union against the strenuous efforts of her Governor, Claiborne F. Jackson. But he looked with horror and indignation upon the Congressional pol- icy of Reconstruction, which seemed to give full validity, to the "Ordinances of Secession," which treated the Southern States as out of the Union. as conquered provinces, as Territories to be re- admitted into the higher sisterhood only on hard conditions. Blair had long glowed, in war and in peace, with fierce ardor against the " nullifiers"; he could never concede that the Union he had fought so long and valiantly both with tongue and with sword to preserve and perpetuate had been dissolved either deljure or de facto, and it was that higher consistency, which sometimes seems inconsistent, that now forced him into the Democratic ranks, where his name had once been a terror. There hie reaped the honors of defeat as Vice- Presidential candidate with Seymour in November, i868. Not only this, but the disfranchisement of a large part of the citizens of Mis- souri by the Drake Constitution of 1865 had balked the Senatorial aspirations of General Blair and had returned its author to the upper House of Congress. Thus all considerations united to drive this Prince Rupert of politics into the sharpest antagonism to the domi- nant radicalism, and to spur on his generous and impetuous spirit to the intensest warfare against it. Meantime there developed within the Republican ranks themselves a Liberal faction, w, hose leaders were Schurz and Brown. These waged uncompromising battle with the odious provisions of the Constitution, and demanded, instead, " Liuniversal amnesty and universal enfranchisement." \W'ith this ral- lying cry and under such puissant chieftains the Liberals and Demo- crats carried the State of Missouri, and this success thus achieved propagated itself like an electric shock throughout the Union and 5 i 6TAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. precipitated into being the National Liberal Republican Party. This organization, which would now be called Mugwump, and which con- tained in disproportionate measure both the head and the heart, the intellectual ability, and the moral integrity of the Republican party, was able in two years, on the first of May, 1872, to send nearly 700 delegates to a most imposing convention assembled in Cincinnati. The contagion of independence and patriotism had everywhere at- tacked the noblest minds of the nation, the Liberal revolt had assumed majestic proportions, the defection from the Republican ranks was widespread, and nothing seemed-nay, in fact, nothing was-want- ing to insure the success on a stupendous scale, at the national elec- tion, of the " Missouri policy " but a judicious nomination for President of some high-minded patriot who could command the acceptance of the Democratic Convention and the suffrages of the Democratic party. Thus far the movement had been conducted with great wis- dom and foresight, but in an evil moment the seven demons of fatuity invaded the convention, overmastered nearly three-fourths of the delegates, and nominated Horace Greeley for President'-a man of all men, a name of all names, peculiarly distasteful to the inveterate Democrat. It was Missouri that had initiated this daring enterprise, the splendid captaincy of her statesmen-sons had carried it to the very gateways of complete success, and her prowess was recognized in the nomination of Gratz Brown for the second place on the national ticket. But no union of abilities and virtues in the Liberals could ever recommend the editor of the Tribune to the average Democrat; the convention did indeed accept him with the lips, but the great heart of the party remained far from him, and he was crushed into the grave by Democratic indifference in November. In this the firstgreatpopular effort in the latest period ofour history to reform politics, to substitute ideas and principles for party names and prejudices as watch-words and battle-cries, Major Rollins was fitted by his political antecedents, by his existent party affiliations, by his temperament and his abilities to be a natural leader. And he did indeed act a prominent part. He was in constant communi- cation with Frank P. Blair, who conferred with him at every move in that high game upon that national chess-board, and whom he had nominated for the Senate (January i8, 1867) in a speech singularly happy and appropriate. When in 1871 General Blair appealed to the 56 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. 57 State to rectify the wrong he had suffered in his former defeat by annulment of the popular will, -he asked Rollins for support on this ground, that the people had already once before chosen him but their choice had been ineffectual; at the same time he recognized fully the just pretensions that Rollins might himself put forward for that exalted dignity. This latter, however, acknowledged the su- perior moral claims of his friend to the position and accorded a hearty succor to his ambition. Nevertheless, in this important struggle Major Rollins attained neither '.he conspicuity nor the success that his abilities and services very naiurally inspired him to hope for, nor was he able to render the effective help that his friends and com- patriots very naturally expected. It was a part of the elaborate programme sketched out by the Missouri Liberals that he should lead the united Liberal and Democratic column as candidate for Governor. But he made no canvass, being then in search of health for his daugh- ter in Colorado, and the Hon. Silas Woodson received the Democratic nomination. The truth is that the zeal of Major Rollins for the University, a zeal that had eaten him tip, was now avenging itself upon him in ample measure. In his protracted struggle as State Senator over the Agricultural College Bill he had found it necessary to conciliate the Radical leaders, and any conciliatory policy, however well-meant, was fatally compromising in the mind of the outraged Democrat. \While the air all around him shook with Blair's fierce denunciation of the iniquity of disfranchisement, Major Rollins, who fully shared his friend's intense convictions and heartily approved of the ends he had in view, had yet declined to adopt his warlike and desperate methods. Though repeatedly asked, besought, and even importuned by Blair to join with his own lofty and resonant tenor in the chorus of indignation that was swelling tip against the punitive portions of the Drake Constitution, he had refused to do so, but cautiously reserved his own judgment. The repeal of those sec- tions, the rectification of all such political obliquities, seemed to him to be a certain issue of a natural development which might well be allowed to bide its own time and season, which could not long be delayed, and which stood in little need of passionate hothouse an- ticipation. The matter of the Agricultural College, on the other hand, demanded immediate attention, its settlement was to be made once for all and admitted no revision nor readjustment, 8 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. and it involved vitally the highest educational interests of the com- monwealth. A correct solution of this instant problem, a wise disposition of this weighty and pressing matter, seemed far more important than the redress of grievances that after all, however vexatious, however exasperating, affected only lightly and indirectly any very grave concern of the people. A patriotic elector might well afford to wait a few years before casting his ballot; he might even renounce it utterly, in order to strengthen, advance, and prosper the University. It was equally natural that such temperate considerations as these should be regnant in the breast of Rollins, and that they should move to impatience the high-hearted Liberal, Gen. Blair. What to him, that veteran of field and forum, grown native to the smoke and din of either battle till the clear air dimmed his eyes, and his ears were stunned by silence, who mocked at fear and who counted not his life as his own unless daily he could hazard and win it-what to this knightly chieftain were a thousand Agricultural Colleges but so many lustreless pebbles in the dazzling splendor of political headship, of national hegemony, which lay in such ready grasp Of him the opportunity was known at its coming, he vehemently urged his bosom-friend to embrace it, and he chid sharply the conservatism that would listen to any other counsel. Undoubtedly, tried by the standard of political expediency at this juncture, he was far wiser in his generation than Major Rollins. The latter did indeed succeed in his scheme of unifying the higher educational system of the State, but he sacrificed the devotion of the masses on whose will his own official preferment depended. His voice did not break through to their ears and overpower their hearts, as so well it might, in denunciation of the injustice of their ostracism. He did not at any time fail of the confidence of the people, nor of esteem and reverence among their abler leaders; but he did not identify himself heart and soul with the Liberal cause and party, he did not commit himself unreservedly to the rising tide of popular feeling that would have borne him surely and safely into the Gubernatorial haven.4 It is an interesting question how far the conservatism of Rollins at this final crisis of his political fortunes was a conscious sacrifice of diplomacy in behalf of the University, and how far it was born ;8 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. of a certain distrust of political insurrections, along with an equal repugnance towards new party alliances. Neither of these senti- ments, we may be sure, was a stranger to the man of three-score years, who had seen parties rise and fret their little day and fall again asunder, the most glorious years of whose manhood had been spent in unbroken allegiance to Whiggery, and who was now in- vited to pitch tent in the central camp of his ancient enemy. True, the wheel of events had made many revolutions since the days of Scott and Harrison; " old times were changed, old manners gone "; the very names of Whig and Loco-foco had a strange and alien accent ; new matters concerned and new questions divided another generation of people. On these more modern issues his place was certainly at that time in the ranks of the revolted Liberals ; there, too, he took his stand; but there was little in his surroundings, or in the memories that flocked about him, to rekindle in his breast the fires of youthful enthusiasm and to thrill his pulse of autumn once more with a springtide fullness. Be this as it may, certain it is that no severer charge than of failure to catch the auspicious transitory moment can lie against Major Rollins for his bearing in this crisis. Had the fusion ticket of Greeley and Brown been suc- cessful in the national canvass, it is scarcely possible that he should not have received offer of very high official position tinder that ad- ministration; but the scroll read otherwise. His own sails had not been well trimmed to catch the breeze of Democratic enthusiasm at nomination, and the larger craft was left helpless and fatally becalmed in Democratic apathy at election. After this there remained nothing more that he could hope for in public life: the deep, unebbing, far- reaching groundswell of popular admiration, of individual grati- tude, affection, and veneration still bore him up on its bosom; but no dectiman wave of political fortune swept after to lift him aloft on its vertex. No new buds of promise were to bourgeon and bloom for him during the fortnight of years that yet were his ; it was the mellowing time that had come, to enrich the fruitage with aroma and with flavor and with blending hues. It would not have been strange, but altogether natural, if the sharp acid of defeat, if the bitter alkali of disappointment, had colored the thoughts and tinged the temper of Rollins during this twilight of his history. He had Atriven with high resolve and with generous ambition; by common 59 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. consent he had not aimed at anything beyond his worth; he had buffeted the blows of circumstance, and had reached quite out to the prize that not even political hostility could deny was a " thing for grasping "; but still the fickle winds would lift it away and leave his hand of Tantalus empty. Even at best the touch of age chills and stiffens, and when the black frost of blighted hope is added, those human sympathies must be unusually warm, deep, and active that become neither sluggish nor stagnant. Let it be said to the honor of Rollins that he heard the mandate of time With composure, that he closed the sweet-scented volume of youth and of manhood per- haps with a sad, but certainly not with a querulous, consciousness that its leaves were sealed in turning; nay, more, that he could even strike a cheerful note with Ben Ezra and exclaim, Growv old along with me, The best is yet to be. The period, indeed, during which without invidiousness he might have been called the first citizen of the State, was one of various and vigorous and beneficent activity. Not to speak of that seminary of learning, the minion of his earliest passion, the beneficiary of his maturest wisdom and benevolence, he stood to the last pre- eminent as a conserver and promoter of public interests, as a friend and patron of merit, equally keen to espy and ready to encourage. Where no wall of partisan prejudice intervened the whole people looked to him at once for sage counsel and for persuasive eloquence; they delighted to honor him and gratify themselves by calling forth on festal or commemorative or deliberative occasions, where con- tention was stilled and fellow-feeling abounded, that voice which of old had so often filled their ears and shaken their hearts with con- flicting emotions. Thus he was invited to deliver the address before the Alumni Association of his Alma Mater, the Indiana University, June 27, 1871. The theme that he naturally, one might almost say inevitably, chose was to him a most inspiring one, " The Progress of our Country." More than that, it was fitting beyond all ordinary standards of fitness, both to the occasion,- his return to his ancient academic haunts after forty and one years' toiling with laboring oar against wind and wave,- but still more to the man himself, of whom it was indeed emblematic. It appealed with equal seduction to his head and to his heart, it joined in wedlock the two ideas that had 60 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. lorded over his life; for " Progress " and " Country " had always been the chosen watch-words of Rollins. The address was published in pamphlet and is valuable for the discovery it makes of his point of view and range of vision. But a far larger and auguster assemblage, the most imposing in the extent and degree of the official distinction represented that has ever yet been gathered together in the Mississippi Valley, was two years later to wait upon his accents. Neither was the city where this meeting was held unworthy of this high presence, nor were the grandeur and magnitude of the interests considered in any measure unproportioned to its dignity. For the city was St. Louis, by irrevocable decree of fate the commercial emporium of the Mis- sissippi Valley, and the matter debated was the utilization and per- fecting of that stupendous system of water-ways stretched over our continent, the natural arteries of commerce, but hitherto so strangely and foolishly neglected. This Congressional Convention, consisting primarily of the members of both Houses of the National Legisla- ture, but to which the Chief Executive, with his Cabinet, and the Governors of the States were invited, held its sessions on the 13th, 14th, and I 5th of May, 1873. Major Rollins had neither official rank nor political prospects; neither was he a citizen nor a resident of St. Louis. Nevertheless, on the programme of that stately con- vention his own name received the central and conspicuous place beside that of his distinguished rival, the Hon. John B. Henderson. In the Report of Proceedings published by the executive committee of the convention he alone of all the speakers is introduced as " the eloquent" ;-all the others are presented without epithet; on his speech alone is there any comment at the close, to indicate its effect and flattering reception. Trifles, these, to be sure; yet sig- nificant as unconscious tributes to the eminence that Rollins so easily conquered among his peers. On reading the report it is readily seen that he and Henderson held only their rightful places; but the spiritual elevation of the man is most clearly shown in his distinct subordination of material to moral, of physical to mental, considerations. Called on by a committee of business men to address a business meeting in the urgent interests of business, he does not hesitate to assign business its proper rank-a high and honorable but for all that a second one. The supreme concern of 61i JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. the State is not wealth nor commerce, but men. The culture and development of mind-that is the true "internal improvement" without which all other is vain and empty, a blessing at all times ready to become a curse. Great is the Hoosac, great the Michigan Central-but Harvard and Ann Arbor are infinitely greater. Brave words were these, and not less opportune, not less gravely to be pondered now than when first they were spoken. It would have been strange if the Centennial of our national ex- istence had been allowed to pass without some word of might from such a well known and acknowledged patriot as James Sidney Rollins. By special request he did address the " Continental Con- gress assembled to reenact the Declaration of Independence " in a characteristic oration, which was published in pamphlet. Still other invitations the urgence of business engagements compelled him to decline. This same year was signalized in the history of the University by a change of administration, Dr. Read laying down, and Dr. Laws assuming, the Presidency. In his report to the Gov- ernor, Mr. Rollins, as President of the Board of Curators, turns his back neither to the rising nor to the setting sun. He is equally generous in recognizing the great service rendered the University by the retiring officer and hearty in commending the successor to confidence and support. Two years later he was once more solicited to serve his people in the Legislature; but such a sacrifice pure and simple of personal comfort and private interest it was especially his delicate health that forbade him to make. His influence in legislation remained potent, however, though indirectly exerted. Important bills pre- pared by his pen were introduced and successfully advocated by his friends. In his reports as President of the Board of Curators the cause of the University was pressed upon the attention of the State and the General Assembly. Especially in the report bearing date Jan- uary 20, 1881, directed to the Thirty-first General Assembly, he pleads for justice if not for generosity to the University on the part of the State, he draws a striking picture of the liberality both public and private displayed towards other seminaries of learning all over our country in contrast with the anxious parsimony exhibited towards our own, and lie shows the urgent necessity of enlarged munificence if the University is even to approach, much less attain unto, its des- 62 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. tiny. In accordance with the suggestions of this impressive report a bill was introduced by Senator Bryant appropriating 8o,ooo to the extension of the main edifice of the University. But the gen- eral sentiment had not yet been educated to understand such wise and frugal extravagance, and the bill was lightly regarded. How- ever, all things come to him who waits, and two years later, after a long and arduous "campaign of education,"the sum of 100,000 was voted, to which 25,000 was added by the Thirty-third General As- sembly. The merit of securing these appropriations, which were as essential to the growth of the University as material conditions can be, is not claimed in exclusive nor excessive measure for the Presi- dent of the Board of Curators. The case of itself appealed strongly to any one cognizant of the facts; a number of able men both in and out of the Legislature lent ready and effective assistance; but cer- tainly, both by pen and by tongue, still more by personal influence and remonstrance, he contributed as much as was in the power of one man to contribute towards the desired result. Meantime, while the people of the State hesitated to give four cents apiece to their own chief educational institution, he himself had given 800 in the donation of a bell whose clear resonance daily and hourly reminds the student that to the donor more than to any other man the Uni- versity owes its fame, its prosperity, its very being. A more ap- propriate, a more emblematic, gift it is impossible to conceive of, for it is indeed the ever-living voice of Rollins, echoing in every statute and resounding throughout its whole history, that assembles the youth of Missouri in the halls of her University. The present accents of that voice were now indeed mellowed greatly by age that almost reached the Psalmist's limit, yet in no wise were they uncertain in tone, but true to their ancient pitch and timbre. Three open letters written in i88Si, to the National Educational As- sociation, to the Mississippi River Improvement Convention, and to the Missouri River Convention, respectively, show in a distinct and almost pathetic manner how completely the two great ideas of internal improvement and of still deeper inward melioration, the education and full unfolding of the soul, had possessed his mind, and how inexpugnably. They testify earnestly and conclusively to the romantic attachment with which he clung to his first love, the love of his youth, even in the deepening twilight, while the shadow 63 JAMEIS SIDONE\ R(OLLINS. of Azrael was not far from him. Too feeble in health to attend these bodies in person, he sent his voice before him, still pleading un- weariedly the paramount necessity of Government aid in opening the great water-ways of the United States as the natural channels of com- mercial intercourse, and still more in opening up the deep well-heads of civic culture all over our land and bidding their streams of virtue and intelligence have free course and abound. Such earnest demands and tnremittent may long pass unheeded; they may seem addressed to the insensate air, caught up and dispersed of the vagrant winds. Yet their accumulated energies shall at last arise, here or there, unexpectedly, long after, into consciousness; even as the shell on the sea-shore gathers and treasures and resounds forth again the unheard everlasting murmur of the deep. A signal testimony to the width and depth of the impression that the unswerving devotion of Rollins to the higher ideas of civilization had stamped on the minds of his contemporaries was afforded in the following invitation ST. Louis, Mlo., April 3, 1882. Hon. JAMES S. ROLLINS, Columbia, NMo. Dear.Sir: Appreciating the distinguished services you have for many years rendered the State, especially in the promotion of its educational interests, and desiring to make manifest in a public manner our friendly regard for you, we beg your attendance at a dinner to be given at the Southern Hotel, on the evening of April 19, 1882, in celebration of your seventieth birthday. Sincerely yours, JOHN C. ORRICK, JAS. 0. BROADHEAD, JOHN JACKSON, E. 0. STANARD, JULIUS S. VA LSH, GERARD B. ALLEN, SAMUEL HAYS, SAMUEL 'M. BRECKENRIDGE, JAMES RICHARDSON, XVAYNIAN CROW, D. M. HoUSER, WM. A. HARGADINE, JAS. E. Y EATrNAN, JOHN A. SCUDDER, GEO. KNAPP, SILAS BENT, J. M. FRANCISCUS, EDWIN- HARRISON, NATHAN COLE, JOHN W. NOBLE, JOHN D. PERRY, JOHN B. HENDERSON, PETER L. Foy, JOHN R. LIONBEEGER, W. H. SCUDDER, F. N. JuLisoN, and others. This invitation, which was certainly grateful in a marked degree, the delicate condition of Major Rollins's health compelled him to de- 64 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. cline. But he could not let the occasion slip to raise once more, if for the last time, his ancient cry of " Excelsior ! " that now for half a century, in season and out of season, had been ringing from his lips. In his note of declination he adverts once more to the extra- ordinary dowries that Missouri holds at the hands of Nature, and calls upon her sons to go boldly forward to seize and appropriate her manifest destiny. 'Fhe sands of his life were now fast melting away, but there yet presented itself a worthy opportunity for the esteem and appreciation of the friends of education, more particularly of the Alumni of the University, to give itself fitting expression. The Commencement Exercises in June, 1885, borrowed a great lustre from the presence of a number of distinguished statesmen and official dignitaries to take part in the dedication of the important extension of the Univer- sity building. At the conclusion of the address of the Hon. Stephen B3. Elkins before the Alumni Association, a bronze bust of Major Rollins, the work of WV. XV. Gardner of St Louis, and the gift of a wide circle of admirers, was unveiled and offered to the Board of Curators for permanent location in the Library Hall. The address of presentation was pronounced by the Hon. Luther T. Collier of Chillicothe, Mo., and the response of acceptance on the part of the Board by the Hon. N. J. Colman, United States Commissioner of Agriculture. The bust renders well and preserves securely for posterity the strong but amiable features of the original. The valetudinarianism that has already met with frequent allusion was the result of an accident, and by nature foreign to the robust constitution of Rollins. On the 17th of January of the year 1874 the Wabash Express, bound for St. Louis, was derailed in crossing a defective bridge at Dardennes and hurled in a heap upon the far- ther bank of the streamlet. Major Rollins, after extrication from the wreck, was either not conscious of any serious hurt, or disre- garded it in the excitement of the moment and in active concern for the relief of the many unfortunates. In fact, he continued his jour- ney to St. Louis, where, however, the very grave character of his injtlries, a contusion of the head and the enlodgment of a large splin- ter in the leg, but most of all some obscure internal shock and de- ran gement, began to display itself. For several weeks he kept his bed at the hotel, but at last so far recovered as to endure transport 9 65 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. home on a litter. A sharp attack of erysipelas, supervening, endan- gered his life, and the wound made by the splinter stubbornly re- fused to yield entirely to any treatment. Six months sufficed to restore him to general health, but the vigor, buoyancy, and elasticity both of mind and of body that had so long characterized him in such high degree were gone beyond complete recall; his internal organism had apparently suffered some profound and irreparable lesion. This calamity hastened by nearly a decade the natural ad- vance of old age, but without greatly dampening the ardor or relax- ing the energy with which he pursued his favorite ambitions. For eleven years longer he continued to erect himself resolutely against age and infirmity, holding and guiding with firm and steady hand important and manifold interests, both public and private. But the contest began to grow more and more unequal; at length on his 74th anniversary, April 19, i886, he tendered Governor 'Marma- duke his resignation as President of the Board of Curators. The reply of the Governor was in these fitting and notable words: JEFFLRSON CIrY, Mo., May 24, i886. HON. JAMES S. ROLLINS, Presidenl gfBoard of Curators of S/ate U'ni ' rsi/y, Columbia, Missouri. Sir. In complying with your earnest request for the acceptance of your res- ignation of the office of Curator of the State University, allow me, in behalf of the people of the State, to tender you this expression of their high appreciation of your long and eminently successful efforts in creating an institution of learning which is already an ornament to our great commonwealth and the pride of her citizens. It is a matter of history that to you, more than to any one else, is due its founda- tion, its location, its organization, and its growth and advance to its present posi- tion of extended usefulness; and its perpetuity, already assured, will transmit your name through the histories of countless future ages. With the hope that your health may be restored, and that you may yet enjoy many years of peaceful and happy life, I remain, with respect, your obedient servant, (Signed) JOHN S. 'MARMADUKE, Governor. At the annual meeting of the Board of Curators in June, i886, these sentiments of the Governor were echoed in a series of resolu- tions, and with multiplied emphasis. Thus, at the end of seventeen years of service as President of the Curatorial Board, the official con- nection of James Sidney Rollins with the University of the State of 66 JAMES SII)NEY ROLLINS. Missouri was terminated, the long self-sacrifice of half a generation was over, and the end rhymed full with the beginning. Neverthe- less, his interest in the University and his benevolence towards the devotees of learning were yet to receive one further conspicuous illustration: his last will and testament devised the sum of six thou- sand dollars as a foundation for six junior scholarships. A most wise benefaction ! the first step bold and long towards the establish- ment of a system of scholarships and fellowships whose incessant function it shall be to attract, to select, to stimulate, and to recom- pense the highest moral character and the finest intellectual ability throughout the State, and to direct them along paths of useful and distinguished achievement. Is it possible that all the wealthy cit- izens of Missouri, compared with the riches of many of whom the whole estate of Rollins was inconsiderable, will let this precedent go by unnoticed or disregarded In the single city of St. Joseph, a distant third in the State, it is said there are thirty millionaires. The whole number in our commonwealth is to be reckoned by the hundred. The sum of eight or ten thousand dollars donated to found a fellowship could never be missed by any of these; it would not entail the slightest sacrifice on the donor. Yet it would trans- mit his name in honor and grateful remembrance to remotest poster- ity, it would open a slender but pure, clear-flowing, and exhaustless fount of perennial blessing for his countrymen and for the world at large. Can it be that no one of all these is willing to purchase im- mortality when thus offered in auction to the lowest bidder Six such fellowships established at Columbia would endow the Univer- sity wsith untold strength and fix the gaze of the noblest youth in the State upon her. But if no citizen is shrewd enough to choose this short, open, and flowery road to glory, surely the larger vision of the State should see it, nor hesitate any longer to follow it. The kindly hope with which Gov. larmaduke closed his letter was not destined to pass into fulfilment. Neither release from all public and even private cares, nor the pious solicitude of t devoted family circle could avail to arrest the quickened pace of decay in a frame long since due of scriptural right to the tomb. A mild paresis nowv began to show itself, the sure messenger of death. Softly, inces- santly, the fatal film kept weaving itself over his faculties. It was the sun setting amid the mists of evening. Again and again his 67 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. powerful nature would reassert itself, and through some transient rift the native splendor would flash forth a stream of its old-time rays. But again the rift would close and the haze grow deeper and denser. At last, on the 9th of January, 1 888, the mighty disk, shorn of its beams and immersed from human vision, arose on another shore. No sudden shock of regret ran through the community, as when some greater light is suddenly eclipsed; the gentle approach of the dusk had kindly reconciled the eyes even of intimate friends, and the volume of his life was full with its six and seventy pages. But everywhere throughout the State, the texture of whose history was so deeply colored by the thread of his life, there fellfor the moment the awful sense of mystery, with its brooding stillness, upon the fever- ous surface of our life, and with one voice the press and the people echoed in endless variety of phrase the common sentiment: Render thanks to the Giver, Missouri, for thy son. The obsequies, simple and solemn, were begun in the only worthy and appropriate place, the spacious chapel of the State University. There the funeral oration was pronounced by the Rev. R. S. Camp- bell: the career of the deceased was sketched, its significance appraised, and its lessons enforced, by the eloquence of the Rev. W. Pope Yea- man; while the resolutions of the Faculty were read and supple- mented with remarks by the President, Dr. Laws. Thence the long funeral procession took uip its march to the Columbia cemetery, where now beneath a granite monument, simple in sculpture, modest in proportions, impressive in solidity, reposes whatever was mortal of James Sidney Rollins. THE MAN. IN person the subject of this memorial was tall and commanding. His frame was wvell proportioned, neither slender nor inclined to fullness. Lithe, but compact and firmly knit in all its members, it lent itself freely to the service of his soul, enduring arduous and un- remittent exertion with patience. His facial features were boldly and cleanly cut, the nose, slightly aquiline, bespeaking a Roman energy, set between deep and penetrating eyes of iron-gray, beneath a brow broad and full, and a forehead heaved dome-likc upward; 68 JA.MES SIDNEY ROLLINS. the hair dark brown, abundant, and vigorous, vhile the lower face was muffled in a beard worn full, long, and heavy. He never dis- dained theelegancies of toilet, while his knightly bearing and gracious address -were such as might well have beseemed some courtier in the days of romance. But this gentle gallantry was far from being merely formal or superficial. It was a part of his nature, and struck its roots into his heart; hence it was that the native nobility of his carriage was matched by the genuine benignity of his countenance. Altogether his presence was a striking one, and would have been noted in any assemblage, social or political, as distinguc and conspicuous. Whoever now would delineate the spiritual being that wore such a garment of flesh must recall instinctively the deep-thoLIghted lines of Spenser: Of the Soul the body form doth take, For soul is form and doth the body make. If it were possible indeed to freight the terms already used with psychic as well as physical import, the work of description might be accounted well-nigh done. Certainly the reader needs scarcely to be told that the mental figure of Rollins was high and grand. Perhaps of all qualities it is largcness that is most habitually present in his plans, ideas, sentiments, and predilections. His sense of size, his love of magnitude, found one of its many expressions in the house that he built for his home, remote from town, Fwith its wide sweep of lawn about it, with its spacious halls, its generous parlors, its commodious. chambers. It was the greatness of the public in- terest that not only drew him into political life with irresistible at- traction, but also determined his party preferences and selected his political hobbies by its subtile persuasion. The University, national aid to education, the professional training of teachers, the Pacific Railroad, the development of commerce by water from Gulf to Lakes, from mountain to ocean -all these his favorites were grand concep- tions, and it was the very vastness of the Union that made him love it and worship it and resent its attempted disruption. This large- ness of ideas was not to be reckoned in one but in every dimension; they were broad in their scope, high in their aim, deep-reaching in their effects on future generations. By a peculiar operation of the law of recompense, this quality of his mind did not fail to avenge itself amply in his history. It disqualified him in great measure for 69 70 JAMES SII)NEY ROLLINS. the exalted position of party leader, for which he was otherwise fitted and to which he not unjustly aspired. It disposed him unduly to compromise and conciliation, it tempered the fervor of his party enthusiasm, it relaxed the bonds of his party allegiance. But the gifts of God are without amendment: as they are offered, so they must be received. Not only, however, was the mind of Rollins a large one; it was agile and flexible as well. Without any strong inherent bent or de- termination, it obeyed readily the bridle of the will and was easily guided along this path or that. In the forum, on the hustings, be- fore a jury, conducting a political canvass, or administering the affairs of a university, raising a subscription, or urging a statute, pleading for the Union or for internal improvement or for higher education, executing difficult public trusts, or building up a hand- some private fortune, Rollins was equally at home, nimble, sagacious, indefatigable, above all, however, efficient. Such a many-sided talent has its own reward and exacts its own penalty; it is the foe of genius, but the friend of usefulness; it offers a prize in the pankration but withholds it in each of the individual contests. It was wholly for- tunate, however, for his happiness, for the serenity of his temper, for the freshness and cheerfulness of his spirit, that his sympathies were so wide and his interests so various; that disappointment of one kind was continually relieved by fruition of another; that success in business should still assuage the bitterness of defeat in politics. Such a habit of mind and body was, of course, fitted especially to a life not of thought but of action; its enduring products are not books but institutions. Nevertheless, in one direction, that of ora- tory, Major Rollins approached a more purely intellectual triumph. His eloquence must not indeed be judged by to ) severe a standard. Not to go beyond the borders of our own cu 'ntry, it was not the chaste and polished rhetoric of Everett, jus in matter, elegant in diction, and rich in classic aroma; nor the rhythmic prose of Prentiss, florid with tropic luxuriance of adjective and simile; nor the strenuous and pitiless dialectic of Calhoun, direct and cogent, earnest and forcible, a naked athlete, all nerve and bone and sinew; nor yet again the profound and lofty argumentation of Webster, majestic in sweep and resistless like the rush of a planet-after none of these was it modeled. It was a popular oratory in the JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. fashion of Clay's, apot-pourri of plausible reasoning and vehement declamation, of earnest persuasion and passionate exhortation, of sober discussion about important public interests and forceful appeal to partisan feeling, spiced with repartee, seasoned with personal- ities, and flavored with frequent anecdote. Major Rollins was not, to be sure, by nature incapable of higher and aUsterer forms of eloquence; but these he never cultivated. The reason was not far to seek rhetoric was with him not an end but a means to convince and persuade the people. Whatever alas useless to this purpose he wisely eschewed; whatever seas useful he shrewdly adopted. It is as an instrument designed for a certain purpose that we must esti- mate his eloquence; and, so estimated, its rank is very high. Under other conditions of time and place his facile intelligence would doubtless have adopted another tongue, in the use of which practice would have given hiln equal proficiency. A higher, a louder, a richer, a firmer note he might have struck, but that which he did strike was the one beyond all others that woke the clearest echo in the hearts of his hearers. But no perusal of the printed page, no matter how sympathetic, can realize except in faint image the effect of his oratory; for the personality of the speaker is wanting. It was the rich and resonant 'nd well modulated voice, the stately grace of figure and gesture, the earnest and impassioned utterance and action, that lent half its charm to the elbqulence of Rollins, that made him resistless on the hustings, and that held by the hour the rapt attention of the national House of Representatives. When we turn nowe to regard the social life of the man, one supreme fact confronts us, his helpfulness towards his fellows. He was not one of that too numerous class who worship man and despise men, who dwell in exalted regions of abstract benevolence and universal philanthropy aloof from all attaint of concrete charity and specific beneficence. Seldom indeed has any community felt more powerfully than his own, more continuously, or for a longer period, if too often reluctantly and ineffectually, the impulse of a single public spirit towards higher forms of civilization. He was a true son of Athens and rejoiced with personal pride in the glory of the body politic and the upbuilding of the communal interest. Not only the University, but churches and school-houses, turnpikes and 7 I 72 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. railroads, hotels and theatres, parks and cemeteries-all organs and institutions of society, all expressions and instruments of civic life, found inhim uniformlyaforemost champion and oftenasingle-handed promoter. Neither was he content with devoting so large a part of his time and attention to the advancement of the general weal. He was not only a well-wisher, but also a well-doer; and not only to the people at large, but also to countless particular persons in private. He coveted, perhaps even to excess, the admiration and affection of his kind; the applause of the multitude was music to his ears, their testimonials of gratitude were as light to his eyes. But he sought to win favor always by first deserving it, and his love of approbation became a powerful incentive to virtue. It was not only Lathrop and Read and the staff of the University that leaned upon him so trust- fully; his generous arm upbore many another. Applications for counsel, for all kinds of assistance, financial and other, would stream in upon him. His correspondence, which was enormous and must have been most burdensome, bears ample testimony both to the great number, the warmth, and the intimacy of his friendships, and also to the exceedingly high esteem in which his opinion, his abilities, and his character were held by the most distinguished men of the State and of the nation, among whom it is enough to mention the Blairs, the Clays, the Shermans, Benton, Bates, Glover, C. F. Burnam, and Professor Bartlett. These letters, often of a very personal and con- fidential nature and not seldom voluminous, discover in more than one case a feeling of the liveliest gratitude on the part of his corre- spondent for some valuable service already rendered, and, what is far more, an unquestioning faith that no opportunity would be allowed to slip by for a further extension of such friendly offices. The in- stance of General George C. Bingham is particularly noteworthy. This man was an artist of very unusual endowments. Born under another sun, in France or Germany, he would have won a most en- viable rank among the greatest of contemporary painters. But he was not merely skilful with the brush; he wielded the pen with almost equal dexterity. The defects of early culture he had far more than made good by extensive reading and by wide and close observation. IHis sympathies and intellectual interests were remarkably broad and varied, his understanding was capacious and virile. More than all, however, his moral nature was cast in a mold almost heroic. He JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. was noble and generous, strangely unpartizan, incorruptibly honest, and romantically courageous. To be the peculiar friend of such a man wvas in itself a distinction, and according to his own express declaration it fell to Rollins. His letters to the latter reveal a most tender attachment, a confidence utterly unreserved, and a sense of irremovable obligation that is never once felt as a burden. The domestic life of Major Rollins, which stretched itself through more than half a century, was one of unbroken harmony and of sin- gular happiness. On the 6th of June, 1837, he received in marriage the hand of AMiss Mary E. Hickman, who survives him in a widow- hood comforted with every fragrance of memory, with the richest overgrowth of family affection; and in this felicitous union wvas laid the foundation of a blessedness imperturbable by the accidents of political fortune. Nor this only, but sWhatever success attended his manifold undertakings Rollins always attributed in large measure, justly and generously, to the sagacity and unwearied vigilance, the energy and administrative ability, the patient self-sacrifice and un- swerving devotion of his consort by the hearthstone; qualities that might be safely left to guard extensive private interests, while his own attention was absorbed in matters of public concern. Ileven children were born unto this well-matched pair, and the brood at home was always regarded with the utmost tenderness and with more than paternal pride by Rollins. To this fondness he Would indeed some- times give expression in his public addresses, with a certain naivele' that touched some and amused others in his audience. But even the pleasures of home and the fireside demand inexorably their own re- quital, and the untimely death of four children, especially of his son Frank, a youth of unusual promise, slew his peace as the arrows of only such afflictions can slay. One child, however, was left behind him not subject to the or- dinary decrees of mortality: the University of the State of Missouri. The distinguished title of Patcr U,;niversitalis _1/issouricusis was formally conferred by proper authority, but even had it never been recognized, the fact of such illustrious paternity, in the light of the foregoing history, wvould be hardly less conspicuous. His claim to such an august cognomen may, indeed, be disputed, but on grounds how utterly unsubstantial has already been shown. Granted that the germ of a university was imbedded in the Constitution ; in itself 10 73 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. it was sterile-there it was dead already, abiding alone. Some vivifying energy from without was absolutely necessary to fertilize it, and that impulse to life and growth was supplied by Rollins. It is no answer to say that if he should not have done it, somebody else would. Very probably. And if Newton had not discovered the law of gravitation, somebody else would have discovered it. If Stephen had not begun, if Paul had not completed, the univer- salization of Christianity, yet by some means it would have been universalized. But herewithal the glory of Newton, of Stephen, and of Paul is in no measure abated. Nevertheless, such considerd- tions as these do not yet touch the heart of the matter. What is it after all that constitutes true fatherhood Is it mere engendering Assuredly not. It has been pithily said, Das Vaterwerden ist nicht schwer, Das Vatersein dagegen, sehr ! To be a father, to discharge the manifold and difficult duties of such a relation, truly hie labor, hoc opus est. And it was not solely nor mainly because Rollins was foremost in inaugurating the University that the Board conferred upon him such high distinction, but be- cause for so many years he had played the part of its father at a sacrifice continually of private interest and, finally, of honorable political ambition. If such services as are now familiar to the reader do not ground a just claim to the title in question, then it is hard to see how any such claim could ever be justly grounded. No one disputes the boast of Jefferson, inscribed on his tomb, that he was " Father of the University of Virginia." Yet will any one equate for a moment the services of Jefferson to the services of Rollins What indeed was the work of the former By tongue and pen, with exhaustive argument, he recommended the idea of a university to the people of Virginia; through his friend Joseph C. Cabell in the legislature he secured an appropriation of 300,000 for edifices and a yearly support of 15,000; he traced out the general organiza- tion of the University and personally superintended the construc- tion of the buildings. Splendid services these to culture and to American citizenship, and for them he has his reward. But who will liken them to those of Rollins What did the Virginian do which the Missourian did not do in equal or in larger measure In 74 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. 7 5 organization the work of the latter kept pace with the former's, in ad- ministration it surpassed, in promotion and benefaction it distanced. Rollins gave largely of his means to the University; Jefferson gave nothing, being nearly bankrupt, with nothing to give. He " began to interest himself in the University in 1817" at the age of seventy- four, and maintained his interest for nine years, dying in 1826; Rollins, on the other hand, espoused the cause of the University at the age of twenty-seven, and was active in its behalf through more than forty-five years. Jefferson found " in the establishment of a University "(see his letter to John Adams under date of October 23, 1823) a " hobby against this tedium zita fit for an ' octo- genary rider." lBut Rollins found in establishing a University not the diversion of age, but the engrossing employment of youth and manhood. True, the work of the sage of Monticello has been blessed apparently far beyond that of the statesman of Columbia; but whatever the craft of the workman his product wsill depend on the material at hand; however planted, however watered, it is earth and sky that shape flower and fruitage. Nor let us forget that the University of Virginia is nearly a score of years the elder; and as to the University of Missouri twenty years from now -it doth not yet appear what it shall be. The services of Rollins to the cause of higher education, more particularly to the State University, undoubtedly ground his chief claim to immortality and uprear the central pillar of his fame. Yet his political achievements were very far from inconsiderable, though they fell short both of his own just deserts and still more of the confident expectations of his admirers. Here again the fault lay not so much in the chisel as in the marble, which proved refractory in its intimate structure and refused to take upon itself the highest polish. It is a fact that confronts uts at more than one turn of events that time and place had conspired against him, and they performed their vow. Had the stage of his action been shifted through three degrees either in latitude or in longitude, his political career would have been far less chequered. Had the meridian of his life, which traversed the troublous times of the Kansas agitation, been displaced by ten years either backwards or for- wards, his political development would have been true to itself and his elective affinities would not have been thwarted. As it was, he 76 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. found himself a Whig in the decadence of Whiggery; a leader of his party when that party had begun to disintegrate; a slaveholder, but in heart unalterably opposed to the institution of slavery; a conservative when conservatism was impossible; and a preacher of peace when war was inevitable. The dissolution of the Whigs left him without any firm partizan anchorage; at a time when the polit- ical elements were undergoing rapid polarization and rearrangement, he found himself still beneath the strong coercitive magnetism of the great Apostle of Compromise, repelled alike by either polar extreme and buffeted by the contrary currents that so often vex mid-lying equatorial regions. Nature had formed his mind and temper for the ' era of good feeling," and then, with that bitter irony, in that grim mockery that she loves, had flung him into the mael- strom of sectional strife and partisan hatred. It is surely no won- der if the tempest whose first blasts stranded far from their haven such heroic crafts as Clay and Webster should wreck or engulf at the height of its fury even the sturdiest of their cpigoni. Rollins him- self was wont to find solace for the miscarriage of his aspirations in the just observation that in minorities, where his lot was so frequently cast, there is generally to be found more than a due proportion of virtue and wisdom, of patriotism and intelligence. To this we may add the further reflection that disappointment is not failure, and may really be the guise of some higher and unhoped for success. Had Rollins been a more famous, perhaps he might have been a less use- ful man; had his career been crowned with greater good fortune, perhaps it might have been filled with less beneficence. From its highland fastness, from its homestead in the hills, its undiscovered sources, the stream of his life broke forth with glad and strong and impetuous current. Swift and bright, deep-flowing and abundant, it rushed onward through half its descent to the main. Then it was that the sands, sluggish and heavy, began to choke it and drain off its brimming wave and dull the mirror of its surface. Yet through the desolate tract it held on its slow and toilsome and circuitous course, and at last, having redeemed and blessed with fertility a long wide stretch of the desert, it emerged, though with contracted flood, " from out the mist and hum of that low land," to hear the waves dashing on the destined shore and to mingle its own murmur in the eternal anthem of the sea. NOTES. i. Pacv 4.-The remarkable benefaction of Dr. Rollins left io,ooo as an Aid P-und, one-fourth of the interest on which was to be continually turned over into the original principal, thus augmenting the same annually by (perhaps) one-fiftieth of itself, w-hile the remaining three-fourths was to be applied to the maintenance at the University of worthy youths of Boone County. The adminis- tration and distribution of the Fund is in the hands of the County Court of Boone County. The Fund has nosw attained the very considerable suING of 45,000, and more than 2000 is annually available for the support in question. Unless nor!- administered and squanderrd, the Fund must in time assume excessive propor- tions, and thre-fourths ofthe income must far transcend the real needs of the youths in question. Part of the income should in fact be diverted to much more useful ends, as to founding fellowships and scholarships, or else to endowing special chairs in the University. In this way there might be added every few years some news member to the vast organism of higher education, all sustained by the original gift of Dr. Rollits. Generation after generation the ancient stem ivould put forth tsesv and itperishable branches; the stream of blessing that the great-hearted physician taught to flow svwould roll on with steadily augmenting vol- ume even to remotest ages. Surely a most noble and beneficent immortality, and purchased at a price how incomparable ! 2. Page 31.-This speculation as to the possible results of a very slight change in the count of votes is by no means a mere fancy of the biographer. The friends of Major Rollins, among them some of the most conspicuous figures in the nation, regarded him as in every way worthy of the highest trusts within the gift of the whole people, and they looked forward to his possible elevation to the Presidency as to no unreasoning political haphazard, but as to a recognition of merit contingent indeed upon " availability. " But there is no evidence discovered that he himself ever indulged the lofty ambition cherished for him by his wide circle of adtoirers. And yet,-the head of the Whig party in Missouri, once its choice for United States Senator, twice its candidate for Governor; the large- minded lawgiver, for eighteen years at Jefferson, for four years at Washington, the conspicuous chatnpion of every liberal and enlightened measure; the founder and most zealous promoter of the system of higher education in his adopted com- monsvealth, for seventeen years President of the Board of Curators of its Univer- sity; the popular orator whom the most cultured, competent, and experienced judgment in the State has pronounced, with deliberation, " second only to O'Connell,"-to what political eminence might he not without presumption have aspired 3. l'ege 41.- The earnestness, intensity, and fidelity of Major Rollins's friendships ,,ere never perhaps more strikingly exemplified than in the case of President Lathrop. The bond of mutual affectiont united the lives of these two men, of natures so widely different and even complementary, through a period of nearly a whole generation, the busiest and most exciting in all the busy and 78 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. exciting life of Rollins. A toilsome quest may be necessary for souls to find one another, but recognition comes spontaneously. Almost immediately upon La- throp's arrival ill Columbia, to assume the Presidency of the new University, he attached himself to the young statesman, and every year in the quarter-century that followed seemed to tighten and strengthen the cords of union between them. During his first incumbency President Lathrop leaned with full weight on his stalwart young friend, though the latter had no official connection with the Uni- versity. At Jefferson City it sias Rollins that was continually invoked for help in devising, recommending, advocating, and securing all salutary and necessary legislation: but still more in Columbia it was Rollins that was continually sought for cheer, for counsel, for support, and for encouragement. In 1849 Lathrop accepted a call, long held under advisement, to the University of Wisconsin, at Madison. But Rollins had already clenched his friend's heart to Columbia with nails of adamant, and for eleven weary years, in Wisconsin and in Indiana, Lathrop's face remained turned steadily toward Missouri, his eyes fastened wist- fuliy on La Grange. He left Rollins not only the keeper of his affections, but also the guardian of his professional reputation and personal dignity against the attacks of envy., jealousy, and petty malevolence - a trust that was bravely and faithfully discharged. Though hundreds of miles away, in every doubt, danger, ordifficultyhe turned confidently to Rollins, and whenever he needed help of any kind, whether of money, or of influence, or of advice. His letters are full ot touching laments at his inability to revisit Columbia -a happiness that each year he seems to have set before him as a goal to be attained the next vacation, but which each following summer dissolved like the mirage of the desert. It was the old story, eternally new for the Western teacher: Res anguske domi.' Never, in fact, did the hart pant for the water-brooks as the gentle soul of Latbrod panted for the sweet companionship of his "other self"- such is the supreme title by which he designates Rollins-on the " banks of the Hinkston." 'When at last, in i86o, the breeze abated and there came a shifting of the sails, it was to Rollins alone that Lathrop opened his whole heart, entrusted his whole cause, and it was largely, by his own glad avowal, a yearning to " resume an ancient Boone companionship" that induced him to exchange a presidency in Blooming- ton for a professorship in Columbia. His language, used in a letter to his " alter ego" under date of August 29, i80o, is very remarkable, emphatic to the limit of emphasis, and explicit beyond all cavil: "I constitute you pri-vately my guide, my philosopher, my friend- may confessor in all personal and official natlers." President Lathrop was a man of kindly heart, of generous impulses, and of con- fiding, affectionate nature. Such a man would claim many persons as friends. Yet Rollins was not in his relations to Lathrop, any more than in his relations to the University, merely one, even if the principal one, of m"nany. It is a fact of his- tory, which the correspondence of Lathrop with Rollins sets in clear and bold relief and rescues from the treachery of memory and the detraction of envy, that the relations of Rollins to the head of the University were like his relations to the University itself-altogether unique, disparate, and incomparable with any con- temporary's. This correspondence reveals Lathrop himself in a favorable and amiable light, as conspicuously a scholarly man, passionately devoted to the " things of mind,' JANIES SID)NEY ROLLINS. 79 to literature and to education, of high professional attainment, of wide and active intellectual sympathies. He was neither dogmatic nor aggressive, yet he had "found himself" and had arrived at clear consciousness and enlightened views on all questions of pedagogy and University organization. Neither was he to be lightly shaken in his convictions, nor to be aroused to self-defense with impunity. He was no less formidable in controversy for the finish and elegance of his rhetoric, and his antagonist was not slow in learning that a silken glove might cover a hand of steel. As an executive, President Lathrop showed himself at all times equal to his duties, and always faithful in discharging them; yet they were never according to his taste, and they scarcely favored the highest display of his talent. The high-bred racer may indeed draw the cart or turn the treadmill; but it is not in such harness that he will bear witness to his pedigree. The true mission of Lathrop was to teach, to stand for learning and education, to plead the cause of the intellect, to guard the prerogatives of Mind. Nature had chosen him to the apostolate of culture and chance had cast his lines in par/ibus infteliman. The life of a missionary is at best but a rugged and checkered one. "A/lkr Anfang ist schuver," say the Germans, but especially difficult are the beginnings of education. Arduous and thankless beyond all others is the task of him who would blaze ottt the highways of culture through the dense " erroneous wood " of primitive ignorance, prejudice, and parsitoony. Such ,-asthe stern and ungrate- ful duty that fell to the lot of Lathrop. He discharged it nobly and well, though molded by nature from much finer clay for less rigorous service. His devoted and pathetic life-work has not yet received any recognition fit or worthy of men- tion, the century-plant he so lovingly tended has not yet burst into bloom; but the future historian of the University and of education in the WVest will take de- light in honoring his memory. Meantime the beautiful obelisk of granite, that keeps watch ouser his ashes, bears witness to the world on its counter-faces with these two inscriptions, which briefly sketch his career and broadly outline his character: A GRADUATE OF YALE COLLEGE, STUDIED T HE LAW AS A SCIENCE, BECAME A TEACHER BY PROFESSION, WAS A TUTOR IN YALE COLLEGE, A P'ROFESSOR IN HAMILTON COLLEGE, N. Y., FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY. ALSO OF THE WISCONSIN ]UNIVERSITY, PRESIDENT OF THE INDIANA UNIVERSITY, RECALLED TO THE MIISSOURI UNIVERSITY, OF WHICH HE DIED PRESIDENT. l MNIINENT IN HIS GENERATION, FAITHFUL TO DUTY, THE SCHOLAR AND CHRISTIAN GENTLENIAN, HE LIVED NOT FOR HIMSELF BUT FOR HIS CO)UNT'R'RY ANI) MANKIN)D. 80 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. It was eminently fitting that the epitaph of the pious missionary should be written by his " other self," the hardy pioneer, who most of all men deeply loved and highly prized him; and it is impossible in sight of their monuments not to recall the tender lament of David: Sanl and Jonathan, beloved and kind! I, !Ki/ and in -1-a1L, 1hiy ar- nat diiZjd. 4. Page 5S.-The truth seems to be that though Major Rollins sympa- thized very cordially with Schurz and Brown in the original " Missouri policy," though he was fully and formally enlisted in the revolt of the Liberal Republi- cans, yet he was never in hearty accord with the Democratic party. He was too clear-eyed, wide-sighted, and honest-minded not to recognize individual merit, whether in the dogmas or in the leaders of Democracy, no less than corresponding demerit in those of his own political faith; and he was most glad to wield the op- position as a scourge of blessing, in the chastisement of peace, to correct the fre- quent aberrations of Government. But with all its acknowledged shortcomings the Republican organization seemed to him the bearer of the higher concerns of the State; on its shoulders rested the supreme interests of the nation, and to it alone he looked for the solution of governmental and of social problems. Even the very act of revolt he meant to be remedial rather than destructive, to reform rather than to overthrow the party. TWO VOICES ;S7-: :0SftBI Air:UAj gE( 0r '' 7S i tt i Oru f g : ! r 1EXNE! z' B ffi 2 t I TWO VOICES. I. Remarks of the REV. DR. W. POPE YEAMAN, President of the Board of Curators, at the funeral of James Sidney Rolins: fLIVER WENDELL HOLMES was asked, "When should the 0 training of a child begin" He replied, "A hundred years be- fore the child is born." And might he not have said, " It does begin then " It has occasionally transpired in the history of men that individual characteristics and developments have borne no marks of heredity. But these were exceptions to well established rules. If we put ourselves to the trouble to search for the explanations of remarkable character, we shall find ourselves led back of the influence of personal surroundings, and discovering in remote or near ancestry the causes of present manifestations. In tracing the history of the family of which our honored neighbor was a descend- ant, we find ourselves in company with the best blood of Ireland, under the influences that developed the patriotism of an Emmet, a Curran, a Grattan, and a Phillips. Wohen we come on down to the boyhood and youth of James S. Rollins, we find him in Kentucky, where the whole population was under the molding spirit and manifest impress of pioneer character. As individual progenitors impress character upon their progeny, so first settlers leave the im- press of their characteristics upon the communities of which they are the founders. Central Kentucky was settled by a chivalric, bold, cavalier race, whose spirit was developed into self-reliance, adventure, and heroism by the nature of the country and the social conditions of a primitive and aggressive civilization. The circum- "I X4 JAMES SIDNEY R(LLINS. stances of early Kentucky life, when civil institutions were to be founded, connection with an infant and struggling republic to be formed, when newspapers, mails, and the means of transportation were novelties, naturally gave to oratory a transcendent value in popular esteem. The man who could sway the popular mind and lead public thought was the man of influence. Orators were princes in that day and among that people. It is simply natural that young men of spirit and aspiration should covet and seek the gifts of oratory. And particularly would this be the case with one brought near to manhood in the shades of Ashland. The Kentucky River with its laurel cliffs and picturesque hills flowed in inspiring beauty between the early home of our lamented dead and the home of the pride of America, with only the distance of a half day's ride inter- vening. Leaving these influences for an education in the colleges of Pennsylvania and Indiana, and thence to make his home in the then far West, and at a time when society was in its formative con- dition, it is no surprise that our enlightened young man, trained under such a combination of elevating influences, should decide to devote himself to a profession involving at once the rights of man and the progress of civilization. To be a lawyer in the true sense of the term is to have attained the highest development of moral and intellectual capabilities and to be prepared for the largest contributions to the social and material advancement of humanity. The great principles of right which lie at the foundation of true juris- prudence, when incorporated with the habit of thought and inter- woven with the consciousness of self, lift the subject into a condition of being and purpose of life in harmony with the truest conception of true manhood. To such men the world owes a debt of gratitude that is appreciated by that intelligence which can apprehend the forces that ameliorate the conditions of individual life and advance the material and social well-being of communities. He who seeks the noble and ennobling profession of the law, not in the spirit of self-aggrandizement, but in the spirit of truth, and prompted by a laudable ambition, is seeking the avenues to the highest secular usefulness. Such a man must be a conscientious man; and when to these high attainments there is added the spirit of Him in whom infinite law found its embodiment and highest personal exemplifica- tions, we have reached the greatest possibilities of human progress. JAMES SIDNEY RO(LLINS. 85 It is to the reflecting mind, acquainted with the spirit and intent of law, no surprise w hen a true lawyer turns his heart to God through the Lord Jesus Christ. He who uses the nzame of the legal profes- sion as a grab-hook for pennies, lives in a region so low and so dark that to himself lie imagines eternal trusts a fable or a weak sentimentality, and knows not the source of the science whose name he xvould wear but whose spirit has never entered to enlighten his own benighted understanding. As a rule, the men whose minds are shaped by the study of law are believers in the great facts and doctrines of a divine revelation, and sooner or later their hearts are turned to sympathy with intellectual convictions. It is a severe struggle for a lawyer to be an avowed infidel. The processes of thought which make up his mental habit have trained him to per- ceptions of truth, and he must do violence to himself when lie would resist the evidential forces of the history and teachings of the church of God. The diligent application of a high order of native endow ment to the acquisition of knowledge, and the use of that knowledge in well-chosen directions, make a man a benefactor to his race. Such men when they die are losses to the world. Such a man was the Honorable James S. Rollins. His commanding form, his courtly manners, his genial smile, his inspiring oratory, and his fervent patriotism shall be seen and heard and felt by us no more. Though dead, yet he speaks. The voice that cheered the home- circle, that charmed the multitude, that swayed legislative bodies and moved the forum, is silent forever, yet there are works and deeds that voice the greatness of the life that was given to Colum- bia, to Missouri, to the American people. How fitting that all that is mortal of our distinguished fellow- citizen should lie in this auditorium for the solenin obsequies of this hour! Was he a friend to this University Is a father a friend to his child Whatever may have been the agency of others in secur- ing the founding of this institution and in the enlargement of its proportions and in the extension of its fame, certain it is that so far as history indicates there would have been no State University in Missouri but for the efforts of James S. Rollins. Patriotic eloquence in the halls of the Federal Congress helped to shape a nation's course in the greatest crisis of all national crises; wvise forethought 86 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. and judicious effort secured that Federal legislation which assured the great Pacific-transcontinental system of railways that has con- nected the two mighty oceans by indissoluble ties and brought the West into an attitude to dominate the nation that is to direct the destinies of nations. The polity of a statesman's adopted State re- ceives his impress on all the lines of its progress, the forum echoes a final and enlightened oratory, but a great University, the boon of the past, the heritage of the present, and the glory of the future, may be and will be counted the stepping-stone to an enduring monument, built not of marble, not of granite, not of bronze, but of noble efforts for the good of man-a monument more enduring than rock-bound coasts or enchained mountains. A progressive and aggressive mind, capable of comprehending great principles and directing the details of great enterprises, and inspired by laudable ambition and energized by intelligent enthu- siasm, must, in the very nature of human society, leave its impress upon the people and institutions with which, while living, it was allied by sentiment and effort. Could such a man live and not encounter antagonisms Nay! no more than good can assert itself in a world of evil without conflict. There has never lived a great, progressive, and aggressive man but who has had to encounter every form and shade of opposition known to the ingenuity of self- ishness, jealousy, and rivalry. The world's great benefactors, be they philosophers, philanthropists, patriots, statesmen, or ministers of the living Christ, have had to endure the contradictions and opposition of some of their fellow-men. Is it a discredit to a man to be the object of the shafts of calumny and detraction Then none are without discredit. Even the realization of the divine idea of the perfect in humanity was charged with blasphemy, with false- hood, and with treason, and was put to death as a vile malefactor. Is he a great character at whom no poisoned darts are hurled Calumny likes a shining mark, and woe is he of whom all men speak well. There never lived and moved a truly strong man who had not his enemies. Yet perhaps no man of equal strength and distinction with our departed neighbor had so few as he to detract or to seek to pluck a leaf from his hard-won chaplet of fame. As neighbors, as fellow-citizens, as fellow-Christians, we mourn our loss. Wie pay our tribute of affectionate respect to-day, we JAM.'ES SIDNEY ROLLINS. condole with the State, and offer our sincerest sympathies to a family bereft of a doting husband and affectionate father. His life at his home was marked by generous courtesy, affectionate dignity, and indulgent pride. His children and his grandchildren can ever speak of "pa" and " grandpa " with a tender sensation that must meet with a respectful appreciation by all who hear them. The friends of liberty, the lovers of popular education, and every citizen grateful to the memory of a patriot-citizen should unite to erect in the campus of this University a monument to the memory of him who loved Columbia, and who resided within her classic pre- cincts, in the same home, for one year more than half a century. Remarks of MR. R. L. TODD at mass- mcetinig of thie citizens of Columbia:. WE are convened on an occasion of no common interest. A great man has fallen in our Israel; our most eminent citizen has ceased from his labors. The certainty of this end of our human life is known to every one. The experience and observation of every age has taught it. The heathen poet sang, "Pa//ida 3lors aquo pulsat pede paueperum tabernas regumique turres." Holy Writ de- clares that it is appointed to all men once to die. We mourn the loss from among us of one who for more than half a century has been prominently identified with every valuable interest of our county and State, who has been always, until recently disabled by disease, a leader in every measure in public concern, and who, at home, in the councils of the State and of the nation, has been recog- nized as a man of rare gifts, of fine culture, of distinguished ability, of broad and liberal views, of eloquence rarely equaled, of unques- tioned courage, and of unswerving patriotism and love of our repub- lican institutions. He had passed the limit of three-score years and ten mentioned by the Psalmist, and like a shock of corn fully ripe in his season has fallen. He has passed to his reward. Ve who have known him long and well are met to pay our last tribute of affection and regard to the memory of him who in all the diver- sified and distracting pursuits of an active and many-sided life never for a moment failed in his loyalty' and intelligent regard for the in- terests of his own county and State. It is no rash statement to say xi 6X JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. that to him more than to any other man, living or dead, Boone County owes its prosperity and progress. My first acquaintance with Major Rollins began in 1834, when he, a young lawyer of twenty-two just from the law school of Tran- sylvania University, located here to practise his profession. He was chosen a trustee of Columbia College, thus early manifesting the zeal for the education of the young which became the master passion of his life. He had been educated at Washington College, Pennsyl- vania, and followed its distinguished President, Dr. Andrew Wylie, to Bloomington, Indiana, when he became president of the State University of Indiana, which gave Mr. Rollins his degree of A. B. One of his class-mates there was Thomas Miller, a nephew of Dr. Wylie, and he secured the election of Mr. Miller as president of the infant Columbia College, and no choice could have been wiser. Of all the scholarly men who have honored our community by becoming a part of it, President Miller was second to none in accurate, elegant scholarship. Rollins and Miller afterwards became partners in the practice of law, and bought the Mfissouri Intelligencer, which Nathaniel Patton had brought here from Fayette; established the Columbia Patriot, which they conducted for some years and until Colonel Miller's fail- ing health induced him to start, by a then long and perilous travel to Santa Fe, New Mexico-which, however, he never reached, find- ing his last resting-place on the wide-spreading plains, ministered to by rude but kindly hands. No man mourned for another more than did Rollins for Miller -hence this sketch of my beloved, hon- ored teacher, Professor Miller. A few years later Major Rollins is found in our State Legislature, where his connection with the act to establish and locate a State University is matter of common knowl- edge. Its location in this place, advocated and urged by the wise, thoughtful, liberal men of 1839, who were a unit in the cause, was still due more to the zeal and efficiency of Major Rollins than to any other one man; and from that time to the day of his death he was its wise, thoughtful, zealous, faithful friend, bringing to its service a wealth of intelligence, zeal, time, persistence, to the sacrifice of his private interests, which few men had and fewer still could have afforded to bestow on it. I do not recount his long legislative ser- vice, but pass to the next great public benefit he conferred on our JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. county-the location of the North Missouri Railroad. Had our neighboring counties been blessed with such men as Rollins, that road would have been built through Fulton, Columbia, and Fayette, instead of merely touching our county. In 186o he was elected to the lower House of Congress, where he served two terms in the fearful convulsion of our civil war, main- taining there the reputation for learning and ability which he had earned so well before. It is not slight praise to say that he bore his full part in the passage of measures which have fortunately, un- der the blessing of Heaven, resulted in a reunited, glorious -let us trust, perpetual-sisterhood of States, constituting a Federal Union whose proud ability to suppress an insurrection of the most formid- able nature is the surest guaranty of continued peace with other nations. We cannot overlook his services in the Legislature from i866 to 1870, in which last year, after repeated and disheartening failures, he aided in securing the location of the Agricultural and Mechanical College, provided for by Act of Congress of July, 1862, as a part of our State University. For years every effort to estab- lish this College had been defeated. It was a matter of life and death to the University. If the State, with the limited means at- tainable, should unwisely establish, as an independent institution, the College required by act of Congress, the expenditure would have been so immense that all hope of adequate State aid for the support of the University would have to be abandoned. To the settlement of this question Major Rollins gave himself wholly, never neglect- ing an opportunity nor for long months absenting himself for a day from the sessions of the Legislature until triumph crowned his efforts, the University was placed on a footing where its future was assured, and the State saved from a disastrous and costly mistake. Had constituency ever a more faithful or efficient representative I have briefly sketched only a fewv of the salient features of the life of our friend. You will naturally ask why many important and interesting incidents have been passed over without notice. No at- tempt is made to give an exhaustive analysis of his life and services. Other gentlemen will do further justice to his memory. But what of the man, what of the personality that lay behind and inspired his life He was a gifted man; blessed with a fine presence, courtly manners, highly educated, and fond of literary pursuits, he sought 1 2 89 90 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. and was welcomed always by the first and best, to whose assembly he added additional grace and charm. Genial, accessible, patient, he won men and grappled them to him as with hooks of steel. To young men he was always gracious and kindly, full of encourage- ment and good words. His friendships were enduring and absorb- ing, and knew no wavering. I shall be pardoned for naming as his friends, among those no longer on earth, Blair, Bingham, Lathrop, Read. Was he ever known for a moment to falter in his devotion to them Fond of popular applause, glad to be greeted as a friend, he knew how to oppose and breast popular opinion, when he thought it wrong, with a fearlessness and courage that never quailed and which won the admiration of his opposers. Few men possessed in so happy a combination the suaviter in modo with the forti/cr in re, and many of those who will grieve with unutterable sorrow to learn that he no longer lives and moves among men, and who will hasten gladly to pay their tender tributes to his memory, will be found in the ranks of those with whom he had the fiercest conflicts. A noble, knightly man, full of generous impulses, brave, true, wise, his course is run, his work is ended, and with a benison on his memory this imperfect tribute to his work and worth is laid upon his tomb. He is not lost. Such men are not lost. His influence abides. We are all of us more or less molded and fashioned by his speech and action, and in a large sense he has left his impress, and so become a part of the life and thought of all who came in con- tact with him. Death hath made no breach In love and sympathy, in hope and trust; No outward sight or sound our ears may reach, But there is an inward, spiritual speech Which greets us still, tho' mortal tongue be dust. RESOLUTIONS Passed by the Board of Cura/ors of tIe University of Missou; i. Whereas, the Great King in his dispensations, alike merciful and just, has removed from this earthly tabernacle, and as we trust and believe has JAMES SIi)NEV ROLLINS. awakened in his heavenly kingdom which passeth understanding and which fadeth not away, that wise and distinguished citizen, Major James S. Rollins, so long a member of this board and its president, and ever an un- failing friend of the University of Missouri, therefore, Resolved by this Board of Curators as follows: i. That while we bow in submission to the decree of the Most High, we share in the feelings of humanity-those ennobling sentiments which he has implanted in us-and mourn with those who mourn, and deplore the departure, not unwise, but unwished, of one who was by nature a prince among men, and who, whether in public or in private enterprises, in the councils of the State or of the nation, brought the resources of genius to the aid of great and valuable objects. 2. That we recognize in our late associate a man of wide and prophetic mental vision, gifted with resources of mind and charms of manner that made his converse a delight to all that sought it, a safe and trusted coun- selor in every emergency, prudent and yet bold in action, faithful to friends without bitterness to opposers, patriotic, ever awake to the highest interests of his community, his State and his country, generous in his estimate of the motives and abilities of men, liberal in all those benefactions that are for the common good, a citizen in the best and largest sense, and a devoted advocate of education for the rich and the poor, the high and the low, be- cause he truly believed that it is the sure conservator of our government and liberties. 3. That while we know that it is not within the power of mortals to give to those who are near and dear to the honored dead by blood or affinity the true consolation and comfort, yet we assure them that they have-and svill have-our tenderest sympathy in this darkening of their house, and we beg them to remember that their loved one went not away as one lost, for- lorn, or forgotten, nor as a ship foundered in mid ocean, but in the midst of his family and friends, full of years and honors, the wealth of his heart and mind largely given to his fellow-men, and having, by his profession be- fore the world, laid fast hold upon eternal life. 4. That the secretary of this board do furnish copies of this preamble and resolution to the local papers for publication, and a certified copy thereof to the family of the deceased; that he engross the same on the blank page of the record immediately following the minutes of this meeting; and that the auditorium of the University be draped in mourning for the period of thirty days. J. J. CAMPBELL, J. C. CRAVENS, v Colninllec. I). C. A LLEN, ) 91 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. State Board of Agriculture. Mr. John S. Clarkson came before the board and reported the following resolutions with reference to the death of Major James S. Rollins, which were unanimously adopted: Wh/ereas, The State Board of Agriculture has heard with profound regret of the death of Hon. James S. Rollins, Resol.ed, That this board recognizes and realizes in the removal by death of this eminent citizen the loss of one of the ornaments and treasures of our State, who has for half a century shed honor on the State, has been foremost in every enterprise calculated to build up our State and nation, and whose wise and comprehensive views have been largely embodied in our State and national legislation. As the author of the bill connecting the Agricultural and Mechanical College with the State University, and as the wise, earnest, and persistent friend of that College, he is properly held in warm and tender remembrance by this board representing the great agricul- tural interests of the State. Himself a farmer, Major Rollins was in close sympathy with his brother farmers, who share with every other interest in this common loss. Resolved, That we tender to the bereaved family of our distinguished fellow-citizen assurances of our earnest sympathy with them in their loss and grief. Resolved, That a copy of this paper be forwarded to the family of the deceased, and to the newspapers for publication. JOHN S. CLARKSON, Committee. Executive Committee of the Board of Curators. At a meeting held in the room of the Curators January 9, r888, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted: Whereas, This committee has this day heard, with deep sorrow, of the death of the Hon. James S. Rollins, a former President of the Board of Curators, and of all men he who is entitled to the appellation, " Father of the Missouri University "; therefore, Resolved, That this committee express to the family of the deceased its un- feigned sympathy with them in this their deep grief and irreparable loss. Resolved, That we appreciate and lament the loss to the cause of education in this State occasioned by the death of our honored and lamented fellow- citizen. Resolved, That in common with the people of this great commonwealth, we mourn the lhss of an eminent statesman, a true patriot, a friend of hu- 92 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. manity, and an active and efficient promoter of general, social, and material progress. Resolved, That the University buildings be draped in mourning for our departed illustrious friend and promoter, and that the chapel be and is duly tendered the family of the deceased for the obsequies, should the same be desired. W. POPE YEANIAN, PIes. Board Curators. J. H. DRUMMOND, Secretar1. Faculty of 1/he Unziversity. At a meetinig of the Faculty of the University of Missouri, on the morning of January 9, 1888, a committee consisting of Dr. S. S. Laws, Professor Broadhead, Professor Blackwell, and Professor Schwitzer was appointed to draft resolutions expressive of the sense of the Faculty with respect to the death of Major James S. Rollins. The committee reported as follows: James Sidney Rollins was an extraordinary man. In any walk of life he would have been a leader. He stood early in the fore- front in the profession he chose -a man of commanding abilities, gifted by nature with such qualities as made him loved and admired by men. While still in the glowing ardor of youth his brilliant ver- satility of endowment and acquisition won him prizes of laudable ambition. His amiable genius ripened with his years and was most nobly and unfalteringly pronounced in battling for higher education in his beloved Missouri. W\hether in the Senate of our own State or in the halls of Congress, his voice was ever loud and effective for the best rights of the people. It is thus that we must chiefly remember him, associated as we are with lasting memorials of his name. His love for education was an inheritance, and he grandly and conspic- uously and manfully executed his trust. Those who have often heard the pleadings of his powerful oratory will feelingly recall the moving glance of his impassioned eye, the sweep of his impetuous arm, and the magnificent eloquence which burst vehemently from his lips while influenced by this ruling idea and under the hearty inspirationof this favorite theme. In our intercourse with him as Curator, adviser, and friend his courtesy was unfailing, his patience untiring, and his counsels en- couraging and faithful. Therefore be it 93 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Resolved, By the Faculty of the University of Missouri, that we mourn as an organization and as individuals the loss to the University and to the State of the advice, assistance, encouragement, and presence of James Sidney Rollins, who for seventeen years presided over the destinies of this institu- tion as a representative of the State in the Presidency of the Board of Curators. Resolv'ed, That as citizens we grieve for the loss to our community of a great and good man, enterprising, public-spirited, philanthropic, charitable, courteous, brave-a leader in our councils, a voice of wisdom in our per- plexity, a staff on which to lean in our distress, Resolved, That as an outward symbol of our sorrow the personal emblems of our friend in the library, together with the University building, be draped, and that the exercises of the University be suspended until the burial, and that we attend the funeral in a body. Resolved, That in testimony of our sympathy these resolutions be spread upon the Faculty record, that a copy of them be sent to the family of the deceased, and a copy to the papers for publication. Resolutions of the Students. Whereas, It has pleased an all-wise God, in the sequence of his laws and dispensation of his providences, to remove from our midst the spirit of that veteran statesman and friend of higher education, Hon. James S. Rol- lins; and Whereas, In addition to his distinguished private virtues, James S. Rol- lins was for many years the devoted champion and zealous helper of our institution; and Whereas, The youth of Missouri, for his earnest and lifelong endeavors owe to him a debt of gratitude, our realization of which the years as they come will serve but to increase; and Whereas, Upon us, the students of the University of the State of Mis- souri, the loss comes with added weight, recognizing, as we do, that to him more than to any other individual is due whatever of success, prosperity, and advancement the University has shown, and that the Board of Curators conferred no empty title when they, as Virginia honored her immortal Jef- ferson, honored him with the appellation of the " Father of the University of Missouri"; therefore, Resolved, That we, the students of the University of Missouri, individ- ually and as a body, express our deep sorrow at the loss of so firm a friend to that education which lies at the basis of an enduring republican govern- ment. 94 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Resolved, 1'hat we extend our sincere sympathy to the bereaved family and relatives, and, as far as possible, attend the funeral in a body. Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the family, and also to the Columbia, St. Louis, and Kansas City papers for publication. Board of Trustees. At a meeting of the Board of Trustees of Columbia, held on Mon- day afternoon, a committee consisting of Captain James A. Adams, George W. Henderson and F. W. Peck was appointed to draft res- olutions of respect to the memory of the Hon. James S. Rollins. The committee reported the following action: Whereas, We, as trustees of the inhabitants of the town of Columbia, have received the intelligence of the death, on Monday, January 9, i888, of the Hon. James S. Rollins, for fifty years identified with the growth and interest of our town, and who in that time has done much to advance the material welfare of this community, therefore be it Resolvedt, That we, as trustees, learn with deep regret the removal from our midst of one so long identified with our community's progress and growth, and Resolved, That we mourn his loss as that of a true friend to humanity, one ever ready with means and personal efforts to advance every right cause and every commendable public enterprise - foremost as a public citizen and an active and able friend and promoter of material and social progress. Resolveed, That we extend to the bereaved family an earnest sympathy in a loss so irreparable, and so generally felt by the community which their distinguished dead so long honored. Resolved, That this board attend the funeral of the deceased, to be held on Wednesday, January iI, i888, in a body. Tle Citigecns of Columibia. At a mass meeting held in the Court House, January lo, i888, the following resolutions, read by Colonel Squire Turner, were adopted: lfWhereas, On Monday, January 9, i888, the Hon. James S. Rollins, nearly sixty years a citizen of Boone County, was called from our midst by the fiat of Him whose awful summons none may disregard; and Whereas, We, his fellow citizens of Boone County, who so much honored him, and who were so much honored by him living, have assembled in 9i JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. mass meeting to give expression to the profound sense of bereavement be- fallen us in the death of a great man and distinguished citizen, be it there- fore Resolved, That in the death of our illustrious fellow-citizen and friend we are forcibly and mournfully reminded that the great pioneers of our country and commonwealth are rapidly passing away; that few are left of those lofty spirits who braved the dangers and endured the hardships of our infant State in the earlier years of the present century, who with unwearying en- ergy, clear judgment, and almost prophetic forethought blazed out the high- ways through our primitive wilderness, ceaselessly struggled with stubborn nature, rescued from its wild grasp our generous soil, made our fields green and fruitful, planted infant cities now metropolitan in importance on the banks of our great rivers, called into being those activities and agencies un- der whose inspiration the vast network of iron nerves has overspread our State which has dotted our broad prairies and teeming valleys with thrifty hamlets, villages, and towns, and who impressed upon fundamental and statute law the educational system which has elevated Missouri to the front rank of all republics, ancient or modern. Resolved, That on the roll of the great men of our State the name of James S. Rollins is prominently and indelibly inscribed, and when we be- held him standing amidst intellectual giants in the popular and representa- tive assemblies of our State and nation we recalled with pride that he, our neighbor, our citizen, and friend, was recognized as a peer-blessed as he was with a profusion of gifts and graces rarely accorded to man. Keen and penetrating and marvelously alert in mind, untiring in effort, persistent in zeal, unmatched in all the arts of oratory, eloquent in every look and tone and clarion-like utterance, and inspired with a sublime faith in his polit- ical creeds, he did heroic duty in securing " liberty and education for all," and in promoting the material development and growth of our State and common country. Resohved, That while our county and State have lost a valuable and es- teemed citizen and the whole Union one who ranked among its foremost statesmen, society an ornament and guide, and all humankind a friend, keenly alive to the immeasurable loss we have ourselves sustained, we can the more sincerely appreciate the grief of those linked to him by the ties of consanguinity. We therefore tender to his family assurances of our kindest sympathy and condolence. It was moved and carried that a copy of these resolutions be pre- sented to the press of the county and to the family of the deceased; also that the business men of the town be requested to close from 10 A. M. to 2 P. M. 96 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Officers and Members of the Bar. The members of the Bar Association and the Boone County officers met and adopted the following resolutions: Whereas, It has pleased Almighty God to take from among us our dis- tinguished fellow-citizen, neighbor and friend, the Hon. James S. Rollins, therefore be it Resohvedl, That in the death of Major James S. Rollins his county and State have lost a good citizen, a true and distinguished statesman, a patriot who loved his people and his country; that he has passed in our midst a useful and honorable life, devoted to the cause of education and the ad- vancement of our State University, and the elevation of the people of his county and State, and we take pride in saying of him, "W Well done, thou good and faithful servant." Resolved., That as a member of the Bar of this State for more than fifty years we honor and revere his memory for his ability and integrity, and we recognize him as one who had but few equals and no superiors at the Bar as an orator and as an advocate, and in private life a type of a true man and a gentleman, at all times polite, sociable, generous, and kind, alike to the humble and to the great, a trait that made him most beloved and honored by all classes in every station of life. Resolvedf, That we honor him, as we feel that no man, living or dead, has done more to foster and build up Boone County and her educational insti- tutions than has James S. Rollins, and it is his greatest honor, as we can truthfully say, that he is the father and founder of the University of Missouri. Resolved, That in the discharge of his public trust he was honest, true, and faithful, and acted promptly and decisively in carrying out his well formed and matured convictions, and in the darkest hour of his country's peril he was found in the foremost ranks, wherever his country or his duties called him. His emblazoned motto, written upon every page of his life's history, was, " Freedom and education to all." Resolved, That we extend to his bereaved family our heartfelt sympathy and condolence, in this their greatest loss and misfortune, and that a copy of these resolutions be furnished them, and the public journals of Boone County, and also to the Courts of Record in this county, to be spread upon their records. Boone County National Bank. At a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Boone County National Bank of Columbia the following resolutions in regard to the death of Major Rollins were passed: 13 97 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. With profound regret the board of directors of this bank places upon its record the melancholy announcement of the death of the Hon. James S. Rollins at his residence in Columbia on January 9, j888. He assisted in the organization of the bank February, 1871, and was one of its stockholders and directors, as he was also of its predecessor, as far back as 1858, when the first chartered banking institution in Boone County was organized, and he sustained these relations from that time until a few months ago, when he severed his official connection as a member of this board, but retained to the day of his death a large interest in its stock. In view of which fact be it therefore Resolved, That we bear sincere testimony to his wisdom, his liberality, his integrity, and his valuable services as a member of this board, and in his death we recognize the loss of a most valued associate and friend. Resolved, That the loss involved extends far beyond the limits of our bus- iness operations, and will be profoundly felt by the community at large. For a half century he was foremost in every enterprise having in view the social, material, and intellectual prosperity of the State, and especially of Boone County, and to his wisdom, his efficiency, and his eloquence is due its progress as much as to any man living or dead. Resolved, That to his bereaved relatives we offer our tenderest sympathies, and that a copy of these resolutions be transmitted to his family; also that copies be furnished the newspapers of Columbia for publication. From tMe "M11issouri Statesman." Of all the distinguished men who have shed luster upon the State of Missouri, whether born within her boundaries or on other soil, no one of them has a brighter fame or a stronger hold upon the public confidence and respect than James S. Rollins. His life was one of unselfish devotion to the best interests of humanity, and his chief aim to advance the greatness and prosperity of his adopted State. Most men who are distinguished in history attained that distinction by pursuing one object, or in advancing some special theory; but he was equally devoted to all measures which, in his judgment, were calculated to promote the public good and the ele- vation of the race. In the early part of his political career we find Mr. Rollins favor- ing and earnestly advocating those measures of internal improve- ment which distinguished the policy of the Whig party, of which he was a member. 98 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. The colonization and emancipation views of Henry Clay also en- listed his sympathies, and later in life, when the salvation and integ- rity of his country demanded the emancipation of the slaves and their subsequent advancement to citizenship, he did not hesitate to give his aid to the movement by voice and pen, though incurring the displeasure of old associates, and at the sacrifice of his own per- sonal interests. His interest in the cause of education led to the establishment of the State University, the Agricultural College and Mining School, and in the perfection of the grand system of education which is to- day the pride and boast of Missouri. The record of such a life is well worth preserving, and in it the coming generation may find much for instruction and improvement. Iront the " Columbian." Columbia mourns the death of her most distinguished citizen. For over half a century his home has been in this city, and no other man has done so much to give to Columbia her character for cul- ture and refinement. A great man, a distinguished citizen, a patron of education, has passed unto the silent shades of the dead; but he lives in the record of deeds performed, and in the elevating and en- nobling influences which he set in motion. Such a man cannot die, for it is an immutable law that his works follow him, and good deeds never die. His life is a heritage of incalculable value. The true wealth of a State consists more in the virtue and intelligence of the people than in houses and lands. In the rush and whirl of life the real worth of a man is often obscured by the friction of con- tending interests and personal ambitions; but when the cold clods cover his mortal remains we see with an unclouded vision, and ap- preciate more fully the grandeur and nobility of character. Look- ing at the life of Major Rollins and judging it in the light of the present and unfolding future, we can truly say, that in all those higher qualities that go to make up a great man he was the equal of Missouri's most distinguished sons; and when we consider the beneficent results of his labors none have more indelibly impressed themselves upon the institutions of the State. It is meet and 99 100 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. proper that we, as his neighbors, award to him the highest honors, and cherish his memory with the most tender and affectionate re- gard. From tle " Columbia Herald." The honor paid to the memory of James S. Rollins is in recogni- tion of his service to the public. It is not because he was a great orator, or possessed intellectual force, or had accumulated a large fortune-honorable as all these are. It is not for what he did for himself, but what he did for society, for he was public-spirited to an eminent degree. This ought to be a lesson to those of us who remain. It is what we do for others-not for ourselves-that lives after us. Benevolence is not wastefulness. It is in fact the only permanent and safe investment. Nothing is more far-seeing and elevating than public spirit; nothing more short-sighted and soul- shriveling than niggardliness. Society honors the generous to the extent that it despises the stingy, because the former are the wheels of its progress, the latter the clogs upon its wheels. Every man who reaps the benefits of society is under a moral obligation to bear his share of its burdens, and he who shirks such obligation deserves only obloquy and contempt. In the death of Honorable James S. Rollins Boone County loses her most distinguished citizen. For over fifty years he filled a con- spicuous place in the history of Missouri, and we recall now the name of no citizen who was for so long a period prominent in pub- lic affairs. For sixteen years a member of the General Assembly, twice a candidate for Governor, twice receiving more than the full vote of his party when its nominee for that office, twice a Member of Congress, and repeatedly honored with other positions of trust, he left an impress upon the history of the State which will never fade. Foremost in every enterprise for the material and intellectual ad- vancement of Boone County, the growth of our community has been as much due to his efforts as to that of any man past or present. It can be said of him in all truth that his loyalty never flagged, and that his wisdom, his sagacity, his tact, and his eloquence, from the JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. beginning to the close of his career, were persistently wielded in her behalf Coming to Missouri when just emerging into manhood, his own budding powers, even then remarkable for their vigor, were syn- chronous with the infant struggles of our commonwealth, as his ma- turing years have been contemporaneous with its development. He at once identified himself with public affairs, and, until physi- cally disabled, never relaxed his efforts. He possessed a marked individuality. To a strong will he added a capacious and well-poised intellect, adorned by culture and strengthened by exercise. His powers of eloquence were rare and, when in his prime, unsurpassed, while his courtliness of manner rendered his social life one of peculiar attractiveness. As a man among men in the busy enterprises of life he evinced great tact and force and exercised a commanding influence, and his wise and ready counsel was always supplemented by a prompt and corre- sponding liberality. The location and growth of the State University and Agricul- tural College and most of the legislation involving its advancement must perhaps stand as the proudest monument to his memory, and the cause of higher education in Missouri will be forever linked with the name and fame of James S. Rollins, Major Rollins will live in history as one of the most accomplished orators Missouri has ever claimed. His great exemplar, as he was accustomed himself to say, was Henry Clay, and he was no un- worthy disciple of his illustrious model, In fluency of expression, in adroitness of argument and appeal, and in artistic grace he was without a peer. His powers developed at a very early age. Be- fore he had reached twenty-five years he had a State reputation, and for thirty-five years subsequently-from 1837 to 1872, when he largely retired from public life-he was constantly before the peo- ple, frequently as a candidate, but always as a defender of those political principles in which he believed. He was a most popular orator, and such was his charm of manner, his ability and force, that rarely was hle other than successful on the stump. His campaigns with Robert M. Stewart and Austin A. King for Governor, with John B. Henderson for Congress, and his debates with James S. Green, John B. Clark, and numerous other intellectual giants of the 101 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. day will live in history as among the most memorable forensic com- bats in the history of the State. broan the JIfissouri " Republican." Major James S. Rollins, whose death at his quiet home in Boone County yesterday is recorded in our nesws columns, was a Missourian of whom every Missourian is proud. He was a gentleman of the old school, cultured, modest, capable. He served his State and his country with conspicuous ability. He was a loyal citizen, a brave soldier, a wise legislator. There are few men of whom so much that is good can be said, few against whom so little that is bad may be charged. His monument, more lasting than brass, is to be found in the public-school system of Missouri, culminating in the State University-the ideal of his life. For more than fifty years Major Rollins lived in this commonwealth, and it is not an exaggeration to say that each of those years was fruitful of good, not alone to those who were near him, but to the whole of the youth of Missouri. Just half a century ago, in 1838, be introduced in the State Legisla- ture the bill which created the University of the State. It has been his care and his pride to see the institution flourish up to the day when he lay down to his well-earned rest. His public service is of record, and it is enough to say that in the seventy-six years of his busy life the purity of his motives and the disinterestedness of his conduct were never impugned. When the war came on he was a thoroughgoing Unionist, parting with friends and associates who had been about him for a lifetime, and it is a signal testimony to his character that even in that crisis he retained not alone the respect but the affection of those who differed with him most bitterly. He has lived well and he has died well, finishing a life full of years and honors with an appropriate ending. The State of Missouri has lost a useful citizen, but it has still something which death could not re- move-the example of a noble life for other Missourians to imitate. Having few equals and no superiors as an accomplished scholar, he was not selfishly inclined to limit the opportunities for educa- tion, but warmly and earnestly favored their extension and applica- tion to the wants of all the people, believing the permanence and strength of a republican government rested upon the foundation of 102 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. intelligence and enlightened civilization. As a citizen he possessed great liberality, and not only enjoyed the implicit confidence of his neighbors, but their warmest friendship and respect. No man in Missouri has lived to confer higher and more lasting honor upon its history or will be more generously remembered. From tile St. Louis "Globe-Democrat." The death of Major Rollins lessens by one the number of those among the living of whom Missouri has reason to be proud because of their active pioneer work in the early days of the State. It may truly be said of Major Rollins that in his younger days he did the State much service in developing its resources and in laying the foundation for its subsequent growth and its present greatness. He was a man of unusual ability and of sterling integrity-faithful to every trust in the family, in the social circle, in the State, and in the nation. Ripe in years and full of honors, he has passed away, leaving behind him a name that will always appear fresh upon the pages of the history of his adopted State. From tile Kansas City ' Journal." Mr. Rollins was not a mere politician, but had wide, enlightened views upon all public questions. He passed a long and active and honorable life, devoted in a very great degree to the advancement of his people, his State, and his country. In private life he X'as kind, polite, sociable, and generous, and always earnest in promoting the best interests of the people among whom he so long resided. From the Jefferson City " Tribune." Xlajor James S. Rollins died at his home near Columbia, Mo., Monday. HIe was a progressive man, and the State owes him much. Major Rollins was the first to head every enterprise and the last man to become discouraged. He was a great friend of education, and the State University wvas a constant object of his attention and certainly owes more to him than to any other man, living or dead. 103 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Major Rollins belonged to that hardy class of pioneers whose energy and enterprise developed Missouri into what she is to-day. Truly the State has lost a good citizen. Fronm the MAarshal/ "Progress.' Whether in the halls of Congress, in the State Senate, or as Presi- dent of the Board of Curators of the State University, his has always been a noble figure, and that silver tongue that is now silent has pleaded the cause of enlightenment, improvement, and elevation ot our race and country more continuously, ably, and earnestly than that of almost any other contemporary in this broad State. James S. Rollins was preeminently a man of polish and culture. Never need any one talk of the rude statesmen of the wild WVest when alluding to him. He had a grace of address and a suavity of bearing that would have attracted admiration at the Court of St. James, if he had been the United States minister to that most polished circle of European diplomacy. His voice had a melody, his manner had a charm, that reminded one of all that one had read of his great leader and proto- type, Henry Clay. His orations, even when extemporaneous, had the finish of conception and the symmetry of arrangement and ex- pression that made him the Edward Everett of Missouri. To hear him, as we once did in Columbia, rise and pay the last tribute of respect to a deceased member of the bar was an era in any man's development in the conception of true oratory. The whole court- room seemed to be listening to Cicero on the vanity of human life and the transience of all human interests. He was a great man. From the Lexington Intelligencer." Major James S. Rollins died at his home, near Columbia, last Monday. For a long time he was one of the most prominent figures in the politics of this State. He served for many years in both branches of the Legislature, and he was two terms in Congress. He was justly spoken of as the father of the State University. He was a man of broad views, patriotic and honest in his public and irreproachable in his private life. 104 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. From the Mexico "Intelligencer." Major James S. Rollins represented the old Boone district in Con- gress for several terms and made for himself a national reputation as an orator and a statesman. Along in the sixties the contests. between Rollins and John B. Henderson for Congress were events. in which the entire State felt an active interest. The men werc pretty evenly matched intellectually. Both were fine orators and each had a devoted followving of personal and political friends.... Columbia is largely indebted to the distinguished dead for her sub- stantial prosperity and advanced position in the educational world. Missouri has had few abler citizens than James S. Rollins, and Columbia was for many years the special object of his thought and care. The State University is a monument to his untiring and intelligent exertions. Fromt the Tuscola (Ills.) "Reviewz." Honorable James S. Rollins (or Major Rollins, as he wvas better known, he having obtained that title by serving as aide-de-camp in the Black Hawk War), one of the foremost men of his day, died at his country seat near Columbia, Mo., on Monday morning, in his seventy-sixth year. He was the founder of the common-school system of that State and of the University of Missouri. He served in both branches of the Legislature, was twice a candidate for governor, and served two terms in Congress during the Civil War. It is a singular coincidence that he was born on the thirty-seventh anniversary of the battle of Lexington, and died on the day on which the seventy-third anniversary of the battle of New Orleans was celebrated this year, the figures of these two anniversaries thus being reversed. From the Richmond (Ky.) "Register." Honorable J. S. Rollins was born in Richmond, Ky., April ig, 1812, and died in Columbia, Mo., on the 9th day of January, 1888. His father, Dr. A. W. Rollins, was a distinguished physician, and his mother was a daughter of Judge Robert Rodes, and a sister of Colonel William Rodes, who died some years ago the most widely known and best beloved citizen of Madison County. 14 10; JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Dr. Rollins, recognizing the evidences of talent, ambition, and strong character in his son, gave him the best opportunities for culture and study, such as would fit him for his brilliant future destiny. He was prepared for college at the Madison Seminary, where, among other school-fellowvs, he was associated with C. M. Clay, United States Minister to St. Petersburg; with Brutus J. Clay of Bourbon, long at the head of Kentucky's farmer princes; with Samuel F. Miller, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States; with John F. Ryland, of the Supreme Court of Missouri, and others, many of whom obtained wide and honorable dis- tinction. Following Dr. Wylie from Pennsylvania, he was graduated at the Indiana State University in 1830, and in 1834 in the law department of Transylvania, at Lexington. Dr. Rollins having removed in 1830 to Boone County, Mo., young Rollins in 1834 opened a law office in Columbia, the shire town of that county, and at once, at a bar where Leonard, Hayden, Turner, and Gordon were then conspicuous, sprang into successful practice, recognized as a sound lawyer and able jury advocate. But he found the practice and drudgery of the profession distasteful, and was allured from it by the glitter and fascination of politics, in which his popular manners, graceful bearing, high intelligence, and unquailing courage marked him for leadership in all the struggles of contending parties. The history of his public life need not here be given in detail. That has been written heretofore, and is widely known throughout the Republic. Let it only be stated that he was often honored by elections to the House of Representatives and the Senate of his adopted State, by services in the Thirty-seventh and Thirty- eighth Congresses of the United States, by the support of his political party twice for the Governorship of Missouri, and for the Senatorship in the national Congress, with many other important public stations covering a period of forty years; and it can be said with no exag- geration that at no time during this long career of honor and use- fulness was he thrown in contact with one superior to himself in manly courage, in patriotic integrity, or in devotion to right and duty. His impress has been left upon the legislation of Missouri in all its parts, and especially in establishing upon broad and enduring foundations the cause of popular education. io6 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Mr. Jefferson was no more entitled to have inscribed upon his monument at Monticello, " Father of the University of Virginia," than Mr. Rollins on his own that he was the " Father of the Uni- versity of Missouri." Throughout long years, through good report and evil report, in storms and sunshine, in the dark hours of gloom and disaster as now in the broad light of its perfect day, he was its patron and defender, its guide and beacon light. By his appeals lo the justice of the State authorities, and from his own purse, aided by the munificence of his father, many thousands of dollars were poured into its treasury for the good of the children of the poor, especially such as avowed a wish to preach the Gospel of the Saviour of mankind. These valuable services have been often appropriately recognized, and the walls of the university library are adorned with a full-length portrait and a bust in bronze of the distinguished benefactor. At a time when Missouri was dominated by the power and in- fluence of Benton, James S. Rollins began his political career, im- bued with the teachings of Clay, and Webster, and John Marshall. He followed the banner of the Whig party so long as it survived, and when it ceased to live he adhered to its doctrines. With him the Government of the United States was not a league, but a nation bottomed on a written constitution, intended among other blessings to secure a perfect and indissoluble Union; and standing aloof at all times from connection with the extremists of the North-Phillips, Garrison, and John Brown-who proclaimed the national bond " a covenant with death and a league with hell," he equally ablorre& though himself a large slaveholder, the dogma of Toombs, Rhett, and Jefferson Davis that negro slavery was the rock on which thz national fabric should rest. And so when, upon the election of Mr. Lincoln in i86o, the war for the preservation of the national Union broke out, he at once ranged himself with the defenders o the flag of his country, and throughout that long and terrible war maintained, at the cost of great personal sacrifice, unswerving devo- tion to the Union and the overthrow of the rebel Confederacy by his voice, his purse, his votes in Congress, and his large personal influence at home. When, however, the war had closed, he favored universal amnesty to the conquered, and fraternized with those whom he found anxious to secure tranquillity between the late war- IC7 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. ring sections and the autonomy of the States. Parcere victis, debel- lare superbos. And so, with Charles Sumner, Francis P. Blair. and Winter Davis, he united with the Democrats in support of Greeley and the liberal movement. In this there was no demagoguery, no vacillation, no inconsistency. His one constant aim wvas to promote the welfare and glory of his country; and the best agencies which he believed adapted to that crowning end he was ready to use, no matter what obloquy he might endure, whether "men would bear or forbear." He had all the best qualities attributed by Lord Macaulay to George Savile, Viscount Halifax, whom as a statesman he much resembled. To be called a trimmer had no terrors for him. He was "just and feared not-all his aims were his country's, God's, and truth's." Had he lived in England in this age, he would have been enrolled under the banner of Gladstone fighting for home-rule in Ireland, the disestablishment of the Church, the elevation of the masses of the British Empire, and the promotion of honorable peace on the basis of international law and friendly commercial inter- course. The published speeches of Mr. Rollins, delivered in the State Legislature, in Congress, before literary bodies, and in social gatherings, constitute a large volume full of thought, culture, and eloquence, and, more than all, of profound love of country and aspirations for the progress of the race. His speeches in Congress, advocating negro emancipation and the amendment of the Constitu- tion to secure that illustrious work, won the admiration of political friends and foes alike -of Crittenden and Blaine, of Cox and Gar- field, of Butler and Stevens-and will be read for ages to come. His labors for internal improvement in his own State, for the con- struction of the railway across the continent to the Pacific shore, the building up of harbors and the better navigation of the lakes and rivers of the land, the protection of American industries in manufactures and agriculture, were constant and unwearied; and while he met the fate of many other public men in failing to reap the just rewards of his labors, there was no office in the gift of the people he would not have adorned-a fact recognized too late by those who should have known it sooner. It is, indeed, the very irony of politics that, in an age when so many men of small caliber occupy great executive, judicial, and ministerial stations, such a man jo8 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. should have been defeated for the Governorship of Missouri, an office he greatly desired, not for himself, btit for his countrymen. Mr. Rollins was, however, blessed in a remarkable degree Xwith the love and sympathy of friends in all quarters of the Republic, and by those ties which blend rest with honor. He had buried a lovely daughter and a son of great promise, to secure life to whom he would have gladly preceded them to the tomb; but he left stir- viving him the beloved and estimable wife of nearly half a century, and sons and daughters who occupy the highest places in the society where they dwell and on whom will rest the memory of his life as a holy benediction. Mr. Rollins had a very true appreciation of the beautiful in art and nature. His home, La Grange, originally attractive with vener- able forest trees, had been made more beautiful by evergreens aid flowers of his own planting, while the walls of his mansion were adorned with books and engravings, with statuary and paintings of rare value, chiefly prized among which were creations of the brush and pencil of his lifelong friend, George Bingham; and this horne thus made beautiful was again made doubly so by the all-pervading spirit of hospitality and kindness which characterized its owner. He welcomed the coming, sped the going guest. None that came went empty away, but the prayers of all followed the place in a long retinue. All were glad that the gifts of wealth had been profusely showered on one who could properly enjoy and dispense them. One beautiful Sabbath afternoon several years ago the writer was present when Mr. Rollins wvas, on a profession of his Christian faith, received into the fellowship of the Presbyterian Church. Sur- rounded by his family and friends, feeble and reclining on his couch, he was baptized by his pastor, Dr. Campbell, and there were few dry eyes when this venerable man, near the close of a long, am- bitious, and distinguished career, with the penitence and trust Of a little child, confessed that his only " hope for the future was in the mercy of God and the blood of the Redeemer," adding that he was " struggling for more light." Let us have faith to believe that tle hour of twilight was with him followed by a gracious spiritual illumination, that glimpses were given to him of those everlasting hills on whose crests rests perpetual sunlight, and that there were wafted to him voices from loved ones who, sustained in their last 109 JAMES SIDNEV ROLLINS. hours by a like faith with his, were now breathing the celestial air and drinking the waters of that stream which makes glad the dwelling-place of the redeemed. In closing this feeble and imperfect portraiture I will only add, that while the fame and virtues of Mr. Rollins will be dear to all that knew him, by none will they be more prized than by the people of his native county, for in the wealth of great names which enriches Madison there is not one of higher rank than his. "Quicquid ex eo amavimus, quicquid mirati sumus, manet e' mnan- surumn est, in animnis hominum in eternitate rerumn. B. From the "American Tribune. Although he was a native of Kentucky, the social, domestic, and political life of Hon. James S. Rollins was passed in Missouri; at least that larger and more brilliant portion of it which commanded the admiration and attention of the country, and the affection and regard of his fellow-citizens. In one sense his public career was not so broadly national as that of Thomas H. Benton, while it was hardly less valuable to the highest and best interests of the country; but as a typical and representative Missourian he was the most progressive and the ablest of the men who have added the lustre of greatness, dignity, and character to the history of the State. His modesty and unselfishness contrasted so grandly w ith his eminent intellectual powers, and his aspirations to serve the public faithfully and upbuild the educational, commercial, and industrial greatness ' That is, Curtis F. Burnam, a typical ex.- ample of whatever was most attractive in the character of the Southern lawyer and gentleman-bhrave, modest, scholarly, pa- triotic, hospitable, and incorruptible. His State has had few citizens that would have honored her more in the highest offices at her disposal, but neither political distinction nor judicial ermine has yet had any charm to woo him away from his cultured leisure, from the eloquent converse of Plato, of Horace, and of Shakspere, and of the other loftier spirits of ancient no less than of modern literature. Once, indeed, the ur- gence of personal friendship induced him to accept high official position in the Depart- mint of the Treasury under the celebrated reform administration of Bristow, and more recently the almost unanimous suffrage of his fellow-citizens, without respect of party, has called him against his will to take part in the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention of Kentucky. For more than a generation Mr. Burnam was in constant correspondence with Major Rollins, and among the many jewels of friendship with which great good hap and high desert crowned the life of the latter, this of his kinsman was one of the purest and brightest. I lo JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. of the State, that the likeness of his useful and splendid career is exceptionally prominent in the public mind and adorns the pages of our history. Few public men have been so thoroughly unconscious of the greatness and magnitude of their services and intellectual strength as James S. Rollins. He became conspicuous and powerful in the performance of what he regarded as a simple duty, withou: a thought of personal emolument or distinction, and this one feat-ire of his fearless and pure character has rendered his name illustrious, without consideration of his great public services. But when those are made the subject for discussion and consideration, his life-work mounts up to the highest eminence of greatness and honor. To him official position was only the avenue through which he could advance the general welfare, and not the chief object of ambition. It was his acts, and not the position, that conferred the greatest honor, and therefore his services will outlive the honorable titles attaching to his name. The recent death of this distinguished citizen is a fitting and appropriate occasion to repeat the interesting history of his life. It is filled with so much that is generous and great that the youth of our land can find in it many examples and lessons of benefit in guiding their future conduct. We are all but children in the inves- tigation of great questions of political and social economy, and we need teachers to direct us in the paths of honor, usefulness, and virtue. No others are so happily attractive and interesting as the lives of noble men, and therefore the biographer assumes great responsibilities in presenting the incidents of a career so that it may educate and enlarge the ambitions that stimulate and energize the exertions of the coming generations of men. Io I I TWO VOICES. 11. WASHINGTON, D. C., January 9. Captain JAMES H. ROLLINS, Columbia, No.: Your father's name was so kindly known and his services so gratefully remembered that the news of his death must carry grief to thousands. As a member of Congress his record is one of mingled patriotism and ability; as a member of the State Legisla- ture he must be remembered as the most able and devoted among the founders of Missouri's educational institutions. I long knew Major Rollins as a citizen, and found him at all times patriotic; I knew him as a political opponent, and found him brave and mag- nanimous; I knew him as a friend, and found him always faithful and true. Please be assured that your mother and family have my profound sympathy in their bereavement. J. B. HENDERSON. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D. C., January 9, i888. I was unexpectedly shocked to-day to learn of the decease of your beloved father, Honorable James S. Rollins. I knew that he had been suffering a long time, and his death, perhaps, was a com- fort in the larger sense. Never have I met in public life a gentle- man of more urbanity or kindly sympathy, more ennobling qualities, more sterling virtue, and in every way worthy of the position which he held as a representative of the people of Missouri in most critical times. I was especially drawn to him by the ameiiities of his life in reference to literary and scientific pursuits and the love which he bore the University with which he was so long associated. Yours with respect, S. S. Cox. Mr. JAMEs H. ROLLINS, Columbia, Mo. WASHINGTON, D. C., January 9, i888. Your telegram of to-day, announcing the death of your honored father, has this moment been received. Full of years and honors, II, JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. and after a long life replete with good and patriotic deeds, he has gone to his rest. A man of national reputation, of broad and exalted ideas, a very Bayard without fear and without reproach, a finished gentleman of the old school-what more can be said of a man whose character is without stain and whose life is an example Sincerely and truly yours, S. V. BENET. Captain J. H. ROLLINS, Columbia, Mo. WASHINGTON, D. C., January ). JAMES H. ROLI.INS, Colzumbia: Pray accept my profound sympathy in the loss of your father. He was my cherished friend for nearly thirty years, and I share in your sorrow. JOHN SHERMAN. NEW YORK, January ,. Captain JAMES H. ROLLINS, Colizbia: Another good man and noble patriot gone where we must soon follow. W. T. SHERMAN. NEW YORK, January (J. JAMES H. ROLI.INS, Columbia: Accept my hearty sympathy in your great bereavement. CARL SCHURZ. NEW YORK, January Ic,. Mrs. JAMES S. ROLLINS, Columbia: Mrs. Lawson, my sons, and myself tender to you our sincere condolence upon the death of your husband, our valued friend and Missouri's most distinguished citizen. L. M. LAWSON Sr. LouIs, Mo., January 9, i88H. I have just received the melancholy intelligence of the death of your distinguished father. Pray convey to the survivors my p-o- found sympathy with them in the loss which this blowv has inflicted upon them. In the death of Major Rollins the State of Missouri has lost ene of its most eminent citizens, and the cause of education its staneh- 15 i 1 3 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. est supporter within our State. The State University is the monu- ment of his earnest and persistent labors for a higher education of the people, and the School of Mines the result of his efforts for the development of the material resources of our State. Who could wish a better record than he has made Sincerely yours, etc., JAMES C. MCGINNIS. Captain JANIES H. ROLLINS. LACLEDE BANK, ST. Louis, January 9, i888. JAMES H. ROLLINS, Columbia, Afo.: I have known your father well for near fifty years, and had great admiration for his ability, integrity, and patriotism. The death of such a citizen at any time is a great public loss, and to his family an irreparable calamity. For myself, whose acquaintance and mutual friendship has existed for half a century, it is a warning that touches my heart, and I trust will not pass unheeded. Very respectfully your friend, JOHN D. PERRY. ST. Louis, January 9. JAMES H. ROLLINS, Columbia: I beg to extend to the family of your distinguished and illustrious father my sincere sympathy. Kindly advise me of the time fixed for the obsequies. D. P. DYER. KANSAS CITY, Mo., January 9, j888. Captain JAMES H. ROLLINS: I received your telegram announcing the death of your father. I greatly deplore his death. In him the State has lost its earliest friend and foremost citizen. In him centered all of those qualities which make a man truly great-a cultivated brain, a generous heart, elevated instincts, elevated actions, and a sympathy that made him equally as much the friend of the widow and the father- less as of him who dressed in " purple and fine linen." Please present my tenderest regards to your devoted mother and to every member of his family. He did his duty to his fellow-men, to his State, to his Government, to the loved University, and to his God. Your friend, Tj;OMAS T. CRITTENDEN. 14 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. I 15 KANSAS CITY, Mo., January io, i818. I was deeply pained to learn of your noble husband's death, and I regret more than I can express that I am so hedged about with work that it is impossible to pay him my final tribute of respect: to- morrow by being present at his funeral. He was my dear father's most trusted and faithful friend during all the years of their acquiin- tance, and both on that account and for his own sake I shall never cease to honor and revere his memory. I rejoice in the conviction that after twenty years of separation they are now together again in the country where there are no more partings. The country has lost one of its men of mark, the State one of her favorite sons, the University its most devoted champion, the com- munity its most eminent citizen. Yours sincerely, GARDINER LATHROI'. Mrs. J. S. ROLLINS. KANSAS CITY, January 10, 1883. Captain JAMES H. ROLLINS: Dear Sir: Your telegram announcing the death of your father was received yesterday, and although prepared by what I Clad learned of his condition to expect, yet I was shocked by the announcement. I cannot yet fully realize that his noble, manly form lies cold and inanimate. Words of consolation are but poor offerings to a family from whom such a husband and father have been taken. In his repL.ta- tion as a public man, and his unsullied character as a private citi2en, borne through a long and active life, they have, however, an in, x- haustible source of consolation and a heritage of infinitely greater value than all the other wealth of earth. I knew him as intimately as one of my age could know one so much my senior, and that acquaintance dates forty years back, And I never knew a man more richly gifted with genius, integrity, and courage. His death is a loss to the nation, and the State of Missouri has in her annals, bright with names of illustrious heroes and statesmen, no greater name than that of James S. Rollins. Sincerely lamenting with his family and the people of Misscuri this great bereavement, I am truly yours, JOIIN WX. IIENRXY. I 16 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. MACON, Mo., January 9, i888. Captain JAMES H. ROLLINS, Co/lumbia, zl/a.: I have just learned with deep regret of the death of your aged father, the Honorable James S. Rollins. A great man passed away, but his life work was done. A pioneer of our great State, his brain and eloquence fashioned much of her most valuable legislation, and very largely contributed in developing her splendid resources and pushing her progress in the grand march of material and mental im- provement. His active life forms an important part of the history of Missouri, and the future historian will cheerfully accord him the high position which his long and successful labors so richly won. The father of the University of the State of Missouri, the leading educational centre of our great commonwealth, the thoughtful people of the State and generations yet unborn will ever honor his name and bless his memory. Sincerely your friend, JOHN F. WILLIAMS. MExico, MissouRi, Jaouary ii, 1888. E. T. ROLLINS, Esq.: Being absent, I did not get your telegram till my return home last night. I had, however, heard the sad intelligence of your father's death. Whilst his great age made it necessary for him to go, still it is a serious and sad occasion to part with one so dear to family and friends. I have known him for over fifty years, and during this long time we were on the kindest terms. He was sincere and ardent in his attachments. He was the most noted and leading benefactor of Boone County, and among the most illustrious states- men of the State. As an orator he had no superior, and but few equals, if any. He had large experience in the service of the State and nation, and he applied it to the enactment of the wisest and most wholesome lawvs. His taste and talents were more especially devoted to the physical and educational development and progress of the State. Years and years of his life were worn in these causes, and the grandest success attended his efforts. The people will not soon forget his noble and patriotic life. I remain, very truly. C. H. iIAkDIN ANALECTA This page in the original text is blank. PREFATORY NOTE. T HE following selections from the speeches and correspondence of Major Rollins have been made for publication, not with respect to their literaty merit nor on account of the same, but as recording not altogether too imperfectly his views and opinions and as outlining not too incompletely the domain of h s public activity. They may also serve to verify in large measure the estimatior s contained in the Biographical Sketch. But no such selection from literary re- mains, even if far more extensive and more justly representative, can adequately evidence or even suggest the range or potence of his influence in determining the history of the State. For Rollins was above all else an hornme d'af/aires-- it was in personal contact with men that his natural gift of leadership asserted itself; it was in the mysterious "art Napoleon, of winning, fettering, molding, wielding, bending " the hearts of his fellow-citizens, that he was supreme. The stern compensation that Nature exacts for such a gift is that the record of i's achievements fades and quickly grows illegible, so that the frequent ascription of them to the wrong person becomes possible and even probable. Especially is her claim enforced with rigor in the case of Rollins, who was wont to do much through Ihe agency of otbers, and who wisely brought it to pass that many of his own measures should first come to light in the hands of his friends. Nevertheless, the sweep and intensity of his activity, as revealed in what fol- lows, are quite sufficient to justify every verdict already rendered. 05 I- LI From Dkeply to Mr. Goode," delivered in jointsession of the Senate ard House of Representatives, Jefferson Cit', Missouri, February 2, 1855 aSir.- I would ask this Assembly what are the claims of David R. Atchison upon the Whig party of Missouri Has he not for twenty-five years proved himself the untiring and unrelenting enemy of that party Is lie not the right-hand man of an administration that has struck down every Whig official in the State Has not the most intolerant proscription character- ized the conduct of that administration in this State and has not its ear been open to the counsels of David R. Atchison, and are not its actions tlie fruit of his promptings What principles, sir, does the Whig party, hold in common with David R. Atchison Did lie not sustain the message of Pres- ident Pierce, vetoing the River and Harbor bill, in which large appropria- tions were made for rivers passing through and bordering upon our State And is he not sustaining an administration which, by the veto of another bill, that for the relief of the indigent insane, lost to the people of Missotiri a grant of land which would have amounted to near 500,oo acres --a munificent donation, intended by the Congressional majority -ho passed it for the most benevolent and charitable of all purposes: the relief of those upon whom the hand of affliction had fallen, whereby the light of reason and religion might again shine into the hearts of many who were now si incumbrance to their friends and to their country. I ask if that administration has not been the steady foe of the intere ts of the West, and more particularly of Missouri Has it not lent its w hole influence to break down the greatest project which will ever be open to tae ambition of this State-I mean the Pacific Railroad on the Central Rou e. It has lent itself to the North and to the South to balk this great enterprise And we find Atchison aiding and abetting that administration, sustaining its action, and indorsing its opinions. Mr. President, is this a time, wvhen ve are planting deep great principles of National and State policy, to root them up by sending David R. Atchison back to the Senate of the United Statei , 16 i JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. His advocates identify him with the protection of one, and only one, institu- tion. Is there only one institution to be protected only one interest to be promoted Even that institution is safer with Doniphan than with Atchi- son. The safety of that institution requires prudent and steady guardian- ship, more than of any other. It should not be intrusted to the hands of any zealot-of any man of extreme views and excitable temperament. We do not want fanatics, North or South, in Congress. Sir, it is manifest that Don- iphan, ifelected,would represent all the interests of Missouri, and not one only. But even on that one, I would ask what are the differences between Doniphan and Atchison The gentleman from St. Louis has spoken of a party in Missouri that designed the abolition of slavery. I know of no such party. I know no member of such a party. The three candidates before the joint session-Atchison, Benton, and D)oniphan-occupy now precisely the same ground upon the Kansas-Nebraska bill. Each has declared against the re- peal of that law, and in favor of admitting Kansas with or without slavery, as the people of that Territory may indicate in their Constitution when they come to form a State government. Why then, sir, I ask, are such accusa- tions made by the gentleman from St. Louis Spargvrt 'ea-e lavazZ/,frs ambiguas. Yes, sir, the object is to scatter suspicions among the people- to keep them in a state of agitation and alarm, in order that reckless demagogues may pluck promotion from their terrors and wring that from their fears whiich would never be given by their love. Mr. President, I was endeavoring to point out the distinction, wide and deep, between David R. Atchison and the Whig party. I dwelt briefly on the stern proscription of the Whig officials by that administration which is guided by Atchison in its action in Missouri. As an incident illustrating the character of that proscription, I shall refer to Thomas Moseley, a high- minded, manly, and impetuous gentleman, well known in the State of Mis- souri, and esteemed wherever he was known, who held the office of an Indian agent; and yet this worthy citizen and high-minded gentleman (the father of my friend, the member from New Madrid) was proscribed because he was a Whig. His only offense was that of being a Whig who was always true to his party and his country. Neither age nor reputation could protect him, and he was guillotined to gratify the thirst for Whig blood and the rav- enous appetite for spoils which burned in the breast of that party of which David R. Atchison is the leader. The gentleman from St. Louis has made professions, loud and long, of his whiggery. He has threatened to expel from our party ranks men who have 122 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. grown gray in the service. He would enforce a rule which would unwl-ig some of the most distinguished of the Whigs in Missouri, and the most dis- tirnguished in the nation, living and dead. What are the claims of this gn- tlematn upon the W'hig party What great services has he rendered What sacrifices has he endured, that he should thus dominate anti play the despot Sir, I have heard it charged upon that gentleman that no later than '52 he voted, not for General Scott, but for Franklin Pierce. I desire to know the fact. Is it true, sir [turning to Mr. Goode] MR. Goont:- It is true, sir. MR. RoLLINS - Good God! what a Whig, to vote for Franklin Pierce, the obscure lawyer hailing from the bleak and barren hills of New Harr.p- shire, in preference to the hero of Chippewa and Lundy's Lane, of Cerro Gordo and Churubusco, vhose tall plume had waved over a hundred other victorious battlefields! What, I ask again, are the claims of this gentleman upon the Whig party of Missouri, or of the nation, that he- should presume to become its adviser or its censor Are those men to be regarded as l Ais who voted for Pierce in 185Z The gentleman confesses that he refused to vote for Scott, a pillar of the Whig cause and a pillar of the State. and clothed as he was with national renown as with a garment! Ah! this gives us the key to the gentlemaa's conduct in this House, and determines the quality of his whiggery. Sir, I have heard of Free-soil Whigs and Southern WVhigs, of Fillmore WVhigs and Clay Whigs; even of Benton Whigs and anti-Benton Whigs, but this is the first time that I ever heard of a Pierce Whig. The gentleman from St. Louis is the only Pierce Whig I have ever seen. A Pierce Whig is such a monstrous production that it ought to be preserved as the strangest curiosity of politi- cal natural history; and if the distinguished Missouri artist-my excellent friend Bingham, whose honest heart I prize and whose brilliant genius I adlmire -were to portray the hideous hybrid on his canvas, I would move to hang it in this hall opposite the picture of Missouri's Senator, not as an incentive to lofty deeds and unwavering fidelity to the party, but as a warn- ing to my youthful friends around me, who, like my friend and colleague pointing to Mr. Guitar], are fired by an honorable ambition and gifted with intellect and eloquence - to teach them the horror of treason, either to their party or their country. There, as in gibbet, would I desire the "counter'eit presentment " of the political malefactor to hang, as a monument of con- duct not to be imitated but spurned and loathed by the youthful statesnen of our party. 1 23 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. A Letter from the Hon. James S. Rollins. COLUMBIA, MISSOURI, February 2, i86i. R. E. DUNN, Esq., Marion County: Dear Sir. In your favor of the 2ist ult. you are pleased to ask my opinions touching the present unhappy condition of the country. WVith you and every other good citizen I deeply deplore the present state of things; and without inquiring especially into the causes which have brought on us our difficulties, I hold that it is the duty of every man to lend what aid he can in devising a remedy which will restore that peace, pros- perity, and good order now so greatly disturbed. I say to you without hesitation that I am in favor of preserving the Union as if is, and this purpose ought not to be abandoned until every remedy is exhausted and there is not a ray of hope left that it may be accomplished. I may overestimate the blessings which the Union has secured to us; but when I consider the proud and elevated position which the United States holds amongst the nations of the earth,-its unparalleled advance- ment in population and wealth, in agriculture, in commerce, in manufac- tures, in education, science and art, in territorial expansion, in military power-and above all when I contemplate that high degree of civil and re- ligious liberty which our people have enjoyed above and beyond that of any other people beneath the sun, and under the xgis of the national Union. it does seem to me that it sould be the extremest act of folly to countenance for one moment the idea of abandoning it. It is said that all government is a necessary evil," and if this be so, it is not a matter of surprise that in a country so extended as ours, embracing such a variety of interests and diversity of institutions, and ssithal so com- plex in form, we should meet at times with questions difficult of solution. But as long as wye have a common Constitution in which our rights are fairly guaranteed, and an enlightened judiciary to expound it, and with the right of appealing at all times to a cultivated and patriotic public sentiment, it occurs to me that it would be far better to seek for the correction of errors and the redress of wrongs through these agencies than to break up this government and launch our vessels again on the broad ocean of doubt and experiment. We may not be able to secure promptly all that we ask or all that we are entitled to, but sooner or later I have confidence that all our rightful demands svill be responded to with a spirit of justice, fraternity, and peace. And if these should fail, we have at last the inherent right of every people, when their grievances become so intolerable as no longer to be borne, to rise in the majesty of our strength, throw off the oppressor's JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. yoke, and establish a government better adapted to our condition and the promotion of our peace and happiness. I hold, however, that no such causes as yet exist with us to justify the res - olution of which I speak. It is an extreme remedy to meet an extreme case, and only to be resorted to when all other efforts have failed to accorr - plish the desired end. But referring more particularly to the causes of complaint which exist i the Southern States, I entertain the opinion that Disunion is not a remedy for any of the evils complained of. So far from it, and I speak especially i- regard to our own State. it occurs to me that Disunion will be an aggrava- tion of all these difficulties. Will the breaking up of (;overnment insure the repeal of the personal-liberty bills of the Northern States What becomes of the fugitive-slave law with a broken Confederacy Have wa any longer any claim whatever on the Northern States to restore bac '; to us our fugitive slaves Whill we not by this act bring to our ver:, doors a Canadian frontier of eight hundred miles, inviting the escape of all the slaves in the State, and without any power whatever to reclaim them Will not Disunion bring upon us the necessity of a standing army to protect this extended frontier, involving us in a heavy and ruinous taxation, and all the dangers of constant collision with the people of Illinois, Iowa, and Kan- sas Iln short, is not Disunion to us at once an act to emancipate all th z slaves of the State and under circumstances to keep up a constant warfar: between the pleople of our own and neighboring free States Will the rights of the South be better secured in the 'Territories out of the Union than ia it As matters now stand, there is not a Territory belonging to the United States to which the slave-owvner has not the right to carry his slaves. In thi Territorv north of the line 360 30' this right is claimed under the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. By an act of Coagress Arizona has been attached to New Mexico; and by an act of the Territorial Legislature of New Mexico slavery is estab- lished there. And these embrace all the territories of the United States save the Indian 'Territory, wvest of Arkansas, held by the Indians under treaty stipulations with the general Government, and even in this Terri- tory I am ixiforined that slavery actually exists. In what respects, then, ar, the rights of the South in the Territories likely to be better guaranteed out of the Union than in it Is it mere apprehension that the present laws will be repealed, and deci- sions overturned, and no other sufficient concessions made But must not every man know and feel that dissolution not only cuts off the South from most of the Territories now owned by us, but most probably, even if the Southern States desire it, puts an effective check on the extension of slaver' for all tinae to come And this is the light in which the extreme Abolition- 1 2 j JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. ists of the Northern States view the question. Not only so, but they look upon Disunion as the death-knell of slavery in the States ! Being no longer upheld and protected by the strong arm of the national Government; with the prejudices of the people of the Northern States arrayed against it, with- out a single obligation left upon them in any way to sustain it, and, besides this, encountering a still sterner opposition than heretofore from all the governments of the world, how else than prejudicially can Disunion operate upon this institution of the Southern States In a speech delivered a few days since at Boston, Mr. Wendell Phillips, the most able and perhaps the most zealous of all the Northern Abolitionists, rejoicing at the prospect of IDisunion, said: " The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice." " The Covenant With Death is an- nulled; the Agreement with Hell is broken to pieces." The chain which has held the slave system since 1787 is parted. Thirty years ago Northern leaders, sixteen years ago Northern Abolitionists announced their purpose to seek the dissolution of the American Union. Who deemed that success would come so soon South Carolina, bankrupt, alone, with thousands more slaves than whites, four blacks to three whites within her border, flings her gauntlet at the feet of twenty-five millions of people in defense of an idea. I would New Eng- land could count one State as fearless among her six. Call it not madness of an engineer who places himself in front of his cannon at the moment of discharge; call it rather the forlorn hope of the mariner seizing a plank or spar in the fury of the storm. The mistake of South Carolina is, she fancies thei e is more chance of saving slavery outside of the Union than inside. Three States have followed her example. Probably the rest of the slave States, or many of them, will find themselves unable to resist the infection, and then the whole merciless conspir- acy of 1787 is ended, and timid men will dare to hate slavery without trembling for bread or life. Disunion is Abolition ! That is all the value Disunion has for me. I care nothing for forms of Government. No foreign State dare touch us, united or dis- united. It matters not to me whether Massachusetts is worth one thousand mil- lions, as now, or two thousand, as she might be if she had no Carolina to feed, protect, and carry the mail for. The music of Disunion to me is, that at its touch the slave breaks into voice, shouting his jubilee. Hear also the language of Lloyd Garrison, another noted Abolitionist: At last the covenant with death is annulled and the agreement with hell broken by the action of South Carolina herself, and ere long by all the slave- holding States, for their doom is one. Hail the approaching jubilee, ye millions who are wearing the galling chains of slavery, for assuredly the day of your re- denmption draws nigh, bringing liberty to you and salvation to the whole land. Justice and liberty, God and man demand the dissolution of this slaveholding Union, and the formation of a Northern confederacy in which slaveholders will stand before the laws as felons and be treated as pirates. i26 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. But again, will a dissolution of the Union change in any respect the opinions and moral sentiments or alter the conduct of the people of the Northern States I think not; and hence I am for standing by the Union as our fathers transmitted it to us, and fig/ding, in it, with all the weapons of argument, persuasion, and truth, and if need be with all other kinds of weapons, for those rights which are fairly guaranteed to us in the common bond of Union, the Constitution of the United States. I am opposed to sectionalism whether it comes from the North or the South. Washington, whilst he advised the children of the Republic to love and stick to the Union, at the same time warned them against the danger of forming parties upon geographical lines. I quote from his farewell al- dress, a document that ought to be placed now in the hands of every voter in the land: In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as a matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations-Northern and Southern, Atlantic arid Western; s;hence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions ard aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourself too much from the jealousies and heart-burnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affections. From what I have said you will readily conclude that I am opposed :o the action of those States which have seceded. I deny that there is any such constitutional right as secession! The framers of that inimitable i:i- strument provided the manner of admitting new States into the Union, blit they were careful not to provide how any State once admitted could get oalt of it, except bi' an iamen/,dnent of the Constitution. And the very object of this omission wvas to give permanency to the Government which they se:-e founding. Surely it was never contemplated by them that any State ulcon its own motion, and for the most trivial cause, could have the power to bre. k up the Government by withdrawing from it. Certainly it was their design to give so,,ne sort of efficienc, to thle natiinal nac/hine. Suppose insurrectic n were to happen, or any of the States be attacked by a foreign foe, can the United States Government be absolved from its constitutional duty to sup- press the one or repel the other And is not the allegiance of every Sta.e in the Union, to the general Government, just as obligatory as is the duty, of the general Government to protect and defend the States These duties and obligations, it occurs to me, are reciprocal, and cannot under the Constitutic n be disregarded by either party. 1,-7 1JAMES SIDNEV ROLLINS. The founders of our Government did not deny the doctrine of the right of revolution for sufficient cause, for the very Government which they were estab- lishing was the result ofa revolution which they themselves had started; and if those who favor secession would call it by its right name, they would be better understood. The question would then be whether there was sufficient or justifiable cause for putting on foot this revolution, and, further, whether those who are engaged in it will be able to maintain it. And to the nations of the world they might appeal for an answer to these questions. I repeat, every man who loves his country is most anxious to see peace restored, and I have an abiding faith that it will be, and our glorious Union made stronger than ever in the hearts and affections of the people. And I view with gratitude and admiration the sublime efforts of those noble patriots all over the land who are lending their aid in the work of pacification. " How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace ' " Although several States have passed ordinances of secession, and others may yet do the same thing, I cannot bring myself to believe that they intend to relinquish for ever their respective positions in the Union! They must intend to come back. They surely will not take the risk which a final separation will involve. And rather than to allow the danger which an appeal to the" 1ulfma ralio regain r must initiate the North will yield and guarantee every Constitutional right which the South ought to demand. This is my hope -this is my faith. The people are attached to the Union; they love it for the great blessings which it secures to them; and they hate Disunion because of the unspeakable horrors, the loss of liberty, the destruction of happiness, the constant war, the prostration of all trade and commerce, the taxation, the bankruptcy and ruin, and the final despotism which it will inevitably entail upon them and their pos- terity' The people love the Union because of the glorious memories con- nected with it, and though demagogues and madmen may shatter it to pieces their hearts will still yearn towards it. You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still. Until every effort to save it is exhausted, how is it possible for an intelli- gent people to give up a Government - a Constitution - like ours, standing out as it does upon the records of humanity as the noblest monument of human wisdom, and next to the miracles wrought by our Saviour when he wandered upon earth Suppose you that the South Carolinians feel no farther interest in the names of Lexington, of Concord, and of Bunker Hill And that in the heart of the Massachusetts man no proud emotions swell at the mention of York- town, and Camden, and Eutaw Springs Why, sir, in this very Congres- 12: JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS.1 sional District whose kind and patriotic voters have honored me as their humble Representative, we have in two counties the names of Warren an I Marion, linked insel)arably together, favored sons of Massachusettsand Souta Carolina, the one first to pour out the wvarm current of his heart in the cause of American liberty upon the field of Bunker Hill, and the other sealing his devotion to the same sacred cause by fighting through our entire RevoI - tionary conflict. It has been well, and I have no doubt truthfully, said that there is to-day many a man in Charleston and in the piney woods of South Carolina sealr- ing the blue cockade upon his hat but the Stars and Stripes in his hear:. The patriotism of the American people is a living thing; and it is not so sectional as to confine itself within the narrow precincts of a single State; it is as broad as the continent, and as deep seated as their love of liberty. and as the very faith within them and upon which they stake their hopes of immortality. In the language of that noble old Kentucky patriot Crittenden, 4 Thu dissolution of this Union would be the greatest shock w hich could be give i to civilization. In it we risk the danger of not only destroying our ouwa happiness and liberty, but sve crush out the sentiment and take away from struggling and almost triumphant humanity in the Old World the onl,' example of free governtnent based upon written constitutions and the wkill and affections of the people. Destroy it, and their hopes sink within them; they will feel that the sun of liberty has gone down, to shine upon them na) more forever! Talk not to me about a reconstruction. If wve cannot up- hold and save the beautiful temple in all its grand and majestic proportiont. it is not probable that we shall be enabled to gather up its broken frag- ments, and replace them again in all their strength and beauty and mnag- nificence." A combination of circumstances -a combination of wonderful men, th a like of whoin the world had never before, and will never probably behold again, were united in that great Revolution out of which was born the Stats and Federal Governments which now compose our glorious Union. Iet us be cautious how we try experiments on this their almost perfect worL. For one, and as an humble citizen of the Republic. I am not prepared to give up the Stars and Stripes, that banner of beauty and glory, the ensign ol' the nation now knowvn and honored throughout the whole earth, and sub- stitute instead some miserable local or Pelican Paltnetto flag. I rather embrace and hold to the significant motto, emblazoned ssith the -coat ot arms a of our own proud commonwvealth, "Unitd d7ae stand, divided we jfal.' All these questions of party advantage should be lost sight oft all que'- tions of public policy, State and national, should yield and be held subor- dinate to the one grand idea of the restoration of peace, fraternity, union 17 1 2,) JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. The time for Missouri to risk her destiny upon the dark sea of revolution has not, and God grant that it may never, come. In this whole secession movement there has been most marked precipitancy. The men engaged in it seemed to shun deliberate action, and were not willing to trust the sett]e- ment of these matters to the people themselves. For just in proportion as men of sense contemplate the effect of Disunion just so will they shrink from it. We hear much talk about the Northern and Southern Confederacy, but no man can conjecture even what will be the state of things which Disunion, actually accomplished, will bring about; for an hundred questions involving a conflict of interest and a diversity of views, and leading almost certainly to civil war, must be settled before the fact of Disunion will be recognized. What about our national debt; who is to pay it What about the free navigation of the Mississippi River-our "inland sea"; who is to control it What about a division of the Territories, the common property of the peo- ple of all the States What about the national capital, and all the public property and archives connected with it, belonging now to us all Who is to own them What about the army of the United States And our navy, wvhose canvas whitens every sea Can these, think you, be amicably divided What about the Washington monument Who 's to complete it, and after comple- tion who 's to own it What about Mount Vernon -the home and resting place of Washington Are any portion of the American people ready to give up their part of this precious inheritance What about the military defenses of the country, our dockyards, forts, and arsenals What about a railroad to the Pacific Is this great work to be abandoned What about the American flag Is it to be given up, dishonored, and disgraced, its stars obscured and its stripes erased What about the other thousand charming and delightful associations con- nected with our country's brief history, which cluster around every patriotic heart, and which will be mainly valuable to us and to our children as incen- tives to nobler efforts in the cause of our country, and of liberty and human- ity Are the people ready to run all these risks, to suppress all these emotions, to sacrifice all that is dear to them on the altar of prejudice and of passion, without a full trial, exhausting every argument which reason and honor and patriotism may furnish towards the settlement of all surrounding difficulties I think I may answer for the people of the State of Missouri, No.' And whenever the question is put to them, asking when they will favor a dissolution of the Union, if they do not respond in the language of 130 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. the great patriot of Ashland, "N Xever, never, never," they will at least say, not until every effort at compromise which the wisest heads and hearts of her most patriotic statesmen can devise is finally given up. They wrill answer that for the sake of peace they will yield much; but if questions come whiich extort the arbitrament of the sword we will fight it out in that Union which our fathers gave us- this priceless jewel we will never willingly give up. and, if sink we must, we shall be proud to go down with a cause which embraces all the hopes of progress, of civilization, and human liberty. At the same time I speak so warmly for the Union and its preservation allow me to say, now that the " fight is up," the people should be conteat with nothing less than such a settlement of all pending questions of difficulty between the North and the South as will hush forever this eternal sectional strife and sectional wrangling. For if this be not done it will be but a short time before we shall hear again of secession, revolution, disunion! The Crit- tenden proposition - the Border State Compromise - the plan proposed n the report of the Committee of Thirty-three - any of these will do as a basis of settletnent; and if all these are likely to fail, let us urge the course sug- gested by the Legislature of "' Old Kentucky," the birthplace of many of us, to call a Convention of all the States and endeavor to have the Federal Constitution satisfactorily amended, and in the mode provided for in the i:n- strunment itself. But let us not in Missouri stake our all upon any ultimiatuon of our own before first consulting with other States similarly situated. I have great hope of the action of the Convention suggested by Virginia, and which assembles on the 4th inst. Above all let the border States stick together until all hope of adjustment has failed; for their interests are iden- tical, or nearly so, and they must share a common destiny. In the meantime the States which have passed ordinances of secession wdil have time for serious reflection, and they will have experienced, too, in somle small degree, some of the evils of separation, and I have every hope that the y will return and embrace any compromise that may be agreed upon by the border slave States. The occasion calls for deliberation - it is not a seascn for fiery invective and denunciation; let us pursue the one and avoid the other. I hear the question frequently asked, Are you in favor of coercion I answer promptly that I an, not at present, for the very attempt at coercicn destroys at once all hope of a peaceful settlement of the questions. I would oppose the sending of armed men into any of the seceding States ozoe' for the purpose of forcing them back into the Union, or of compelling subjec- tion. And wvhilst I do not favor coercion on the part of the general Go';- ernment now, I am just as far from favoring the coercion of the general Government by South Carolina' We all know that too much of this thing has been practised already by that State, and if persisted in it may beconr c I , I 132 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. in self-defense the duty of the general Government to protect its property, its soldiery, and its flag without regard to consequences. I am, neverthe- less, in favor of the " Union, the Constitution, and the enforcement of the laws." I have been too recent and too earnest an advocate of this excellent platform to abandon now either of its planks. I stand upon them all; and wvhilst compromise fair and honorable, preservation and not " ruin first and reconstruction afterwards "should be the watchwords, as they were with the fathers of the Republic in framing the Government, and have been time and again since, and whilst in times like these when there is such a conflict of passion and of interest and opinion, it is the duty of patriotic men to vield their opinions on questions of mere public policy, and their abstract ideas of right for the good of our common country-there are some matters in my view which no man can yield, the integrity of the Goavernment itself, its existence, its pernianenlzy. These are questions that can only be yielded at the close of peace- ful separation or a successful revolution ! Until one of these things occurs the Constitution must be obeyed, and the laws passed in pursuance of it must be enforced North and South, not at the point of the bayonet, or with the sword, but by those civil processes to which we are all accustomed in the execution of those laws to which we all appeal to enforce our rights and remedy our wrongs. To act upon any other theory ssould be at once de- structive of all government, and turn us over to the wild fury of a lawless mob. Anarchy would usurp the throne where the law should reign, and there would be no security for life, liberty, or property save in the strongest arm. If civil officers cannot be found to execute the laws as they are, in some of the States, then the laws must remain, of necessity, a " dead letter " until repealed, or until reason assumes its wonted sway over the public mind. But with you I pray for a return of peace, for the restoration of kind feeling, for the salvation of the Union; and when the storm which now rages with so much fury shall have passed by, I trust we may all gaze upon a brighter sun and clearer sky, and that we shall see the "old ship" with her priceless cargo and her happy crew gliding over a smooth and tranquil sea -with every sail unfurled, and floating from her mast-head that same bright and beautiful banner, inscribed with the motto as it kisses each pass- ing breeze: The U'niteu States of America - One U-nion -One Constitution - One Destin! .rMost faithfully your friend, JAS. S. ROLLINS. Onie Union-Onie Constitutionz-O te Destinys. Speech on the Re1elli'7n deliveredl in the House of Reprcsentatives, April 24, l S62. Mr. Chairman, I feel deeply indebted to the gentleman from Vermcnt (Mr. Morrill) for his generous courtesy in submitting the motion to go into Committee of the Whole at this time, in order to enable me to speak upon the subject of our present national troubles. I propose to make an old- fashioned, patriotic speech, and, whilst not intended as an answer, it sAill follow appropriately, I trust, the very remarkable and vindictive speech to which we have been compelled to-day to listen from the gentleman from Illinois (MNr. Lovejoy). In the brief hour allowed to me by the rules of tie House I shall not attempt, to any extent, the discussion of those great con- stitutional questions which have grown out of the present rebellion. I shall content myself by stating frankly the impressions made upon my oun mind, and the opinions formed by the changed circumstances which srr- round us, and with such appropriate allusion to the causes of our great troubles, and the remedy for them, as the occasion seems to suggest. Perhaps in all history no more melancholy spectacle was ever presented to the gaze of men than that which we have looked upon in this country during the last twvelve months. A great nation hitherto blessed beyond any other people of ancient or modern times, with a Constitution and form of government at once the wonder and admiration of mankind, wvithout a public debt and almost free from taxation, enjoying a degree of civil ar d religious liberty never attained by any other nation, having the benefits of moral and intellectual culture diffused among all the masses of the peol)le, great in all the elements of national power, in the supposed iii- telligence, virtue, and patriotism of the people, in commerce, in manufa:- tures, in agriculture, in art, literature, and science, and bidding fair to rival the proudest nation of all the earth. our armies invincible at home, our navies riding upon every sea-such, Mr. Chairman, is a fairpresentation cf the condition of our country one short year ago. But how changed tl e scene ! In the place of peace, prosperity, and happiness we find ourselves engaged in civil strife; the hostile tread of armed men is heard on evety side; the nation is convulsed from center to circumference with great and warlike preparations; the clash of arms is heard throughout the land, and blood is made to flow on a hundred battle-fields, and our national exis- tence is threatened vith overthrow. It is a fearful question: Who and what 13e JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. have caused this sudden and unexpected change Where were our wise men and prudent legislators, that whatever causes of discontent existed might not have been removed Upon the administration of James Buchanan and the Thirty-sixth Congress rests the fearful responsibility of permitting the present fearful state of things to exist; and in all time to came the closing days of his administration, and the action of that Con- gress will be regarded as the darkest period in American history. Mr. Chairman, I belong to that class of men who believe that it is far better to settle all questions of national difficulty by an appeal to reason and to the ballot-box rather than by the arbitrament of arms; and I am sincere in the reflection that, considering the boasted civilization of the American people, the present civil war must be regarded in all time to come as a scandal and disgrace to the age in which we live; and the authors of it, when the passions of the present hour shall have subsided, in the judgment of posterity will be considered as the evil spirits of this generation, and the worst foes to free institutions and the cause of well regulated liberty among nien. This rebellion is one of the legitimate fruits of the excesses to which party spirit has been carried in this country, and of the continued and fierce agitation of the (luestion of African slavery; the loss of political power fur- nishing a motive to ambitious men to put it on foot, and the slavery ques- tion being the moving power by which they hoped to excite and enlist the sympathies and the services of the great body of the Southern people. The national Government having fallen into the hands of a weak and vacillating President, his Cabinet composed in part of the conspirators themselves,- bold, reckless, and unscrupulous, using their ill-gotten power to encourage the purposes of disloyalty and precipitate national disaster, whilst the people were shocked and amazed and yet incredulous as to the wicked objects which these men had in view,-the rebellion at the outset met with a degree of success and encouragement, causing thousands of good men to doubt the ability of the Government to check its progress and to overthrow those who had taken up arms against it. Never did a free people enter more reluc- tantly into an unwilling contest than did the loyal people of the United States with the disunionists of the South, who "forced this war upon the country." It was not until State after State had broken its plighted faith and violated all the obligations of the Federal Constitution in passing ordi- nances of secession, not until the Federal Treasury had been robbed, our arsenals and armories despoiled of their arms, our ships sent to distant seas, armies raised to resist the authority of the general Government, peaceful vessels fired into, and a weak and beleaguered garrison compelled to sur- render that the national Government took the first step to exert its author- ity and to maintain the supremacy of the laws and the Federal Constitu- 134 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. tion. Never in the history of the world was so much forbearance displayip+ by a great government towards those in rebellion against it, and who were- plotting its overthrow. The purpose from the beginning wvas to break up the Government. Fur more than a quarter of a century a great party, founded upon the most pernicious theories, and denying the most obvious and direct teachings af the Federal Constitution, as found in the letter as well as in the spirit of that instrument and its contemporaneous exposition by the authorized de- partments of the Government, as well as by the great minds of the nation most competent to expound it, have been seeking pretexts to divide and dismember the Confederacy. Checked in their purposes of disloyalty by that man of iron will, Andrew Jackson, in 1832, and relieved from the dan- gerous predicament in wvhich they found themselves placed at that time lty the generous and liberal statesmanship of Henry Clay, they have lost no op- portunity since to sow the seed of discord and encourage and foment a spirit of disloyalty and opposition to the authority of the Federal Govern- ment. Starting out originally in their crusade upon the tariff question, they readily relinquished it for one of a more excitable character, and in regard to which the " Southern heart could be more easily fired." Receiving all the aid which they desired from another class of men, little less dangerots and no better than themselves, and equally intent upon mischief,- men wtho act upon the motto of "no nation with slaveholders," and who have inscribed upon their banner that the Constitution of the United States is a "e-ovenan,.1 with eteath and an a'reemnent witl hell;" -who have done all in their poxe r to obstruct and to prevent the execution of the Federal laws in the Northern States; swho have inspired a spirit of hatred among their owen people against the South and Southern institutions; who prefer to see the Uinion broken if slavery be not abolished,-it is not to be wondered at that th- leaders of this rebellion, representing the opinions of these " fanatical men " as the voice of the Northern people, and urging upon them the false ides that it was the purpose to interfere with and destroy one of their institutions in the Southern States svithout regard to the guarantees thrown around it ill the Federal Constitution, have thus far succeeded in enlisting beneath their banner so many well-meaning but deluded followers. Instead of seeking redress by the mode pointed out in the Constitution itself for alty griev- ances of which they had a right to complain, by asking an amendment of that instrument, they seized upon the election of Abraham Lincoln as Pres- ident, although fair and according to all the fornms of law, by a majority of the freemen of the nation, to carry into effect their absurd and unpatriotic purposes. Even before he was inaugurated, before any step had been taken by him calculated to produce alarm or to indicate that he intended irn any way to interfere with the legal and constitutional rights of Southern men, 13 5 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. and in the face of the resolution constituting a part of the platform of the party that elected him, this rebellion is set on foot, and before the 4th day of March, t86r, seven out of fifteen Southern States have passed ordinances of secession, and erected another government within the boundaries of the Republic. Mr. Chairman, I denounce this as a most causeless and reckless rebellion. I have regarded it as such from the beginning, and as involving a greater degree of error and evil than any other attempted revolution in the world's history. I do not pretend to deny that there were causes of irritation and discontent; that a large portion of the Northern people had acted in bad faith in not accepting and carrying out in good faith the true spirit and purposes of the Federal Constitution in regard to the rendition of fugitive slaves. But these things furnished no justification to these ambitious men for starting a rebellion like this. And especially was it a most wicked and unjustifiable step on the part of South Carolina and the other extreme Southern States by which she was encouraged, all of whose citizens had not suffered as much in any disturbance of their rights of property as the citi- zens of one single county of the district that I have the honor to represent on this floor. Mr. Chairman, I have said that these grievances ought to have been settled ; our bleeding country feels the truth of this remark to-day. In a spirit of fraternity and union, and under the same noble and elevated senti- ments of patriotism that guided and controlled the fathers of the Republic in the formation of the Federal Constitution, they would have been settled. Surely, sir, there is not a man holding a seat here, or in the nation, and who is governed by the noble instincts of patriotism and humanity, who would not to-day have preferred the adoption of the compromise offered by my venerable friend who sits before me [Mr. Crittenden], or that offered by the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Kellogg], or, indeed, either of the compro- mises offered in the Thirty-sixth Congress, to the present lamentable state of things by which we findd ourselves surrounded. I hear men frequently denounce all compromise; but, sir, what is government itself but a com- promise of conflicting opinions How would our ow n matchless form of government ever have been instituted except by conciliation and compro- mise How would the little State of Rhode Island, so ably and so honor- ably represented here, exert the same influence at the other end of the cap- itol in the legislation of the country as the great State of New York, except for the spirit of compromise and concession which controlled and guided the framers of the Federal Constitution If such men as George Washing- ton and John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, could meet in council together in devising and framing a system of government for them- selves and their posterity, in comparing and yielding their preconceived in- 136 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. dividual sentiments in order to form a Constitution adapted to the wan:s and necessities and varied and discordant interests and dissimilar institu- tions of the then thirteen colonies, there is no reason why the men of this generation, who have profited so much by the labors and sacrifices of these great and good men, should not follow their example, and, in a spirit cf peace and conciliation, make to each other such concessions as are d- manded by the growth, the practical necessities, and the more enlarged and varied interests of the entire country. In all this there would have been no sacrifice either of truth or principle. And but for this yielding of precor - ceived notions we might not, and should not, have been blessed with the noble form of government under which we live, and which has been and ca a be preserved in all future time only by listening to the admonitions and fol- lowing the wise example of those who framed it. We have heard muc' about clinging to an idea. The gentleman from Maine (Mr. Fessenden] tells us that he honors the men of " an idea to which they cling with the! tenacity of death ' Sir, the men of the American Revolution were pre- eminently men of ideas; but they thought that it was not best to cling with such tenacity to a " single idea " as to endanger the great purpose which they had in view-the founding on this continent of a Government dedi- cated to the principles of civil and religious liberty. If the doctrine of which we now hear so much, " no Union with slave- holders," no Union without emancipation, had been proclaimed and ad- hered to in the convention that framed the Constitution, we all know that the government under which we live would never have been established. An attempt on the part of the general Government to enforce the same thing nowv will be equally fatal to the cause of the Union. It is the prov. ince of wisdom to deal with things as we find them. There is no practical statesmanship in clinging to is an idea," and thereby endangering the very existence of the Government. Men who cling with such tenacity to is ar. idea" may mean well, bult they cannot be safe counsellors in times like these, when all that we hold dear is so deeply imperiled. Such men are well described in the following extract which I recently met with in an interesting book, and which I cordially commend to the gentleman from Maine, and also to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Lovejoy], and to those who act with them: Among the objects of interest very often, if not always, to be found at the foot of dams and cataracts, are what are called " pot-holes." They are round holes worn in the solid rock by a single stone kept in motion by the water. Some of them are very large and others are small. When the stream becomes dry there they are, smooth as if turned out by machinery, and the hard round pebbles at the bottom by which the curious work was done. Every year, as the dry season comes along, we find that the holes have grown larger and the pebbles smaller, 137 138 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. and that no freshet has been found powerful enough to dislodge the pebbles and release the rock from its attrition. Now, if a man will turn from the contemplation of one of these " pot-holes," and the means by which it is made, and seek for that result and that process in the world of mind which most resemble them, I am sure that he will find them in a man of one " idea." In truth, these scenes that I have been painting were all recalled to me by looking upon one of these men, studying his character, and watching the effect of the " single idea " by which he was actuated. " There," said I involuntarily, " is a moral pot-hole with a pebble in it, and the hole grows larger and the pebble smaller every year." I suppose it is useless to undertake to reform men of " one idea." The real trouble is that the pebble is in them, and whole freshets of truth are poured upon them only with the effect to make it more lively in its grinding, and more certain in its process of wearing out itself and them. The little man who, when ordered by his physician to take a quart of medicine, informed him with a deprecatory whimper that he did not hold but a pint, illustrates the capacity of many of those who are subjects of a " single idea." They do not hold but one, and it would be useless to prescribe a larger number. In a country like ours, in which everything is new and everybody is free, there are multitudes of self-constituted doctors, each of whom has a nostrum for curing all physical and moral disorders and diseases- a patent process by which humanity may achieve its proudest pro- gress and its everlasting happiness. The country is full of hobby-riders, booted and spurred, who imagine they are leading a grand race to a golden goal, for- getful of the truth that their steeds are tethered to a single idea, around which they are revolving only to tread down the grass and wind themselves up, where they may stand at last amid the world's ridicule and be stoned to death. Mr. Chairman, I have been taught to believe that the true theory of our Government is that " the Federal Constitution and the laws passed in pur- suance thereof" are the " supreme law of the land." Any other view would produce an endless conflict, and it is the opposite doctrine of those who attempt to exalt the States above the general Government, and the pressing of this doctrine to an extreme length, that have been largely instru- mental in bringing about the present disastrous state of things. Our first and paramount allegiance is due to the general Government. In his great speech on the compromise measures of 1850 Henry Clay used the follow- ing language: If any one State, or any one portion of the people of any State, choose to place themselves in array against thc Government of the Union, J am for trying the strength of this Government. I am for ascertaining whether we have a Govern- ment or not, practicable, efficient, capable of maintaining its authority and up- holding the powers and interests which belong to a Government. Nor, sir, am I to be alarmed or dissuaded from any such course by intimations of the spilling of blood. If blood is to be spilt, by whose fault is it to be spilt Upon the sup- position I maintained, it will be the fault of those who choose to raise the stand- JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. ard of Disunion and endeavor to prostrate the Government. And, sir, when that is done, so long as it pleases God to give me a voice to express my senti- ments, or an arm, weak and enfeebled as it may be by age, that voice and tha.t arm will be on the side of my country, for the support of the general authority, and for the maintenance of the powers of the Union. If Kentucky to-morrow unfurls the banner of resistance, I never will figf.t under that banner; I owe a paramount allegiance to the whole Union -a sub- ordinate one to my own State.- HENRY CLAY, in the .Senale, t85o. I stand upon this doctrine to-day. It expresses the true theory of our Government. And when Missouri, or any other State, shall raise the stanc- ard of rebellion, I shall feel that my primary allegiance is due to the general Government. And if in a conflict of this kind the nation is involved in war, as it now is, and blood be shed, let the responsibility rest where it pror- erly belongs, on those who have commenced the contest in striking the fin t blow and firing the first gun. And if disaster and ruin shall follow the in- terests and institutions of those who have thus involved the nation in a:t unfortunate and bloody contest to maintain its own existence, I have con- fidence in the courage and integrity of the masses to believe they wil., in due season, visit upon the heads of the authors of those troubles that punishment they so justly merit. Acquiescence in the election of Mr. Lin- coln, which was the patriotic duty of every citizen of the Republic, would have saved us all the fearful struggle and all the sacrifices which we have been compelled, individually and as a nation, to make. If he had erred is his administrative duties the party in power, on appeal to the intelligence and patriotism of the people, would only have had a brief existence of four years. That no great harm could have befallen any particular interest is knowo by the fact that every other department of the Government stood politically opposed to him, and with a majority in each House of Congress. But th- " fiat " had gone forth. Demagogues and " fire-eaters " had partially pre- pared the public mind, and they were ready to enter upon their bloody ex- periment. And what was the Govemment to do Must it yield to th! demand of these maddened leaders Must the nation's life be sacrificed, and without an effort to preserve it Shall our nationality be destroyed, and the Government of the United States struck from the map of the nations of the earth Shall we be placed in the condition of a second-rate power Shall we give up the prestige and glory of our great name Shall we be unmindful of the hallowed memories of the past, and our great obligations to the future Sir, men might as well have looked for the great luminary of (lay to be struck from the heavens without a convulsion in the material world, or the 13 ) JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. cross of our Saviour to be darkened and obscured without a pang to the heart of Christianity, as to have seen this great nation, now known and hon- ored throughout all the earth, to die without a struggle more terrible than any which the world has witnessed since the " morning stars sang together." There was but one course for the President of the United States to pursue - to meet the obligations of his oath, "s to take care that the laws were faithfully executed," and to the best of his ability " preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States "; and in the discharge of these high and imperative duties he was entitled to the sympathy and support of every loyal and patriotic citizen of the Republic. No partisan zeal, no past or present difference of opinion on mere political topics, no hostility to sup- posed extreme theories held by the party in power, no sickly or morbid sympathy with those who were aiming a fatal stab at the nation's heart ought to have prevented us from coming to the rescue and saving the life of the Republic. Sir, it is idle to say that in meeting this great crisis the President has vio- lated the Constitution of his country. It may be that in some instances doubtful powers may have been exercised and the Constitution not strictly observed. But who caused these things And with what bad grace does an objection of this kind come from the lips of those who, disregarding all the precepts of our beloved Washington as contained in his farewell ad- dress, and the teachings of the great and good men of all parties throughout the history of the Republic, with sacrilegious hands have torn in shreds th/c very charter of our liberties/!-who put in peril the existence of the nation, and by their act threatened to turn back the tide of civilization and of moral and intellectual progress upon the continent How can these men who have attempted to tear up the tree of liberty, root and branch, com- plain of those who, in order to preserve it, have only plucked a twig here and there from its ample boughs Sir, the choice was either to surrender unconditionally to rebellion and thus permit the nation to die, or to resist it with all the power that the Constitution had lodged in the hands of the President in order to " defend, preserve, and protect it " I And, sir, what- ever may be the judgment of the present hour, the gratitude of the nation and of mankind will be due to those who may save the Republic from over- throw. Lovers of peace, looking with dread and horror upon the fratricidal con- flict which now pierces their hearts with agony, were willing to let the seceded States go in the vain hope that this might have prevented the shedding of blood, and under the influence of the " sober second thought" they might have returned. Vain delusion! There couhl be no such thing as peaceable secession. Listen to that man of great renown, the favorite son of New Eng/ana, but whose fame has added to his country's glory: 140 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Peaceable secession ! Peaceable secession ! Sir, your eyes and mine are not destined to see that miracle ! The dismemberment of this vast country without convulsion ! The breaking up of the great fountains of the deep without rippling the surface! More than twenty-three hundred years ego, in one of the Republics of the Old World, the impolicy of secession was clearly shown. That distinguished Athenian general, statesman, and orator, Pericles, in one of his speech s touching the revolt of Eubcea and Megara, two Grecian provinces, used the following remarkable language, so singularly applicable to the present conI- dition of things in our country: "N Lo great government can be respeced s f fragment after fragment may be detached fromn it with inpunity; if traito-s are permitted to delude and discompose the contented and to seduce the ignorait from their allegiance; if lvyally is a weakness, sedition a duty, conspiracy wif- dorn, and rebellion heroism !/ The very idea of division brings to mind at once a thousand causes that would lead to strife and war. One great inducement with those who formed the American Union was to prevent forever those intestine feuds and ever present dangers Xwhich would spring up between independent States. Que i- tions of boundary, of revenues, of large standing armies, of commerce on the sea and on the land, of the free navigation of our great rivers-these and all other questions which from the beginning of time have been the foundation of national disputes and endless wars among the nations of the earth would have existed in full force here. It is far better, if fight we must, to preserve the grandeur and glory of the nation than by separation to lay the foundation of perpetual strife with our posterity throughout all coming time. Never, Mr. Chairman, in the history of the nation was there a time when we so much needed prudent and wise counsellors as at the present hou:-. While our armies are advancing with success, and victory is shouted fror every battle-field, a single false step taken here may convert all into " Dead Sea fruit." Discarding all Utopian dogmas, let us look steadily and only to the maintenance of the authority of the general Government and the pre- servation of the Federal Union. Let all the ends thou aimest at be thy country's. Let not the people be deceived and deluded in regard to the objects o: this war. Let us stand firmly by the resolution passed with such great unanimity at the extra session in July last, That this war is not waged on our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for an, purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interferin with the rights and established institutions of those States, but to defend and 1 4 1 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired, and that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease. In most of what I have seen coming from the pen of the President of the United States since his inauguration -in his messages to Congress, in his instructions to our ministers abroad, and in the general influence and ten- dency of his administration as so eloquently and ably shown by the gentle- man from Indiana [Mr. Voorhees] a few days since-I am cheered with the belief that he fully sanctions all that is contained in the foregoing resolu- tion. In regard to the resolution which passed this House a few days since, and which accompanied the special message of the President, while I thought its introduction ill-timed, there were, nevertheless, great principles recognized in it which I cheerfully indorse: r. That Congress has no constitutional power to interfere with the insti- tution of slavery in any State where it exists. 2. That to the States themselves belongs the exclusive control of the insti- tution of slavery within their respective borders. 3. That if at any time the people of any State should choose to adopt a system of gradual emancipation, the general Government ought to extend pecuniary aid to compensate the owners of slaves for any losses which they might sustain growing out of the change of system. I repeat that the principle of this resolution is right; the time of its intro- duction was unfortunate, and especially the indecent haste in which it was hurried through without giving the Representatives from those States most deeply interested an opportunity even of consulting upon the subject. For one, I do not doubt the patriotic intentions of the President in sending here this message and resolution. I believe that his object was to check the progress of radical measures. The people watch with great anxiety the course of the Administration; and in order that the purposes of the Presi- dent may be distinctly known, I shall take the liberty of re-quoting here some passages from his messages and also from instructions given by him to our ministers abroad. In his inaugural address the President used the following language: Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that " I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists.' I believe I have no lawful right to do so; and I have no inclination to do so. 142 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. And, more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and aE a law to themselves and me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I nov read: Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and espe- cially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and see denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes. I now reiterate these sentiments; and in doing so 1 only press upon the pubLic attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible, that t le property, peace, and security of no section are to be in anywise endangered by the now incoming Administration. I add, too, that all the protection which consistently with the Constitution and the laws can be given will be cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully de- manded for whatever cause, as cheerfully to one section as to another. I hold that in the contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual. It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void; and that acts of violence within any State or States against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances. I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws the Union is unbroken. In the message the President laid before Congress at the special session in July last he referred back to these just and pointed declarations, ard applied them expressly to the condition of the rebel States after the rebellion should be suppressed. With most wise and fortunate anticipation he then said: Lest there be some uneasiness in the minds of candid men as to what is to le the course of the Government towards the Southern States after the rebellion shall have been suppressed, the Executive deems it proper to say it evill be his purpose then, as ever, to be guided by the Constitution and the laws; and thit he will probably have no different understanding of the powers and duties of the Federal Government relatively to the rights of the States and the people under the Constitution than that expressed in the inaugural address. This is full and explicit. It is unmistakable. It leaves no room for doult. In strict conformity to this view, Mr. Seward, in his letter of instructions in April last to Mr. Dayton, our minister at Paris, said: I need not further elaborate the proposition that the revolution is without a cause ; it has not even a pretext. 14.3 '44 JANIES SIDNEY ROLLINS. It is just as clear that it is without an object. Moral and physical causes have determined inflexibly the character of each one of the Territories over which the dispute has risen, and both parties after the election harmoniously agreed on all the Federal laws required for their organization. The Territories will remain in all respects the same whether the revolution shall succeed or shall fail. The condition of slavery in the several States will remain just the same whether it suc- ceed or fail. There is not even a pretext for the complaint that the disaffected States are to be conquered by the United States if the revolution fail; for the rights of the States and the condition of every human being in them will remain subject to exactly the same laws and forms of administration whether the revolution shall succeed or fail. In the one case the States would be federally connected with the new confederacy; in the other they would, as now, be members of the United States; but their constitutions and laws, customs, habits, and institutions in either case will remain the same. It is hardly necessary to add to this incontestable statement the further fact that the new President, as well as the citizens through whose suffrages he has come into the administration, has always repudiated all designs whatever and whenever imputed to him and them of disturbing the system of slavery as it is existing under the Constitution and laws. The case, however, would not be fully presented if I were to omit to say that any such effort on his part would be un- constitutional; and all his actions in that direction would be prevented by the judicial authority even though they were assented to by Congress and the people. Of the same tenor are Mr. Seward's instructions on this point to our minister at London in the same month of the same year. I make the fol- lowing pregnant extracts from this elaborate paper: The movement, therefore, in the opinion of the President, tends directly to anarchy in the seceding States, as similar movements in similar circumstances have already resulted in Spanish America, and especially in Mexico. He be- lieves, nevertheless, that the citizens of those States as well as the citizens of the other States are too intelligent, considerate, and wise to follow the leaders to that disastrous end. For these reasons he would not be disposed to reject a cardinal dogma of theirs, namely, that the Federal Government could not reduce the seceding States to obedience by conquest, even although he were disposed to question that proposition. But in fact the President willingly accepts it as true. Only an imperial or despotic government could subjugate thoroughly disaffected and insurrectionary members of the State. This federal republican system of ours is, of all forms of government, the very one which is most unfitted for such a labor. Happily, however, this is only an imaginary defect. The system has within itself adequate, peaceful, conservative, and recuperative forces. You will indulge in no expressions of harshness or disrespect, or even impa- tience concerning the seceded States, their agents, or their people; but you will on the contrary all the while remember that those States are now as they always heretofore have been, and notwithstanding their temporary self-delusion they JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. must always continue to be, equal and honored members of this Federal Union, and that their citizens throughout all political misunderstandings and alienations still are, and always must be, our kindred and countrymen. These views are sound, and must be indorsed by every just-thinking man. Surrounded as he is by the greatest difficulties, and with responsibilities rest- ing upon him that no other President ever had, it is right for me to express the conviction that from all I have seen of him and heard from him, Abraham Lincoln is governed by a sincere and patriotic desire to save the Constitu- tion AS IT IS, and to prevent the overthrow of the Government. To him thet people look, and in their behalf I make the appeal, not only to him, but to that large, controlling, and conservative element in the Republican party which elected him, to stand by their country and to prevent those excesses in legislation which must not only tend to prolong the war and enlarge the proportions of this already overgrown rebellion, but to lay the foundatior eternal and enduring of the most relentless and bitter hatred betwixt the two sections of the country. Acting upon the theory that the Federal Union remains unbroken, that all ordinances passed for this purpose are unconstitutional, and therefore null and void, that the authority of the Government is only for the time being suspended in those States that have seceded, and that all laws passed by Congress will, in the end, be observed and executed in those States, we at once perceive that, with the accumulated debt of the rebellion in the Southern States superadded to their full proportion of the taxes which must be levied to pay the expenses of the war and to sustain the public credit, their burdens for years to come must be very oppressive, far more so than those of the people of the loyal States. How far and in what form either the principles of justice or of necessity shall require these people to be subjected to sttll further exactions become questions of the gravest importance, requiring the forecast and sound judg- ment ofthe nost experienced statesmanship. Shall they be required, in com- mon parlance, to " foot the bill," and to pay all the expenses occasioned by this wicked revolt Will you pass laws confiscating the property of all those who have taken up arms against the Government and who have in atly way given " aid and comfort " to the rebellion Will you pass acts emancipa- ting the slaves in the Southern States Will you even go so far as to pass laws emancipating the slaves of those who have been actively engaged in the rebellion Will you blot out State lines, as has been proposed in the other end of the Capitol, and convert the whole Southern country into territorial dependencies to be controlled and governed by officers appointed by the general Government Mr. Chairman, upon the answer to these solemn questions hangs yet the destinv of the nation. If it be affirmative, then the Government is lost, and 19 I4J JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. the sun of liberty will go down upon this continent in a sea of blood! Per- haps, sir, I owe as little to secession as any other member on this floor. The sanctity of my hearthstone has been violated and my rights trampled under foot by these lawless men. But rising abo e all questions of personal feeling and party animosity, and looking alone to the safety of my country and the welfare of the ishole people, I am at present opposed to any and all of these extreme measures. They cannot be adopted without doing the greatest in- justice to thousands of faithful Union men to be found in every Southern State, and who, with grateful hearts, will gladly welcome the old flag, that bright i' banner of beauty and of glory," and dedicate their lives to its defense whenever they may dare to do so. Our first and highest duty is to suppress the rebellion, and whatever legislation may be necessary within our constitutional power to do this, let it he had. Further than this it is needless, nay, it is dangerous, to go nsow. Let us await the " tide of events," take counsel of our respective constituencies, ponder upon the " sober second thought," and in the future, with that experi- ence which the changed circumstances of the country will bring to us, we shall be the better able to devise a system of laws that will do injustice to no one, tend to reunite the people of the whole Union, soften the asperities of the present hour, and bring about once more that kind and fraternal feel- ing the loss of which is so much to be deplored by every Christian heart. To the extent that the laws of the country have been violated, let the guilty leaders be punished; theymustnotescape; butextend tothe masses who have been deluded and misled pardon and amnesty upon the condition that they will return to their loyalty and " sin no more," remembering always that the law inflicts its punishment upon the guilty citizen not so much to reform the offender as to prevent a repetition of the crime. Let it not be said, Mr. Chairman, that the policy which I indicate is too gentle in times of disaster and revolution like these. We must look to the effect which any system of laws that we may enact will have upon the country. My motto is, " Save the nation at any cost "; but believing as I do that the Constitution affords us the amplest power to do this, I am utterly opposed to its violation. Let it not be said, either, that I am governed by any pur- pose to shield and protect any interest which comes in contact with the safety of/he Republic and the integrity of the Union. In regard to African slavery, I value far higher the permanency of the Government and the pres- ervation of the Constitution -for these are essential to our own liberties -than I do any question connected with the freedom or slavery of this inferior race of men. I desire to preserve the Government as it is, and to do this I am for using all necessary powers granted in the Constitution, execu- tive, legislative, and judicial. But, sir, I do not wish to see the public mind agitated and the nation's life still further endangered not only by the pressure 146 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. upon us of unconstitutional, but of idle humanitanatn theories and abstrac' opinions. And least of all, if the nation must die, let there not be writter. upon its tomb the epitaph, " Here lies a great people, who, in their efforts to give freedom to the African slave on this continent, lost their owat liberties !" Mr. Chairman, I can hardly presume that we shall ever have again in this country, or at least for many years to come, the same pleasant and agreeable condition of things which existed before the commencement of this wicked rebellion. This war, however, cannot last always. It must terminate and, I sincerely trust, before a great while. It is a question of the greatest mag. nitude, and especially in those States where the rebellion exists, how matters are to be adjusted so as to produce the least possible sacrifice of the business interests of the country and the least alienation among the great masses of the people. Unless this be our object, a state of peace mtray be ma.le more terrible even than a state of war. In a short time we hope under the lead of her dis- tinguished son that Tennessee, thrust out of the Union temporarily against the wishes of a large majority of her people, will return to assume her vacant seats in this hall. And how are her representatives to be met upon their entrance into this body Will it be as men coming from a coequal State with all its " rights and dignity unimpaired " Shall we meet them at the threshold with manifestations of joy Shall the " fatted calf be killed " Or are they to be told that they have returned too late;, that Tennessee is no longer a State of the American Union; that we have, under the "' war powver," blotted out its existence and converted it into a territorial dependency Shall we attempt to console them with the idea that we had sent to them as their Governor some man of that extreme political school who originated the idea of destroying their State sovereignty and blotting out State lines, and that their offices of honor and of profit were to be filled by the same class of men Shall we tell them, furthermore, that in order to preserve among them the most agreeable and harmonious state of society we had passed laws con- fiscating the property of one-half of their inhabitants Shall we say to them, still further, that, acting upon the theory of the gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Conway], " that by the act of secession they had dissolved the Union," we had treated them as " belligerents " under the law of nations and, availing ourselves of these changed relations, we had broken up one of their estab- lished institutions by emancipating all their slaves, amounting to two hundred and eighty thousand in number That in this, however, Xve had acted a very generous part toward them; that we do not intend to remove this ser- vile race from among them; that they wtill still remain their neighbors and friends, and that when they get them thoroughly educated and Christianized they will make most agreeable members of society! And that in order most effectually to prevent them from leaving the territory the Northern States I42 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. had commenced passing laws and inserting into their respective State con- stitutions such amendments as these: ART. XII.-SEC. 1. No negro or mulatto shall come into or settle in this State after the adoption of this Constitution. SEC. 2. All contracts made with any negro or mulatto coming into the State contrary to the provision of the foregoing section shall be void; and any person who shall employ such negro or mulatto, or otherwise encourage him to remain in the State, shall be fined in any sum not less than ten dollars nor more than 500. -Constitution of Indiana. In the Constitution adopted by the convention lately held in Illinois we find the following provision: ART. XVIII.-SEC. i. No negro or mulatto shall migrate to or settle in this State after the adoption of this Constitution. SEC. 2. No negro or mulatto shall have the right of suffrage or hold any office in this State. SEC. 3. The General Assembly shall pass all laws necessary to carry into effect the provision of this article. Is this your plan of reconstruction Is this the way you expect to save the Constitution and the Union Is this the way you expect to win, and, in the language of my good friend, Mr. Crittenden, " woo back " the people of the Southern States What! break up their State organizations, destroy forever their domestic tranquillity, beggar them and their children, and yet expect them to return to their allegiance and become again peaceful and patriotic citizens Sir, I ask, is not this the ne p/us ul/ra of human folly I beseech you to abandon these unwise and impracticable measures. You have made by law the capital of the nation free. Be content. Let there be no further Congressional agitation of the question of slavery. Leave this question for all future time to the people of the States where it exists, and to be disposed of by them as they may deem best for the welfare of all con- cerned. Sir, I listened with infinite satisfaction to the able argument of the learned gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Thomas] a few days since against these extreme measures. I cordially indorse almost his entire speech. With such Republicans as himself, and with my friends from Indi- ana [Mr. Dunn] and from New York [Mr. IDiven], and many others that I could name, my constituents could live, aye, and all the reasonable people of the South could live, upon terms of the most enduring friendship. Let the wisdom of such men guide and control the action of the dominant party here and all will yet be well. Mr. Chairman, we were treated a short time ago by the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. D)avis], to a disquisition upon the dignity of labor. Sir, this is a noble theme, and if he had confined himself to the subject without going out of his way to make an onslaught upon the loyal people of the 148 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Southern States, there was much that he said to meet my hearty indorse- ment. Sir, I honor and respect the laboring man; to him is our country in a large degree indebted for its rapid advancement in physical, moral, and mental improvement; and there is no better specimen of manhood to be found, and no higher and more admirable illustration of the beneficent ir.- fluence of our free institutions, than the man who by his own labor rises from the humbler to the higher walks of life; and I care not in wkh t department or in what direction these beneficial results of labor may be directed. And allow me to say, sir, that these liberal sentiments are largely entertained by the people in that section of the country where I live. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, while leveling his malice at the border slave States, seemed to think that the only motive which prompted them t 3 adhere to the Union svas in order that their institution of slavery might be made more secure! Sir, I amn ready to confess that I believe slavery to be more secure in th- Union than it would be out of it, and especially so if we are to have such men as the gentleman from Pennsylvania for our neighbors. But how un- kind, oh' how uncharitable, to attribute a motive like this to the brave and loyal men who have risked their all in endeavoring to put down this rebel- lion. Is not their love of country as sincere, their motives of action as pure and honorable, as those that guide and control the citizens of other States Such attacks at this time are out of place here. They reach back to the foundation of the Government. They are aimed equally at the memories of many of those who aided in its establishment; Washington and Jefferson, Madison, Clay, and Jackson were not only Southern men, but they were all slave-owners; while if you will trace the history of sla- very on this continent you will find that the people of the Northeni States were as largely instrumental, and profited as much, in the establishment of African slavery here as did the Southern people. Whatever guilt attaches to it in a moral or political point of view must be forever shared equally by the North and the South. Sir, the great men of the South need no de- fense at my hands. There is not a page in your country's history that i; not illuminated and adorned by their wisdom, their patriotism, and their valor. From the time that the first blow was struck in the cause of Ameri can independence until the breaking out of this "accursed rebellion," there is scarcely a battlefield whose sands were not moistened by the bloot of patriotic Southern men. To them the world is largely indebted for the establishment of free government on this continent. And the cause of humanity and liberty in the distant regions of the earth has had no truer and warmer advocates in this Capitol than Southern men, whose eloquent words came So softly that, like flakes of feathered snow, They melted as they fell. 14) JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. No, sir, the Union men of the border slave States, estimating at their true value all the blessings conferred upon them by the Union, regarding the Federal Constitution and the Government established under it as the best ever instituted among men, following the teachings of the Father of his Country, and desiring to hand down to their children these priceless gifts, have risked and are now risking all that is dear to them for its preservation, and but for their action this day the Government would inevitably have been destroyed. And these croakings come with bad grace, especially from those whose action has contributed so much to the present unfortunate state of things, and who, setting aside the Constitution as their guide and rule of action, are pressing upon us daily the most absurd propositions, the success of which must at once destroy the last vestige of hope for the reconstruction and salvation of the Government. (Here the hammer of the Chairman fell, the hour having expired.) Mr. DUNN of Indiana: Mr. Chairman, I move that the gentleman from Missouri be allowed to proceed with his remarks, and that his time be ex- tended. The CHAIRMAN: If there be no objection, the gentleman from Missouri will continue his remarks. There being no objection, Mr. Rollins said: I will detain the committee but a short time longer. Mr. Chairman, it has been charged here that Kentucky desires to dictate the policy of the nation. Sir, I love and honor the people of that noble and proud old com- monwealth. It is the land of my birth. Beneath her sacred soil rest the ashes of the immortal Clay. It is the home of Crittenden, and I trust I shall ever be as sensitive in regard to her reputation as are the brave and true men around me, who so faithfully represent her interests here. Where are the evidences of the truth of this charge Sir, they do not exist. Ken- tucky does not wish to dictate the policy of the nation further than to keep the ration right. At the commencement of this rebellion Kentucky did all in her power to preserve the peace and prevent this fratricidal war. In the councils of the nation and before the assemblies of the people she pleaded with all the earnest enthusiasm of a warm-hearted patriotism; she offered to the nation, through her illustrious son, terms of conciliation and com- promise which ought to have been accepted. But her voice was unheeded. Neither section would listen to her timely and generous appeals. Strife and bitterness seemed to have filled the hearts of men on every side. Yet Kentucky did not falter; seeing the danger of their own position, and knowaing that their fair fields would be the inevitable theatre upon which the heavy clash of arms would first be felt, and realizing the natural sym- pathies of their own people with the Southern States, and the misrepresen- tations by which bold leaders and crafty traitors expected to mislead the 150 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. honest masses, the loyal men of Kentucky had a most difficult and critical duty to discharge. With what fidelity and good judgment she met the crisis let the history of passing events tell. No crimes or blunders were committed by her true sons. Rejecting all false theories springing out of the secession movement, forgetting the sympathies which were appealed to in order to enlist her in the Southern cause, rising to a true national posi- tion and planting herself upon the bulwarks of the Federal Constitutior, she threw off her neutrality, unsheathed her sword, and by the side of the gallant men who flocked to her rescue from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and other loyal States she bade defiance to traitors and proclaimed, in the language of the immortal Jackson, " The Federal Union, it must be pre- served." Upon the crimson fields of Wildcat, of Somerset, of Fort Henr), of Fort Donelson, and Pittsburg Landing she illustrated anew her deera devotion to the cause of constitutional liberty. No, sir, Kentucky has no, attempted nor desired to dictate the policy of the nation in this terrible crisis. She has done her whole duty under the most trying and difficult circumstances that ever surrounded a brave and chivalrous people; with true and filial devotion she has bared her bosom and received the blow which was intended for the heart of the nation; poised upon her own great centers of truth and loyalty she has resisted every appeal made to her by recreant sons, and stood as a wall of fire to check the encroachments of those whose purpose was to destroy the natior. What I have said of Kentucky is equally true of the other border slave States - Maryland, XVestern Virginia, Delaware, and Missouri. They regard American nationality as the precious casket in which is contained the priceless gift of free institutions, and they would regard themselves as alike recreant to their generation, to posterity, and to struggling humanity throughout the wvorld if they failed to do their part towards preserving and transmitting unimpaired to future generations this sacred and invaluable trust. Sir, whatever others may have done, or may yet do, to uphold and main- tain the Government and the Constitution, the loyal men of the border slave States, as long as time shall last and free institutions be prized among men, will be remembered and honored for their heroic courage and devoted patriotism. Like poor old Lear, they have withstood the " pell- ings of the pitiless storm ' that raged around them; have checked andl rolled back the mad waves of passion and prejudice which were sweeping with desolating fury over the land and threatening to engulf all that was most precious on this continent. For the sake of their country and its free institutions they have sacrificed their material interests, broken the tenderest ties of family and of social life, and determined either to perish or to save from dismemberment and ruin the Union and the Constitution, threatenel by the fierce assaults of ambitious leaders and their deluded and misguide I I ;I I JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. followers. And, sir, as long as a love of liberty and of free government shall find a lodgment in the hearts of men, the names of Johnson, of Etheridge, of Prentice, of Guthrie, of Davis, of Gamble, of Bates, of Phelps, and, though last, yet first, of my venerable friend who sits before me [Mr. Crittenden] will be associated with the founders of republican government on this continent. Mr. Chairman, I fear the end is not yet. My mind alternating betwixt hope and fear, I put my faith upon the patriotism and good sense of the great majority of the American people, and the kindness of that good Providence that has thus far watched over and guided our country through all the dangers which have beset us: A thousand years scarce serve to fonn a State, An hour may lay it in the dust; and when Can man its shattered splendor renovate, Recall its virtues back, and vanquish time and fate What we most need in the present hour is calm and prudent counsel in our legislative halls. I am sincere in the belief that the Government is in more danger from the indiscreet action of impracticable politicians and mis- guided theorists than from any failure of our arms. What we want is a great Union Conservative party, made up from all other parties, within whose folds may be gathered the good men of the nation, North and South, planted firmly on the Constitution, and determined to resist and to repel the aggres- sions of extremists, and by a liberal and beneficent policy win back the wandering children of the republic to their duty and their loyalty. Sir, if my poor voice could reach our distant brethren in the South, I would ask each and every one of them, What has the South gained by seces- sion What has any one individual in the South gained by secession Has it given, is it likely to give them, a better form of government Is their property more secure Has it brought peace and happiness to their fire- sides, prosperity to their business Have they profited irn any respect by this movement On the contrary, have not the ambitious leaders who put on foot this rebellion, contrary to the wishes and better judgment of the masses, brought bankruptcy, ruin, and desolation upon the entire South There never was, so far as I know, a single solitary meeting of the people asking a change of government. The movement did not originate with the people themselves. They are patriotic. It originated with Davis and his crew in this Capitol. And oh' Is there not some chosen curse, Some hidden thunder in the stores of Heaven, Red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man Who owves his greatness to his country's ruin . 152 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. The masses were happy and contented, satisfied with their government as it was. Living under the protection and benign influence of a free con- stitution and wholesome laws, they asked for no change, they wanted none, and they are now sighing for the old order of things. This monstrous crime of involving the country in rebellion and war lies at the door of uneasy and discontented politicians, reckless and maddened leaders, and was gotten up to promote their own reckless and selfish ends. A day of terrible retribu- tion awaits them. Like Actaon in heathen mythology, they will, in the end, be destroyed by their own friends. The loyal citizens of the South, deceived and betrayed, will in due season turn upon them and punish them for their iniquities; while the great and beneficent Government, the glory and admiration of every loyal American heart, planted amidst all the perils and dangers of our revolutionary conflict, will exert its authority through- out the length and breadth of the nation, and our hearts will be once more cheered and animated at the sight of the " old flag," baptized, as it will have been, in fire and blood, planted securely upon every mountain-top and in every valley from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. Mr. Chairman, the effect of this revolution will be to settle, and forever, certain dangerous theories springing out of our form of government and threatening constantly a collision between the State and National authorities. Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in its head. The nation has been convulsed to its center; thousands of true and brave men have been sacrificed in the contest; we have created a national debt that will be a heavy burden to the present and to several generations which will come after us; but all these are as nothing compared with the value of the life of the nation. The people will not murmur if the Constitution is preserved and our matchless form of government not seriously impaired. They will feel assured that no such revolution will be attempted again for " light and transient causes." They will feel their faith greatly strengthened in republican institutions. The experiment will have been thoroughly tested as to the ability of the people to govern themselves. And When wild wars deadly blast is o'er and the angel of peace shall once more spread his bright wings across the continent, starting afresh in the race of nations, and purified by the severe ordeal through which we have been compelled to pass, we shall be a wiser, a better, and a stronger people; and when men shall have returned to the peaceful pursuits of private life, and society shall have assumed again the 20 15 3 154 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. steady forms of law and order, the energies of the masses will be unchained in new fields of enterprise that will lure them on to reinstate their fortunes; and despite the terrors and calamities of the frightful and unnatural revolu- tion through which we are now passing, our great nation, with the strength of a young giant, will at one bound assume its lost position and go forward in the march of improvement in a manner that will eclipse even our former unparalleled success; and before the close of the present century, in all the elements of power and of national strength,and in our contributions to science and literature, to art, to arms, to commerce, to manufactures, to agriculture, we shall assume a position second to that of no other civilized nation in the world. Mr. Chairman, in casting our eyes across the beautiful valley westward we behold a vast but unfinished monument intended by his affectionate country- men to perpetuate a lively recollection of the virtues and character of Wash- ington. Each State of the American Union has contributed a part of the material of which this beautiful shaft is built. From one a block of limestone, from another a block of marble, from another a block of granite, from another a block of quartz sprinkled with gold. The motto of the great State that I have the honor, in part, to represent in this hall is, ' United we stand; divided we fall," and in her contribution to the Washington monument she has sent here a block of solid iron carved from her own great mountain, typ- ical of her vast mineral resources and of her strength and power when these resources are fully developed, and indicating further that as iron is more durable than marble or granite so Missouri will be more steadfast in main- taining the Union of these States and in preserving the Constitution and Government which Washington gave to us. To the Eletors of the Ninth Congressional Distrid of the State of Missouri. Fed/owz-Cilizens.- Having by force of public considerations consented to be a candidate for reelection to Congress, it is due to you that I should make a frank avowal of the principles which will guide my action in our national councils if you desire me to serve you in this crisis of our national existence. Unable to make a thorough personal canvass, as it would be my pleasure to do, of every portion of the district before the day of the election, I make no apology for addressing you through the medium of the press, in the con- fidence that what I say in candor will be candidly received. We have fallen, fellow-citizens, upon evil times. Two short years ago we were a prosperous people, in the enjoyment of social order, under the gentle rule and the protection of the law, cultivating the arts of peace, and in the secure enjoyment of all the results of a high and steadily progressive civili- zation. And wihy, fellow-citizens, are we not to-day in the enjoyment of all this with the addition which the two intervening years would have contrib- uted to the grand total of national and State well-being There is but one answer to be given. Theconstitutional appeal to tie ballot has been violently pushed aside by an appeal to the bullet. The resort to law has given place to the resort to arms, and civil war is desolating our land. A rebellion cause- less in its inception and stupendous in its proportions is raising its parricidal hands against the Government of our fathers, is madly shaking to its founda- tions the fabric of our national greatness, and dashing the confidence of the world in the prevalence and perpetuity of free institutions among men. It is not unknown to you, fellow-citizens, that I have steadily opposed the ltheory of secession during the whole of my political life; and I have seen nothing in its practical exhibitions during the last two years in our unhappy country to abate my abhorrence of it. In doctrine it is false; in effect it is "evil, and only evil, and that continually." I have accordingly met the rebel- lion with my solemn protest, in public and in private; and if my feeble voice had been heard and heeded in our State councils the distant din of the battle might indeed have fallen painfully upon our ears, but its desolations would not have entered the borders of Missouri. And why should not Missouri have thrown her entire weight into the bal- ance against this unnatural rebellion Could she, a great State in the center of the great Republic, sure to have the benefits and glories of the country poured into her lap, rationa.ey seek through dismemberment to hem the border of a feeble Confederacy founded on the doctrine of secession and to endure JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. only till the next political fit should rend it into fragments and consign it to merited ignominy What, for example, would be the fate of the great com- mercial emporium of our State, contributing now so largely to our wealth at home and our consideration abroad, when shorn of her markets by the am- putatior, of our great rivers and the dismemberment of the great valley which she feeds, and by which she is fed There is in truth no substantial interest in our State which would not be dwarfed in its dimensions and disparaged in its significance by the dismemberment of the Republic. It is passing strange that a man can be found in Missouri to advocate a policy so suicidal in its necessary and manifest results. But aside from these considerations of interest, is nothing due to the en- nobling sentiments of patriotism, of fidelity, of gratitude I appeal to all these exalted sentiments when I assert that never was constituted authority over men administered more benignly than has been that of the Government of the United States over the State of Missouri. With more than parental care she protected your infancy from the exposures and the dangers of fron- tier life till the gristle of youth might harden into the bone of manhood. She admitted you into the family of States with all the rights and privileges of the original members. She generously extended your borders by adding the Platte country to your already wide domain. She has laid the foundation and furnished the means to establish and build up a splendid system of common schools, a brimming reservoir of living waters where every son and daughter of the State may drink in copious drafts of knowledge " without money and without price." She has richly endowed yourhigher institutions of learning, affording a generous culture to the ripened intellect of the State. She has aided in building up your benevolent policies and fostering your charitable establishments demanded by our Christian civilization for the ben- efit of the unfortunate of our race. She has laid her powerful hand on your great rivers, and commerce in mightier volumes courses in safety through these natural arteries of trade. She has founded your magnificent system of public works by princely grants of the national domain, without which the whistle of the locomotive would hardly have been heard in our State. She has granted millions of acres of swamp lands for general beneficent uses, in development of our physical resources or in further aid of our public estab- lishmentsof education and benevolence. Even in the midst of this unnatural warfare waged against our national life, overlooking the disloyalty which has distempered so many of our citizens, she has just granted 400,000 acres of land lying beyond the borders of the State to endow agricultural colleges for the benefit of this your great industrial interest from generation to generation. In addition to all these acts of beneficent administration towards you and your children she, at the last Congressional session, gave you a crowning demonstration of her firm resolve never to give up Missouri, in that she has i56 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. adopted the central track for interoceanic communication traversing your State from its eastern to its western border, uniting you forever to her bosoir by bands of iron. Thus the Pacific Railroad,- the enterprise of the age ilr which we live,- the great prize so long an object of interest and contest wit. many States, is destined to pour a continued stream of wealth into your lap making the commerce of our own country and of the world tributary to the greatness of Missouri. It is not irrelevant to the purpose of this address for me to say that the bill for the construction of the Pacific Railroad was intro duced by myselfand, with some modifications proposed in committeein most of which I concurred, was passed after a severe struggle over all opposition. How keenly should we disrelish the diminution or withdrawal of the mai service of the country, bringing to the door of every citizen, daily, news of the sayings and doings of men throughout the habitable globe, subserving the interests of friendship, of business, of science, of civilization; coming tc us like those blessings of heaven, for which we cease to be grateful for the largeness of the bounty How few of us reflect that this mail service is done for the State of Missouri by the Government of the United States at a cost to the national treasury of 500,000 per annum over and above the receipts of postage What cheek does not mantle with shame to use and enjoy this daily bounty of the Government with a disloyal heart While this stream of beneficence has been poured upon us from the ever- willing and heretofore overflowing treasury of the country, no direct tax has ever been paid to the Federal Government by any citizen of the State; we have been fully represented, amply protected, and have shared in the good name which our Government has won for us abroad as one of the foremost powers of all the earth. Nor is this all. No man can point to a law on the statute book of the general Government calculated to oppress our citizens, to endanger any of our interests. On the contrary, all its legislation has tended to elevate our people, to develop our resources, to strengthen and invigorate our growth. Such, fellow-citizens, are some of the beneficent fruits which have been secured to us by our connections with the general Government as one of the States of the American Union. And is there a man in Missouri who asks me to raise my arm to destroy this Government and to break up this Union For one I cannot, I will not, lend any aid to such a strange work as this. On the contrary, holding as I do the duties of protection and allegiance to be reciprocal, I am bound by every obligation of honor and of duty as a citizen to vindicate its authority and maintain its supremacy, and, if need be, to spend the last dollar and shed the last drop of blood in securing these objects. The authority of the Government must be maintained, the integrity of the country vindicated, and the Union preserved against all assailants. The 1 57 8JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. war was brought upon the country by those in rebellion. Rebellion is war. Every ordinance of secession was a declaration of war, denouncing a forcible dislodgment of the authority of the Government. Every seizure of a fortification, every capture of a Government vessel, every occupation of a custom-house, every robbery of an arsenal, every plunder of a mint, every confiscation of loyal property was an act of war. The attack on Sumter was but the last feather that broke the endurance of the country, and it demon- strated the necessity of meeting the issue of force thus unequivocally ten- dered. In this issue the insurgents are the war party. The party of peace is the Government and those who sustain it, seeking by arms (the only means left to it) the restoration of the peaceful reign of law. The spear is entwined by the olive branch, and I see hope for the termination of this war when those who commenced it shall lay down their arms, return to their allegiance, and do their duty under the Constitution. On these terms, worthy of all acceptation, peace may be restored in a day. Those who con- tinue the rebellion continue the war, and on them must rest the responsibil- ity before God and man. At the special session of Congress in July, 186x, the following resolution introduced by the venerable and patriotic Crittenden of Kentucky was voted for by every member of the House of Representatives present except Potter of Wisconsin and Burnet of Kentucky, the former an abolitionist and the latter a secessionist now a member of the rebel Congress. The resolution is as follows: That this war is not waged on our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights and established institutions of those States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired, and that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease. I voted for this resolution. I approved of it then; I approve of it now. It was in harmony with the tone of all the messages which had been sent to Congress by the President of the United States up to that time, and was approved by him. Afterwards and during the last session of Congress I voted for all those measures which were calculated to suppress the insur- rection, increase the energies and strengthen the arm of the Government. If reelected, I shall continue to do so-firmly convinced as I am that there is no hope for the success of free government on this continent if the experiment we are now making fails. The paramount object is to save this Government and the Constitution of the United States. For these grand and beneficent objects, and for these alone, ought this war to be prosecuted; and as these objects justify the assumption of arms, whatever stands in the way of reaching these objects ought to give place -for without govern- 158 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. ment and nationality all else would be worthless to ourselves and our pos- tenty. In a speech delivered by me in Congress, on the 24th day of April last, which was extensively circulated, I used the following language: My motto is, " Save the nation at any cost "1; but believing as I do that the Constitution affords us the amplest power to do this, I am utterly opposed to its violation. Let it not be said, either, that I am governed by any purpose to shield and protect any interest which comes in contact with the safety of the Re- pzblic and the integrity of the Union. In regard to African slavery, I value far higher the permanency of the Government and the preservation of the Constitu- tion - for these are essential to our own liberties - than I do any question con- nected with the freedom or slavery of this inferior race of men. These are my opinions to-day; and it lies in my way to examine in their light the recent proclamation of the President of the United States looking to the emancipation of slaves in certain revolted districts to be hereafter specified, on the contingency of their persevering in the rebellion. The proclamation proceeds upon the principle that to suppress the insurrection by withdrawing that which feeds it is strictly within the svar pox er, and therefore constitutional. Without discussing the abstract proposition, I apprehend that the conduct of a statesman should be controlled by the prac- tical elements which are involved in questions of public policy. I cannot agree with Mr. Lincoln in the expediency or necessity of so extreme a measure as this. Neither do I believe that it will be justified by the re- sults. I do not think it will strengthen the Government. It is calculated to create distrust and division in the ranks of the great Union army. It is sure to intensify the feeling of opposition in the revolted States. If carried out it will do injustice to the great body of Union men in that quarter who are ready to rise and strike a blow for the Government when the day of their deliverance shall come. It may lead to servile insurrec- tion, to scenes of cruelty and horror, involving the innocent asith the guilty, the strong with the defenseless in indiscriminate ruin. Its action would be at war with the spirit of the age in which we live, and with those noble principles of enlightened civilization which formi the corner-stone of our beautiful fabric of government. Let us shun these extreme policies. Our Government is yet strong in all the elements and material of war, and with an abounding patriotism in the hearts of the people all over the country, North and South, is amply able to overthrow this wicked attempt on the national life. It may be said, however, in justice to the President, that by staying the execution of the proclamation for three full months he has demonstrated his willingness to preserve the country without the destruction of slavery and has fairly thrown the responsibility of saving the institution on those ho 1 59 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. are in arms against their country. A simple return to duty, before the first of January, will render the proclamation inoperative. I dismiss this topic with an additional suggestion which I commend to the attention of the Amer- ican people. The force of the proclamation as a war measure will be spent during the war. When the civil power shall be restored by the success of patriotic arms, the s/a/us of the " contraband " will be purely a judicial ques- tion to be determined by the Constitution and the laws. The word " for- ever " in the proclamation is breath and nothing more. And now, fellow-citizens, if you choose to make me your representative in the Thirty-eighth Congress I shall continue as heretofore to labor for the promotion of the best interests of the people of the State of Missouri. No public measure calculated to advance these will fail to receive my earnest and unqualified support. Long identified with the people of the State, and knowing no other home, I feel that your interest is my interest; and for weal or for woe I mean to share with you a common destiny. In the councils of the nation I shall coo5perate with, and be guided by, the enlightened views and patriotic purposes of such men as the noble Crittenden of Kentucky, and that far-seeing Republican statesman, Judge Thomas of Massachusetts-feeling as I do, that with such experienced counsellors by my side, and in the light of their patriotic example, I cannot greatly err in the service of my country in this its hour of agony, of peril, and of gloom. No man may question my devotion to the Federal Union. It is the political divinity which I have worshipped from my infancy, and my heart sickens within me to see the demon of Disunion, the abomination of desolation, standing in the holy place. If Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell, how must the heart of Liberty and Humanity be wrung when the funeral- pall shall be spread OVER THE GREAT REPUBLIC But my eye pierces the gloom! Sail on, sail on, 0 Ship of State !- Sail on, 0 Union, strong and great; Humanity with all its cares, With all its hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate. Let us be true to our God-appointed mission ! Let the men of this generation prove themselves equal to the emergency by vindicating the in- tegrity of our country, by preserving and handing down to our posterity the priceless inheritance of popular government bequeathed to us by patriotic sires. Your fellow citizen, JAMES S. ROLLINS. COLUMBIA, October 27, 1862. i 6o FREEDOM OF SPEECH. Speech delivered in the Hoase of Representatives, April 12, i864, on the Resolution offered by Mr. Colfax, Proposing to Expel Mr. Long. Afr. Speaker: I feel somewhat embarrassed because I shall not be able to make in the three minutes assigned to me a very interesting speech; and unless I can trench upon the time of my friend from New Jersey [Mr. Rogers], who, I believe, is next to occupy the floor, I shall claim from the courtesy of the Speaker the opportunity of submitting on Thursday morning a few remarks. I think, Mr. Speaker, from the demonstrations we have had here to night, that the heart of every patriot in this House and in these galleries ought to be filled with hope and assured with confidence that the country is safe! Certainly no man, after the broad, liberal, patriotic, and antipartizan views which we have heard expressed here, can have a shadow of doubt that we shall be able to suppress this rebellion! To abandon irony, Mr. Speaker, I must confess that my heart is filled with sadness at the continued notes of party I party! ! party! ! ! which I hear sounded. It seems to me that all are for party and none for the country; that on both sides of the House it is a continual attempt to obtain some small advantage for party-not to promote the great interests of the Union, but those of party for the next Presidential election. [Here the hammer fell.] Mr. ELDRIDGIE: I hope the gentleman shall have leave to go on. There was no objection. Mr. ROLLINS of Missouri: Mr. Speaker, if I could save this country from destruction I should be willing that this or that side of the House should select the man to preside over its destinies not only for the next four but for the next forty years. If I could save the Government from destruction it would be a small matter to me whether Abraham Lincoln or George B. McClellan presided over the country's destinies. Mr. Speaker, I desire to express my opinion regarding the resolution pro- posed by the honorable Speaker of this House. I shall not vote for the ex- pulsion of the member from Ohio. I think that resolution the most ill-timed that has been proposed here during the present session. If the speech of the gentleman from Ohio contains poison which is likely to produce disease in 161 2 1 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. the body-politic of the country, the honorable Speaker could not have selected a more efficient mode of infusing that poison into the public heart of the coun- try than by introducing a resolution to expel the honorable member from Ohio. Without that resolution I venture to say that the speech of the gentleman from Ohio would perhaps not have been read by a thousand persons in the United States; but as it is it will be read in every State, in every village, in every mansion and cabin, from one corner of the land to the other. If it had not been for the resolution the honorable Speaker has offered, the speech of the gentleman from Ohio would have fallen still-born from hislips. It would have passed like the speeches of other gentlemen delivered here into the polit- ical historical rubbish of the country, and most of us would have forgotten within a few weeks or months that it had ever been delivered. I repeat, sir, if that speech contains political poison, the censure for dis- seminating it must fall upon the head of the honorable Speaker of this House. If it be a dagger aimed at the national heart, it is the strong hand of the Speaker that directs it and drives home the fatal blow ! And, sir, if this speech is capable of doing the injury which seems to be attributed to it, to the Speaker far more than to the gentleman from Ohio will that injury be due. But, sir, I do not apprehend any serious detriment from that speech. If the cause of the Union and the cause of the country is to be shaken by such a speech as that, it ought to perish; and if one hundred and eighty-three members of the House are not competent, morally and intellectually, to meet the honorable gentleman from Ohio in his argument, and show that he is wrong-if they cannot furnish the antidote for the poison, then I say we are unworthy to represent a free people in a great crisis like this. We are doing but poor justice to their intelligence and patriotism if we suppose for a mo- ment that a speech like that could shake their confidence in the stability of the Government and in the permanency of our free institutions. For myself, sir, I have no fears of the effect of that speech. I rely upon the discriminating intelligence of the great masses of the American people to correct in their own minds the gross errors with which it abounds; and for its utterance I would not expel or even censure the gentleman. I would not do it because I am in favor of the largest liberty of debate, especially in times like these. In my judgment the wisdom of our ancestors has been no better illustrated than in that provision of the Constitution which says that no mem- ber shall be expelled except upon the vote of two-thirds of the members of this body. We see the importance of the rule on this occasion. We see the lengths to which party spirit would run. We see daily in the affairs that occur upon this floor that questions of the utmost importance are not decided upon their merits, but invariably according to the strength of party on this 162 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. or that side of the House. And while I do not mean to cast a slur upon an], member in connection with this question, yet it may be safely said that in consequence of the hold which party has taken upon the minds of member; here it would be just as easy to expel a man upon any other question that might be presented. It is a question of party, and I (1o not pretend to say that under like circumstances the same thing would not be attempted for party purposes by this side of the House. It is one of the evils of party spirit under a Government like this. It is one of those baneful, poisonous in- fluences which we ought to resist, especially when as at the present time the country is struggling for its existence. Now, Mr. Speaker, I am for the largest latitude of discussion upon all ques- tions, and while I disavow the sentiments uttered by the gentleman front Ohio in the speech for which we are called upon to expel or censure him, while I say to him and to the House that I think it was a most ill-timed, injudicious, and I might add, considering the circumstances in which it was delivered, unpatriotic, speech -w hile I say all this, yet tolerating as I do the largest liberty of debate, the utmost freedom of discussion, I would not even publicly censure him for it. I do not believe that that speech will be as pro- ductive of as much harm as many gentlemen suppose. It merely expresses the opinion the gentleman entertains from his view of the circumstances which now surround us, and much as I condemn both the sentiments and the speaker for uttering them, I would not expel or censure him for his great indiscretion. Sir, if every member who makes indiscreet, unwise, and I might add foolish, speeches onl this floor were expelled or censured, how long would there be left a quorum, and how little of legislation would command our attention her, except in discussing resolutions of censure He has merely followed the opinion and example of his great leader, Vallandigham, who delivered sub- stantially the same speech in the last Congress, that members around in; heard, and yet no movement was made to expel him for much stronger lan- guage than that used on Friday last by the gentleman from Ohio. It was a remark of Thomas Jefferson, that great apostle of American liberty, "that error ceases to be dangerous so long as reason is left free to combat it." And the first amendment made to the Federal Constitution after its adoption is ai follows Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohib- iting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of sfeech or ofShe press: or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. If, sir, we cannot pass a law abridging the freedom of the press or of speech without violating the Constitution, how cautious should we be in adopting another mode of punishment, unknown to the Constitution and utterly vio- lative of its true spirit ' In despotic governments the first blow struck at the JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. liberty of the citizen is always that of muzzling the press and abridging the sacred right of free discussion-a right inestimable to freemen and formi- dable to tyrants only. Sir, it is the very essence of liberty to form our opin- ions and to express them according to the dictates of our own consciences. And to this sacred privilege, gradually recognized as the world emerged from the dark period of the middle ages to the dawn of light of the last few cen- turies, we are indebted for the wonderful advancement which we now behold in religion, in science, in government, and in civilization. Argue as you may, sir, a despotic government would nowhere be found on the face of the earth amidst a virtuous, enlightened, and educated people with a free press and free speech' And a great and free people will not be in danger of losing their liberties as long as these sacred rights are properly guarded and vindicated. It is well known that for many years past one great complaint of the North- ern people has been that they were not without violence allowed to print and speak their sentiments south of a certain line on a particular subject. And shall we now, sir, after all that has been said on this subject, retrograde, and here in the very hall of our national legislature strike down the right of free discussion by expelling a member from his seat for words spoken in debate Sir, I for one am prepared for no such work as this. Let us answer and expose the pernicious views of the honorable member, as I take it we are fully competent to do, and then let us turn him over to the tender mercies of his constituency, whose indignation will he in direct ratio to their patriot- ism, to dispose of his case as to them may seem most proper and right. But let us not desecrate this temple, dedicated to the cause of liberty and free discussion, by assailing one of its chief bulwarks in striking down the right of free speech. It is possible that erroneous and dangerous doctrines may be taught here, and I can well suppose a case where the cause of the Gov- ernment might be temporarily damaged; but this would be of short dura- tion under the searching operation of free discussion in this representative chamber. Truth crushed to earth shall rise again The eternal years of God are hers; But error, wounded, writhes in pain, And dies amidst its worshippers. And, sir, in my view, the cause of this Government and of the American Union is the cause of truth, and however much it may be assailed by the puny and traitorous arms of those who would tear it down, or by the still weaker words of those men of faint hearts and vacillating hopes who in the midst of this mighty and unparalleled struggle for national existence would give up all as lost, while I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, speaking but from my own earnest faith, I predict that sooner or later the national authority will be vindicated, the enemies of the Government driven back in , 64 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. 61 shame and disgrace, those who have spoken or dreamed of recognition will take back their injudicious words, and be made happy in once more kneelingr with all the children of the Republic around the altar of a still unbroken andi blessed Union, beneath the starry folds of that banner from whose bright azure not one star shall be blotted. I wish I had titne on this occasion to go into a history of the discussion of public questions, not only here, but i3 the British Parliament, where the utmost freedom of debate has been allowec, tolerated, and encouraged. During the War of the Revolution, when the infant colonies of this country were struggling for existence, every member upon this floor knows what te- rible anathemas were hurled against the British Government by Chatharr, Burke, Fox, Sheridan, and other distinguished orators in the British Parlia- rment. Their language has never been equalled in severity by anything that has been said by any member on this floor, and yet who ever heard of a res- olution introduced for their expulsion To show how far these men went, I will quote one or two short extracts: The gentleman tells us America is obstinate, America is almost in open rebel- lion. I rejoice that America has resisted. Three million people so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest.-LORD CHATHAM, in I776. In November, 1777, eighteen months sulbsequent to the Declaration o- Independence, after two years of war, he said: As to conquest, my lords, I repeat, it is impossible. You may swell ever,- expense and every effort still more extravagantly-pile and accumulate ever,- assistance which you can beg or borrow, traffic and barter with every little pitiful German prince that sells and sends his subjects to the shambles of a foreign princ2 - your efforts are forever vain and impotent. If I were an American as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country I would never lay down my arms; never, never, never. But in such a war as this, unjust in its principle, impracticable in its means, and ruinous in its consequences, I would not contribute a single effort nor ;I single shilling. The noble lord said the war swas not disgraceful; it was only unfortunate. For my part I must continue to call it disgraceful, not unfortunate. I consider then] all alike, victories and defeats; towns taken and towns evacuated; new generals appointed and old generals recalled-they are all alike calamities; they all spur us on to this fatal business. Victories give us hopes; defeats make us desperate; and both instigate us to go on. . . Give us back our force, nor protract this burdensonse, disgraceful, for it is not an unfortunate, war.-E U-IND BURKE, in 178 1. Said Fox: There is not an American but must reject and resist the principle and the right. 21A I66 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. I quote from Mahon's " History of England," volume VII., page 135, the language of the younger Pitt in favor of Fox's motion for a committee on the American war in the year 178T. I now read what he said: For my part, I am persuaded and will affirm that it is a most accursed, wicked, barbarous, cruel, unnatural, unjust, and diabolical war. It was conceived in injustice ; it was nurtured and brought forth in folly; its footsteps were marked with blood, slaughter, persecution, devastation. In 1 794, when the acquittal of Horne Tooke diffused such triumph all over England and gave a never-to-be-forgotten lesson to power through that great political safeguard,- that life-preserver in stormy times,- the trial by jury, Mr. Sheridan, in answer to Lord Mornington upon the address, said in reference to the atrocities committed in France: The surrounding States had goaded them into a still more savage state of madness, fury, and desperation. We had unsettled their reason, and then reviled their insanity; we drove them to the extremities that produced the evils we arraigned; we baited them like wild beasts until, at length, we made them so. Such has been your conduct towards France, that you have created the passions which you persecute; you mark a nation to be cut off from the world; you covenant for their extermination; you sw.,ear to hunt them in their inmost recesses; you load them with every species of execration ; and you now come forth with whining declarations on the horror of their turning upon you with the fury which you inspired. . . Good God ! sir, will those who stood forth with a parade of disinterested patriotism and vaunted the sacrifices they had made, and the exposed situation they had chosen in order the better to oppose the friends of Brissot in England will they thank the noble lord for reminding us how soon these lofty professions dwindled into little jobbing pursuits for followers and dependents as unfit to fill the offices procured for them as the offices themselves were unfit to be created Will the train of newly-titled alarmists, of supernumerary negotiators, of pensioned paymasters, agents, and commissaries thank him for remarking to us how profitable their panic has been to themselves and how ex- pensive to their country What a contrast, indeed, do we exhibit ! What ! in such an hour as this, at a moment pregnant with the national fate, when, pressing as the emergency may be, the hard task of squeezing the money from the pockets of an impoverished people, from the toil, the drudgery of the shivering poor, must make the roost practised collector's heart ache while he tears it from them, can it be that people of high rank and professing high principles-that they or their families should seek to thrive on the spoils of misery and fatten on the meals wrested from industrious poverty Can it be that this should be the case with the very persons svho state the unprecedented peril of the country as the sole cause of their being found in the ministerial ranks The Constitution is in danger, religion is in danger, the very existence of the nation itself is endangered; all personal and party considerations ought to vanish; the war must be supported by every possible exertion and by every possible sacrifice; the people must not JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. murmur at their burdens- it is for their salvation; their all is at stake. The time is come when all honest and disinterested men should rally round the throne 2s round a standard -for what Ye honest and disinterested men, to receive, fcr your own private etnolument, a portion of those very taxes wrung from the people on the pretense of saving them from the poverty and distress which you say the enemy would inflict, but which you take care no enemy shall be able to aggrm.- vate. Oh ! shame ! shame ! is this a time for selfish intrigues and the little, dirty traffic for lucre and emolument Does it suit the honor of a gentle- man to ask at such a moment Does it become the honesty of a minister to grant Is it intended to confirm the pernicious doctrine, so industriously prop- agated by many, that all public men are impostors, and that every politician has his price Or even where there is no principle in the bosom, why does nct prudence hint to the mercenary and the vain to abstain awhile, at least, and wa t the fitting of the times Itoprovident impatience! Nay, even from those wh3 seem to have no direct object of office or profit, what is the language which their actions speak " The Throne is in danger ! We will support the Throne ; but let us share the smiles of royalty. ""The order of nobility is in danger! "" will fight for nobility," says the Viscount, " but my zeal would be much greater if I were made an Earl." . . . Is there nothing that whispers to that right honorable gentleman that the crisis is too big, that the times are too gigantic, ta be ruled by the little hackneyed every-day means of ordinary corruption On the subject of Reeve's libel Mr. Sheridan remarked: Never was there any country in which there was so much absence of publi: principle, and at the same time so many instances of private worth. Never was there so much charity and humanity towards the poor and the distressed. . Yet amidst these phenotnena of private virtue it was to be remarked that therT was almost a total want of public spirit and a most deplorable contempt of pub- lic principle. . . . When Rome fell, she fell by the weight of her osvn vices. . . But when Great Britain falls, she svill fall with a people full of privat2 worth and virtue; she will be ruined by the profligacy of the Government and the security of her inhabitants, the consequences of those pernicious doctrines which have taught her to place a false confidence in her strength and freedom, and not to look sith distrust and apprehension to the misconduct and corruption of those to whom she has trusted the management of her resources. Again, in 1795: I amn sorry that it is hardly possible for any man to speak in this house, and to obtain credit for speaking from a principle of public spirit; that no man call oppose a minister without being accused of faction, and none, who usually' oppose, can support a minister or lend him assistance in anything without being accused of doing so from interested motives. On the assessed tax bill: But we have gained, forsooth, several ships by the victory of the first of June -by the capture of Toulon -by the acquisition of those charnel-houses in the i67 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. West Indies, in which fifty thousand mess have been lost to this country. Con- sider the price which has been paid for these successes. For these boasted successes, I will sav, give me back the blood of Englishmen which has been shed in this fatal contest - give me back the two hundred and fifty millions of debt which it has occasioned - give me back the honor of the country which has been tarnished - give me back the credit of the country which has been destroyed - give me back the solidity of the Bank of England which has been overthrown; the attachment of the people to their ancient Constitution, which has been shaken by acts of oppression and tyrannical laws - give me back the kingdom of Ireland, the connection of which is endangered by a cruel and outrageous system of mili- tary coercion - give me back that pledge of eternal war, which must be attended with inevitable ruin ! And in June, 1798, the year of the Irish rebellion: What ! when conciliation was held out to the people, was there airy discontent When the government of Ireland was agreeable to the people, was there any dis- content After the prospect of that conciliation w.as taken away,- after Lord Fitzwilliam was recalled,- after the hopes which had been raised were blasted,- when the spirit of the people was beaten down, insulted, despised, I will ask any gentlemen to point out a single act of conciliation which has emanated from the government of Ireland On the contrary, has not that country exhibited one continual scene of the most grievous oppression, of the most vexatious proceed- ings; arbitrary punishments inflicted; torture declared necessary by the highees authority in the sister-kingdom next to that of the legislature And do gentle- men say that the indignant spirit which is roused by such government is unpro- voked Is this conciliation Is this lenity Has everything been done to avert the evils of the rebellion It is the fashion to say, and the address holds the same language, that the rebellion which now rages in the sister-kingdom has been owing to the machinations of "wicked men." Agreeing to the amendment pro- posed, it was my first intention to move that these svords should be omitted. But, sir, the fact they assert is true. It is, indeed, to the measures of wicked men that the deplorable state of Ireland is to be imputed. It is to those wicked ministers who have broken the promises they held out, who betrayed the party they seduced into their views to be the instruments of the foulest treachery that ever was practised against any people. It is to those wicked mirnsters who have given up that devoted country to plunder-resigned it a prey to this faction by which it has so long been trampled upon, and abandoned it to every species of insult and oppression by which a country was ever overwhelmed, or the spirit of a people insulted, that we owe the miseries into which Ireland is plunged, and the dangers by which England is threatened. Such, sir, was the burning language of Sheridan in the British Parliament on the various questions discussed, and yet who ever heard of any move- ment - who ever saw the honorable Speaker descend from his chair and by his talents and influence upon the floor seek either to expel or to censure him i68 JAMIES SIDNEY ROLLINS. i 6c, Again, sir, no member here can have forgotten the memorable language of Mr. Corwin of Ohio, in the Senate of the United States, during the Mex ican var. He said: Were I a Mlexican, as I am an American, I would welcome these invaders witl- bloody hands to hospitable graves. Yet no one ever dreamed of either expelling or censuring Mr. Corwin fot this remarkable utterance based upon sentiments hostile to the war then being waged on the part of our country against Mexico. Sir, in a free country like ours, is not a latitude of debate to be allowed Is not discussion to be as broad as it is under a monarchical government in the Parliament of Great Britain Sir, there is no subject on which a free people are more sensitive than that of free speech. It is regarded, and justly so, as one of the bulwarks of liberty, and any attempt to abridge it, and especially in these halls, must be, as it ought to be. condemned by the American peol)le. And to-day, sir, if this House commits the great blun- der of expelling the member from Ohio by the passage of this resolution, mark iny prediction, lie will rally around him a formidable party-not that the people indorse him or sympathize with him in the sentiments contained in his speech, but in vindication of the sacred right of free speech in the representative hall of the national legislature. Mr. Speaker, I rose not only for the purpose of saying to the House that I for one could not and would not vote for the resolution of expulsion which has been offered here by the honorable Speaker of the House of Representatives, and to add that I think he has done the very worst day's work he could possibly have done by introducing a resolution expelling the gentleman from Ohio [MNr. Long], but also for another purpose, and that is, to express my dissent from every position taken by the gentleman from Ohio in that speech. I differ with him toh, eace. He is for giving up the struggle. He is for Disunion. He is for the recognition of the South- ern Confederacy, nosy, at once. It occurs to me if the view of the gentle- man from Ohio were carried out, it would be the saddest day the American people svould ever be called upon to witness. Who that has an American heart in his bosom can tolerate for a moment the idea that this great strug- gle is to be abandoned in ignominy and in disgrace, to the eternal shame of the cause of liberty throughout the world I do not believe this Gov- ernment is likely to fail in the struggle. I believe that the people of the loyal States have every assurance and confidence that it will result in our success, and that wve shall recover authority over every inch of territory be- longing to the United States. In opinion I wholly dissent from the gentle- man from Ohio as wvell as from the gentleman from Maryland. JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. I believe, sir, that this rebellion will be overcome; not that the Southern people will be exterminated or subjugated, but I believe that their mili- tary power will be broken, and when it is broken, - such is my confi- dence in their good sense, -that they will then return to their allegiance and submit to those liberal terms which, I doubt not, will be proposed. It has often been reiterated that this rebellion is without excuse or justifi- cation. This is true to the letter. No people on earth, prior to this civil war, ever enjoyed a higher degree of liberty or a larger amount of happiness than the people of the Southern States. And it is right that they should be continually reminded that this rebellion is the offspring of the violent and ungovernable passions of their leading men. In proof of this I desire to quote two extracts from speeches made by Mr. A. H. Stephens. of Georgia, the Vice-President of the Confederate States. In a speech delivered before the Legislature of Georgia on the t4th day of November, i86o, after the election of Mr Lincoln, he used the following language: The first question that presents itself is, shall the people of the South secede from the Union in consequence of the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency of the United States My countrymen, I tell you frankly, candidly, and ear- nestly that I do not think that they ought. In my judgment, the election of no man constitutionally chosen to that high office is sufficient cause for any State to separate from the Union. It ought to stand by and aid still in maintaining the Constitution of the country. To make a point of resistance to the Government, to withdraw from it because a man has been constitutionally elected, puts us in the wrong. We are pledged to maintain the Constitution. Many of us have sworn to support it. Can we, therefore, for the mere election of a man to the Presidency, and that, too, in accordance with the prescribed forms of the Con- stitution, make a point of resistance to the Government, and without becoming the breakers of that sacred instrument ourselves, withdraw ourselves from it Would we not be in the wrong Whatever fate is to befall this country let it never be laid to the charge of the people of the South, and especially to the people of Georgia, that we were untrue to our national engagements. Let the fault and the wrong rest upon others. If all our hopes are to be blasted, if the Republic is to go down, let us be found to the last moment standing on the deck, with the Constitution of the United States waving over our heads. Let the fanatics of the North break the Constitution if such is their fell purpose. Let the responsibility be upon them. I shall speak presently more of their acts; but let not the South, let us not be the ones to commit the aggression. We went into the election with this people. The result was different from what we wished; but the election has been constitutionally held. Were we to make a point of resistance to the Gov- ernment and go out of the Union on that account, the record would be made up hereafter against us. And subsequently, in the secession convention of Georgia, in January, i86t, he spoke as follows: 170 JAMES SII)NEY ROLLINS. 17 This step (of secession] once taken can never be recalled, and all the baleful and withering consequences that must follow will rest on the convention for all coming time. When we and our posterity shall see our lovely South desolated by the demon of war which this act of yours will inevitably invite and call forth, when our green fields of waving harvests shall be trodden down by the murderous soldiery and fiery car of war sweeping over our land, our temples of justice laid in ashes, all the horrors and desolations of war upon us, who but this conventior. will be held responsible for it; and who but him who shall have given his vote for this unwise and ill-timed measure, as I honestly think and believe, shall b& held to strict account for this suicidal act by the present generation, and proba. bly cursed and execrated by posterity for all coming time, for the wide and deso- lating ruin that still inevitably follow this act you now propose to perpetrate Pause, I entreat you. What right has the North assailed What interest of the South has been in- vaded What justice has been denied, and what claim founded in justice and right has been withheld Can either of you to-day name one governmental act of wrong, deliberately and purposely done by the Government at Washington, ot which the South has a right to complain I challenge the answer. We have always had the control of the general Government, and can yet if we remain in it and are as united as ve have been. We have had a majority of the Presidents chosen fronm the South, as well as the control and management of most of those chosen from the North. We have had sixty years of Southern Presi- dents to their twenty-four, thus controlling the Executiv e Department. So of the judges of the Supreme Court, we have had eighteen from the South, and but eleven from the North ; although nearly four-fifths of the judicial business has arisen in the free States. yet a majority of the court has always been from the South. This we have required, so as to guard against any interpretation of the Constitution unfavorable to us. In like manner we have been equally watchful to guard our interests in the legislative branch of Government. In choosing the presiding Presidents (pro /empore) of the Senate, se have had twventy-four to their eleven. Speakers of the House we have had twenty-three, and they twelve. While the majority of the Representatives, from their greater population, have always been from the North, yet wre have so generally secured the Speaker, be- cause he, to a great extent, shapes and controls the legislation of the country. Attorneys-general ve have had fourteen, while the Northerns hav-e had but five; foreign ministers we have had eighty-six, and they fifty-four. We have had the principal embassies, so as to secure the world markets for our cotton, tobacco, and sugar on the best possible terms. We have had a vast majority of the higher offices of both army and navy, while a large proportion of the soldiers and sailors were drawn from the North. Equally so of clerks, auditors, and comptrollers filling the Executive Departments. The records shosv for the last fifty years that of three thousand thus emn-ployed we have had more than two-thirds of the same, while we have had but one-third of the white popu- lation of the Republic. . . . A fraction over three-fourths of the revenue collected for the support of the Government has uniformly been raised front 17 1 7JAMES SIDNEV ROLLINS. the North. Pause now while you can, gentlemen, and contemplate carefully and candidly these important items. For you to attempt to overthrow such a government as this under which we have lived for more than three-quarters of a century, in which we have gained our wealth. our standing as a nation, our domestic safety, sehile the elements of peril are around us, with peace and tranquillity accompanied with unbounded prosperity and rights unassailed, is the height of madness, folly, and wickedness, to which I can neither lend my sanction nor my voice. Now, sir, if the question were put to me, would I abandon this struggle I would answer in the language of the great Kentucky orator, " Never, never, never! " If again asked, "When shall we abandon the struggle; at what particular time " I would answer, " When the last dollar is ex- pended, and the last man raised for the prosecution of the war for putting down this causeless, this unjustifiable rebellion. Not until the credit of the Union is lost and in irretrievable ruin would I give up the struggle to main- tain the supremacy of the law and the authority of the Constitution over our entire soil. Not until the germ of patriotism has withered and rotted in the national heart would I yield up the struggle; not until the last vestige of respect was lost for that proud and beautiful banner, the emblem of liberty and of law, which decorates your chair; not, sir, until the thrilling memories which cluster around the actions of those immortal men [Washington and Lafayette] whose images adorn these walls shall have entirely died away in our hearts; not until the last pulsation of patriotism shall have ceased to beat in the American heart would I yield the struggle in which our people are at present engaged for the existence of the nation and of free institutions. I am for the Union first, last, and all the lime. Whatever stands in the way of the Union, I say let it perish. My friend from Ohio, if he will allow me to designate him as such, in getting out of the war by recognizing the Southern Confederacy would, it seems to me, only plunge the country into a war destined to continue as long as the endless ages of time shall run their ceaseless course. For the sake of peace the gentleman from Ohio would dissolve the Union and stop the war! Sir, I answer him that for the sake of permanent peace on this continent I would preserve the rUnion, and in order to preserve it I would continue the war. By wisdom, prudence, and conciliation these terrible calamities might have been and ought to have been averted. But whatever might have been accomplished before the war, it seems to me now, sir, that there is but one way to terminate the struggle consistently fsith the idea of national unity, and that is to overcome and put clown effectually all who stand opposed to the maintenance of the authority of the Government of the United States. It is idle to talk about the Government having no constitutional power to 172 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. coerce sovereign and independent States. The Constitution provides that the President shall see that ' the laws are faithfully executed "; and how can these laws be executed, when either people or States stand in the way of their execution, without applying the necessary force to put and keep them in operation Talk about coercing States! Sir, what would a government be worth which had not the authority and energy to preserve its own existence Suppose the Union were dissolved to-morrow, and the State of Ohio deter- mined to secede from the Northern Government, what would the gentleman say Would he say, let her go in peace, and upon the ground that her people were not bound under the Constitution to submit to the national authority Sir, where would this doctrine terminate Suppose, sir, every other State determined to secede, and set up an independent government for itself If the rule is to he tolerated in one case, it must 'govern in all. Why not And is the gentleman from Ohio prepared to see as many different and in- dependent governments set up on this continent as there are now, or may hereafter be, States in the Union Under the prevalence of such a doc- trine, I would ask him, what is to become of the national debt Who is to pay it What is to become of the army and ofthe navy Who is to defend the seaboard Who is to protect our commerce upon the seas Who is to own the Territories Who is to represent the American name abroad Who is to defend us against foreign aggression The very suggestion of these questions shows the absurdity of the position assumed by the gentle- man from Ohio in his speech, and a hundred other questions of a similar character would overwhelm and confound him and all others that think like him. No, sir, there can be no two separate governments on this continent. We are bound to live under the same constitution; this is our only safety, and those people who will not do so peaceably must be made to do so forcibly. In regard to coercion I might add that all governments, whether demo- cratic or monarchical, are but different systems of coercion. No government could stand a day without the principle of coercion. Without it, not only would governments be broken up, but society itself would be dissolved. In one of his great speeches in the Senate of the United States Henry Clay used the follows ing language If any one State, or any portion of the people of any State, choose to place themselves in array against the Government of the Union, Iamn fjr trying the strength ofthis Government. I am for ascertaining whether we have a government or not, pra.cticable, efficient, capable of maintaining its authority, and upholding the pow ers and interests which belong to a government. Nor, sir, am I to be alarmed or dissuaded from any such course by intimations of the spilling of blood. If blood is to be spilt, by whose fault is it to be spilt Upon the supposition I 173 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. maintained, it will be the fault of those who choose to raise the standard of dis- union, and endeavor to prostrate the Government. And, sir, when that is done, so long as it pleases God to give me a voice to express my sentiments, or an arm, weak and enfeebled as it may be by age, that voice and that arm will be on the side of my country, for the support of the general authority and for the maintenance of the powers of the Union. If Kentucky to-morrow unfurls the banner of resistance, I never will fight under that banner; I owe a paramount allegiance to the whole Union-a subordinate one to my own State.-HENRY CLAY, in the Senate, i85o. But, sir, admitting for the sake of argument that there could be two in- dependent governments established here, each composed of different States, and based upon the right of secession, I might well ask the gentleman from Ohio how long they would last And to-day, sir, he talks seriously about a dissolution of the American Union' If the thing were possible, how would he go about it What would be the first step Would he withdraw the splendid army under the command of the brave and invincible Grant to the north side of the Potomac And what a spectacle would that be for the American people to look upon at this stage of our momentous struggle ! What next A line of separation is to be established. Where Where is the boundary to run if we recognize the Southern Confederacy Can the gentleman from Ohio answer the question Let it be remembered that these insurgents claim all the Southern States. Let it not be forgotten that all the Southern States with the exception, I believe, of Maryland and Dela- ware are represented in the Richmond Congress. Who is to take Washing- ton City Is yonder monument, commemorative of the virtues and the great actions of him who was " first in peace, first in war, and first in the hearts of his countrymen," overlooking with calm and godlike brow the ceaseless flow of that beautiful river whose waves may kiss every strand, and from whose shores that empyrean banner may be borne to greet the eye and reinvigorate the soul of Liberty's martyrs in every land - is it to stand upon the soil of a government established upon the ruins of the great Republic And is that sacred spot, Mount Vernon, with all the glorious associations that cluster around it, its precious relics, the sacred ashes that lie beneath its soil, the old mansion with its beautiful walks, its stately trees, its evergreens, and its fra- grant flowers planted by the hand of Washington, to belong to a hostile people Is the home of the Father of his Country to be denationalized, and American citizens no longer permitted to kneel at his tomb God forbid! Who is to occupy this splendid and magnificent Capitol Where is Missouri to go, that young and giant commonwealth that I have the honor, in part, of representing on this floor What is to become of her Union people who have sacrificed so much in the cause of their country If recognition takes place, is her broad domain, an empire within itself equal to all New England, 174 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. 175 and perhaps with natural wealth superior to any other State in the Union - is it to be made the tail-end of the Southern Confederacy, whose chief polit- ical doctrine is the right of secession, and whose main cornerstone, in the language of Mr. Stephens of Georgia, is African slavery " And where is Kentucky, the resting-place of Clay and of Crittenden, to go Will the gentleman from Ohio consent that the flourishing city which he and his dis- tinguished colleague represent on this floor be located upon the immediate border of a foreign and hostile country, separated only by a narrow river Upon the theory of recognition, what is to become of" `Old Virginia," that magnena ma/er sirim Who is to decide The people of Virginia Sir, will her loyal inhabitants, and the loyal people of Maryland, and of the other loyal States ever consent that these two great States shall be lost to the Amer- ican Union Does not the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Long] see that the first step at negotiation would be a failure That it is ' war to the knife and the knife to the hilt," except upon the condition of the national integrity and unity Does he not see that the withdrawal of our troops would be only a withdrawal for the purpose of renewing the struggle at once and afresh until one or the other of these Powers is overcome I say to the gentleman from Ohio that the Southern Confederacy will be established all over this land and this Government go down, or this Government must assert its authority, maintain its juIrizdicti)n, and crush the rebellion. The two cannot exist side by side, and entertaining this view I am on the side of the Government. In the language ofthe immortal Clay, my paramount obligation is to the present Government, and not to the State in which I was born or in which I live. What does the gentleman propose by recognition What I ask him where he would run the line I have seen no man who could answer that question. The very suggestion of a line brings along with it the idea of continuous war. What is to become of the Territories Who is to take them-the people of the loyal States, or the people of the pretended Confed- eracy The controversy itself started originally mainly about the Terri- tories, and who is to take them in the event of recognition Look a, the sea-coast, reaching from the Chesapeake around to the mouth of the Rio Grande, three thousand miles, with all its bays and harbors, and nearly all of them in the possession of the Government of the United States. Shall we surrender these And what about the commerce of the great rivers of the West, and especially of that great inland sea, the Mississippi Who is to command and control the commerce which floats upon its broad bosom to the Gulf and thence to the sea Are we to give that up And yet that follows recognition ' )o gentlemen expect to obtain peace by dissolution Vain delusion! Look back at the teachings and warnings of the fathers of the Republic in regard to this mighty question. Let the gentleman from Ohio drink into his heart the inspirations of Washington wvhen the founda- JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. tions of free government were laid upon this continent. Let him study well the opinions of Clay, Webster, and Jackson, and the great men whose hearts were often overwhelmed with anxiety in the midst of the great political con- tests which took place in this Capitol in reference to the fate of the Ameri- can Union. They had no desire to lift the veil and look beyond the destruction of the Government. To their inspired vision the cause of lib- erty and of progress was identified with the continuance and perpetuity of the Union formed by our fathers. There was no hope beyond this. WVith- out it, to them all was uncertainty, doubt, darkness, and despotism. In that grand peroration of the noblest effort of his life, which will be read with admiration as long as the English language is spoken among men, Mr. Webster said: I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, to see what lies hid- den in the dark recess behind; I have not coolly weighed the chances of pre- serving liberty when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder; I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of Disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counselor in the affairs of this Government whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not hob the Union may be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it should be broken up and destroyed. While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that, I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, that cur- tain may not rise ! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind ! When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood ! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, " What is all this worth " nor those other words of delusion and folly, " Lib- erty first and Union afterwards," but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds as they float over the sea and over the land and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart -" Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable !" The one is inseparably connected with the other. The cause of civiliza- tion and of human liberty must hang together with this Government, in my humble opinion. We owe it to ourselves in gratitude to a noble ancestry, we owe it to the posterity that is to succeed us, that this bright casket of liberty be transmitted to them unimpaired. This free Constitution of ours 176 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. was framed after a long and bloody struggle by our patriot ancestors. We had grown up and prospered un(ler it, and had become, up to the breaking out of this rebellion, one of the proudest and most powerful nations on the face of the earth. And damned to everlasting perdition be the degenerate sons of noble sires who would permit such a bright and lovely heritage to pass from them ! But, sir, it is not alone for ourselves and for our posterity upon this con- tinent that we should imaintain, this struggle. Where, sir, is the hope of the world Follow the course of the sun in its annual circuit around the heavens; go to the benighted portions of the globe; go to the civilized and Christian parts of earth where the people are downtrodden by strong and arbitrary governments, and where do they look for a model of imitation and for help and succor in the days of their trial Where, but to our own hitherto happy country, the United States of America; ay, sir, the UNITI ED States! This has been to them the beacon-light, the " bright particular star," that, like the Star in the East that appeared over the babe of Bethlehem, is guiding the oppressed of all the earth to the safe and secure resting-place of liberty. Sir, we owe not only to ourselves and to our posterity, but we owe to all future humanity in every country, beneath every clime, the maintenance of this struggle against traitors armed for the purpose of destroying the Gov- ernmeilt, until we can come out of it with the Stars and Stripes once more floating proudly, not only from the dome of this Capitol, blut from esvery hill- top and valley from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Penobscot to the Rio Grande; over the deck of every ship whose columbiads awake the morning with their salute to Freedom's sentinel and Warning to ty rants; on every wave that reflects back to the sky's blue vault its sister stars, not more glorious in their heavenly sphere than those that will then float over the brave men, fair women, and merry children, North and South, of our again united and happy country. I am, then, sir, for war in order that when peace does come it may be permanent and lasting. Better fight to preserve our national unity than go to pieces and have thereafter a thousand multiplied causes of war among ourselves. The unity of the nation once settled, the Constitution and laws vindicated and obeyed, there will be no longer any cause for strife and con- tention among ourselves and our posterity. We shall not fall a prey to the great powers of the earth, but feeling that consciousness of strength which unity always inspires, practised in the art of war as our people will be, and chastened and subdued by the terrible ordeal through which we shall have passed, our Government and our people will then be able to stand the test of time and defy the world in arms against us. Nor let it lie said that there can be no Union after the end of this cruel and unnatural civil war. Nations, like individuals, are at last governed by 22 177 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. their own best interests; and the war once terminated, there will be a thou- sand considerations of mutual interest to bind us indissolubly together. The same motives that prompted our fathers to establish a common Govern- ment and Union will operate with tenfold power on us in restoring that which we had well-nigh lost. The feelings of prejudice and of hate cannot always last; these will wear away with time, and both parties having learned the prowess and strength of each other will in the future cultivate in a higher degree those sentiments of mutual respect and forbearance that are so essential to the peace of the country and the good order of society. Such, sir, is the history of the world. Everybody for peace, and yet men engaged in perpetual war. Other nations have had trials similar to those that are now unhappily upon us. They have been rent and torn by civil wars. But at last the powerful motive of self-interest has controlled, and people apparently forever alienated have united and lived happily together. The states of ancient Greece, after many civil wars, hesitated not in uniting to drive back the Persian invader. The border wars between England and Scotland, lasting for centuries, were finally settled in peace, and claymore and cross-bow lived in harmony and union under one and the same mon- arch. TIhe bloodiest record of English history is that of the fierce struggle between the houses of York and Lancaster, yet those wars at last termi- nated. and the white and red roses were happily united. The rivalship of white and red, Of rose and rose was ended; They say, when fierce contentions fled, On beauty's cheek they blended. Similar illustrations may be found running through the history of all our race, among the Jews, Romans, Spaniards, Germans, nearly all carrying along with them the encouraging idea that civil wars are not necessarily fatal to the peace of those who are engaged in them, nor to union and harmony when the unhappy conflicts have ended. Mr. Speaker, I am well aware of the disconnected nature of the remarks that I am addressing to the House on this occasion, and I will detain it but a few moments longer. How shall the Union be restored when we have broken the military power of the Confederate States We hear a great deal about extermination. The gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. SmithJ has spoken of" subjugation, emancipation, extermination." These "harps of a thousand strings " have been played upon pretty extensively here. We have heard, too, of confiscation not only of the property of the rebels but of that of their children, and of that other doctrine of " miscegenation." I believe that is what they call it. 178 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Mr. Speaker, I have entire confidence not only in the patriotism but also in the liberality and the wise statesmanship of the people of the loyal States of this Union, and in making this remark I apply it to all parties. I believe that when the military power of the rebel States is broken the most liberz.l terms will be offered to the Southern people consistent with our duty to the Government whose authority and integrity we are defending, and consistent with those just responsibilities and burdens that must fall and rest upon th- men who have been instrumental in inaugurating and carrying on this most causeless and unhappy rebellion. I have never believed that this war would result in the extermination, degradation, or exile of the masses of the peoplh of the South, or the spoliation of their property; nor have I ever believed that it would result in universal emancipation without providing ample and liberal compensation to oswners of slaves as property, and giving them full time to dispose of an institution long established among them, the sudden annihilation of which might lead to the most disastrous consequences both to the white and black race. But. sir, the Work that we have first to do is to break and destroy their military powser. Until this is accomplished it is idle to talk about restoration. This is the first thing to be done, and there ought not to be two opinions upon that question between any two loyal men, no matter what party they belong to. Were it not for a disposition on the part of individuals to promote the interest of this or that party, of this or that candidate for the presidential office, there is no good reason why eight-tenths of the members of this House should not agree upon a liberal, enlightened, statesmanlike, and constitu tional policy for the purpose of overthrowing this rebellion and reestablishing the authority of the Government. There may be some peace men on this side of the House, like the gentle.. man from Ohio [ Mr. Long] who has so avowed himself, or like the gentleman from New York [Mr. Fernando Wood]. There may be some men (I cannor designate them myself) who are per se disunionists, and have been these many years, because we know that there are such in the North as well as in the South; and we know that there are some men who claim now to beparex- cellence the Union men of the country who doubt the loyalty and patriotism of every man that happens to differ from them, and yet but a fes years ago they were " singing psalms " to Disunion - but a fesv years ago they were praying for Disunion simply because there happened to exist in the country an institution that was obnoxious to their sensibilities and their opinion of right. Sir, I have no confidence in the Unionism of such men. Sir, we have disunionists in the North as well as in the South, but I thank God I have believed and still believe that they are few in number outside of the rebellion. The Republican party proper I have looked upon as an antislavery party in the just sense of the term, and according to those principles that were I 7') JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. avowed by such men as Washington, Jefferson, and Madison and other Fathers of the Republic when they laid the foundations of free government on this continent. T[hey were antislavery then; they regarded the institu- tion of slavery as a great evil, and under the Constitution and according to the forms of law they looked for and desired its gradual extinction in this country. But they were willing to leave this question to the patience, the sound judgment, and the patriotism of their posterity; and but for those pestiferous men, the radical abolitionists of the North and the secessionists of the South, so long working in cooperation and aiming at the same object, our unhappy country might have been saved this bloody ordeal, endanger- ing the very existence of the Government, causing so many tears to How and so many hearts to bleed in every nook and corner of the country. But the great middle class of which we are the representatives, the mid- dle men of all parties, Republican and Democratic, in the loyal States, aye, and in the disloyal States too, are true to the core. They rise to the dignity of the subject. They can and do appreciate the importance of the restora- tion and salvation of the Government. All they desire is a more broad and liberal statesmanship in the leaders of their respective parties- for them to unite, to come together, and pull up by the roots this noxious rebellion and restore peace to the land. Mr. Speaker, I have a document that I believe I will read before taking my seat. It is from the pen of the present chief magistrate of the nation. I know he is not regarded as very good authority by some of my friends around me, and I cannot say that he is the best authority with me on all questions. But I think this is one of the soundest papers that he has written since he came into power. I thought so at the time I first read it; I think so vet. And I do not see why every loyal man may not come up to this standard. It is a letter addressed to Horace Greeley some eighteen months ago. I know that matters have considerably advanced since this letter was written. Though not a very progressive man, still I have kept advancing step by step to the music of the Union," and I have at all events, I believe, got up to this letter. I will read it for the benefit of my Democratic friends, who seem to be listening to me with such patient attention: EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, August 22, i862. Dear Sir. I have just read yours of the i9th, addressed to myself through the Axew -York Tribune. If there be any statements or assumptions of fact which I may know to b, erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against them. Ifthere be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend whose heart I have always supposed to be right. 180 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLIN-S. As to the policy I " seem to be pursuing," as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest wiy under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored, t'ie nearer the Union will be " the Union asit was." If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time des/roy slavery, I do not agree with them. Mly paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is ,,oteither to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing a/l slaves I would do it ; and if I could save it bs freeing sonte and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race I do because I believe it helps to save this Union; and what I for- bear, I forbear because I do no' believe it would help to save the Union. I she ll do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall dlo more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my views of official duty; and I in- tend no modification of my oft-expressed persona/ wish that all men everywhere could be free. Yours, A. LINCOLN. Hon. HORACE GREF:ELE. I believe I might put that to the vote of my honorable friends around me, and that with the exception of the honorable gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Harris], and perhaps the honorable gentleman from Ohio, whose case we have under consideration, it would get a universal -aye." I do nct think my friends on the Republican side will back down from so broad an] liberal a policy as is indicated in that letter. Mr. Speaker, yet another word. I have referred to the insmense interests at stake in the struggle that is now going on between this Government and those who are in rebellion against it. Defeat to us is eternal, everlasting disgrace and dishonor to ourselves and our children. We must succeed. It cannot be otherswise. In the mighty struggle that we suppose is nowv impending, when a more terrible crash of arms will be felt than anly that has yet taken place during this terrible strife, suppose that accomplished general, the most accomplished perhaps of all the generals on either side, at least equal to any in military skill and power, Robert E. Lee, should beat down our forces and drive thena back across the Potomac; what then Are ocir hearts to sink within us, are we to give up the struggle in despair Suppose this Capital is taken, suppose the President at the other end of the avenue is compelled to re move a few hundred miles further north, and this Congress to go elsewhere for the purpose of holding its sessions' Suppose the Potomac is crossed 22A I2; I JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. the Chesapeake reached! Baltimore taken ! Suppose they march to the Susquehanna, and pass victoriously through Maryland and Pennsylvania, will you then be contented to give up the struggle Never, never! Stand by your flag Stand by your Constitution Rally the power and strength of the loyal States that have not yet exhibited themselves. Bring out your middle classes; bring out your gray-headed and gray-bearded men, and put the Union at last upon its real trial. WVill it take a year longer; two years longer; five years longer What are years in the history of a nation; what is time, what is money, what is blood, compared to the preservation and salvation of a government like this Will you say that we have already lost 2,000,000,000; that five hundred thousand men are already missing from the nation's muster-roll, and that you are therefore ready to acknowledge the effort to save the Union a failure Sir, here are five hundred thousand more of our sons to be sacri- ficed, and here is a government to be saved. Which is of most value- 2,000,000,000 and five hundred thousand men for putting down this rebel- lion, or this Government Will you weigh these sacrifices against the preservation of liberty and free institutions for ourselves, our posterity, and all who shall make America their happy home God forbid! God forbid: We will nwo give it up, let the war last five years or ten years. We will con- tinue it as long as any power remains in this Government. And if I could send the same spirit to the children that God has blessed me with, it should descend to them from sire to son until that flag which is now streaming from the dome of this Capitol should wave over every portion of this once happy country as the flag of a free, powerful, happy, and redeemed people. Sir, if we do not bring ourselves out of these troubles, if we are so degener- ate as to permit a government like this to die, if we are such unworthy sons of noble sires as to shrink from and give up this contest, we deserve all the curses that will fall upon us. Let us fight on, trusting in that Providence which sustained our ancestors. We are in his hands, and if we are suffi- ciently worthy of the trust that has been placed in us not to basely surrender it up, God will see to it that this nation was not born to die so soon. Look at the bright destiny that awaits this country if we can get over the dark and stormy sea that lies before us. Look at the West, at the Father- of-Waters upon which it is my good fortune to live, and see the larger, brighter, and richer heritage than that which lies east of that mighty stream that is yet in store for it. Even during the present session of Congress we are preparing to admit three new States, which the enterprise and energy of our sons have already rendered populous, extending to the base of the Rocky Mountains. In Nevada, Colorado, and in California are to be de- veloped untold riches that of themselves will be the means of relieving us from the burdens which will have been brought upon us in consequence of 182 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. this cruel and unnatural war. Let us come out of it, and let the angel of peace once more spread his bright wings over the continent, over a free and united people, and the energy of our masses will be revived. Like a young giant they will spring up at a bound; their activity renewed, their hopl s inspired, their prospects brightened, they will go forward in the enjoyment of peace, of free institutions, and with a success altogether unknown in our previous history. [Here the hammer fell.] Mr. ROLLINs of Missouri: Mr. Speaker, I ask but a minute or two more. Mr. ELDRIDGE: There is no objection on this side of the House to tl.e gentleman having the additional time he asks. Mr. ROLLINS of Missouri: Mr. Speaker, I will not detain the House at this late hour. That, sir. is the bright day to which I look; that is the view to which my vision turns. I want to see this disastrous war brought to an hori- orable close, and these difficulties adjusted free from prejudice, and by a liberal, eallightened, wise, and philanthropic policy that will enable the peo- ple of all the States to meet once more in council upon terms of fraternity and equality, and consult dispassionately and sensibly in regard to their owvn true interests and those of their posterity. Burying the sad memories cf the last few years, being purified by the misfortunes and calamities which unhappily have overtaken us, and relying with unshaken confidence upoa the good Providence that watched over the great Republic in its infancy, t cannot be but that a bright destiny still awaits the American people. Ox.r American nationality preserved, with a name known and honored as herc- tofore throughout all the earth, our Government will be at once the envy and admiration of mankind. Beneath the broad aegis of a free Constitution and equal laws, with the States and the general Government working in harmony under the influence of well adjusted and appropriately balanced powers, our country will be the home and asylum of all who seek to cast their lot where men are protected in all their rights, where the avenues to honor, to fame, and to usefulness are open to the humblest citizen having energy, virtue, and talent to recommend him. Let our watchword be, " Upward and onward," and even during the pres- ent generation we shall behold our Government the first among the nations of the earth. Wearing the proud title of American citizen, the rights of the humblest man will be respected in every part of the habitable globe. And looking to our hitherto unparalleled advancement in all the elements or national power, in population, in wealth, in the intelligence of the masses, in mechanical skill, in agricultural industry, the day cannot be far distant when that bright and beautiful banner, the emblem of Western civilization, will have gathered upon its ample folds an hundred stars representing thet 18 3 184 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. independent States stretching across this continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific seas, wearing the proud motto, E1 phiribus unum," and resting securely within an American Union that shall give to all a consciousness of strength sufficient to strangle treason at home and repel invasion from abroad, thus reassuring the world that at last the United States of America is The land of the free and the home of the brave. Speech in the House of Representatives, May 30, 1864, oil his Resolution Declaratorv of the Objecds of the War. The House then proceeded, as the regular order of business, to the considera- tion of a resolution offered on the 16th of lDecember, 1863, by Mr. Rollins of .Missouri, as follosvs: Resolved, That, prompted by a just patriotism, we are in favor of an earnst and successful prosecution of the war, and that we will give a warm and hearty support to all those measures which will be most effective in speedily overcoming the rebellion and in securing a restoration of peace, and which may not substan- tially infringe the Constitution and tend to subvert the true theory and character of the Government; and sve hereby reiterate that the present deplorable civil ssar has been forced upon the country by the disunionists now in revolt against t'e constitutional Government; that in the progress of this war Congress, banishing all feeling of mere passion or resentment, will recollect only its duty to the whole country; that this war is not saged on our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or inter- fering with the rights or established institutions of those States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union with ill the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unrmpaired ; that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease. The Speaker stated the pending question to be, on the motion of Mr. Morrill, to refer the resolution to a select committee. Mr. ROLLINS Of Missouri: Mr. Speaker, the resolution that has jest been read I had the honor to offer to the House on the t6th day of Decein- ber last. It is in effect the same resolution that was adopted at the July session, i86t, of the 'rhirty-seventh Congress, with only two dissenting voices -Potter of Wisconsin, and Burnett of Kentucky; the last named individttal being now a member of the Confederate Congress at Richmond. I believed it to be right then,- I voted for it,- and I believe it to be right nosy. It is presented in no partizan spirit. At the time of its introduction it was pronounced by a member on this floor, now deceased [Mr. Lovejoy], a " secession document." Upon a motion to lay the resolution on the tatle the vote stood, 59 yeas, 1 14 nays. After the vote, the gentleman from Illi- nois [Mr. Washburn] proposing to debate it, it went over under the rules of the House, and now for the first time since comes up for consideration to-day. While it is not my purpose to detain the House long, I feel that it is but right, as the mover of the resolution, that I should say a few words Isa JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. in regard to it. Whatever may come of it, I have to say, Mr. Speaker, that it presents a platform upon which I have stood from the commencement of the rebellion; and it has occurred to me that it is a safe platform upon which every sincerely patriotic Union man in the nation might stand, no matter to what political party he might belong. And it was offered not only as expres- sive of my own sentiments, but as affording a rallying point for all the friends of the Government in the terrible struggle for its maintenance. I hope the House will come to a direct vote on the resolution. Let us see who is for it and who is against it. I hope there will be no indifferent motions made in regard to it. If ever there was a time, Mr. Speaker, when there should be a cordial unity of sentiment and of action among all those who desire to preserve the happy form of government under which we live, it is the present moment. And, sir, if we fail in this gigantic and important struggle; if the ship of state, so richly freighted, tempest-tossed and threatened on all sides with dangers, shall go down, it will be lost not on account of inability on our part to preserve it, but because we exhaust our strength upon questions of secondary importance, and because of the infidelity of the crew in not directing their whole energies to the safety of the vessel. Sir, for what do we contend Is it that this or that institution, long existing in some of the States, should suddenly perish Is it to have this or that amendment hastily, and it may be irregularly, incorporated into the Constitution Or is it for the far higher and nobler object of preserving the Constitution itself, which is the only bond of union that can bind indissolubly together the people of all the States Mr. Speaker, in my younger days it was often a matter of congratulation to myself that the American people were so blessed in their happy and matchless form of government, and so far advanced in Christian civilization, that they would never attempt to settle political questions in any other mode than by the peaceful processes of reason and of logic. In the history of the world I had read of the desolating civil wars by which other nations had been visited to gratify the ambition of kings and of despots, but I had flattered myself that we should be exempted from these calamities, and that the fierce barbarism that in other periods of the world's history had stained with blood the annals of our race would never disturb the good order of society, endanger the structure of our own government, or mar the beauty of our social and political organization. In this I have been sadly mistaken. I confess, sir, I placed far too high an estimate on the good sense, the virtue, and intelligence of the American people. Foolishly involved, as we are, in one of the most causeless and disastrous struggles that the world has ever witnessed, we are but following in the footsteps of those who have pre- i8G JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. ceded us; setting at naught the precepts of wisdom, trampling under foot the teachings, and setting at defiance the moderation of the great and good men who, with so much care, had built this grand temple of liberty, beneath whose shadow their posterity for ages might have lived in the enjoyment Ef every blessing that a great country and the noblest and freest institutions ever planted on earth could confer, we find ourselves rapidly undermining this beautiful temple, bringing poverty and death upon ourselves, and de- stroying the hopes of the world in the capacity of men to maintain and preserve a government based upon the will of the people and a written constitution. It is an old adage that "human nature is the same in every period of the world," and we seem determined that its truth shall be fully exemplified in our own history. Sir, mankind are amazed at the events that are now happening around us, and we are stultified by the follies and calamities that we have brought upon ourselves. We are now solving the important problem whether wve shall be equal to the task of preserving a Government anid a Union that our ancestors had the wisdom to create arid establish. No greater problem was ever presented for solution since the first dawn of creation, and no question more important to the well-being of our race in all the ages that are to follow was ever discussed among men. And, sir, if we can pass through this civil war with the Federal Constitution and the American Union preserved, it will be the sublimest spectacle that the world has ever witnessed, presented by the political interests and actions of men. In my poor view war is not the best mode of preserving a Governmeit and a Union founded on the popular will, and having for its chief corner- stone the affections of the people; and a fearful responsibility rests upon .II those who in public and in private life have in any way opposed conciliation, and by their conduct nurtured and encouraged the deplorable civil war that alike disgraces and afflicts our country. But, sir, for the present vre must pass by these questions At another time and under other circuri- stances we may be permitted to inquire into these matters, while the record of history will be properly made in fixing the blame that rightfully attaches to all those to whom the country is indebted for its present misfortunes. The question now is not so much for what causes atid by whose indiscretion this civil war exists, but how we can most safely and honorably get out of it with the life of the nation and the union of the States preserved. In the settlement of these important questions the heart of every true patriot throbs with anxiety, and to these, and these alcoe, should all our energies be now directed. In the midst of these great events, more important in their consz- quences than any that have ever taken place in the world's history, we shouAd rise above all considerations of party malevolence or mere personal revenge. For whatever may be the errors, however great the crimes, that tne Souti- l id 7 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. ern people have committed in commencing this war against the Government of theirfathers, we must remember that they sprang from the same stock with ourselves, that we have the same religion, speak the same language, were educated in the same schools, have the same traditions, and must share a common destiny; and in the very war now being waged they have proved themselves in generalship, in ingenuity, in courage, in pertinacity, in endu- rance, and in military skill a foe in all respects ' worthy of our steel." It is idle for us in these particulars to underrate the high qualities of the Southern people. Upon a hundred bloody and well-fought fields they have attested their valor, and wrung from us an unwilling tribute to their stern devotion to the bad and unjustifiable cause in which they are engaged. If we may boast of a Grant, a McClellan, a Hancock, a Sedgwick, and a Sherman, we must remember they have their Lees, their Johnstons, their Beauregards, their Longstreets, and their Hills. I know, sir, that in giving expression to these liberal sentiments, founded though they are in truth, I run the risk of incur- ring the displeasure of those rampant patriots who are unwilling to acknow- ledge the possession of any virtue by our obstinate and deluded enemy. We have underrated these people. Engaged as they are in an unholy cause, and abhorring it as we do, we have been slow to acknowledge the high qualities by which they have thus far sustained it; and at last, sir, when their military power is overcome, as by the blessing of (;od it will be, if wce would then expect to have peace in the land we shall have to treat with them upon the sarme terms and in the same manner that other liberal and enlightened nationalities have treated with those violators of the law who have attempted to overthrow and destroy the government under which they live. Mr. Speaker, since the outbreak of the rebellion, the actual commence- ment of the war, I have seen no other mode of ending the struggle than by fighting it out. It was and is either this or the acknowledgment of the independence of the Confederate States. These have been and are now the alternatives presented to the Amerian people. These issues cannot be changed; and regarding Disunion as fraught with every possible evil to ourselves and to our posterity, as a stigma upon our national escutcheon never to be obliterated, a disgrace to the American name, a drawback to civilization and progress, a destruction to our nationality in the continuance of which is centered the best hopes of mankind, I have seen no other way since the war began of ending the controversy and reestablishing the authority of the Government than by the dread arbitrament of arms. The Southern people themselves who are actually engaged in the rebellion con- template nothing else; they have staked their all upon it; Disunion is their watchword; to it they are wedded, and they will give it up only when, ex- hausted in men and resources, they shall be compelled to yield to the supe- X88 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. 1 59 rior power of the Government. Hence, sir, in my view that legislator best meets the obligations of true patriotism in this crisis and sustains the idea of an early and a lasting peace who stands by the Government in voting men and money to carry on the war, and in encouraging every constitutioral measure calculated to weaken and at the same time to end the rebellion- not in a spirit of " passion or resentment," in the language of the resolution, " nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthro- ing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to pre- serve the Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired." Such is the language of the resolution; and these, in my view, are the only true objects for svhich the wtar ought to be prosecuted. And any d&- parture hitherto or hereafter made from the spirit of this resolution will only tend to prolong the struggle, to complicate it with new and difficult questions, to produce division and alienation among those who ought to be united ni the one essential object of saving the Government and reistablishing its authority over the entire country. To the securing of these everything else ought to be incidental and subordinate. And, sir, I venture the assertion that if from the beginning, when a similar resolution was adopted with such great unanimity by this House, and approved and sanctioned I believe Ly all the departments of the Government, its spirit and purpose had betn strictly adhered to, and the policy of the Government in no respect changed, we should this day have not only greater harmony among ourselves, but se should be much nearer the end of the rebellion. Itn other words, sir, if from the beginning we had pursued the policy which all Union men started out upon, if we had held aloft the Constitution and the olive branch in one hand and the sword in the other, assuring in every way the people of all the States of the South that our sole purpose and duty was to defend the Constitution of the United States, to maintain the authority of the Government, and up- hold the Union of the States, it is my firm conviction that to-day, sir, there would have been a Union party in the South equal in numbers to the party that is now endeavoring to destroy the Government. For we know at the commencement there was a powerful Union party in every Southern State, with perhaps the exception of South Carolina. And if we find matters so greatly changed, we have to look for the cause mainly in the changed policy into which we have drifted and which has been pursued. They commenceI the svar without excuse or justification, but we have been continually mak- ing a cause for them, until they now present an almost unbroken phalanc against the Government and the progress of the national arms. I know, sir, that the President has been surrounded by great difficulties growing out of the rebellion, far greater than any that ever beset any 9A.0MES SIDNEY ROLLINS. other President, and having confidence in his patriotism and his sincere desire to overcome the rebellion at the earliest possible day, and to reestab- lish the authority of the Government, I have not felt it to be my duty to make war upon him in regard to those questions wherein I differed with him. In a great crisis like this, while there must be wide differences of opinion, there should at the same time be permitted the freest toleration of sentiment among all those that claim to have the same patriotic object in view. Nor would I hold men to the strictest account for those changes of opinion that revolution and the constantly varying aspect of public questions tend to bring about in their minds. I can well see that men may be equally honest and patriotic, and yet differ widely in reference to the best policy for the Government to pursue where dangers threaten on all sides. But many questions have been started and issues presented that have no necessary connection with the war, and that have been calculated greatly to distract and divide the people and draw their attention from that which should be the only true issue before the country. And to the extent that these ill- timed and irrelevant questions continue to be urged upon us will the cause of the Government and of the Union be weakened and endangered. For at last, at the end of the struggle, we shall have to come back, if we would save the Union to which all of us profess so much attachment, to the very terms and spirit of the resolution now under discussion. In the language of Mr. Lincoln in his inaugural address, " Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when after touch loss on both sides and no gain on either you cease fighting, the identical old questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you "-and I repeat, to be settled, if at all, in the spirit of that resolution. I know of no punishment too severe to be inflicted upon the authors of this cruel and unnecessary rebellion; but so far as the masses are concerned who have been deluded and led astray, we should not only adopt a policy of the broadest amnesty, but we should abandon all schemes of confiscation and legalized plunder, some of which have been persistently and too success- fully urged upon this House. I take the same view of all those insane theories having for their object the subversion of the State Governments and the converting of them into territorial dependencies. In looking to reunion, I have no other idea than that the States w ill be preserved in the same geographical and political relations to the general Government that ex- isted anterior to the rebellion. That there will be changes in some respects I do not doubt. As well might we expect to see the hurricane and the storns sweep across the land without uprooting the forests as to see a country like ours pass through the bloody ordeal of a great revolution without some im- portant modifications in the organic law. But it is to be hoped that these changes will not materially infringe the true theory and character of our Go, ernment nor deform the essential features of the Federal Constitution. Igo JAMES SIDNEV ROLLINS. These unavoidable and incidental changes produced by a great rebellion we must submit to. But we can never have, in my view, a better form of government than the one under which we have lived -the most perfect, consistently with the idea of the fullest enjoyment of human liberty, that -was ever formed. The division of the powers of the general and State Govein- ments, so admirably adapted to the protection and the promotion of the interests of the nation and of the individual States, the perfect harmony and beautiful simplicity of the whole machinery working in such excellent order, commanded alike the admiration and the wonder of men. Endangered at last by an attempt to put into practical operation the extreme and perilous and, I would add, absurd theory of the constitutional right ofa State to secede from the Union, we must be careful, in avoiding this risk in our political sits- tem, not to drift to the other extreme, whereby the rights of the States wvo, Id be ignored and swallowed up in consolidation andcenitralization. Our safety consists in guarding with jealous care the rights and the powvers of the indi- vidual States as well as of the general Government, as defined in the Federa Constitution-a Constitution that in the achievements of human wisdcm stands without a parallel, and of which a distinguished Virginian, at o le time an eloquent member of this House, now a general in the Confederate service, said: Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, all combined, in Congress or out of Con- gress, in Convention or out of Convention, never made that Constitution; G d Almighty sent it dowvn to your fathers. It ,as a work, too, of glory, and a work of inspiration. I believe that as fully as I believe in my Bible. No man, from Hamilton, aid Jay, and Madison, from Edmund Randolph,- who had the chief hand in making it, and he was a Virginian,- the Writers of it, the authors of it, and you who hale lived under it from 1789 to this year of our Lord i858, and none of your fathers, and none of your fathers' sons, have ever measured the height, or the depth, ar the length, or the breadth of the wisdom of that Constitution.-Speech of HrNuiY A. \Viss;, i8;8. I act upon the theory that the Union is to be preserved and the Gover i- ment saved from wreck; for it may be, if we fail in the grand effort ve are now making for national preservation, that the whole character of olir institutions may be changed, and the Government itself converted into an absolute military despotism. For one, sir, I shotild be content to-day wii h the old order of things, with " the Constitution as it is and the Union as it was." They met the objects for which they were created. No people i n earth ever prospered as did the American people tinder the influence of our free and beneficent institutions. They were established by the wisest ard noblest men that ever adorned the annals of human history. I was satisfied with their work; it was good enough for me and for my children. I would not have changed it myself, nor do I know the men who are wise enough lo 191 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. improve it. And all this is perfectly consistent with that advancement and rational progress in the science of government and human improvement which a more liberalized culture among the masses and a steadily advancing Christian civilization would be sure to bring. Mr. Speaker, as we seem to approach the termination of this struggle, questions of the greatest magnitude constantly spring up, demanding of us the most earnest consideration in their proper settlement. Even after the re- bellious are overthrown, their capital taken, and their archives (if they have any) scattered to the four windls,and their military powerso far overcome as to be no longer effective and dangerous, the question will still be asked, how can the masses of the people be best brought back to their former relations to the Government I know the theory is encouraged by some gentlemen - I hope they are not very numerous - that these people are to be deprived of all their political rights, that they are no longer to be admitted to the full privileges of citizenship under the Government. Whatever justice there may be in all such suggestions as applicable to the leaders in this rebellion, I cannot appreci- ate the wisdom or practicability of such a policy extended to all the masses of the people. It would certainly be destructive of "all the ends we aim at," in endeavoring to bring about a restoration of the Government. We all profess a desire to see the Southern people, who have been led astray, return to their allegiance and meet the common obligations which we all owe to the parent Government. But how can we expect them to do this with all the onerous conditions so strongly urged by some imposed upon them No, sir; even after the war is over there must be negotiation and reconciliation. All these people cannot be driven in exile from the coun- try; you cannot punish them all for the crime of treason; they must come back, and while they will be taught, and if need be forced, to obey the laws, they must be made to feel that under the Government all their rights will be respected and protected, and by a faithful observance of all the laws they will be placed upon the same footing of equality with every other citizen of the Republic. To insure their fidelity, they may and perhaps they ought to be required to take such oaths and to conform to such other reasonable con- ditions as may be sanctioned by the good judgment, and accord with the enlightened liberality of, the country. By this policy we may reasonably hope to have peace after the war is over; the disorders of society produced by the rebellion will be assuaged; prejUdices enkindled by the fierce conflict of arms will be extinguished; and we must leave it to time to heal other wounds and to appease the sectional animosities so long agitating the coun- try, culminating, at last, in a disgraceful and bloody war that shakes the very foundations upon which the superstructure of our Government rests. Mr. Speaker, in my poor view this is the only mode by which we can ever expect to restore perfect peace to the country and bring once more to all the 192 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. people that prosperity and good order which existed prior to the breaking out of this rebellion. Residing in a State where at one time the opposition to the Federal Government on the part of many of the citizens was violert and unrelenting, which has furnished a large number of soldiers to the Corr- federate army, but in which the authority of the general Government has been almost entirely reestablished, and the citizens have returned to their allegiance, I am not wholly without experience in reference to the influence and good effect of the policy to which I have adverted. I know that these opinions will find but little sympathy with many gentlemen on this floo:-. Extremely radical as they are, and indignant at the attempt to destroy the Government, irritated at the calamities which the war has brought upon the country and the heavy burdens which must rest for many years to come upon the shoulders of the people, and following the instincts of human nature, they think more of inflicting punishment upon the guilty than of striving by a liberal and humane policy to win them back to their allegiance. They would confiscate their estates; they would parcel out their lands among the brave soldiers who have borne aloft the banner of their country in the suppression of the rebellion; they would deprive thenm of the right to vote as wvell as of the right to hold office under the Government; they would establish a system of serfdom over the entire Southern States; they would create a necessity for a standing army in every county and district of that part of our country in order to keep the peace and prevent revolt! And some wvoul i even go so far as to elevate the negro to the privileges of citizenship and the ownership of the property of the country, while they would see our own race., men of Anglo-Saxon blood, degraded in the scale of being and made mere " hewers of wood and drawers of water " for that servile and inferior race of men whom they have hitherto held as slaves ! Sir, I cannot repress the ir- dignation which I feel, and which the bare intimation of a policy like th's awakens in my bosom, and I must regard the men who would attempt the execution of such a policy as none other than madmen. Oh, judgment, art thou fled to brutish beasts, And have men lost their reason Mr. Speaker, I think I appreciate at its full value the importance of the preservation of the American Union and of the Government of the United States. The idea of a continuance of our national unity, and the grand re- sults in the long vista of coming years that would flow from it, in diffusing the blessings of liberty and of free government to mankind in every part of the habitable globe, has been the thought, more than any other, that h.s guided and influenced my political action in life. It has been the political divinity at whose altar I have worshiped from my infancy; and when I con- template the horrors that must inevitably result from the breaking up of 23 I 9., JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. this national unity, the degradation and dishonor that must forever attach to the very name of American, I feel that we ought to be ready to make any and every sacrifice in order to preserve it. But, sir, there are some things, in my view, that are even worse than disunion; and rather than see that bright and beautiful land destroyed, its people deprived of citizenship, the Southern States brought into complete subjection and controlled and governed by the other States; rather than see the negro, under the influence -of a false philanthropy and a pertinacious fanaticism, taking the place of the white man and made by law politically and socially his equal, or, as some would prefer, his master-sir, rather than witness these things, horrible as the idea of disunion has ever been to rme, I would say let there be separation, hoping still, however, that in the future, when the animosities of the present hour no longer prevail, another generation of men, following the patriotic example of the fathers of the Republic, would once more bring about a union so much demanded by the interests of this continent and the happiness and liberty of our race. No, sir; I am for preserving the Government, but with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired," and I will add further, with the rights of the people, of every citizen of the Re- public, wherever he may reside, equal under the law and under the Con- stitution, he being responsible only in a legal and constitutional manner for any violations of the law or for any crimes and offenses that he may com- mit against the Government. These are the general views that have oc- curred to me as most proper to be adopted in any plan of reunion that may come up for consideration after the cessation of hostilities, and they are substantially embodied in the resolution which we now have under con- sideration. But, sir, all these theories will fail, all resolutions passed by this House or by the Congress of the United States will be of no avail, unless our arms meet with success. The overthrow of the military power of the South is a sine nga non to the reestablishment of peace and the restoration of the Union ; and every measure that tends to strengthen our army, to encour- age our soldiers in the field, to sustain our generals, should receive the cordial support and hearty approbation of every patriot in the land. Mr. Speaker, I have never despaired of the Republic. I know the terrible trial that is now upon us, and the still more terrible ordeal through which we may yet have to pass before we reach the end of the struggle. But, sir, I believe that the American people will be equal to all emergencies that may spring out of this contest. They are alive to its importance. They know the issues at stake. Hitherto they have responded with alacrity and promptness to every call that the Government has made upon them; they have not spared their means and they have proved themselves ever ready to bare their bosoms to the storm. And now at the very crisis of the nation's fate, in the midst of the remorseless and desperate struggle that has at last 194 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. IC(5 come upon us, when the capital of the Confederate States is threatened and, as we hope, on the eve of being taken, their President and high officers driven from the sacred soil of Virginia, and their government literally broken up; when the brave and immortal Grant, worthy, as he has proved himself to be, of the highest honors of the nation, is bearing aloft the national ensign and carrying the eagles of the Republic to the very heart of rebeldomll, se have abundant cause for thankfulness to Almighty God for the bright bow of promise that spans our skies. And in this hour of the deepest anxiety, when the fate of the nation and the perpetuity of our Government are tremn- bling in the balance, and when the complete success of our arms will send a thrill of gladness and of joy, of hope and of confidence, to the heart of every friend of free government throughout the habitable globe, may God inspire every true friend of the Constitution and of the Union with courage, wi:h patience, with hope, with magnanimity, that we may meet the duties of the hour like men, " high-minded men," not only at the present time, but alio when we shall have passed through the great impending crisis that is now upon us. WVith these remarks, Mr. Speaker, if no other gentleman desires to discuss the resolution, I move the previous question; but I first desire to modify the resolution by striking out the word " substantial." Speech on the Proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States, delivered in the Hozuse of Representatives, January 13, i865. JOINT RESOLUTION SUBMITTING TO THE LEGISLATURES OF THE SEVERAL STATES A PROPOSITION TO AMEND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of Amnerica in Congress assembled (two-thirds of both Houses concurring), That the following Article be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of said Legislatures, shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of said Constitution, namely: ARTICLE XIll. SEC. I. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction. SEC. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. The aforegoing resolution having been under consideration by the House of Representatives of the United States, the House proceeded to vote otl the adop- tion thereof on the X5th of June, 1864, and the same was lost by 94 ayes to 64 nays (not two-thirds). Mr. Ashley, before the result was announced, changed hissvote to the negative, and entered a motion to reconsider-pending which, on the 13th of January, 1865, the House being in Committee of the Whole, Mr. Rollins said: Mr. Chairman, I desire to submit a few observations to the House upon the important proposition now pending before the final vote is taken upon it. The remarks that I shall make will be rather of the nature of a per- sonal explanation than of any elaborate argumentation of this question. At the last session of Congress when the vote was taken upon this proposition I opposed it. When the vote is again taken I shall favor it. I have changed my views in reference to the expediency of this measure; and while I do not suppose that what I may say will have the slightest influence in changing the vote of any gentleman upon this floor, I am satisfied with the reasons that have induced me to change my opinion and my action; and it is perhaps due to myself, humble as I am, as well as to those I represent and vho take any interest in the opinions that I may entertain or express here, to present JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. to the House and the country some of the considerations that have induced me to this change. Mr. Speaker, I entertain the same opinion to-day in regard to the rebel- lion that I have always entertained. I feel the same animosity, the samie hatred, the same abhorrence for it and for those who initiated it now that I did when it was first hatched. Indeed, I may say, sir, that regarding the consequences that it has produced in my own State and throughout the coun- try I am less inclined to-day than ever to look upon it with any degree of forbearance. Regarding it always as without excuse or justification, I am to-day inclined to the opinion that there was not even the shadow of a shade of pretext for commencing this disastrous rebellion. But, sir, heretofore, and even now, I have acted with that body of men who are disposed to pursue a conciliatory policy with a view to obtain the high object we all had in view, and that was the preservation of the Consti- tution and the salvation of the Union. When I say I have been acting wit h that class of men who desire to pursue a conciliatory policy I do not mean to say that I have not always been in favor of an earnest prosecution of this war; but I mean to say that I desire to blend the two,- war and the olive branch,- the olive branch ever in front of the sword, a constant protest to the intelligent public sentiment of the South that it is not the object of tl-e Government to oppress, but that it is the high and noble purpose of the representatives of the people and of the United States Government to e:;- tend and secure to them all the rights that they can rightfully claim under the Constitution of our fathers. It is my firm conviction that we have not sufficiently pursued a conciliatory policy; not sufficiently tried to impress on the public mind of the masses of the South the true objects we all have in view in the prosecution of this war. And while I am not now disposed to say that a different line of policy would have brought about a different re- sult-would have had the effect ofputting down the rebellionor have stopped this unfortunate war, or have sustained the Government, I am sure that such a policy would have done no harm; that the effect would have bee l good; that, at all events, it would have resulted in consolidating the Unio:l sentiment in the loyal States of the Union, and checked to a great extent the collision of sentiment and consequent diversity of action that hav- occurred among Union men. I have been surprised, Mr. Speaker, that the distinguished men who haves charge of the Government have not stopped long enough to listen to thee suggestions of plain and humble men in regard to this question. Sir, if I had occupied the high position of the President of the United States, even recently, I would have made every soldier in Sherman's army the bearer ot a message of peace and good-will to the humblest men in the humblest cabins in the State of Georgia. He then had an opportunity of reaching that dis- 23A 197 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. tant population. I judge the people from my own experience. I know how the masses of the common people have been deluded and misled by their leaders. I have seen the effect of this thing around me at my own home, and I know the influence that such appeals, coming from those in authority, have upon the minds of the masses of the common people of the country; and I to-day believe that if such a line of policy had been pur- sued, and the minds of the people of Georgia could be reached, it would be but a short time before the Administration of this Government would have a stronger and more faithful party among the people of that State than Davis himself! Mr. Speaker, I have another general observation to make. In my action as a Representative upon this floor it has never been my purpose to pursue a course either for the preservation or for the destruction of the institution of slavery. I have had a more important and a nobler object in view, for I regard it a more important and a nobler object to preserve this free Con- stitution of ours, to preserve our glorious and happy form of government and the Union of these States, than can be any interest connected with the pres- ervation or destruction of African slavery upon this continent. That has been altogether a secondary and subordinate consideration compared with the better purpose which I have just named; and in every vote that I have given, whether tending to weaken the institution of slavery or to strengthen it, that vote has been cast after considering the question, how far will this or that measure tend to strengthen the Government and to preserve the Constitution and the Union To be, or not to be - that is the question. Sir, if I could save this Constitution and this Union by preserving the in- stitution of slavery in its present status in the various States, I would do it most cheerfully. Perhaps I would go further than many of my friends on the other side of the House: if I could save the Constitution of my country and the Union of these States even by extending the institution of slavery, I would do it. Why Not because I am the especial friend of the institu- tion of slavery, but because I regard as the paramount and most important question of the times the preservation of our own liberties, of our own Con- stitution and free government. And, sir, I accept also the other view of the proposition: if I could save the Constitution and the Union by the par- tial destruction of slavery I would partially destroy it; and if I could save the Constitution and Union of my country by the total destruction of slavery -cutting it up by the roots, extirpating the cancer at once -I most un- questionably would do it; for I regard the preservation of these as para- mount, and far higher than any interest affecting the freedom or slavery of 198 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. the African race upon this continent. In other words, I adopt precisely the sentiment so felicitously expressed by the President of the United States .n a letter that he addressed to Mr. Greeley more than two years ago; and n order to refresh the minds of these gentlemen who are pleased to give nie their attention I desire to read one or two sentences from that letter. It expresses the correct views, to which, as I think, all men that aim at the preservation of the Government should adhere. TIhe President said My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and is not either :o save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any stare I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do nore whenever I shall believe doing more svill he p the cause. That was the disposition of the President two years ago. That was my position then, and it has not altered since. What I propose to do now in the vote that I shall give upon this proposition I do simply because I beliese that ultimately it will tend to save the Union; and to effect that I am willing to do more now than I have done heretofore. When I cast the vote that I did before, upon this proposition, I had no doubt in regard to the power of Congress to submit this amendment to the States; and the vote I then gave was given on the ground of expediency alone. For at that time, as I have stated, I was in favor of pursuing a more conciliatory policy. I b2- lieved that by pursuing such a course and assuring the people of the South that our object was to preserve their rights under the Constitution they might be induced to return. And I was willing that they should return with the institution of slavery preserved as it then existed in different States cf this Union. And I believe now that if political events had taken a different direction from what they have taken, in all probability those States would have been invited to return with all their rights-and, along with the rest, their right to the institution of slavery. And I will make this further remark, that it was this general leading con- sideration that induced rme to support the distinguished and patriotic man who was nominated for the Presidency in opposition to the present President. It was because I believed the one would offer and be satisfied with more liberal terms than the other, and therefore that there would be in all prob- ability a better chance of preserving the Constitution and the Government under the administration of that man than by a continuance of the adminis- tration of Mr. Lincoln. But I confess here to-day, that when I look at all the changes that would have necessarily resulted from a change of adminis- 199 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. tration, in its men and its policies, I am inclined to doubt whether, under all the cirurmrstanees, the people have not at last acted more wisely than I did. I do not claim to be infallible. While I do not take the voice of the majority, however large, as the sole rule of my action, I am always willing to defer to it and to treat with respect the opinions of a majority of the people of my country. It has been inti- mated here that perhaps there are some gentlemen who incline to change their views and action in reference to this important subject because the cur- rent seems to set in that direction. Now, if I believed that I was governed by any such consideration as that I should despise myself. I never have been a man to seek out the direction of the popular current upon which to set sail in my feeble bark. It is the pride of my public life that I have nearly always been in a minority at home and in the nation. I scarcely ever had an opportunity to know how a man feels in the majority! And I have some pride in regard to it, because I believe that, as a general rule, there is more public virtue, more truth, and more honesty in the leading minds that control minorities than in those that direct majorities, and this from a principle in human nature that we all understand. No, sir; I am governed by no such consideration as that. I am governed by the single object of doing something in my humble way that may tend to preserve this Union and continue it after we shall have restored to it the States now in rebellion. Now, sir, I come to make a few observations in reference to a question that has been very elaborately discussed here during the consideration of this subject; and that is the question of the constitutional power of Con- gress to do the thing we aim at to-day. I know how immodest it may be for me, after the very able and distinguished gentlemen who have discussed this question so elaborately, to say a word upon it. But as I speak for my constituents at home, as well as to this House, and especially to those who act with me on this occasion, I desire to be clearly understood. If I believed this amendment to be unconstitutional, as a matter of course I should be bound by my oath not to give a vote for it; but believing it to be constitu- tional, and believing also in the expediency of the measure, I shall vote for the amendment. Is this amendment constitutional How are we to get light upon this subject My answer is, by referring to the instrument itself; and I have yet to meet the first gentleman on either side of the House that will deny the proposition that in accordance with the letterof the Constitution this amend- ment may be proposed to the States for their adoption or rejection. The provision of the Constitution that confers the power of amendment, and which I do notpropose to read,has buttwolimitations, as has been repeatedly remarked in this discussion. So far as the letter of the Constitution is con- 200 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. cerned, except in reference to those two limitations, Congress has the right and the power to propose any amendment to be adopted or rejected by tie States themselves. According to the letter of the Constitution we are gov- erned only by the two limitations found in the instrument itself. And the next question which presents itself is whether there are any other limitations in the Constitution, except the restrictions found in the article itself, to prevent Congress from proposing this amendment to the States. Mr. C. A. WVHilTE: I understood the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Rol- lins] to say that no person upon this side of the House has advocated the principle that the letter of the Constitution put a limitation upon the power of Congress to pass this amendment. I beg leave to remind him that in the few remarks which I had the honor to submit on Wednesday last I made that distinct proposition. I contended that the word " amendment " was a limitation of itself; that the amendment must relate to some clause or pra- vision already in the Constitution; and that this proposition now under consideration,being to insert a separate and distinct clause in the Constitl- tion, and having no connection with any grant of power to be found in t, was a supplement to the Constitution and not an amendment; and that the very letter of the Constitution limited the power of Congress over the sub- ject of amendments to the delegation of powers to Congress to amend t1,e Constitution. Mr. ROLLINS of Missouri: My answer to the gentleman is, that all the amendments that have been made were open to the same objection. I was not so fortunate, Mr. Speaker, as to hear the gentleman's speech, nor have I had time to read it ; but in reference to the question of limitation I think that the best way to obtain light onl the subject is to read what the Con- stitution itself says: The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shl 11 propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amend- ments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the seversl States, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other moc e of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided, that no amendment which may be made prior to the year i8o8 shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived. of its equal suffrage in the Senate. The Constitution can be changed only by amendment, and according to the gentleman's theory we can add to it nothing, hmwee-ver goodl r desirab, unless there is already " some clause or provision in the Constitution " rela:- ing to the subject proposed to be added. This I regard as absurd. 201 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Now, sir, I cannot for my life see, as my friend from Ohio sees, where there are any other limitations of the power of Congress, according to the letter of the instrument, than those which we find in the clause of the Constitution itself. The limitation is there according to the letter, and there alone; and if there is any other limitation in reference to the power of Congress it must be outside of this article of the Constitution; and the next question that I propose to suggest, in order to come to a correct conclusion on this subject, is whether there exists any other limitation of the power of Congress in pro- posing amendments to this instrument I assert that there is; and I adopt the very excellent view suggested in the running debates by the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. BoutwellJ in answer to the distinguished gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Pendleton 1, and that is that the limitation of amendment to this Constitution is found also in the very preamble to the instrument itself. I do not believe, sir, with my friend from Ohio [Mr. Cox], that we have a right to make any amendment whatever to this Constitution, that there is no limitation except the express one contained in the clause that I have just read. There are other limitations, and they are found, as I conceive, in the preamble preceding the Constitution itself. What is the preamble We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfeel union, estab- lish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, providefor tie commnon defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our pos- terity, do ordai n and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Now, I do not believe that any amendment can be made to this instru- ment that has for its aim, or whose direct tendency would be, to destroy the very objects and purposes for which the Constitution was established. Therefore, sir, any amendment to this Constitution that would destroy " a more perfect union," that would fail to " establish justice," that would fail to " insure domestic tranquillity," that would fail to -' provide for the com- mon defense," or to " promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity," is not an amendment that may be proposed by Congress, or may be adopted and ratified by the States; and every representative who votes must be a " law unto himself" whether any amendment proposed is in accordance with the Constitution. Mr. Cox: I desire to ask the gentleman a question. Who is to be the judge whether a proposed amendment comes within the scope of the pre- amble Mr. ROLLINS of Missouri: I will be the judge myself, so far as I may be called upon to vote for or against it. Mr. Cox: I would prefer, according to my peculiar logic, to allow the States themselves to be the judges. Therefore, I infinitely prefer the gentle- 202 JAMIES SIDNEY ROLLINS. man's first proposition, that the power of amendment is not limited except by the terms of the clause of the Constitution on that subject. Mr. ROLLINS of Missouri: I will answer the gentleman, that so far as my action and my vote are concerned, my own judgment-and I presume so far as the vote of every other member in the House is concerned, his own judgment-must be the rule in reference to the question whether a pro- posed amendment comes within the scope of the preamble; and I presume that the States themselves must be the judges when an amendment is sub- mitted for their consideration and action. If three-fourths of the States adopt a proposed amendment, it becomes a part of the Constitution. But suppose the other fourth of them decline to adopt the amendment, what then If it is such an infringement of their rights, such a destruction of their lib- erties, such an interference with their domestic policy, that they regard them- selves justified its raising the standard of revolt and revolution in order to resist the amendment that the other States have adopted, I take it that each State itself would be the better judge as to the course that it would have a right to pursue. But, sir, it has been urged that this amendment is contrary to the spi:-it although not to the letter of the Constitution. Well, Mr. Speaker, I am a believer, too, in this doctrine that we must be guided by the spirit of the Constitution. I would violate neither its letter nor its spirit. But I confess, sir, that it is difficult for me to define or exactly to understand what is meant by the spirit of the Constitution. Perhaps it is like the passion that young people experience, and which is well described in the language of the young lover: 'T is what we feel, but can't define, 'T is what we know, but can't express. We all know that there are amendments that might be proposed, and which would be in strict accordance with the letter of that instrument, but which we should feel to be violative of its spirit. Sir, if you propose an amendment changing entirely the form of our Gov- ernment, creating a monarchy or despotism instead of a republic, I presur e, although gentlemen might find in the Constitution an express warrant of law to do this thing, yet it would be against the spirit of that instrument. I pre- sume if an amendment were proposed to require one State to pay a much larger proportion of taxes than in accordance with its representation, al- though you might find a warrant for it, yet it would be against the spirit Df the Constitution. I presume if you were to propose an amendment to estab- lish a state religion throughout the land, while the letter of the Constitution might not be against it, yet every man who favored religious toleration and 2()3 JAMES SIDNEV ROLLINS. who was against an established church would feel that the spirit of the instrument had been violated. I believe then, sir, that this amendment is in accordance with the express letter of the Constitution; I believe that it is in accordance with the preamble of the Constitution; I believe that it is in accordance with the true spirit, meaning, and intent of that instrument, and the objects and purposes for which it was framed by our forefathers, and that if all the States could be induced to adopt it, it would go far to strengthen the Government by pre- venting future dissension and cementing the bonds of the Union, on the preservation of which depend our strength, our security, our safety, our happiness, and the continued existence of free institutions on the American continent. The only question left for me to decide, sir, is whether this is a measure that is expedient and that ought to be adopted. I believe in both its ex- pediency and its constitutionality. Now, Mr. Speaker, in making a few remarks on the other branch of the question, I want to put a few interrogatories to gentlemen who differ with me. Does any man in this House, does any intelligent man in any of the loyal States, believe that the institution of African slavery will survive this rebellion If there is such a man I choose to differ with him. I believe that, as has often been remarked here, the existence and continuance of human slavery are wholly and entirely incompatible with a state of civil war in the country. The rebellion instigated and carried on by slaveholders has been the death-knell of the institution; and, believing this, shall we any longer rely upon the President's proclamations, which are doubtful in their policy and character Shall we rely upon the exercise of those extraordinary powers originating in a time of war or shall we not, like wise and prudent statesmen, come to the rescue at once, take it up, handle it, discuss it in a statesmanlike way, and adopt the true and onlypeaceful mode pointed out in the charter of our liberties for meeting and disposing of questions of this character Mr. Speaker, I have another remark to make in regard to the limitation in the fifth article of the Constitution. How did it happen that the framers of that instrument extended the limitation of power to two subjects only Why did they preserve the representation of the small States from amend- ment Why did they allow the African slave-trade to remain untouched only prior to x8o8 I answer that, according to my reading and under- standing, it was because the great men who laid the foundations of civil government upon the Anmerican continent were essentially antislavery, North and South, and looking upon the institution of slavery as an evil they determined to check its growth; hence in the Constitution they placed a limitation upon the African slave-trade, limiting it to the year I8go. So on the other subject of the representation of the small States. The small 204 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. States represented in that convention, seeing the great inequality of author- ity and power given to them by that clause of the Constitution which ena- bled Rhode Island to exercise in the Senate of the United States as much power as New York or any other of the great States of the Union, and tena cious of the power thus secured to them, insisted, and it was finally yielded to them, that upon this point the Constitution of M/fe tfinted S/a/es slhoudi remain unamended tMroughout all time. Now, I ask you the question, was it not easy to add, and why did not the framers of the Constitution add, to that clause that no amendment should be made changing or modifying the institution of slavery as it existed in any State of the Union Why was this not ingrafted upon the Constitution I have an answer satisfactory to myself on that subject. It was because the great men of that day, the men who framed this charter of human free- dom for the American people, were in heart and in principle hostile to the institution of slavery; and although they did not take the responsibility of disposing of it, they accepted it as they found it; and the writings and teachings of the great men of the North and South justify me in claiming that they looked forward to the day when their posterity would finally, irL somne form or other, dispose of the institution which they themselves regarded as hurtful to the happiness and progress of the country. Hence I go a little further than my venerable friend from Missouri [Mr. King], though he and I are exactly in the same category upon this ques- tion. I express my belief that the limitation preventing the abolition of slavery in the States by Congress was not placed in the Constitution because of a desire to leave that an open question, but because of hoping and be- lieving that at a distant day in the history of our country, when there wsould be a higher and more Christian-like civilization, a better view of this sub- ject, then we, their posterity, might have the power, which they gave to us in the instrument itself, to take hold of the question and dispose of it in some fair, right, and proper way. Such is my belief; whether it is well founded or not is another thing. They regarded the institution as an evil, and no such limitation could have been incorporated into the Constitution by the convention which framed that instrument. They regarded it as an evil to be disposed of one day or another, and they left the door open to those who were to come after them, for the express purpose of enabling them, when a good opportunity offered, to do the very thing which the)- failed to do themselves. And this accords precisely with the opinion of the Hon. A. H. Stephens of Georgia, Vice-President of the Confederate States. In his celebrated speech made after the adoption of the Montgomery Constitution, he says: African slavery as it exists among Lis -as the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. The prevailing ideas entertained by most of th 205 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that somehow or other in the order of Providence the institution would be evanes- cent, and pass aaway. This idea, though not incorporated in the Constitution, was the prevailing idea at the time, Mr. Speaker, every man, however humble he may be, has some personal pride in the opinions he may entertain upon a great question of this sort. I am not free from considerations of that kind, and when I hear my friends over the way upon the Republican side of the House-and I know I have a great many friends there-intimate that because a man cannot vote with them and me upon this amendment he sympathizes with the rebellion, or is ati apologist for the rebellion or for slavery, I confess that I cannot indorse either the good taste or the propriety of such imputations. Such remarks have been applied to me elsewhere than here, and yet I know they have not fitted my case, because I take this occasion to state my opinion-an opinion I have entertained for twenty-five years-that the institution of African slavery cannot be defended either upon moral or religious grounds, or upon principles of natural right or political economy. I am a believer in the Declaration of Independence, wherein it is asserted that " all men are created equal." I believe that when it says "all ,mnen " it means every man who was created in the " image of his Maker" and walks on God's footstool, without regard to race, color, or any other acci- dental circumstances by which he may be surrounded. I know that astute politicians, crafty and ambitious men, in various periods of the Republic have tried to draw a distinction between this man and that man because he happened to have a differently colored skin; to show that the Declaration was applicable to white men only, and not to the black man, the red man, or any other than the white man. That the word " all " meant a part, not "all"! But, sir, I believe that general clause in the Declaration of Inde- pendence was meant by the immortal man who penned it, and by the im- mortal men who signed it, and by a large majority of the great men of that day, North and South, to assert the grand principle, founded in the rights of man, founded in reason, and in strict accordance with the law of morality and of the Divine will, that "all men are created equal," without distinc- tion of race or of color. And although our ancestors failed to apply the principle, although they were derelict in duty by not living up to the great enunciation of principles which they made to the world and mankind, it is no proof to my mind that they did not mean exactly what I say they meant in the expression to which I have referred. 206 JAMES SII)NEY ROLLINS. Mr. Speaker, all these considerations are influencing me in the very vote that I shall give upon this amendment; but I desire to say that my e'- perience upon the subject of slavery has been quite singular and diversified. An antislavery man in sentiment, and yet heretofore a large owner of slaves myself,-not now, however,-not exactly with my consent, but with cr without my consent, I learned from a telegram a morning or two ago, that the convention recently assembled in my State adopted an amend- ment to our present State Constitution for the immediate emancipation of all the slaves in the State. I am no longer the owner of a slave, and I thank God for it. Although I think this subject might have been disposed of in a better way, causing less inconvenience to our people and doing ill fact the slave no harm, I make no complaint of the convention for that act; and although there is no clause of compensation, I very gracefully yield t3 the public sentiment and to the action of this distinguished body of mena called in my State to consider its welfare. If the giving up of my slaves without complaint shall be a contribution upon my part to promote the public good, to uphold the Constitution of the 'United States, to restore peace and preserve this Union, if Ihad owned a housad slazes they .wol/i miost cheerfully haze been given up. I say with all my heart, let them gc, but let them not go without a sense of feeling and a proper regard on m i part for the future of themselves and their offspring ! I say, let them gc, and let them enjoy all the privileges consistent with sound policy and that freedom which has been vouchsafed to them! Let them go; and, sir, there is no man in this House or in this nation who feels a deeper interest in their comfort, in their happiness, in their elevation, than I do, and in the comfort and welfare of their children and their children's children'for a I time to come! I say again, sir, let them go, and may the blessing of God rest upon them ' [Here the hammer fell, the hour having expired.] Mr. ASHLEY: I ask that the gentleman have leave to continue his re- marks. By unanimous consent the leave was granted. Mr. ROLLINS of Missouri: As I have said, my experience in relation to this question of slavery has been singular and somewhat diversified. Why, sir, I remember that seventeen years ago, when I was a member of that proud, honorable, and patriotic party, the old Whig party of the countri and when I was quite a young man, my friends placed me ii the responsi- ble position of candidate for the high office of Governor of my State, and that I found as my competitor upon that occasion my venerable and hon- orable friend who occupies a seat on my left (Mr. Kings. We traversed 20 7 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. our great State from one corner to the other; we met time and again upon the hustings; he was a friend of General Cass, and I was a Whig and the friend of General Taylor; and he must pardon me upon this occasion -and especially as we are now together-if I bring to view a single reminiscence. One of his arguments, I remember, was that the elevation of General Tay- lor to the office of President and the election of myself to the office of Gov- ernor would be dangerous to the institution of slavery. I. a Kentuckian by birth, supporting a large slave-owner for the Presidency, and myself a large slave-owner, combated that view as best I could in opposition to my vener- able friend. I am happy, however, to know that on this occasion we meet, and that hereafter there is to be no further controversy between him and me upon this question. I remember, also, that as late as i857, when again my political friends, regarding me far too highly, did me the honor of placing their standard once more in my hands in candidacy for the highest office in the gift of the people of my State, I found myself confronted by a gentleman who was born in New York, able and talented, and never the owner of a slave; but through- out that entire canvass the burden of his " talk " against me was that it would never do to elect me, and that if they did, in some way or other the insti- tution of slavery would suffer at my hands in the State of Missouri; and although I think to-day that I was legally elected, after the old Democracy had figured some six or eight weeks, the election being over, /he)y b-ought out a majority against de of tzoo hund-red and t/1it'y oil a vo/e of 0 oo,ooo ! But this is not the whole of my personal experience upon this subject. When first I had the honor of being a candidate for a seat upon this floor in z86o, I met as my competitor a very worthy and distinguished gentleman who now occupies a seat in the other end of the Capitol, a man of exalted talent and ability and a high order of patriotism, who is my personal friend and who, I am gratified to see, fills his place ably and gracefully; but I re- member that it was the same old story with him as with my venerable friend here [Mr. King] and the other gentleman to whom I have alluded, that it would not do to send me here even, because in some way or other I might be detrimental to the institution of slavery in my State. I am happy, how- ever, to say that that distinguished gentleman and myself will no longer have any controversy upon that point. We are together so far as this amendment is concerned. XVe take now much the same view of this important question, the only difference being that he has gone far ahead of me in any view I entertain or action I expect to take in the matter. It will never do, in the day of civil war and revolu- tion, to be excusing one's self for inconsistency. Men change every day. Read the inaugural address of President Lincoln; reatl the diplomatic cor- respondence of the distinguished Secretaiy of State; read your own speeches 208 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. of two or three years back, and you will see how changes have taken place. Read my speeches, and you will find me preaching a short time ago one doc- trine and now preaching another. I am proud that a man has the right to change; I am gratified that I am not too obstinate to change; I am glad that additional light shines upon the darkened intellect to enable us ta change our opinions when we find that we are wrong, and hope all of us have sufficient regard for the truth to embrace it when we see it. Change is a law of nature. It is written on our physical organization, on our moral organization, on our mental constitutions. If there were no right to change, change morally especially, what in the name of God would become of many of the gentlemen on both sides of this House There is an old adage that says, " Wise men sometimes change, fools never do." Sir, the pect.- liar friends of slavery have controlled the Government for much the greater part of the time since its establishment; and but for their own wickedness and folly might have saved the institution and had their full share in its mani- agement for many years to come. If they have lost the political control, all are blameless save themselves. But yesterday, the word of Caesar might Have stood against the world: now lies he there, And none so poor to do him reverence. Mr. Speaker, I wish to state in a very general way some other proposi- tions. Let us dispose of this question now, now. I have signified that I would be willing to dispose of it in another way. If Jefferson Davis & C'). would come back to this hall to-morrow and say, i We were wrong; we ask pardon; we lay down our arms; we yet remember the blessings that we have thrown away; we want that free Constitution which we have been d- stroying; we want to come back to you "-for the sake of peace, for the sake of running no more risk in regard to this slave question, I would say, " Let them come in," and I would go far in making terms with them, mu h farther than my friends from Missouri over there [Mr. McClurg and Mr. Loan]. But we cannot have our will on this subject. The President of the so-called Confederate States, and those who act with him, are not going i:o put themselves in that position. On the contrary, we have been told Ily the rebel leaders that if a blank sheet of paper were furnished to them on which to write their own terms they would not come back. They have to.d us that they started out for separation, and that they mean to exhaust -11 the energies and resources of the country, if necessary, to accomplish that object. On the other hand, we started out for the purpose of preserving the Constitution and the Union - let that effort lead us where it might, de- stroy whomever and whatever it might - if we had the moral, the physicdl, and the intellectual power to do the work of putting down this rebellion and 24 200) JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. saving this Union and Government from destruction. And while I rejoice at any movement that looks to an honorable peace and a restored Gov- ernment, I am for fighting it out i' on that line " to-day. Not until every germ of patriotism shall have withered and rotted in the public heart; not until the public sense of the nation shall be that the thing cannot be accom- plished, will I be for abating one jot or tittle of the efforts of the nation to annihilate the rebellion, restore the supremacy of the Constitution, and preserve the Union of these States and republican liberty on this continent through all time to come. Mr. Speaker, the American sentiment is decidedly antislavery; and that is another consideration why I am willing to vote for this amendment. We never can have an entire peace in this country so long as the institution of slavery remains as one of the recognized institutions of the country. It occurs to me that the surest way to obtain peace is to dispose of the institu- tion now. From whatevercause, whether it is from Northern intermeddling, if you so call it,- and there has been far too much of that,- or from South- ern arrogance and dictation and agitation, whether from the one cause or the other, or both, slavery will always be a dislurbing element! There will be no peace, there will be no perfect Union in this country until some way or other we shall have disposed of slavery. You cannot smother moral convic- tions. And so long as the general Government is connected with slavery or associated with it in any way, and the great tide of emigration flows into the South, carrying new ideas of human rights, this institution will be a disturb- ing element, and we shall have continued agitation until in some manner this question is disposed of. I have therefore brought myself up to the point. We may as well unsheathe the sword and cut the Gordian knot. I said, Mr. Speaker, that the American public sentiment is antislavery. I say now from my own experience that the public sentiment of the Southern people is antislavery. And I assert a proposition that may startle some gentlemen, but which I believe in my heart to be true, that to-day the State of South Carolina is antislavery. I take South Carolina as an example, because she is the most " wayward" of all the " sisters," because she has been hitherto always wrong and never right, and especially on this question; I take her, because on her this institution has left its deepest and sharpest im- press. I believe, in regard to the people of that State, that if this question of slavery in all its bearings and in all its phases could be thoroughly discussed and presented in an intelligent and patriotic way,- by sending my honorable friend from Maryland [Mr. H. W. Davis] with his gift of argument and elo- quence to combat the proudest intellects of that State-I believe, as God is my judge, that after twelve months' or even six months' discussion the majority of the people of South Carolina would vote to rid themselves of this institution of slavery. And as in South Carolina so would it be in other States. 210 JANIES SIDNEY ROLLINS. 21: And how do I arrive at this conclusion I look at the history of eventi in my own State of Missouri. Four years ago, a man who has now gone to The undiscovered country, from whose bourne No traveler returns, the late governor of that State, Claiborne Jackson, was elected by an over- whelming majority upon this very question, and almost upon this question alone. Four years have expired; four years of rebellion, four years of civ I war, four years of ruin and desolation and blood and misery. All these things have occurred, and the people believe, whether correctly or not, that they are all in some way or another connected with this institution of slavery. And what has been the result The other day a gentleman for whom I (lid ne t vote, but who has my highest respect and in whose patriotism I have every confidence,-one who I trust will be equal to the great occasion before him; a radical man, far more radical than I am or expect to be, radical in all his theories of this disturbing question before us,- was elected governor of that State by the votes of a larger majority than that which was cast four years ago for Claiborne F. Jackson. What does that prove I believe that therms may have been some intimidation, some military interference. But I tell you, sir, that I am convinced that this change has resulted from the delib - erate and earnest convictions of the honest masses ofthe people of that State, slave-owners and non-slave-owners, that the institution of slavery is wrong and has been to some extent the cause of all our trials, and that they are in favor of disposing of it as early as practicable. The State convention of Missouri assembled a few davs since to revise the State Constitution. More than two years ago an ordinance of emanci- pation had been adopted, allowing the institution to stand until the 4th of July, 1870, tnd in my view that ought to have been satisfactory. Yet the people of Missouri were not content with it. They met in convention three days ago and, if the telegraph is correct, almost the very first act of that cor.- vention, after organizing, was, by a vote of 6o to 4, to wipe out the instita- tion of African slavery from the soil of Missouri. It is an old adage that " he is a fool who learns nothing from experience, but he is the greatest of fools who will not profit by his own exptprience." I have learned a little-not much, but I am progressing. I never expect-- perhaps I am not wise enough, or perhaps I am too timid or too slow - I do not expect to get quite up to the standard of my venerable friend from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens], or my eloquent friend from Maryland [Mr. F:. W. Davis]. But I will endeavor to keep pace with my own convictions, having in view always the restoration of the Union, the preservation of the Constitution and of republican liberty under free institutions upon the Ameri- can continent. Sir, I have a firm conviction that there is such a thing as the "' logic of events." JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. May I say a word or two to my friends from Kentucky My lifelong friend who sits on my left, who addressed the House the other day [Mr. Clay], in the remarks that I understood him to make, spoke of the slaves in Ken- tuckybeingworth 150,000,000 before the rebellion,and perhaps as much now. Sir, put upon the block to-day, what would all the slaves in North America sell for Does he expect, after all to which I have referred. after what he has seen, does the gentleman expect that the institution of slavery is to re- main anywhere safe for any length of time If he does, if my other friends from Kentucky expect that, I have only to say that upon that one question I am wiser than they. I have passed through this sea of troubles, thank God! I breathe freer and easier to-day in consequence of having got through it, and I tell them now, that without some obstacle in the Constitution of the State of Kentucky, in less than two years from the day that I am making these poor remarks in the American Congress, Kentucky will be a free State without any regard to the views gentlemen may express here on this side of this hall. And, sir, if ever a set of people made a mistake on earth, it was the men of Kentucky, by whom I was somewhat governed myself, when, three years ago, they rejected the offer of the President of the United States, who, wiser than we were, seeing the difficulties before us, but seeing the bow of promise set in the sky and knowing what was to come, proposed to us to sweep the institution of slavery from the border States, offering the assistance of the United States to aid in compensating the loyal men of those States for their losses in labor and property. I say that the unwisest of all acts, so far as the border States were concerned, was the rejection of this liberal offer from the Executive of the United States. I voted for the proposition at first, then unwisely changed my ground, showing the versatility of man, and should, perhaps, if it had come to a final vote, have opposed it because my constit- uents were likely to be offended by the passage of such a law. They are now convinced, when their slaves are gone and their pockets are empty, that I was right in the first place and they were wrong. I have read in the papers of this morning that the Legislature of Kentucky, after electing that distinguished and able man, James Guthrie, to the Senate of the United States, has passed a resolution in favor of emancipation "with the consent of the owners, and with compensation." But where is compensation to come from I have a right to feel some- thing on this subject, for I am called upon to ask myself where is compensa- tion to come from Not out of the coffers of the national Treasury. Why, the Government will not even pay for the gallant soldiers whom I and others have furnished for its army, although the law, as I understand, expressly pro- vides for compensation to loyal owners. While I have furnished ten sol- diers, brave soldiers,- I hope they are doing good service for the cause,- 212 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. I have never asked for any compensation. I do not urge my claim for com- pensation; but when Uncle Sam comes along I shall consider whether to take it or not. I will ask my friend from Kentucky [Mr. Clay],- I will rot call him " my venerable friend," because he and I sat on the same bench at school when we were boys together,- does he think that the people of Kentucky will ever vote to tax themselves to pay him and others for their slaves Does he not know that the day for compensation is past Will he have the men of Kentucky go through all the trouble and anxiety that I have passed through, simply to preserve that which cannot in the nature of things be preserved more than a few short years longer I would do my full duty toward my old State; but how else can I do it than by giving her noble and patriotic men the benefit of my own experience I think tLat the best way to aid and succor my proud old mother is to adopt this amend- ment. If it were done, when 't is done, then 't were well It were done quickly. Sir, she and her people rank in my affections next to my own proud adopted commonwealth. Sir, I honor Kentucky for the long list of illustrious narr es of the living and of the dead, and for their great actions, in peace and in w ir, that illumine the pages of her eventful history. I would do nothing to wou ad the spirit of Kentucky. No, sir; no. In the language of one of her most gifted and patriotic sons, " Not a blade of grass should wither forever on her green and fertile fields, if it remained until by some act of mine dishonor and shame should be brought nigh unto her habitation." There is not a State in this Union, nor any people of the Union, for whom I would make grea:er sacrifices than I would for the State of Kentucky. Especially do I sympa- thize with my friend to whom I have referred, because he and I were ec u- cated in the same social and political school and have in many respects kindred sympathies. I have the highest confidence in his loyalty, in his honor, and in his patriotism, however much we may differ on some questions. I wish that I could aid him and men similarly situated. But I cannot. This is not because of any hostility to Kentucky or any hostility to the institution of slavery. I am compelled to act thus in view of the great results that, in my opinion, are to spring from the adoption of this amendment. I shall vote for it in order to help the old State of Kentucky, to help the South, but above all to help the entire Union to arrive at a final adjustment of the terrible agitation and conflict now prevailing. Mr. Speaker, I regret that the action of our ancestors in reference to slavery inflicted this evil upon us. And when I speak of our ancestors, I mean those of Plymouth Rock and those of James River. Yet, wvhile in this House and in the other end of this Capitol, I have heard attacks on the Pilgrim Fathers, 24A 2 3 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. and while I saw lately a disreputable statement coming from an American Senator concerning the early settlers of Virginia, yet I have no sympathy with the spirit that prompts such efforts. Doubtless there were bad men as well as honest and good men among the original settlers of both the northern and the southern sections of our country. Through the promptings of cupidity and avarice, slavery was first engrafted on our institutions. Could our an- cestors who countenanced it in its establishment witness the scenes of the present time they would doubtless feel that they committed an unpardonable sin. And for this sin the North and the South are equally responsible; the people of both sections were engaged in the infamous traffic, and we are this day gathering the bitter fruits of their iniquity. It is thus that Even-handed justice Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice To our own lips; or, as the same great master expresses it, That we but teach Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return To plague the inventor. The gentleman from New York [Mr. Fernando Wood] said the other day that slavery was a blessing to the slave. I admit that it has turned out to be so, yet this was by accident only. The Africans were brought from their native wilds in violation of every law of God and humanity; but when I compare the present condition of the negro in this country with his situation in his native land, I am compelled to admit that the institution of slavery has had a beneficial influence upon his moral, intellectual, and physical condition. I think that the negro of the United States is higher in the scale of humanity than the barbarian of Africa. Thus out of a great wrong has resulted a great good - the elevation and advancement of this large and unfortunate nation. The consoling reflections will ever be, that this downtrodden race, torn by vio- lence from their native country for the sake of gain, after passing for centuries through a weary pilgrimage of bondage, are at last admitted into the temple of freedom, with a fair prospect of enjoying all the blessings that education, true religion, and civilization confer upon man; and through them it may be at last that these blessings shall be sent back to Africa, and that continent over which the dark cloud of ignorance and superstition has so long hovered be illumined by the same bright sun that has thrown its effulgent rays over other portions of the habitable globe. And in all this, through the eye of faith, we may discern the hand of an all-wise and inscrutable Providence; for there is a Divinity that shapes our ends Rough-hew them how we will. 214 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. :'15 Mr. Speaker, when the framers of the American Constitution in 1787 formed that instrument they committed a great mistake in not disposing finally and forever of the institution of slavery. If the venerable man wM ose "counterfeit presentment" [pointing to the portrait of Washington] hangs upon the walls of this Representative Chamber could come from the sacred spot of Mount Vernon, which holds his ashes, and the question were put to him, "W hould you, as presidcat of that convention, and the noble men who composed that body, now dispose gradually and directly of the institution of slavery upon this continent " is there a man who hears my voice that can doubt what would be the answer of the Father of his Country It was not because they were not antislavery, but because they were afraid to deal with slavery. They had other delicate and important questions to settle that prevented them from disposing of that institution. They were laying deeply upon this continent the foundation of a temple that was to last for- ever-a temple of liberty that was to shield not only themselves, but tCeir posterity, and where men in all tine to come should take refuge. And they did not wish, as I have said I did not wish, to endanger that structure, to do anything that would cause it to totter and fall. They did not wish to fail in the grand object that they had in view. Hence they let the minor sub- ject of slavery go over to other times and other men. It has therefore now come down to us. Mr. Speaker, I look ahead into our history for fifty years to come, and I ask the question, suppose the institution of slavery is to re- main interwoven in our mechanism of government, and our country is again, on account of it, to pass through the bloody trials that now cover our land with mourning and sorrow, and have piled upon us a debt that will tax the energies and wring the sinews of our posterity to pay; do you think, sir, that our children will not censure us and charge us with committing a mis- take in that we did not during the revolution of these times wipe out forever this disturbing and dangerous element in our political system Again, Mr. Speaker, I refer to the State of Kentucky. She was admitted into the Union in 1799' At that time there were not exceeding twelve tf ou- sand slaves in the State. She is the oldest daughter in the family of States. She was the first that wvas admitted after the adoption of the Federal Constitu- tion. The great men of Kentucky of that day, proud and venerable names, advocated the propriety of a system of gradual emancipation. WVill my frirnd from the Maysville district [Mr. Wadsworth], will my friend from the Louis- ville district [Mr. Mallory], will any of my friends who oppose this amend- ment declare it would not have been a great boon if the original Constitu- tion of Kentucky had disposed of slavery forever Will my very excel ent friend [Mr. Clayl say that it would not have been better for his distinguisned and venerable father, who was a member of the convention that framed the first Constitution of Kentucky-would it not have been better for his im- JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. mediate ancestors to have met firmly the question at that day, and thus to have relieved the State from slavery, and the people of that noble common- wealth from the terrible sorrows that have since fallen upon them In 1803 President Jefferson purchased from France the Louisiana territory ex- tending from the Balize to the mouth of the Columbia River, embracing a magnificent empire. At that time there were only about thirty thousand African slaves held in bondage in that vast territory. Will any enlightened man of this period say that the best interests of our whole country would not have been greatly promoted had the Government paid the owners for those few slaves and excluded the institution forever thereafter from that re- gion We should thus have avoided the contest about the introduction of slavery into the Territories. We should have been spared the bloody strife in Kansas; and most probably this rebellion, with all its terrible consequences, never would have disgraced our hitherto happy country. I come now to speak a word in reference to my own State of Missouri. She came into the Union in the midst, as it were, of a revolution. For the purpose only of having a few thousand slaves there, the whole continent shook with the agitation of the " Missouri question." We were fighting for the privilege of holding a few slaves in bondage in that great State. In this miserable struggle we forgot the paramount good. Does my friend [Mr. Hall] from the district adjoining the one that I represent - does any man upon this floor tell me that it would not have been better for Missouri at once, in i82o, to have passed an ordinance for the gradual or immediate emancipa- tion of her slaves, thus driving the institution beyond her boundaries If there is such a man he is not as enlightened on the subject to-day as I believe I am; he has not learned as much as I think I have learned. Why, sir, what is Missouri to-day, and what would she have been if there had been incorporated at that time into her organic law an ordinance de- claring the institution of slavery forever abolished within her limits We should have been as Ohio, and Illinois, and Iowa. We should have been rid of this curse, which, like Banquo's ghost, is ever reappearing, the curse of slavery. this raw head and bloody bones; and we should have been clear of all these troubles. We should have had no bands of guerrillas watering the soil of our States with the blood of our peaceful citizens. We should have had no armed bodies of men stationed on all our borders to keep the peace. Look at Illinois just across the Father of Waters. She came into the Union in x8&8, two years before Missouri, and with less population, fewer mineral resources, not so many rivers nor such facilities for commerce, yet she has four thousand miles of railroad while Missouri has only twelve hundred. Illinois has a prosperous, happy, and peaceful population of two millions, while we have only half this number, and our people are leaving in every direction, seeking homes in the Territories in the distant mountains, 216 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. in South America, in Mexico, in Illinois-flying away from the horrible specter of this infernal rebellion. Why is this I know of but one real, substantial, specific reason, and that is that the framers of the Missouri Con- stitution allowed slavery to remain, while Illinois was made forever free by the Ordinance of 1787, which was penned by Thomas Jefferson, a son cf Virginia, and by which Virginia ceded an empire within itself [the North- west Territory] to the United States. I have been looking up for light from above, and I begin to see it strealk- ing along the horizon, however it may be with other gentlemen in this hall. A word or two more and I will relieve the attention of the House. If this were a time of profound peace, and this amendment were proposed, I should not vote for it, and on the score of expediency. Why Because if we had remained in a state of profound peace the very proposal to submit th.s amendment to the States would have disturbed the public tranquillity, and therefore 1 would let it alone. But now I vote for it in order to restore the public tranquillity, believing that this rebellion having been set on foot, and civil war raging in the country, you cannot have entire tran(quillity without a removal of the cause of disturbance. Now, one gentleman intimated ye;;- terday that if we pass the amendment it will induce emancipation on the part of the Southern States themselves. But I ask him, are they likely to be governed by any disposition we may make of this question in this House Not at all. Whenever they are pressed to the wall; whenever our armies shall have planted our standard in every one of their States; when their principal cities shall have been taken; when they are in ar/licud 11nor/is, it may be, as a dernier ressori, that they may strike the shackles from the limbs of the slaves they now hold. But they will never be governed by any action wve may take upon this or any other question; never. Whenever they find it for their ir - terest to do it they will do it, and not before. One other remark. Missouri has in advance adopted this amendment. Now, allow me, although not much given to prophecy, being neither a prophiet nor a son of a prophet, to make one other prediction upon this floor to-day. It is that if this constitutional amendment be adopted by this Hottse,-cr whether it be adopted by this House or not, it will be adopted by the Cor - gress that is immediately to succeed this, in less than ninety days from the time of our adjournment,- it will become the prevailing sentiment, and will be adopted not alone by the North but by every Southern State. I (lo nct doubt it. How By the masses of the people, as the masses of the people of Missouri have adopted it there. How When the poor and humble farmers and mechanics of the States of Alabama and Mississippi shall have left the bloody trials which they are now enduring to tear down this temple of human liberty; when they shall return perhaps to their desolated homed 21[ 7 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. when they shall behold once more and hug to their bosoms the wives and children whom they love, in poverty and in rags; when they shall go, per- haps minus an arm, or an eye, or a leg, and in poverty, to those who are de- pendent upon them for support in life-taught by experience, as I have been taught by experience, they will ask of themselves the question, "Why all this What have we been fighting for " They will bring to mind the sweet mem- ories of other days. They will remember the peaceful and happy homes which they were induced to leave, and which they enjoyed under the benign influence of wholesome and liberal laws passed here, and they will inquire, " By what sophistry, by what appeal, by what force, by what maddening in- fluence is it that we have been induced to enter into this terrible rebellion Not to promote any interest of wife and children, but to destroy all the bless- ings vouchsafed to us and to them by a free government and equitable laws." And they will further ask, " Who has been the author of my misfortunes, and the ruin of my family, my all " Sir, they will point to those who hold the power at Richmond; they will direct their vengeance against them; and Davis and his ambitious crew, as I have said upon a former occasion, will like Acteon of old be in the end destroyed by their own friends. I do not doubt this. The masses of the people of the South have no special interest in, nor sympathy with, the institution of slavery. They never had. The number of slaveholders is comparatively small, and whenever you begin to drive in the wedge and exemplify the dividing line between those whose moral convictions are that slavery is right, and who as regards property in- terest are identified and associated with it, and on the other hand that great volume of humanity who deny the moral right of slavery and have no interest whatever in it, I tell you the result will be as ten to one against the institu- tion. And it is in this way that in Georgia, in Arkansas, and at last even in South Carolina, the very amendment we propose to adopt here to-day will re- ceive the sanction of the good judgment of the people. I judge from what l haveseen in myown State; I judge from thefact that only a fewyears ago men who owned no slaves (but who were controlled by that power) were nearly crazy upon the subject for fear I would do something to set my own slaves free. And niow they are equally offended with me because I happen to be found in the unfortunate category of owners of slaves ! Southern public sen- timent, Northern public sentiment, American public sentiment, and I may add the sentiment of the civilized world, now, as from the beginning, from the very day of the adoption and ratification of the Constitution, deny the humanity, the Christianity, and the expediency of the longer continuance of the institution of slavery among us. What has Great Britain done What has France done What has Russia done Everywhere, even in the des- potic governments of the Old World, we find them getting rid of and abolish- ing the institution of slavery. And shall free America lag in a contest, and 218 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. hesitate now when the question is that of liberty and when it may be reached according to all the forms of law under our Constitution Sir, There is a tide in the affairs of men Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. And this is equally true of nations. Now, Mr. Speaker, one more reflection and I have done. Gentlemen seem to think that the adoption of this amendment is going to lead to some other and dangerous innovations. Sir, I rely upon the conservative balance-wheel of my friend from Vermont [Mr. Morrill] and others like him to keep his party friends from going too far. My friend from the Louisville district [M:-. Mallory] tells us that when a movement is once started it is difficult to stop it. I do not anticipate the evils that some gentlemen upon this side of the House seem to fear. I rely upon the good sense and sound judgment of the people of all the States. I believe, as much as I believe anything, that the permanent and continued existence of our free institutions is dependent upo n the preservation of that beautiful harmony that exists between the poweRs of the States and of the general Government. I want to see no entrencl- ment, further than is absolutely necessary to preserve the whole machine, either by the general Government upon the rightful, constitutional powels of the States, or on the part of the States upon the rightful and constitutional powers of the general Government. Not only the harmony anl beauty, bat thec aex strengtl of otr political system consists in the preser7,zaion of both, and, although it is frequently ascribed to gentlemen upon the other side of the House, I do not believe that it is their purpose to use these vast centralized powers of a great consolidated Government with a view of oppressing the people of any one of the States. Any oppression that the people of the South now undergo is the effect of their own false teaching and conduct; and whether that oppression shall continue, whether their section shall be still further desolated, whether their towvns and cities shall be still further sacked and burned, whether their property shall be still further taken, depends not upon us, not upon the general Government, but it depends upon the people of the Southern States themselves. I would rely even on the liberality, the sound judgment, and the good faith of my friend from Ohio [Mr. Ashley]. Let these men who have rebelled without cause and without excuse come back, and rely upon him and the gentleman from Vermont to do them full and ample justice and to treat them liberally and in the spirit of broad and general philanthropy; and I feel that they will not be disappointed. One word more (for the field still opens) to my Democratic friends. I have the good or the bad fortune of being rather in the middle of the 21-) JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. House, and not exactly identified in my theories with anybody. I have been a party by myself pretty much all the time I have been here; but, thank God I have the good opinion of myself to believe that I have been a patriot all the time, that I have had my eye on the main question, and that I have been working to the great point of saving my country and its free institutions from wreck. As to partisan considerations, does any man ever expect to make anything further politically out of the slavery question Sir, I have heard hardly an argument upon this side of the House that has not contained this remarkable expression: "' While, Mr. Speaker, I am not an apologist for the institution of slavery "; and if I were to take a vote to-day on this side of the House, with the exception of a half-dozen headed by the honorable gentleman from New York [Mr. Fernando Wood], I be- lieve that every one of you would indorse the general antislavery remarks that I have made here to-day. I believe that the very eloquent and distinguished gentleman from the Cincinnati district [Mr. Pendleton], for whose personal character I have the highest respect, as well as for his pa- triotism and his loyalty, is against the institution of slavery; he would not plant it in my State if it were not there; he would not plant it in Ohio; he would not plant it on this continent; he does not regard it as an institution just in itself and productive of good results, and I believe that is the opinion of nine-tenths of the gentlemen upon this side of the House. Why not, then, by adopting this amendment, submit the matter to the good sense and patriotism of the American people- the people of all the States. Why not cut this Gordian knot Why not dispose at once of this distracting question We never can have tranquillity and peace so long as the question remains in the form in which it now exists. [Here the hammer fell, another hour having expired.] Mr. ASHLEY: I ask that the time of the gentleman from Missouri be still further extended. There was no objection. Mr. ROLLINS of Missouri: Mr. Speaker, I have but one other thought to express, and I pledge the House that I will then conclude these remarks; not, however, without thanking everybody here for the great and unusual courtesy that has been extended to me, as well as for the attentive hear- ing that I have received alike from the House and from these crowded galleries. Mr. Speaker, if we can get through this rebellion completely and satisfactorily; if we can steer safely between Charybdis on the one side and Scylla on the other; if we survive the storm and the strife; if we can march safely through the dark and dreary wilderness of rebellion and civil war, and if we can come out of it with the American Union as formed by Wash- 220 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. 221 ington and his compatriots; if we can come out of it with our free and matchless Constitution maintained substantially in all its parts; if we can come out of it and still boast of our American nationality; if we can conm out of it with the farther boast that, though we have passed through thes great trials, we have not only saved our Constitution and Union but we have caused the sun of freedom to shine on an additional four millions of huma l beings; and if the old ship can once more be righted. and set sail on calmer seas, smooth and tranquil, where is the man who feels a just pride of coun- try and who cannot realize the great influence which the American Reput- lic with freer institutions and a broader Christian civilization shall exert on downtrodden humanity in every land and beyond every sea Ay, sir, let OURS be the chosen land, let OURS be the land whither the weary wanderer shall direct his footsteps and where he can enjoy the blessings of peace and freedom. Let ours be the " bright particular star," next to the star that led th e shepherds to Bethlehem, that shall guide the downtrodden and oppressed of al/ hecworld into a harbor of peace, security, and happiness. And let us, kneeling around the altar, all thank God that although we have had our trials we have saved our country; that although we have been guilty of sinswe have wiped them out; and that we at length stand up a great and powerful pec- pie, l-onored by all the earth, " redeemed, regenerated, and li:enthralle I by the genius of UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION." Speech at the Sherman Banquet in St. Louis, on the 20th of July, 1865. The second regular Toast, "The Army and Navy of the United States," was responded to by Mr. ROLLINS as follows: Mr. Chzairmnan: It was but a few moments ago that my friend Colonel Broadhead informed me that I should be called upon to respond to the sentiment that has just been read. I regret, sir, that this pleasing duty has not devolved upon some one of the distinguished military gentlemen who have honored this occasion with their presence. But, sir, as the duty is imposed upon me, I rise to make a very few remarks. The dissolution of the American Union, the downfall of the great Re- public, if such a thing had happened, would have been the most distressing catastrophe and the severest blow to the cause of free institutions that had ever been felt in the history of our race. For the preservation of our Government and this blessed Union we are mainly indebted to the heroic achievements of the Army and Navy of the United States. The fame of that Army and that Navy has been established by the earnest, unselfish, and devoted patriotism of our soldiers and our sailors, and they have added imperishable glory to both these arms of the public service. It is a pleasing reflection to every cultivated and sensitive heart, that during this terrible rebellion - this great effort on the one hand to destroy, and on the other to preserve, the nation's life - this unprecedented conflict of arms between millions of men engaged upon either side-that through- out the struggle, not one single solitary act of insubordination has occurred, nor has one effort been made, on the part of the high military and naval men who have conducted successfully this great revolution, with any other view than to promote the glory, the success, and the safety of our free country. In the Army and the Navy, all unworthy ambition, all objects, personal and selfish, have given way to a pure and elevated love of country; this is the motive that has guided our generals and our soldiers, and to their unsel- fish aims are we largely indebted for the triumphant success that crowned their efforts, and which causes the heart of the nation to swell with gratitude to our brave defenders. Mr. Chairman, the war is over. It was, sir, a necessary war. It was a war that could not be avoided. In the whole history of our race no man can point to a solitary case where an attempt was made to overthrow a govern- ment and mutilate its territory without an effort on the part of that govern- ment to maintain itself. Nations fight upon a sole point of national honor. 22 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. 22, Nations often declare war in order to uphold the rights of a single citizen. Nations quarrel and sometimes fight to maintain the integrity of their terri- torial dominion, though barely worth possessing. A few years ago we were almost involved in a war with Great Britain in reference to a small strip, not larger than a few counties, in the northeastern part of our territory. At another time we hear the war-cry of " Fifty-four forty, or fight! " And all remember our complications with the same power in regard to a small island on our northwestern coast, the title to which was more than doubtful, and which at best was hardly worth owning. With instances like these before us, how could any man of sense reason for a moment that a great Govern- ment like ours would permit itself to be cut in twain and despoiled of the fairest and richest portion of its beautiful heritage, to have planted upoII its border a hostile and powerful people, to have its commerce swept froni us and to surrender the splendid harbors stretching along its coast for 3000 miles, from the Chesapeake to the Rio Grande, including the mouth of the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico, without a struggle more persistent and terrible than any hitherto witnessed among men since the " morning stari sang together " No, sir; however reluctant the nation felt, we were corm- pelled to fight or to stand a dishonored and disgraced people; and if from any cause the people had shrunk from the contest, I believe that the gallan: Army and Navy would have struck the blow and saved us from the national humiliation and disgrace. But, sir, the people were like the Army and the Navy-they loved their country, and nowhere in human history have any people been so lavish of their wealth, their efforts, and their blood to uphold the right, to maintain territorial integrity and the national honor. And now, sir, that the war is over, and the white-winged messenger of peace has again spread her wings over the continent, it is a reflection no less pleasing than honorable that the men who have been actively engaged in the war are the most earnest advocates of peace, and only those would continue the strife who have never fired a musket or seen a fort! The distinguished citizen and soldier whom we all delight to honor on this occasion has added fresher laurels to his brow, because from the time he accepted a coionelcy in the Regular Army until the firing of the last gun he has been the most consistent, earnest, generous, and gracious advocate of peace. He followed war because he was in truth the child of the Republic, because he owed it to his country to sacrifice his life, if need be, in his efforti to save it. He struck no unnecessary or vengeful blow whilst he wielded his sword, and when the enemy succumbed, yielding to his superior prowess, he at once set an example of moderation, of liberality, and of justice in dealing with a fallen foe, best calculated to insure an immediate and lasting peace, and worthy the imitation of the most enlightened Christian philanthropists and statesmen. JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Mr. Chairman, I know that I am likely to weary this audience. [Cries of " Go on! go on: "J It would be in bad taste on my part to continue these desultory remarks, when I know that you are all, like myself, impatient to hear from General Sherman himself. But, sir, in doing honor to the great and distinguished men who have made the American name still more illustrious amongst men, let us not forget on this festal occasion the rank and file of the American Army-the common soldiers-God bless them! Without them we should have had no Sherman and no Grant; but, sustained by them, the military genius of the country has been developed, and our mili- tary annals enriched with names that will never die. As long as free govern- ment has a votary upon this continent, and liberty is prized amongst men, besides the great captains whose names I have just mentioned, the recollec- tion of the glorious services of Thomas and Sheridan, of McClellan and Meade, of Hancock and Hooker, of Pope and Schofield, of Dodge and Mc- Pherson, of Blair and Lyon, of Terry and Logan, and a host of other brave officers, will remain ever green and fresh in the memory of the American peo- ple. In honoring our illustrious guest to-night we honor at the same time every officer who has performed well his part in the great struggle, and every soldier who has worn honorably the uniform of the American army. We honor the famous institution where many of these distinguished officers were so well taught, and we claim that whatever recreancy to country may have been shown by some of the graduates of that institution, the brilliant conduct and heroic achievements of those who remained true to the flag must ever henceforth make West Point a favorite institution with the American people. But we honor to-night in a special manner every bronzed man of war who followed our distinguished friend from Pittsburg Landing to Vicksburg, from Vicksburg to Chattanooga, from Chattanooga to Atlanta, from Atlanta to the Sea, from Savannah to Charleston, and from Charleston to Washington. Richmond, for a time, was in fact the rebellion. It rested upon the four props of Atlanta, Savannah, Charleston, and Wilmington. And without in- tending any invidious comparison betwixt our honored guest and others who have performed their part so nobly, it is proper to say that it was in that grand and unprecedented march, a march unequaled in the history of warfare amongst men throughout the world, that these props were struck down, and the infamous rebellion fell, crushed to atoms beneath the weight of wicked- ness and folly which had inaugurated it and had sustained it for four long years. All honor, I again say, to the rank and file of Sherman's army. The poor, brave soldier ne'er despise, Nor treat him as a stranger; Remember he 's his country's stay In the day and hour of danger. 224 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. 225 Nor will we forget on this or on any similar occasion the great exploits of th: American Navy. The Army and the Navy, in honor, in fame, in imperish- able deeds, must forever be indissolubly linked together. You cannot honor the one without at the same time awarding praise to the other. They ar! our twin defenders. They are the offspring of a common parent; they sprang out of the great and patriotic heart of the American people. In this rebellion, what the Army failed to accomplish, the Navy did; and what the Navy did. not do, the Army accomplished. The Navy went where the Army could not go, and to do it entire justice it went almost wherever the Arm)' did go t It defied the enemy on the seas, and the music of its artillery drove awa y the danger along the shores of our great rivers. The common soldier and the common sailor vied with each other in storming fortresses thought to bet impregnable, and they often perished side by side in upholding the sacred and beautiful banner of the Republic. We will not forget to shed a tear of sorrow over the bier of the immortal Foote, who for a while in the early part of the rebellion was a citizen of St. Louis; and by the side of the illustriou names that I have already mentioned will stand forever those of Farragut, of Porter, of Dahlgren, of Du Pont, of Worden, and of Winslow, throwing at still brighter halo over each unfading page of American history. We will never forget how those men have sustained the fame and the power of the American name. Since these great achievements we have a right to dispute- the "'trident" with that powerful nation hitherto regarded as the mistress of the seas; and in the future it will be for us to appropriate the beautiful quatrain of her own immortal bard - Columbia needs no bulwark, No towers along the steep, Her march is o' er the mountain wave, Her home is on the deep. Mr. Rollins offered the following sentiment, which was cordially re- sponded to: The Supremacy of the Civil Law: The surest guarantee of the Liberty and the Safety of the Citizen. 25 THE GREAT STRUGGLE ENDED. eflgrkultural College-A Short Synopsis of the Closing Debate in the Senate. [From the _Missouri S/atesnan, February 25, 1870.3 WE publish below a summary of the closing debate on the Agricultural College bill. It has been a severe struggle running through three or four years of legislation. The friends of concentration, under the lead of Hon- orable J. S. Rollins, have finally won the victory. It is a great triumph. It unites two great literary and scientific institutions in Missouri which without it would both have been failures. It insures the future success of the State University, and gathers around it a powerful educational influence which will make it, for all time, the center of our State educational system. It plants at last, after so many years of toil, anxiety, and effort, our Univer- sity upon a firm and solid foundation. It may have its seasons of adversity still, growing out of bad management, or occasional political or sectarian interference, but it cannot be shaken or permanently injured. It must become one of the great educational lights of the Mississippi Valley. We repeat, it has been a great contest; it is over, and let all unite now in making the institution a success, an honor and a blessing to the State and country. In both branches of the General Assembly, Major Rollins, running through the long years of contest, has been the active, enthusiastic, and eloquent champion of the measure. Whilst other friends have labored zealously, he was the author, and has been the steady and unflinching advocate, who insured our triumph; and it is to be regretted that the exhaustive and powerful speeches made by him, both in the Senate and House of Representatives, during the pendency of the various bills, have not been preserved for the want of a Legislative reporter. FEBRUARY 1o, 1870. Senator Birch called up Senate bill No. i6, in relation to the Agricultural College. The Secretary read the House amendments to the bill. Senator Filler moved to lay the bill over informally, and that the amend- ments be printed. Ens JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Senator ROLLINS: While there are a great many amendments, the larger portion of them are wholly immaterial. There are really only three or four amendments-one is in relation to a mining school in the Southeast. Second. That agricultural lands leased may be taxed for State and county purposes. Third. In relation to the settlement of the lands, giving the settlers the preference in the purchase of them. Fbourth. The striking out of the twenty-fifth section in relation to Lincoln Institute. I trust there will be no delay. Senator CAVENDER: I should like to look at these amendments, arid judge of them myself. Senator FILLER: The Senator from Boone has had ample opportunity to judge of this bill, but I have not. I will be willing to take it up within four hours after the printed amendments are laid upon my desk. Senator HARBINE: I do not think delay is necessary. Let us settle this strife -come to some conclusion in relation to this matter. I am prepared to concede something to the House. I am not averse to putting over to some definite time, but I do oppose laying it over informally. I therefo-e amend by moving that it be made the special order for Tuesday next, at Ix o'clock. Senator FILLER: I accept the amendment. Senator MORRISON': I do not see what good it will do to postpone this bill. The amendments, I think, are perfectly understood by the Senate. Senator HARBI-NE: I withdraw my proposition. Senator MlORSE: I renew it. Senator BRUERE: I confess that I am entirely taken by surprise. On y a few days ago the Senator from Boone urged that the Constitution would not permit the establishment of this school at any other place than the Sta:e University. To-day, I understand him that he desires a portion of this grant to go to a School of Mines. I am not prepared for so sudden a change. I want time to consider these propositions. We want time to prepare our plan of battle. Senator ROLLINS: My argument was that the State University should have established a Department of Agriculture therein, according to the e:,- press terms of the Constitution. I have been earnestly urging the policy of concentrating these funds in connection with the University. They would be more beneficial then to the people of the State. But it is apparent that such a bill cannot be passed; I therefore yield, and take the next best measure, and that is to provide for a School of Mines as a branch of the University, to be located in the mineral district of southeast Missouri. 22 7 228 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Senator BRUERE: Am I to understand the Senator that on the same principle the Agricultural College may be located in any part of the State, so long as it is made a department of the State University Senator ROLLINS: The Senator from St. Charles is to understand me as insisting upon the Legislature establishing a Department of Agriculture in connection with the University, as the Constitution commands, and who but the Senator from St. Charles would place this department in a distant part of the State, or anywhere else indeed except in immediate connection with the University, where the two institutions would be strengthened by their proximity, and secure to both the greatest usefulness and prosperity Senator BUCKLAND: I presume that these amendments are very simple, but I have not seen the original bill, and I want time to look it over. Senator ROLLINS: We have nothing to do with the original bill. We have to deal only with the amendments, which the Senator says he understands. Senator EVANS: I have begged that these amendments be printed ever since they passed the House. Could I have got hold of them, I would have been willing to have them printed at my own expense, but there seems to be a determination to keep them in the dark. The motion to make it the special order for Tuesday next was lost. Senator Evans moved to make it the special order for to-morrow at two o'clock. Motion lost. The first amendment, establishing a "School of Mines and Metallurgy," was agreed to. Senator Graham objected to the second reading of the second amendment. Declared out of order. The second amendment was read and agreed to. Senator Bruere offered an amendment to the third amendment in relation to the division of the fund between the Agricultural College, the School of Mines, and Lincoln Institute, giving eight-thirteenths to the Agricultural College, four-thirteenths to the School of Mines, and one-thirteenth to Lincoln Institute. Senator BRUERE: I offer this amendment in justice to a large number of the population of our State. We provided for Lincoln Institute in the Senate bill. This provision was stricken out. I desire to know why it was done. Senator ROLLINS: This question has been fully discussed in the House, and they decided there to do away with this provision. There is no dispo- sition on the part of any friend of this bill to do injustice to any one on the subject of education. The original bill provided for an Agricultural and Mechanical College in connection with Lincoln Institute, by giving to it one- thirteenth part of this congressional grant of lands. But the intelligent and educated portion of the colored race in our State say that they do not want it JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. for any such purpose. They told us in language not to be misunderstood a few nights since in this Capitol that they wanted provision made for a Normal School, designed to educate colored teachers for the education of the colored children of the State. This is true wisdom. They understand their os n wants better than we do. A bill drawn up by one of them has already been presented in the other House, making an annual appropriation for a Normal School. It will paus the House, and I am ready to support it here. Bit you cannot take a part of this congressional land grant to establish a Nor- mal School for white or black. To do so would be a violation of the law of Congress and a perversion of the fund, and it would be so declared by the courts whenever the question was tested. Senator BRUERE: This provision passed the Senate last winter and the House now asks us to recede from our position. The object is not for a Normal School, but it is made in conformity with the provisions of the grant for a School of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts. Senator HARBINE: The question is not whether we shall recede from tl e position we took last winter, but whether we shall go a step further. NN e made two divisions of the fund. The house struck out the provision for the colored school, and established in their amendment a School of Mines. We have voted on their proposition, and accepted. The Senator seeks no w to incorporate a third provision. Divide this fund to so great an extent and we shall have several puny, sickly institutions. I.et us keep this fund together and build up a great institution that will be a pride to the Stat,. Why not hell) the school at Kirksville or Sedalia They have as much right to aid as Lincoln Institute. They all need it, but if we divide the fund we will have nothing of value to the State. Senator GRAHAM : These gentlemen incorporated this provision last winter that they might pass this bill; this winter they turn upon it. Last winter they rejected the proposition for a School of Mines; this winter, the Hous.e having passed it, they are very much in favor of it. They claim that this one- thirteenth will do the colored people no good. If the whole is worth aly- thing, this one-thirteenth will very much benefit these people who so much need it. Senator ROLLINS: The Senator from Jackson is not as bright as he usually. I have just explained why I assent to a School of Mines and why I am opposed to giving a part of this congressional fund to Lincoln Institute. Can the Senator from Jackson neither see nor hear The col- ored people want a Normal School, and I am in favor of giving it to them; but you cannot touch this fund for any such purpose. Senator GRAHAM: This bill proposes to take the lands of South Missouri and endow a school in North Missouri, and at the same time they agitale the question of dividing the State. I think it is time that Senators begin to think about this voting away the last dollar of South Missouri. 25A 229 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Senator ROLLINS: The Senator from Jackson now attempts to raise a new issue. He lugs into this debate the question of dividing the State. What has this to do with the Agricultural and Mechanical College question Sir, who starts this question of dividing the State A parcel of boys who want to soar the eagle and hear themselves talk. I am utterly opposed now and forever to anything of the kind. I want to live and die in a big State and in a big country. I am for the union of the people on the north and south side of our great river now and forever. It is too late in the day for me to become an advocate for secession, either of my State or of my country. Sir, it would grieve me almost to death to part with my most amiable and good-tempered friend, the Senator from Jackson. God deliver me from so great a calamity! The amendment to the third amendment was lost. Ayes, 12; noes, 17. Senator Evans moved to adjourn. Lost. The third amendment was agreed to. Senator Roseberry moved to adjourn. Lost. Senator Evans called for the roll of the Senate. On motion of Senator Reed, further proceedings under the call were dis- pensed with. Senator Ridgely moved that the Senate take a recess until to-morrow morning at lo o'clock. Lost. Senator Evans moved to adjourn. Lost. Senator RIDGELY: I was in hopes of having some light thrown upon this subject by the friends of the bill. I want to know how this trade of a colored Agricultural School for a School of Mines was made. Senator ROLLINS: Like the Senator from Jackson, the Senator from St. Louis [Mr. Ridgely] is also blind. But I understand very well that he wants to defeat this measure. He has been trying it for years, and he still aims at it. He pretends not to understand it. Sir, whose fault is this I have been making an effort for years to get a single ray of light into his head on this subject, but it seems I have failed and still fail. " The ligh/ shineth upon the darkness, but the darkness romzprehendeth it not." Sir, I repeat, whose fault is this I can pour upon the Senator a flood of information, but I cannot give to him understanding. That is the gift of God. Senator RIDGELY: I cannot see how so flimsy a bait has caught so many, not only here, btit in the other House. I am not opposed to a School of Mines, but I do object to its being managed by Boone County. We have seen fruits of its management for many years past. Senator ROLLINS: The Senator assails the management of the University. Sir, let him come on with his facts. I am ready to meet him on that subject. But it is the management of Boone County to which he objects. Ah, yes! " That 's what 's the matter." The Senator may yet perish of Boone County on the brain! 230 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Senator BLODGErT: I have been beaten in every measure that I have favored in relation to this grant. I see Senators from the southwest voting for the amendments, who have no interest in this School of Mines. I th nk the Senator from St. Louis has no right to say that there has been trading. Senator RIDGELY: I did not state. I asked for light. Senator GRAHAM: I have tried to have such a college as I thought woild be of the greatest benefit to the State. I find that my views are not indormed by the majority. I now withdraw all further opposition to this bill. Senator ROLLINS: Sir, I am most gratified to see the opposition at last giving way. I aim at a noble object, and I have been worried long enough over the passage of this bill. Senators have witnessed the great and anxious efforts that I have made the last three winters in this Capitol to put it through. Are there not other generous hearts who in this hour of my greatest need will come to the rescue, and aid me to concur in these amendments, and thus pass the bill and end the strife The noble speech which has just fallen from the lips of the Senator from Jackson touches me to the quick. I rett rn to him my grateful acknowledgments, and unlike Hannibal the great Car- thaginian general, who was taught to swear eternal hatred to Rome, I now swear in all the future eternal friendship to the Senator from Jackson. The fourth, fifth, and sixth amendments were adopted. The seventh amendment was read. Senator Evans offered an amendment striking out " southeast Missouri" and inserting "any county known as a mining district." Senator EVANS: I think this is simple justice to the many mining regions in our State outside of southeast Missouri. It is true that my county is n- cluded in the boundaries of southeast Missouri, and I am certain that Phelps County will outbid any other and the School of Mines will be established there; but I have not the heart to say that other counties of my district shall not be permitted to bid for the location. The counties of southeast Missouri should not at our hands receive privileges not granted to the counties zf Pulaski, Wright, Ozark, Douglas, Webster, Christian, Newton, or other of our mining counties. Sir, I venture to stem the dark and sickening sluice af oppression that pours its gall upon the southwestern part of the State. We re I to see any other section so imposed upon I would as readily resent it. A wrong is done to a worthy section of this State that will yet bring a blush Df shame upon men who have thus far failed to see their error. It was not enough to fasten the lands of southwest Missouri for the benefit of the Boone County school; not enough to take a second State college to the same place and bury it in the first; not enough to give that county more than its share of curators; not enough for these curators to appoint the land commissioner; not enough to lease these lands out to transient people instead of selling them to actual settlers; not enough that southwest Missouri had always been espec- 23 1 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. ially slighted in the way of State and National favors. No, that grand local- ity, whose people were all Union soldiers, must take a cup more bitter still. Boone County offers a School of Mines to southeast Missouri, but bids for the location must not extend a mile into southwest Missouri. The mines west of range ten come under the ban-they are in southwest Missouri. Strange that other sections will not see to the adoption of fair play; fair and equal legislation is best, and I am not sure that we are not sworn to legislate equally and fairly. I ask for enlarged liberty, toleration, and justice, equally distributed to all sections and all men under our high waving flag. Senator ROLLINS: The Senator from Phelps [Mr. Evans] has accomplished his purpose in offering this amendment. He did not expect it to be adopted. He only wanted to show his constituents how dearly he loved them, and how watchful he was of their best interests. He evidently wants to come back to the Senate again and still continue to grace the seat which he so nobly fills; and being a gentleman of the most liberal views, a statesman of tremendous breadth, I should not be surprised if he aspired to still higher honors at the hands of the people. Sir, I trust he may succeed, for all must concur with me, who have witnessed his course (and especially upon this bill), that a terrible calamity would befall the State for him to absent himself from her legislative councils. Unwilling to trust his tongue and his talents for extemporaneous debate, he comes in here at this late hour with his little written speech of a finger's length, having compressed into it all the bitterness which flows from misapprehension and misrepresentation, and chooses to stake his reputation upon that speech as a wise and enlightened lawmaker! No wonder, sir, that our school system does not better flourish ! No wonder that our benevolent policies and our higher institutions of learning are slow to take root, and some of them wither and perish, when the people con- tinue to choose, as the guardians of these great and sacred interests, such agencies as the Senator from Phelps! Sir, for one I utterly repudiate his sectionalism; I trample beneath my feet his poor and puny efforts to awaken a prejudice in the minds of the people living in different parts of the State! His flings at my own county are so frequent, and at the same time so weak and puerile, that they awaken in my bosom a feeling rather of pity than of scorn. Sir, this bill does no injustice to any part of the State. These insti- tutions must be located somewhere. Every county cannot have them, and where else would you place a mining school (if you separate it from the University) except in the very heart of the mining region What more does the Senator want His own county and a very large portion of his district are embraced within this bill, He ought to be satisfied; his constituents, if they are of liberal minds and unlike him, will be satisfied; and the brave and loyal men of the southwest, who are so well represented here, appreciating the advantages of their location, and the early development of their rich and beautiful country by the railroads and other facilities of commercial inter- 232 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. course which will very shortly reach them, will not thank him, either for his pretended sympathy or for his impertinent and unasked defense of them. When the great southwest needs a champion to vindicate its rights upon this floor, the good people of that favored region will look elsewhere than to the Senator from the " Little Piney"! But the Senator goes for " enlarged rib- erties, toleration, andpsside eyiually distributed to all sections aned all men tn dler our high soavigzg." Sir, considering his exact position upon the great issues of the hour, this is most "excruciating." I cannot do justice to :he subject. I give it up. I call for a vote on the amendment. Senator BRUERE: I shall vote aye on this amendment and do justice to the whole southern part of the State. Senator G(TTSCHALK: I do not see why the southeast is to be preferred to anly other section in locating a high school or college. The amendment to the seventh amendment was not agreed to by the following vote: Ayes -Messrs. Bruere, Evans, Filler, Gottschalk, Human, Waters, and Williams -7. Nzioes-NIessrs. Birch, Blodgett, Brown, Buckland, Conrad, Dodson, Essex, Graham, Harbine, Morrison, Rea, Rogers, Rollins, Roseberry, Reed, Shelton, Spaunhorst, and Vandivert-i8. Absent- Messrs. Cavender, Clark, McMillian, Morse, Ridgley, Carrol, Davis, Todd, and Headlee-9. The seventh amendment was agreed to. A motion to take a recess until to-morrow morning at to o'clock was lost. The eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteen:h, and sixteenth amendments were taken up and agreed to without debate. The seventeenth amendment, striking out twenty-fifth section of origir al bill in relation to Lincoln Institute, was then taken up. Senator Bruere moved to reject this amendment, and called for the ay es and noes. The amendment to the seventeenth amendment was lost. The seventeenth amendment was then agreed to. The eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth, twenty-first, twenty-second, twenly- third, and twenty-fourth amendments, and the amendment to the title were then taken up and agreed to without debate. Senator Birch moved that the vote by which these amendments were agreed to be reconsidered, and that that motion be laid upon the table. Ayes and noes called. The motion to reconsider was laid upon the table. Adjourned. And thus the Agricultural and Mechanical College Bill finally passed the two Houses of the General Assembly of the State. 23 3 AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. Where Should it be Located Letter from Honorable James S. 'Rollins to Honorable F. Muench. COLUMBIA, January 24, 1866. HON. F. MUENCH, Senate Chamber, Jefferson City. -Dear Sir. When I was at the Capitol of the State, a few days since, it was my purpose to call upon you; but being pressed for time I was deprived of that pleasure. Knowing the great interest which you take in everything pertaining to the welfare of Missouri, I desired to compare views with you in regard to the proper location of the proposed Agricultural and Mechani- cal College. Deprived of the opportunity, I avail myself of this mode, and take the liberty of making a few free suggestions on the subject. The amount of land to which Missouri is entitled under the Act of Con- gress " to provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts" is 330,ooo acres. The law further provides "that whenever there are public lands in a State subject to sale at private entry, at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, the quantity to which said State shall be entitled shall be selected from such land within the limits of such State." And there being still a large amount of public land in this State " subject to sale at private entry at one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre," it follows that the entire quantity of land to which Missouri is entitled under the above recited act must be selected within the State. Other States having no public lands are authorized to receive scrip, to sell the same, and to invest the proceeds thereof and " apply the interests thereon to the uses and pur- poses prescribed in the act of Congress." The first question that naturally suggests itself respects the value of this land to the State of Missouri. What is it worth And how soon can the fund be made available for the purposes to which it is dedicated Certainly after the lands are selected it will be a good many years before all of 'hemt can be sold, and until then the fund must remain unprofitable. The: .:fore it occurs to me that when we consider the actual sum to be realized i' these lands, and the length of time that it will necessarily take to convert them into cash, the policy of dividing the fund will be subversive of the objects of the national Government in making this grant to the States, and especially so in Missouri. There should be no division of the fund here. 23J JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. By a wise policy the lands should be made to bring the largest sum, and Ihe whole amount thereofought to be forever and sacredly invested to promote the beneficent object for which the grant was intended. Instead of squan- dering the fund by dividing it amongst a half-dozen different institutions, each division yielding enough to support a single professorship, it should be consolidated and made a permanent endowment for a department of learn- ing devoted to " agriculture and the mechanic arts," which would be acc,!s- sible to all the youth of the State, and of which every citizen in all futtre time should be justly proud. Having made these suggestions in regard to the probable value of the fund and against the policy of a division of it, the next question that I would raise is, which is the best point in the State for the location of tne institution Under the law of Congress " no portion of said fund, nor t le interest thereon, shall be applied directly or indirectly, under any pretense whatever, to the purchase, erection, preservation, or repairs of any building or buildings." Whatever sums may be needed for these purposes must be provided either by taxing the people of the State, or by donation from the people of the county in which the college may be located, unless the State has already under its control buildings suited to the purpose. And although the law of Congress provides that " a sum not exceeding ten per centu:n upon the amount received by any State, under the provisions of the act, may be expended for the purchase of lands, for sites or experimental farms, whenever authorized by the respective Legislature of said State," it is nct desirable that the original fund should be at all diminished. Wherever located, the people of the county ought to be willing to provic e land sufficient for the use of the college, and thus save for the permanent benefit of education the whole Congressional grant. The next question that presents itself is whether the State is in a cor.- dition to plant the proposed institution without taxing its treasury either fcr money to erect the necessary buildings or the purchase of a suitable farm Allow me to say that what I shall add upon this subject is prompted by n:) consideration of self-interest. I desire simply to encourage the adoption of such a policy as will save the fund from waste, and the State treasury fronm heavy burden, and will secure the location of the college at a point where it can at once be put into successful operation, and where its final success would be insured beyond reasonable doubt. If the State University were located at any other place than where it is, with all its attendant advantages, I should most certainly be an earnest advocate of connecting the Agricul- tural College with it, and I offer the following arguments, to my mind conclusive, why this should be done: s. The State has here a spacious edifice, sufficiently large for the accom- modation of one thousand pupils, and which, with the grounds upon which 23 5 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. it stands, could not be had elsewhere for less than two hundred thousand dollars. 2. The libraries, chemical, philosophical, and astronomical apparatus, with mineralogical and geological cabinets, are estimated to be worth not less than one hundred thousand dollars. 3. The University has a permanent endowment of one hundred and thirty thousand dollars, which properly invested and managed ought to yield, for educational purposes, at least thirteen thousand dollars per annum. 4. There is connected with the University a corps of professors, all scientific men, provided for at great cost, partly out of the funds of the institution, who can teach five hundred pupils with just as much facility and success as they can teach one hundred. 5. Columbia, the seat of the University, is nine miles from the Missouri River, and twenty miles from the North Missouri Railroad, and in a year or two will have finished a branch connecting with that railroad. It is situated in one of the most healthy and fertile agricultural districts in the State, and in the midst of an enterprising and intelligent population. 6. In addition to the foregoing powerful considerations, I may add that it is proposed to furnish the required quantity of land for the purpose of the Agricultural College, and to the University, without any appeal whatever to the State. If the Agricultural College were located to-day in connection with the University, it could be put into successful operation next week. Now, I may well ask, what other point presents any such advantages as those which I have stated above Located elsewhere, how long will it take to prepare the necessary buildings Who is to furnish a suitable farm Is the General Assembly prepared to add to the already heavy taxes of the people a sum to purchase these, when the State has them already provided Where is the money to come from to purchase the necessary and extensive libraries, such as the University now has How are the chemical, philo- sophical, astronomical, botanical, mineralogical, geological departments of the Agricultural College to be supplied, unless it be connected with the State University Let it be remembered that all these are absolutely essential to the success and proper endowment of the Agricultural College. Chemistry, botany, philosophy, mineralogy, geology are sciences all of which are intimately connected with agriculture, and wherever this institution is located all these must be provided in connection with it; and the ques- tion again recurs, where are the funds to come from to purchase all of them The State University has already, as I have stated above, a well- organized corps of teachers. It is not contemplated that the young men who will seek instruction in the Agricultural College are to become theo- retical or practical farmers only. In a country like ours, where agriculture 236 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. is the prevailing pursuit of a majority of the people, and lies indeed at the very foundation of all our prosperity, it is, in my view, a matter of the very first importance that all this large and controlling class of men should be thoroughly educated, and in providing a department for their especial benefit we should be careful to add to it all the needful appliances for thorough education as well as for moral, intellectual, and physical training; and, I repeat, all these are now well provided in the University of the State. In short, the State has now an investment in lands, in buildings, in books, in apparatus, in cabinets, in endowment, and an offer is made to add tc all these a suitable farm, the whole amounting in actual cost to between three hundred thousand and four hundred thousand dollars, all of which may be turned to the very best advantage in promoting the immediate and permanent success of the Agricultural College. Where else are such controlling and powerful inducements to be found Other localities may provide funds sufficient, one to erect the necessary buildings, another tc purchase the farm; but what county will give two hundred thousand dollars much less four hundred thousand dollars, a sum that the State has already invested, and that will be the solid foundation on which this Agricultural College will rest securely forever No doubt there are many suitable localities in the State, and different counties would be pleased to obtain the institution. But as all cannot get it, the only question to be settled is, host best can we preserve the fund for the benefit of the people of the whole State, and what plan presents the largest number of advantages for the location And the answer to this question will, I think, be found in what I have urged above. If Missouri were likely to derive a very large fune. from this Congressional grant, like Ohio or New York, we might think of attempting to build up a distinct Agricultural College. Even then, how ever, it would not be sound policy for us to do so. As it is, our funds are entirely inadequate for any such purpose. We had better, therefore, imitate the example of Connecticut, Kentucky, Rhode Island, and other States, by locating the Agricultural College in connection with a State institution, already well provided for, and in successful operation. Nothing is asked on the score of mere favoritism. In deciding a question of this sort no one has a right to make any such appeal, bUt we should so act as to secure the best location, and build up an institution that shall be the pride and glory of the State, and that will continue in all future time to dispense its bless- ings amongst the people of the great valley in which our destiny is cast. 1I might add that the location of the Agricultural College in connection with the State University would operate to build up simultaneously this grea: educational interest, and discharge a debt the State owes it; and with especial justice in view of the fact that for its entire endowment, and it; advantages above enumerated, the people are indebted exclusively to the 237 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. general Government and to the citizens of Boone County. What, then, is the objection to connecting the Agricultural College with the State Univer- sity Is there any well-founded one And are not the arguments in its favor unanswerable We sometimes hear it said that the people of Boone County are disloyal! Such an accusation may reach the prejudices of some, but it is no argument addressed to the judgment of sensible men. As in every other county in the State, it is true that there were to be found disloyal persons amongst us, but in this connection the fact should always be stated that the County of Boone furnished 1200 brave soldiers to the Federal army! Whatever may have been the political status of this people in years gone by, we think we may safely say that now none are more anxious to uphold the laws and to maintain the just authority of the Federal Government. But, in my view, the ever-changing political sentiment of a county is no criterion for fixing the location of an institution like this. The people may be Conservative to-day, Radical to-morrow. Twenty years ago I well remember, when I had the honor of accepting a seat in the Senate of the State, a man whose views were narrow, and who has since met a sad fate, in order to defeat some liberal provision of law for the State University charged upon the people of this vicinity that they entertained " free-soil sentiments." By the same individual a similar charge was hurled against the present distinguished head of the University, and hence it was inferred that the institution was not entitled to the fostering care of the State. But we find that same gentleman still at the helm; he has weathered the storm in all the vicissi- tudes of party and of our country. True to his calling, he has borne aloft and elevated the standard of popular education in Missouri, and, Radical though he is in his political sentiments, no greater benefit can accrue to the State than that he be allowed to aid in shaping the character and destiny of the infant institution whose foundation you are now preparing to lay. The Governor of the State, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Curators of the University, whose memorial now lies upon your desk, all disinterested umpires, argue the necessity and propriety of uniting the Agricultural College with the State University. Prompted only by a desire to serve the cause of education in the State, and asking pardon for this long communication, I remain, with high regard, your friend and obedient servant, JAMES S. ROLLINS. 238 VINDICATION OF THE LOYALTY OF THE PEOPLE OF BOONE COUNTY. Extrad from the speech of the Hon. James S. Rollins delivered in the Missouri House of Representatives March 9, 1867, on the Bill making an appropriation for the benefit of the State University. IN urging the passage of this Bill I have met with but one solitary objec- tion-but one! It is said that the " people of Boone County are disloyal "! Mr. Speaker, I should be unworthy of a seat on this floor if I failed to do justice in a manly way to those who sent me here. I would not give the snap of my finger for a Representative who would not, according to the truth, vindicate his constituents when unfairly assailed. This I will do, but in their defense I need not go beyond the truth. Sir, shall we tear down this Capitol and remove it from this place because traitors have met around this board Sir, Boone County furnished none of the leaders of this ill- fated rebellion. They came from Chariton, from Saline, from Cole, from St. Louis, from Buchanan, from Jasper, from Knox, from Lewis-counties all claiming to be supremely Radical now. It was your leaders, men of age and experience, and high social and political position, who seduced from the paths of loyalty and patriotism the honest and unsophisticated boys of my county. The guilt attaches to the leaders and to the counties that furnished them, far more than to those who were led astray. But will gentlemen attempt to punish every county, many of whose people took the Southern side in this rebellion If so, then every county in the State will receive a rebuke at your hands, for there was not one that did not furnish soldiers to the Southern army. This all of you know to be true. Why then will you select Boone, this old mother of counties, and make an example of her because some of her people were led astray Will you discriminate in your legislation against St. Louis County because some of her disloyal people have recently extended to Sterling Price a warm and .Thisbtllwas introducedby Ir. Rollins,,and and under it the University receives annually appropriated 0,000 for rebuilding the Presi- from 14,c00 to t6,-tt. We may say that dent's house, which had been burnt down, and without the means derived from this law the also Y4 per cent. of the State reventtes, after University might hace suspended operations, deducting 25 per cent. for Common School and that its permanent growth was made se purposes, for the support of the State Univer- cure by the passage of it. sity. The Bill became a lasv larct it, s867, JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. cordial welcome on his return to the State Sir, for one I would not. On the contrary, I would extend the sails of her commerce upon the bosom of the broad river that sweeps by the great city; I would build up her noble charities, her institutions of learning, her manufactures, her capital and her labor, and make her what she is destined to be, the great inland city of the American continent; but in doing this I would allow those who had been untrue to their country to take back seats, as I desire they should do in every town and county in this State. Sir, the argument against the passage of this Bill is not worth much. True, there were men who were disloyal in Boone, but, to her credit be it spoken, she is not represented by such on this floor. If they had followed my advice they would have traveled in an opposite direction, and to-day many of them repent that they did not heed the warnings of their humble friend! But, Mr. Speaker, let us have the whole history. Let us have the good along with the bad. Let us hold the scales of justice even and see which side will preponderate. This is honorable, this is fair. There are some traditions connected with Boone County. She is an old county here in the center of the State, organized before many of you were born. She is named after that daring old pioneer Daniel Boone, whom my venerable friend to my right, Judge Ryland, knew so well, and whose ashes still sleep beneath the sod of Missouri, and who more than a half-century ago opened the way to this bright and beautiful land that we might enjoy its blessings. Mr. Speaker, Boone County has not always been disloyal! I have a word to say to my friends from the Southwest. When I was a youth, about the year 1829, I remember that the Indian savages were pressing heavily upon the sparse settlements of the southwest border, and a call was made by the Governor for troops to drive them back. Who gave their services then to protect the infant settlements of the present counties of Bates, of Vernon, of Jasper, of Lawrence, and the whole Southwest Sir, I speak it with pride, they were the chivalrous, patriotic, and hardy sons of Boone County who interposed their shields, turned back the savage warriors, and protected the mothers and daughters of the Southwest from the Indian tomahawk and scalping knife. Gentlemen, you have now a glorious oppor- tunity to illustrate your magnanimity and to cancel a debt of gratitude, the payment of which has been so long deferred. I have a word also to say to the Northeast in this connection. Early in the history of our State, in the year 1832, when that bold and bloody-minded champion, the renowned Indian chief Black Hawk, was organizing his various tribes for warlike forays from the lakes across the waste of Iowa, then almost tenantless, to the Missouri River, and was making ready to come down with all his strength and violence upon the feeble settlements of Clarke, Scotland, Schuyler, Putnam, Mercer, and other counties, and even westward across the Chariton and Grand Rivers, our old and patriotic 240 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Governor John Miller (a good soldier himself) called for a regiment of troops, and they were mainly raised in the counties of Boone and Calla- way aye, Callaway, the daughter-in-law of Boone ! With other troops they marched under the leadership of a citizen of my town, my warm personal friend, General Richard Gentry, a brave and gallant soldier, after whom the fine county of Gentry is called, represented by my friend over the way. Sir, it was in this hour of peril to the people living upon the northern frontier, when your women and children and old men were fleeing to the settlements for safety, when the wild yell of the Indian savage resounded across the prairies, and " the lightning's red glare was painting hell on the sky," that these troops marched to the rescue, and stood as a wall of fire for four long months to shield and protect your infant settlements from invasion, until the last Indian war-whoop that startled the sleep of the frontier had died away in the distance, and the merry voices of children proclaimed once more the return of peace within our borders. Sir, but for the assistance that Boone County gave to you then, when you were weak and unable to protect yourselves, some of these gentlemen who now honor me with their attention might not be allowed to hold their seats here to-day. It was during that expedition that I myself slept in an Indian wigwam, upon the very spot where now stands the beautiful and thriving city of Keokuk, when the deep solitude of the forest was broken only by the dash of the waters as they rushed wildly over the Des Moines Rapids of the Mississippi River. Sir, it is in no spirit of boasting that I speak of these things, but to vindicate the truth of history, to allay your prejudices if any still linger in your hearts, and to persuade you if possible to do justice not only to the people of Boone County but to the cause of education and of liberal learning in our State. Sir, still later in our history, in the year i837, when through the agency of our illustrious Senator [Colonel Benton] the Secretary of War called upon Missouri for a regiment of troops to march to Florida to the defense of the people there, against the savage Seminoles led by their wily chiefs Osceola and Sam Jones, the County of Boone was prompt to furnish one- half of the number. Commanded by our distinguished fellow-citizen, General Richard Gentry, they marched to that distant part of the republic to save the inhabitants of Florida from destruction by the overpowering savage foes by whom they were threatened and surrounded. Hundreds of the same men who went out to meet Black Hawk volunteered again for this expedition. Sir, it was in Florida, on the 25th day of December, 1837, at the desperate battle of Okechobee, on the shores of one of its glassy lakes, that our noble patriot Gentry, at the head of his regiment, fell mortally wounded; there to-day the bones of one-third of the men composing this gallant regiment lie bleaching amidst the live-oaks and beneath the torrid sun of that distant State of our glorious Union. 'The person after whom Caliawvay County is named married a daughter of Daniel Boone. 26 241 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Sir, I come to a still later period in our history, a period familiar and yet painful to us all. I refer to the rebellion. Sir, whatever may be said or thought in ignorance of the facts, I assert that the people of Boone County were not unfaithful to the obligations of patriotism and of duty. In Febru- ary, i86i, when there was a trial of strength at the ballot-box betwixt those who were for the Union and those who favored secession, Boone County gave a majority of fifteen hundred for the Union and against the secession of the State. When the two sections became involved in war and the Government called for troops, how far the people of Boone County, first and last, responded to the call let the report of your Adjutant-General answer. I hold it in my hand; from it we see that Boone County furnished between eleven and twelve hundred white soldiers to the Federal army! Many of these young men joined regiments in other States, and marched with Grant, and Sherman, and Blair, and fought well upon nearly every battle-field in the Southern States. These young men, faithful and loyal and true, went to the wars but they never returned ! There is scarcely a South- ern State whose sands were not moistened by the blood of patriotic men from the County of Boone! Their bones lie all over the States of Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, and on the route taken by Sherman in his splendid march to the sea: The lightnings may flash, the loud thunder rattle, They heed not, they hear not, they 're free from all pain; They sleep their last sleep, they have fought their last battle, No sound can awake them to glory again. Far from their homes and their friends they perished, and were buried where the wild winds from the Gulf repeat daily their sad requiem and the beautiful magnolia sheds its perpetual fragrance upon their hallowed graves. Besides these the County of Boone furnished between four and five hun- dred colored soldiers to the Federal Army, whose loyalty and fidelity will not be questioned, I presume, by any one here. Sir, with these facts in her history, I might well ask what county presents a better record than " Old Boone " It is very true that many of her young men were led astray and went into the rebellion, and even of them I have heard it said, and I believe truthfully, that they made the best soldiers in the Southern army. The rebels from Boone all fought well, although in a bad cause, and since their return, according to the evidence of Governor Fletcher, are giving him less trouble than the people of almost any other county in the State. Sir, the masses of the people of Boone County will compare favorably with those of any other county in this State, or any other State. They are a brave, liberal, intelligent, and hospitable people. As I have already 242 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. shown, they have done more for the cause of popular education than the people of any other county in Missouri having no greater population. L-I addition to the State University, which they built out of their own means, the two fine flourishing seminaries for females, under the guidance ani control of able and distinguished professors, located at the county-seat:, attest their praiseworthy efforts and their zeal in building up the educational interests of Missouri. Nor have they been backward in advancing the cause of internal improvements. The people of Boone County gave one hundred thousand dollars towards the building of the North Missouri Railroad, which barely touches the northern boundary of the county. More recently thev have, without any external aid, begun to build, and in a few months will have completed, a branch twenty-two miles in length, connecting their county-seat with the North Missouri Railroad, at a cost to them of two hundred thousand dollars; and in addition, at a still further expense to them, they have devised a system of macadamized roads for the county at a cost of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, exclusive of private subscriptions. Sir, such a people, so far from being opposed, ought to be encouragec in their noble efforts to develop the physical and intellectual resources oil the State, and thus add to its wealth and to its repute at home and abroad. I trust I have not been wholly without success in removing from the minds of my Radical friends some of the prejudices lodged there against the people of my county. It is a public duty that we all owe to the cause of education, to sustain this State institution of learning. No limited. or narrow views should control our action on this subject. The sinal. appropriation asked for should be at once granted. The passage of thit Bill is all I have to ask of you this winter, and I trust my Radical friendt will not allow it to fail. It will be, as I truly believe, one of the besi investments ever made by the State-an investment like that made by the farmer when he sows his seed upon mellow and fertile soil, where it springs up and brings forth in due season a rich and abundant harvest. Mr. Speaker, I must apologize to the House for the length of my remarks, as well as for the desultory manner in which I have addressed you. It has not been my purpose to give offense to any one, but merely to give expres- sion to my own sentiments, and to do justice to those who sent me here. I feel much anxiety in regard to the passage of this Bill; I feel that I need the help of my Radical friends to aid me in its passage-to aid me in doing that which the old Democratic party failed to do for more than twenty-five years. Let me have it to boast of when I go home, that this Legislature, Radical as it is, is the only Legislature and the first Legislature that ever recognized the claims of this institution, or that has ever extended to it a helping hand in the way of making a fair appropriation for the purpose of sustaining it and promoting the cause of liberal learning in our State. 24.3 AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE FARM. Letter to the Boone County Court. JEFFERSON CITY, March 14, 1870. To HON. JAMES HARRIS, HON. JAMES ARNOLD, AND HON. JOHN W. HALL JUDGES OF THE COUNTY COURT, BOONE COUNTY: Gentlemen. I understand that there will be a special term of the Boone County Court on the i6th instant, and I have been requested to be present at that time, but my duties here will prevent. The recent action of the General Assembly in the passage of the Agricul- tural College Bill imposes certain duties upon your honorable body, and bearing the relation that I do to that measure, as one of the Representatives of the people of Boone County, I ask you to bear with me while I make to you a few friendly suggestions in regard to it. For four years past I have struggled under great disadvantages to obtain this great prize for my county. I do not think I over-rate its value to the people of Boone County now and for all future time, and I propose to enumerate in this communication some of these advantages as they present themselves to my mind. Before doing this, it may be asked what was the necessity to put in the Bill a section requiring Boone County to give anything in order to secure this institution The answer is, that other counties wanted it as well as Boone! Other counties offered to give large sums of money in order to obtain it, and therefore no man of sense can suppose for a moment that Boone County could obtain it without giving something for it; and in order that the Court may be well advised on this subject, I present the following facts: ist. Jackson County offered 1so,ooo in cash and 420 acres of land ad- joining the city of Independence, to have the institution located there. 2d. Green County offered 100,000 in cash and 640 acres of land con- venient to the city of Springfield, to have it located there. 3d. Pettis County offered 640 acres of land convenient to the city of Sedalia, and 35,000 in cash, to have it located there. 4th. Propositions were made to put it up to the highest bidder, and with the assurance that there were other counties in the State that would give a larger amount of money and of land than that offered by any of the coun- ties named above. JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. How then could we expect to get this institution in the face of these facts, and at the same time with a strong political prejudice against our locality This could not be, and I regard it as almost a miracle that Boone County was not required by the Bill to give at least as large a sum as was offered by any other county! But this was not done; in fact, we are required under this Bill to give a sum, in money and lands, not more than half as large as that offered by Jackson County; and Jackson County stood ready, as I have been informed by Senator Graham, who resides there and who represents that Senatorial District, to increase her cash subscription to 200,000 in addition to the lands offered. So much on this subject. I proceed now to state some of the reasons why the people of Boone County cannot afford to let this prize be lost to them; and in order to be the better understood, I will state them in the order in which they occur to me: ist. Boone County thus far has been somewhat noted for the interest which her people have manifested in the cause of education; we have a good start, and our chief sources of prosperity in the future must spring from the success of this great interest. 2d. The Court will remember that not one dollar subscribed by the county will be taken from the county, but every cent of it will be expended there; the people of the county therefore are just as rich after the subscription a'; before they made it. 3d. But this is not all. We get most probably, in the long run, just four times as much, to be added to the wealth of the county, as we are asked to give. In other words the State, through the Legislature, says to the peo- ple of Boone County: If you will give xoo,ooo in land and money, and all to remain with you and to be expended amongst you, we will add 400. ooo to it, the income thereof to be forever expended in the same way, and for your especial benefit. Suppose such a proposition were made to any of us individually, would he hesitate long in accepting it 4th. But by the location of this Agricultural College in our county, we. secure permanently all that we have heretofore obtained, and we secure al. that which the State may have to give in the future, and which in time will amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. But the other day the Legis- lature of Wisconsin appropriated 50,000 to aid in building a female de. partment to the State University at Madison, having previously located the Agricultural College in connection therewith. 5th. Carrying out in good faith the provisions of this Bill makes Boone County the great educational center of the State for all time to come-a prestige that we have at last won, after a struggle of more than thirty years. 6th. Other institutions of a kindred character will cluster around the Uni- versity, and the hundreds of young men and women who will come here to be educated will give to us an annual income of ioo,ooo, which may be 26A 245 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. indefinitely increased according to the success that these institutions may attain. This income is expended here and inures to the advantage of all. It is like a good crop-we all feel the effects; and it will be a sure crop, yielding each recurring season its product in money. 7th. Suppose this institution should yield to the county no more than 5o,ooo annually. Remember this is ten per cent. interest on 500,000. The institution will bring twice this sum, and the first year after it is fairly under way. 8th. At this session of the Legislature another Bill was passed, providing for the establishment of two Normal Schools, one on the north side and the other on the south side of the Missouri River, and appropriating 5ooo an- nually to each for its support, and providing further that no county could get one of these schools without making a donation of 25,000. Already, as I was informed by the chairman of the committee on education to-day, the County of Franklin offers 6o,ooo for one of these schools, and I saw a letter from a prominent citizen of Booneville, Cooper County, to the Senator from that District, stating that the people of Cooper would give in money and property 40,000 for the location of one of these schools, and other counties are making similar offers. Now, if they can afford to give from 40,000 to 60,ooo for a small Nor- mal School, with an annual endowment of only s,ooo, what can not we afford to give for an institution with a present and prospective endowment of 500,000 9th. Two years ago I got a Bill through the General Assembly, with the assistance of Mr. Lyman and Dr. Hubbard, giving to us i Y per cent. of the State revenue for the support of a Normal School in connection with the University. This year that fund will yield us 14,500, and it will continue to increase annually. Remember we paid nothing for this endowment of our Normal School by the State, and yet we are now getting an annual in- terest of 7Y' per cent. on 200,000, which is just so much additional en- dowment added to the educational fund of Boone County; and I may add that the location of the Agricultural College there makes that fund in all probability a permanent one, and if we lose the Agricultural College we shall also at once lose the fund. ioth. Thus far I have been looking at this question in the practical and substantial light of pecuniary investment and profit to the people of the county, and to the consideration of the subject from this standpoint I might add the following: The very fact of Columbia's being an educational center will induce men of intelligence and capital to settle amongst us, thus enhan- cing our strength and our respectability. lath. But there are other considerations of more importance even than the pecuniary aspects of the question. Remember, this is not a mere literary 246 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. institution; it is an Agricuaural and Mechanira/ College, founded by th e munificence of the general Government, and intended primarily for the edu- cation of the sons and daughters of the farmers and mechanics of our couI- try, that large and respectable class of people who constitute the bone and sinew of the land-the foundation of our prosperity in peace, and our sure defense and bulwark in periods of danger and of war. I would ask: Can the farmers and mechanics of Boone County afford to let this institution Le lost to their children, rather than raise the small pittance that is asked of them Could your honorable body, composed of Judges who are most worthy repre- sentatives of those large and respectable classes to whom I have referred, hol I back for a moment in doing anything that is necessary to be done to secure this boon, even though you were called upon to give five times as much as you will be asked to give It is absurd to think so, and it would be a re- flection upon you, as liberal and enlightened men, as faithful guardians of th2 public interests and especially of the best interests in all time to come of th- farmers and mechanics of our country. iath. The location of such an institution in Boone County will be most advantageous to those for whose especial benefit it is intended -the labor- ing classes. It is the first time in the history of Boone County that her people ever heard of, or had a chance of getting, a higher institution of learn- ing, intended especially to give intelligence, respectability, and position to the children of the laboring men and women of the country; and they would never excuse a court that missed the great opportunity of obtaining it fo:- them. 13th. I know you frequently hear unreflecting men say, " Well, I have no interest in this thing." But they are mistaken-they do not think so. Every citizen is interested in the advancement and improvement of his county, and no man is worthy to be called a citizen who thinks or feels otherwise. This institution being controlled and conducted by the most enlightened and best educated men belonging to the industrial classes of society, there will be in fused into our system of labor and of agricultural industry every improvement that will make farming remunerative and pleasant; our young men intended for agricultural pursuits will understand how to obtain, and how to plant, and how to make profitable every species of product that is cultured, and every variety of stock that is raised upon a farm. I4th. And it will be just as advantageous to our mechanical community. The best implements of industry, the best tools, the most convenient and cheapest houses and homes, the latest improvements, the best agricultural and mechanical newspapers, lectures from the most scientific and practical men -these are some of the advantages that this institution will bring to our very doors, and which may be reached by every child in the county, I care not how poor or dependent he or she may be. 247 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. 15th. Nor is this all; a taste for horticulture, for fruit-growing, for garden- ing will spring up around such an institution, which will modify and improve and elevate the opinions of every practical farmer and mechanic and labor- ing man in the county; and this spirit will diffuse itself and its influence will be felt throughout the extent of the entire State. i6th. In other States the question of the location of their agricultural and mechanical colleges, endowed in the same manner, has awakened the deep- est interest. In Illinois the county where their college was located gave in money and property about 400,000. In New York a single individual [Mr. Ezra Cornell] gave 5oo,ooo and 200 acres of land upon the condition that the agricultural college should be located in his county and should bear his name; the Legislature of New York accepted his proposition, and he has since added some 300,000 to the amount of its endowment. There are now some 6oo or 8oo students attending this institution, and it is not yet fairly started ! And why can not we have 500 or 6oo students attending our institution Ve shall have as many and more, if Boone County prove true to the best interests and the honor of her people. X7th. Remember that this is the only institution of the kind that for many years to come will be established in Missouri by the authority of the Consti- tution, and under the patronage of the State. Missouri is one of the large States of the Union; it is in process of rapid development, and in a few years our present population will be doubled. Where shall the sons and daughters of the farmers and mechanics of the State look for higher education, except to an institution planted and sustained and nourished amongst ourselves 18th. Such an institution properly cherished and sustained by our people will encourage and insure other improvements of general interest, in every part of the county. r9th. The conditions of the Bill are very easy and they ought to be fairly and liberally complied with. There should be no hesitation on the point, even though the county were required to raise twice or thrice the amount; we should not only comply with its terms, but we should do it in a manner that will reflect credit and honor upon our people, and not permit any question to be raised by the commissioners appointed to see that the conditions of the law are faithfully met; a question of doubt on this point would be discredit- able to all of us. 20th. This entire subscription might be paid in a single year, and not be oppressive to the people of the county, but there is no such necessity. The Bill provides that the payment of this debt may be postponed for twentyyears, long before which time the wealth and population of the county will be more than doubled. This debt will be paid and forgotten, whilst the advantages and blessings of the investment will be felt and appreciated by the present and future generations, even to our latest posterity. 248 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. 2ist. I do not propose in this communication to express any opinion as to the manner in which this subscription should be raised, further than to say that for a common benefit the burden should be equally borne by all in proportion to their taxable property. This is the only just and fair rule. If the town is to take a part of the subscription let the sunms to be raised by the county and the town respectively be fairly agreed upon by the public authorities, and bonds at once prepared in blank, to be hereafter filled out. The corporate limits of the town have been extended by a law that was passed a few days since, and which will receive the signature of the Governor. Whether the rule of relative population, cr relative taxable property, as between town and county is adopted I shall be satisfied. 22d. I hope there will be no one so forgetful of his duty as to attempt to get up any feeling between the town and the county upon this question. Rather than that this should occur, which would be dishonorable to us all, I would be one of twenty persons to raise the required amount, and thus dis- pense with all wrangling, and at the same time with all taxation or the issu- ing of any bonds whatever; for my experience is that a few men, as compared with the whole number, not only originate, but carry forward by their energy and their means all these great moral and benevolent agencies that are cal- culated to elevate the masses, and which are to give character and prosperity to society and to all branches of industry. 23d. I have supposed that the amount for which bonds will have to be prepared and issued will not fall short of 0oo,ooo, and it may reach i50,. ooo. This will depend upon the cost of the property which the county i; required to furnish. If men are very exorbitant in prices asked (which I hope may not be the case), the amount required of us may reach the latter sum but whether it be the one or the other, I am in favor of purchasing anc. tendering that property which will be best suited to the wants and con venience of the institution, and which will at the same time redound to the honor and the credit of all of our people. 24th. We cannot expect to have entire unanimity in regard to a questior of this sort: men are governed by such a variety of motives, and there is sucl a wide difference in their moral and mental organization, as well as in theil intelligence and public spirit, that we cannot expect all to see and think alike. For my part, when I feel conscious that I am aiming to promote a great public good, which is to have a beneficial influence upon the general in- terests of society, I cease to listen to the opinions of individuals, but do what seems right and risk the enlightened judgment of good men to sustain me, when the effect of my action and my efforts is thoroughly felt and compre- hended; and this is a good and wise rule for men who hold in their hands official power. 249) JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. 25th. I have felt authorized to say much here that was favorable to the people of Boone County. When they have been unjustly assailed (as they have often been in the last four years) I have vindicated them, as it was my duty and my pleasure to do, according to the best of my poor ability. I have done this without regard to party or sect, for I have felt that I was the Rep- resentative of the whole people, and not the agent of any particular class or party. The truth has warranted me in saying that in all the attributes of good citizenship, in intelligence, liberality, public spirit, and patriotism they are the equals of the people in any other county in the State; and I feel some pride in being justified, by their action now, in all the good things that I have said of them. 26th. It has been said in the public press, that as respects this Agricultural College question I have been governed by some selfish or speculative motive. In regard to this, I have only to answer, that like other men I am not likely to advocate measures that might prove destructive of my own personal in- terest. It has been alleged that this Bill was so framed that I might be en- abled to sell my farm in case the measure became a law, and at an exorbitant valuation. In answer to this, I have only to say that I have been governed by no such selfish motive; for my actions and efforts would have been the same if I had not owned a foot of land in the county, and I have believed throughout that I was doing the people whom I represent a great public ser- vice. It is very true that it is my misfortune just now to own some lands near to the present University, but I have not at any time offered these lands for sale, nor do I propose to sell them. My home is there, and I expect to occupy it whilst I live. If in the selection of a suitable farm under this law the parties appointed to purchase it should finally conclude that a portion of the lands owned by me was necessary to make out the quantity to be fur- nished, I have said, and I now repeat to your honorable body, that I would not be unwilling to part with it, and at a price for which other and similar lands around me have been selling, and without reference to any enhanced value occasioned by the passage of the Agricultural College Bill. This is fair; and I add further, that if another site can be had to meet the require- ments of the law without calling upon me I shall not only give my assent but I express myself in advance as being perfectly satisfied therewith. No spec- ulation that I might make (if this were my object) could ever compensate me for the toil, the anxiety, and the labor that I have undergone during the last four years, and under the most unpleasant and trying circumstances, in order to procure the passage of this Bill. Men with less resolution and pur- pose, and with patience exhausted and spirits broken, might have abandoned the project and given it up as hopeless; I considered it too great a matter to the people of Boone County ever to abandon it at any point short of ab- solute defeat. 250 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. 251 27th. I have thus in a very imperfect way, and in the midst of other press- ing duties, given to the Court my views upon this important question, a question as important as any other upon which your honorable body has ever been called to act, touching the present and prospective interests of all the people of Boone County. I can only hope that your action in the pren.- ises may be liberal, firm, deliberate, and wise, and that it may redound not only to your personal and official honor but to the common good of our people and the advancement of the cause of popular education. Desiring that this letter may be filed for preservation, I have the honor to be, with high regard, your friend and obedient servant, JAMES S. ROLLINS. A PLEA FOR THE FARMERS, MECHANICS, AND MINERS OF MISSOURI. Ar. President. This is a most important measure. It is one in which the working-men of Missouri ought to feel the profoundest interest, because it is intended to elevate them, and to make some provision for the education of their children. I have from early manhood been in the habit of addressing, in my poor way, public assemblies, both primary and representative; yet I declare to you, sir, I have never before in my life felt the solicitude I now feel in attempting to address myself to the consideration of the Bill before the Senate. I am almost overwhelmed with the conviction that, do the best I can, I shall utterly fail to give expression to my conceptions of the impor- tance of the measure that is now pending, and which the votes of the General Assembly, the Senate, and the House of Representatives must soon pass upon. NOT A LOCAL OR PARTIAL MEASURE. I trust the Senate will at least do me the justice to believe that in what I shall say I am not bound down by narrow, or partizan, or local considera- tions. No, sir; I rise above all such. I say, with solemn emphasis, that in my advocacy of measures " to maintain " the University and make it worthy of the State, and especially in advocating this Bill, the very object of which is to benefit the industrial and practical departments of the insti- tution, and to give them the necessary means of teaching that experimental science which in the enlarged domain of human knowledge has become so important- I had almost said essential-to the agriculturist, the mechanic, the miner, the engineer, the architect, and the practical chemist, I am looking in the broadest manner to the honor, to the interests, to the respectability, at home and abroad, of this our great State of Missouri, this grand commonwealth possessing such capabilities of wealth and power as I verily believe belong to no other State in this our wide-spread Union. Yes, sir, I am speaking for the whole State, and especially for the elevation and welfare of its industrial interests; and I feel that, with my convictions, were I now to withhold my voice or my efforts, humble as they may be, I should be an unworthy and unfaithful representative of the people of Missouri. JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. THE PEOPLE THE STATE, AND NOT rrs MATERIAL RESOURCES, HOWEVES GREAT. We are ever to remember, Mr. President, that our possibilities and capabilities as a State do not lie merely in our rivers, though they afford more miles of navigation than those of any other State; nor in our com- manding central position, nor in our soil, though it be richer than that washed by the Nile itself; nor in our mountains of iron, our fields of coal our mines of lead, our quarries of marble, nor in any other natural advan tage however great and wonderful. They do consist, sir. far more in the people we are to have, in our children and youth; those who in fact are soon to make up and constitute the State itself (for let it be ever remem- bered that the people are the State, and nothing else is); those who are to use and possess all its vast and untold resources and means of enjoyment, who are to develop its civilization, and to create for it the name and glory it is to have as a commonwealth. What constitutes a State Not high-raised battlemnents or labored mound, Thick wall or moated gate; Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned Not bays and broad-armed ports, 'Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride; Nor starred and spangled courts, Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. No! men, high-minded men, Men who their duties know, Put know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain. These constitute a State ! POWER OF EDUCATION. In a word, it is our system of education, embracing both the elementary and the higher, that is to make us a great and intelligent people; that is to awaken our own self-respect, and command the respect of the world at large; that is to put it in our power to subsidize the forces of nature, and make them servants and workmen in behalf of our common civilization. WHAT SCIENCE IN ITS APPLICATIONS HAS DONE AND IS TO DO. It is by no means my purpose to dwell upon what science has done for our age and generation; hardly, indeed, shall I touch upon this grand and fruitful topic. We see its achievements everywhere, and in all departments JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. of life, the very greatest as well as the humblest and most minute. It has accomplished and made realities of what you, sir, and I would but a few years ago have regarded as the wildest dreams of the imagination, if not, in the nature of things, utter impossibilities. I stand amazed at its results whenever I think of them. Steam, and lightning, and air, and all the agen- cies of nature as now subdued to the dominion of man by the simplest principles of science have changed our whole earthly condition. It is prac- tical science-science applied to the arts of life-that has enabled men to understand and use the powers and agencies of nature that exist every- where around us. But the same science is to do yet more; she has but begun her triumphs. Think of all the wonderful discoveries of the past few decades. Far more will they be in the few years to come, because one discovery makes way for another, each step prepares for the succeeding one. I sometimes almost wish with Franklin, the great American philosopher, that I could lie torpid for a hundred years, and then walk forth upon the earth and see what improvements had been made among men. But, sir, I must not proceed in this line of thought, nor dwell upon the blessings that science is conferring on our race. Allow me here to say, that I am now pleading before this honorable body, not for classical studies nor the elegancies and refinements of literature, how- ever valuable and delightful they may be. I am pleading for science as applied to all the varied arts of life. In this I am pleading for the farmer, the mechanic, the miner, the worker in all the industries where science is needed; and can any man tell me where it is not needed, whether in the pursuits of war or of peace, whether in navigation, or manufactures, or agriculture, or mining, or even in the kitchen itself THE GRAND EXAMPLE OF PRUSSIA-HER LESSON TO THE WORLD. We have been amazed at the progress of one nation, which above every other of ancient or modern times has made education the very fundamental principle of her government. The whole statecraft of Prussia is comprised in the simple word education, education, education -first, second, last- the very highest scientific education, and the very best elementary educa- tion. She has given us the great lesson of the age; she has pointed out the true method of national development and greatness. By this simple ruling (lea she has risen from the rank of a third-rate or fourth-rate power to be the great central power of Europe, and she has risen to this rank with unparalleled rapidity. There is not a department of industrial life for which her wonderful people have not their schools: their agricultural schools, their normal schools, their mining schools, their polytechnic schools-I can hardly enumerate them. 254 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. THE NECESSITY OF PRACTICAL SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTIONS IN MISSOURI. Mr. President, we must have in this, our commonwealth of Missouri- yes, I say mnust-we must have our scientific industrial institutions. Th necessities of the State, the progress of opinion throughout the country absolutely demand institutions such as we are laboring to build up in con nection with our State University. The constitution, the laws, and the true policy of the State demand them. Shall untold riches, such as no dream of oriental imagination ever pictured, lie all around us on the earth and under the earth, and shall we as a State make no provision for their use or distribution We cannot afford it. We cannot as an economic measure, looking simply at the development of wealth, afford it. With our varied ores and minerals, worth a thousand times all the sparkling diamond-fields of South Africa, we need the practical knowledge of the world to bring them up from the earth and reduce them to the uses of man. We need the applied power of science beyond any other State. Shall the present Legislature of Illinois give her hundreds of thousands to her industrial university-as she has actually done, and with far less need than Missouri - and shall we refuse a far less amount, a mere pittance, compared with the greatness of the object We must have these institutions of science. If we do not establish and maintain them, other States will do it for us and send their men to do our work. We must have them equipped and furnished in the best manner. It is too late in the dlay to deny their value. Why, sir, there is not a month in the year that we do not lose and waste more for the want of proper science than we are now asking by this Bill, both for the School of Mines at Rolla, and the Agricultural and Mechanical College at Columbia. COMMON SCHOOLS. No man can say I have ever halted or held back as to our common schools. I have been at all times, and everywhere, according to the full measure of my feeble abilities, in favor of the widest diffusion of elementary knowledge. Sir, I would make it universal; as free as the air that we breathe, and as the light of heaven. I would extend it to every human being, no matter what complexion an Indian, an American, or an African sun may have burnt upon him. I would, to the utmost of my power, perfect our scheme of universal popular education. I would plant the school-house in every neighborhood; I would bring it to the door of the humblest peasant; I would, to use the words of the great American historian, Bancroft, have the genius of the State take every child as it is born, no matter in what poverty or degradation, and lifting it from its lowly origin throwv around it the arms of protection, and endow it with the heritage of knowledge as its 25 5 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. inalienable birthright. Said Madame de StaOl to Napoleon: " Pour instruc- tion upon the heads of the French people; you owe them that baptism." Cousin, the great French philosopher, after visiting various countries and examining their systems of education, upon his return to France said, in the celebrated report that he made to the Chamber of Deputies: "Do what- ever else you please, you have done nothing until you have supplied France with education: " Sir, in the light of recent events these words were almost prophecy; and we have done nothing, absolutely nothing, unless we have legislated for the very highest interest of the people, their advancement in science, in art, in a wide and universal culture. I place the people them- selves above all their possessions. And Mr. Webster, in a speech in Rich- mond, Virginia. quoting the sentiment of the illustrious daughter of Necker, said there was " no duty so solemn, no responsibility so fearful, as that rest- ing on the statesmen of this Republic of making broad and universal the diffusion of education amongst the masses of the people." I most heartily adopt this sentiment. THE HIGHER INSTITUTIONS. When it comes to those higher institutions for the promotion of human knowledge, which the State is bound equally to provide, and which require the aggregation of buildings and libraries, and apparatus, professors, and students in all departments I have been and am for concentration. It is the only possible way to success. In the words of Ezra Cornell, " I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study." THE STATE UNIVERSITY AND ITS PROPER SUPPORT. This is the State University, with all its departments as idealized in our State Constitution, and such as we are laboring to build up at Columbia, a locality central in position and in all respects suitable, with one department, the school of mines and metallurgy, located at Rolla, in the County of Phelps; there located by the policy of the Legislature on account of the variety of minerals found in that district of the State, and the mining opera- tions carried on, and yet still more to be carried on in the future-such an institution as we can with its present means, and a happy combination of circumstances, build up with comparatively small aid from the State. To- day we were actually asking less than States around us are freely giving to their universities, almost without argument, and upon the reports of their wants, made after examination by committees. Upon the same judicious plan a joint committee of the two Houses, composed of fifteen members, has made its examination, and reports the smallest appropriation sufficient to meet the most urgent wants of the industrial departmetits of the institution. May we 256 JANIES SIDNEY ROLLINS. hope that the same action will take place in this enlightened body, and il the same spirit, as took place in the Michigan Legislature but the last win- ter Judge Walker, in his address at the recent inauguration of President Angell, says: iThe committees of the Legislature came to see and learn our necessities and wants. They made their reports and recommended th- appropriation of 75,000 for a recitation-room building, and without lobby- ing or besieging the halls of legislation the appropriation was promptly and freely made" But, two years before that, the Legislature had appropriated a sum of 1i,ooo a year, making the annual income of the institution nove over ioo,ooo. Michigan University is a great success; her fame has gone to every civilized country. She has, at this very time, no less than tweny - eikz/ sludents from Missouri. The University of Michigan has been a suc cess, and has achieved fame for the State, simply because she has had the means to do so. Is it to be expected that we can dto the same work witl less than one-fourth of her means, to say nothing of her accumulated capi- tal in the forns of libraries and other indispensable appointments GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE STATE UNIVERSITY. No State institution of learning can achieve its true end, or do honor to its State, without the means to do so. This is the simplest truism; yet I doubt whether any five years'progress of Michigan has surpassed the pro- gress of our o) wn University during the past five years and since the State gave its first aid. It is the professional schools of law and medicine that gather the large number of students at Ann Arbor, and give to the institu- tion its wcide-spread fame. Our enrolment during the present semester, or half-year, will reach o-er three hundred-only fifty less than that of the far- fatned University of Virginia, even with her professional schools, and equal to three-fifths of that of Michigan University, without the professional schools. THE STUDENTS NOT BOYS, BUT MEN, AND REPRESENTING ALL PARTS OE THE STATE. It is, too, a most gratifying fact that while the students are (with excep- tion of less than a dozen) from Missouri, they are in about equal numbers from north of the river and from south of it, indeed from all parts of the State, about as are the members of this General Assembly. Nor are they mnere boys, but men (excepting thirty young women), and the) fairly repre- sent the rising talent and influence of the State. Had younger students been encouraged to enter the institution, the count of numbers would have been much greater. 27 2 j 7 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. PROSPECTS IF NECESSARY MEANS ARE GIVEN. With the necessary aid from the State to meet the present exigencies of the institution in the completion and proper equipment of the industrial de- partments, so that chemistry may be taught by the student himself making analyses of soils and minerals, and that other branches may be taught in the same way by practice and experiment, we may expect a very large increase of numbers. It is of the utmost consequence that we do all in our power to maintain the continued and growing prosperity of the institution in all its departments. It was Napoleon the Great who said, " Nothing is so suc- cessful as success." Success begets success. This is a law in human affairs. With the aid now asked for, the next year will be more prosperous than any that has preceded. We have good reason to expect and believe that the institution will soon come up to the standard of the first American colleges, and that its position as such will be everywhere felt and acknowledged, and that it will confer honor upon the State itself. THE OTHER SIDE. But, sir, I will not contemplate the other side of the picture. If nothing should be done, this State institution will not only have reached its goal, but there is great reason to fear it will actually fall back; professors will be dis- couraged, students will be disappointed-and what shall the farmers, and mechanics, and miners say, and have reason to say WHAT THE AGRICULTURALISTS, THE MECHANICS, AND MINERS WILL SAY. May they not say, and will they not say, "The lawyers, and the doctors, and other professional men have their schools with public endowments; we now, for the firsi time in the history of the State, come forward with our petition for aid in a kind of education adapted to our peculiar wants. We want the means of experiment- and practice. We must have them, if we are to keep pace with the spirit and progress of the times. We ask less for our industrial institutions than has been granted in Iowa, or Illinois, or Kansas, or even in the new and feeble State of Nebraska, with her 120,000 people and 1oo,ooo,ooo or less of taxables. We have the literary and scientific ad- vantages of the University, and hence ask only for the industrial department -the department set aside for us, the farmers, the mechanics, and the miners." So wisely have these interests been administered, and such is the economy of connecting the industrial departments with it, that our call upon the State treasury is one-half and even two-thirds less than in those States where a 258 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. different policy has been pursued. Shall eve then, Mr. President, turn ou- backs upon such an appeal THE EFFECT OF NOT TRULY REPRESENTING THE INDUSTRIAL CLASSES. If we do, there is not an agricultural paper in the State, or out of it, that will not express regret and dissatisfaction; there is not an agricultural or mechanical association nor an industrial convention, where is concentrated the intelligence of our people, that will not seek to reverse our action and procure a right representation of the people's feelings and interests. If there is anything in regard to which unanimity prevails among the best industrial men everywhere, it is the education that they require, and the education that they will have. EFFECT UPON THE GROWTH AND PROSPECTS OF THE UNIVERSITY AND ALL ITS DEPARTMENTS. If I could conceive that the Legislature would not act favorably upon the Bill before us, that it would not meet the pressing wants and necessities of the institution as reported and recommended by the committee, I should expect to see great discouragement; in such case there would be reaction, there must be. The students in the agricultural department, who entered upon their studies at the opening of the school, cannot have the practical chemis- try in the analysis of soils which belongs to their best year's course; the building, now covered and closed in, will stand desolate, unfinished, and un- occupied. This condition of things produces its injurious effect upon all de- partments of the institution, and upon the public mind. We must not, sir, by our inaction, or our non-action, permit this condition of things. We must not lose the prestige of yearly progress. We must not lose what it will re- (luire years of labor to regain. We must not stop the impulse that is carry- ing us forward. That the State will make the necessary appropriations, as every State is making them or has already made them, no man can seriously doubt. Now, nozo is the time to make the smallest sum count the most in carrying forward this great interest. Next year, or the year after it, will not do. There is a crisis in the affairs of institutions of learning, as in those of men and of nations. There is a tide in the affairs of men Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Oinitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. 259) JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE LAND-GRANT. But, Mr. President, we reach another very important point in our plea for our industrial institutions. How came we by the agricultural and mechanical fund that is to endow and support these institutions, or rather by those lands which, when disposed of, are to give us (the State of Missouri) a fund for this object They are the gift of Congress to the State; and a like gift, in the ratio of representation, was made to all the States. How came Congress to make this grant or gift The history is an interesting one, and well illustrates the character of our energetic, practical business men. They had become thoroughly convinced by their own wants and deficiencies, and after discus- sion in pamphlets and newspapers and in conversation, that there must be a new class of institutions, or an enlargement of American education as then existing, to meet the specific wants of the industrial classes. They went with their demand to Congress. By petition, by agitation in every possible way, by delegations to that body, by correspondence throughout the country, they pressed their demand. After a great struggle, after reports and counter reports by committees, and after a Presidential veto, they finally succeeded, for this class of men, the bone and sinew of the land, always will succeed. Think you, sir, if we vote them down now and here, that they will not have their Missouri industrial institution-their agricultural college and mining school The grant was made of land equal in area to Massachusetts, Con- necticut, and Rhode Island, and in value equal to 15,000,000, and what for I answer in the words of the grant itself, " to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes." No such magnificent grant for objects of education was ever before made. The institutions endowed and growing out of this grant cannot but produce an effect upon our American civilization. The grant has already produced its effect upon our American institutions of education. It has encouraged and stimulated the States. It has awakened individual munificence, so that within the last ten years (since the grant was made, July 2, 1862) such gifts have been made to American institutions of learning as never in the history of the world have been made to any object or for any purpose. The specific object of the grant is for industrial educa- tion: to unite, if you please, head-work and hand-work; to guide muscle by brain; to get more from the soil; to multiply and, at the same time, save labor by the aid of machinery and invention; to improve the breed of all domestic animals; to aid in mining operations and the reduction of ores; to assist the geologist, the mineralogist, and the chemist-in short, to enable men to live better and with less labor, by better understanding the laws of nature. 260) JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. THE OBLIGATIONS INCURRED BY THE STATE IN ACCEPTING THE GRANT. But there were conditions attached to the grant-it could be accepted only with obligations attached. The States were to receive, but they were also to do. Not a State refused the grant, and they each agreed to perform the conditions and requirements of the Act of Congress making the grant they, in fact, entered into a solemn contract to do certain things. The Stale of Missouri, by the act of the General Assembly, formally accepted the grant, amounting in her case (not counting the reduction of acres when lands witf - in the railroad belt were taken) to 330,ooo acres, and assumed all the oblige - tions imposed by the lass of Congress. The following is the resolution passed unanimously by the General Assem- bly of this State, approved March 17, i863: Be it Resolved, by the General Assembly of the State of Missouri, that the said Act of Congress of the United States is assented to and accepted by the State of Missouri, with all the conditions, restrictions, and limitations therein contained, and the faith of the State of Missouri is hereby pledged to the faithful performance of the trust hereby created. Now, what are these obligations for the performance of syhich the faith of the State is pledged I cannot present them in any better form than in the report of the condition of the University, which I had the honor, as president of the board of curators, to make to the Governor, in June last, as reluirerl by law. I will, if you please, read from that document, as the conditions and obligations of the State are therein presented: t, " The State must provide at least one college ' the object of which shall be' to teach ' branches of learning related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life '; ' other scientific and classical studies ' are not to be excluded, 'and military tactics are to be included.'' How shall the State perform this duty Shall it be in an enlarged and noble spirit, worthy of the State, and worthy of the beneficence ofthe general Government 2. "1All expenses of location, management, superintendence, etc., of the lands granted, ' and all the expenses in the management and disbursement of the moneys received therefrom must be paid by the State out of the treasury of the State,' so that the entire proceeds shall be applied, - without any dim- inution whatever,' to the proposed object." 27A 2( I JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Expenses in the selection and appraisement of these lands have been in- curred from time to time, and under the authority of law have been paid from "the treasury of the State." 3. " No part of the fund nor the interest thereon shall be applied, directly or indirectly, under any pretense whatever, to the purchase, erection, preser- vation, or repair of any building or buildings." This makes it necessary that the State should provide buildings. It is most honorable to our American States, East and West, that they have lib- erally provided, under the requirements of the Congressional Act, not only buildings, but apparatus, libraries, stock for farms, and other material aids of instruction. Here is a worthy State rivalry - most beneficial to the States, most appreciative of the general Government, which has bestowed so liber- ally for objects calculated to advance civilization itself. 4. " The State, by its act of acceptance, guarantees the capital of the fund, so that if by any action or contingency it shall be diminished or lost the State is bound to replace it. "N No grant ever heretofore made by Congress has been so carefully guarded from waste or misuse, by the very terms of the grant. Let Missouri do her part to make the most of the grant which falls to her by the bounty of the general Government." This, Mr. President and Senators, seems to me to be required by the obli- gation of contract and State faith; and yet, permit me to say, in even a higher degree by the consideration of honor and pride, and of duty to that large class, the laboring men and women of the State, for whose special benefit Congress in its beneficence and enlarged views designed this noble gift. In the great and good enterprise of establishing a new and more suitable system of education in the United States - a practical education, without the special ornaments of elegant literature, for a practical and working people - Congress did a noble part, but the States were required to come in and give their aid and cooperation. This was wisely done; and most magnificently have they responded. In the Eastern States the response has been largely by individual munificence, and in the Western States by grants and aid from Legislatures. MISSOURI HAS THUS FAR DONE NOTHING. How has Missouri responded Has she done her part Has she come up to the standard of other States Though having more industrial interests than any other State, a wider range and greater variety of employments - especially of pursuits requiring the application of science - how has she re- 262 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. sponded to the munificence of Congress The answer that we must give is that she has (lone nothing, absolutely nothing; not a dollar, Mr. President, beyond the payment of expenses of selecting and appraising the land. She has at Columbia a magnificent domain of land for which she paid nothing; she has a noble central university edifice, with some eight or ten other builc.- ings, worth in the aggregate more than 250,000. and they cost her not a cent but io,ooo, appropriated by an act of the General Assembly of the State, approved March X i, 1867, for the purpose of aiding in rebuilding the President's house, which had been destroyed by fire; and that is all for this 670 acres of land and these buildings intended for the comfort and accom- modation of all the sons and daughters of the State. I ask, sir, has any other State got so much for so little BONUS OF BOONE COUNTY. Even the industrial scientific building, for the furnishing and equipment of which this Bill reported by the committee provides, has been built with- out expense to the State, and most admirably adapted to the purposes fo- which it is intended. The bonus of Boone County, to the extent of 20,000, has been expended upon it, and there remains upon it a debt to the conl tractors of io,ooo. To finish this building, and equip and prepare it fo- practical purposes, an appropriation is asked in the Bill now under consider ation, of 39,507.25. Mr. President. though I have been fantiliar from the beginning with the generous gifts of Boone County to the State, made in the midst of trial and difficulty, and I may say poverty and pecuniary stringency, yet when I look a: the amount in the aggregate, and look at the results in the State, in buildings now belonging to the State and for the benefit of all the children of the State I confess I am myself utterly amazed. They are monuments of which not only the people of the County of Boone but the State itself may be justly proud. THE FAITH OF THE STATE PLEDGED. This General Assembly surely cannot consider it too much now to be called upon to carry out. in good faith, the establishment of the Agricultural College by the erection of suitable buildings and by other necessary prepara- tions to complete the institution. Indeed, is not that the very thing which Boone County bargained for by the gift of 90,000 as a bonus, every dollar of which has been paid, for the location of the Agricultural College She supposed that by this gift she had obtained the Agricultural and Mechanical College, and that the State would meet the solemn pledge, made on the acceptance of the Congressional land grant, to furnish all that was necessary to complete it. 263 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Now, I ask, does not good faith to our own citizens, as well as to the United States Government, require the making of the appropriation pro- vided in this Bill for the benefit of the Agricultural College HONORABLE ACTION OF BOONE COUNTY. It was in no stinted or niggardly spirit that Boone County on her part fulfilled her engagement with the State. Let us hear the report of the Commissioners on the part of the State, such men as Judge Bliss, Edward Wyman, and Professor Matthias. After examination, and certifying to the correctness of the title papers to the land, and to the fact that the money was duly paid over to the credit of the University, they testify in the following terms: "That having examined said tract of land, we found the same hand- somely improved with valuable buildings, diversified with a variety of soil, well watered and timbered, and admirably adapted for the uses and purposes of the Agricultural and Mechanical College; and we further certify that in the extent and character of this part of the donation, with the amount of money expended to secure it, Boone County has fully and honorably met every reasonable expectation, and satisfactorily complied with the obliga- tions incurred to the State in the matter of the location of the Agricultural College." This remarkable declaration in an official document, made at the instance of the Commissioners from different and distant parts of the State, is most honorable to Boone County, and shows her worthy to be the site of a great institution of learning. She did not higgle over the price of the land she was to give, or attempt to put the State off with that which was inferior or low-priced, or unsuitable or unimproved. She came nobly up to all she had promised, and to more than she promised. Shall this great State fall below the fair dealing and generosity of one of her counties P No, sir, no; she will never do it. EQUALLY HONORABLE ACTION OF PHELPS COUNTY. And the same argument, Mr. President, applies with equal force to the School of lines and Metallurgy. It is a department-made so by law- in the same institution; located, it is true, in a different part of the State, but intended by a proper education to prepare men for making discoveries, analyzing and developing the wonderful mineral resources of that region. And what a heritage that school will be to us and to our children; what a source of wealth and material power to the State when that vast region - stretching from the Mississippi River across the State westward to the 264 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Indian Territory, and southward to the State of Arkansas, nearly every county bearing mineral deposits equal in utility and variety to those found in any other State of the Union-shall be carefully explored by practical scientific men, anti its hidden treasures, touched by the wand of science. shall gush forth in streams to enrich the treasury of your State, and to supply the wants and increase the comforts of all who are to inhabit this great valley. Sir, what may not a school of mines located in the very heart of such a bountiful region, and wisely directed, be to the youth and the people of the State Sir, the County of Phelps has acted no less generously than the County of Boone, in securing this institution, and the same obligation rests upon the Legislature to furnish and equip all the buildings necessary to put the school into successful operation. Already the school is organized, under the direction of an efficient and accomplished scholar, Professor Charles 1P. Williams, with two able young men as his assistants. Only proper buildings are now needed to make it a success. The Agricultural College and the School of Mines, these twin daughters of a common mother, were brought simultaneously into existence, are con- trolled by the same corporate authority, are located on either side of our great river, and constitute a perpetual bond of sympathy betwixt the work- ing-men of North and of South Missouri. The one is intended to advance in intelligence and power the great agricultural interests of the State, upon whose success depends all private and public prosperity. and the other is established to develop that wonderful source of material power that has enriched every people in the world's history that have possessed it. The iron and lead and Gother rich mineral deposits that are found so abundantly within our borders will, if exploited by a liberal and enlightened State policy, in time secure to our people all the comforts and the choicest bless- ings of life, if not the largest wealth. In order that we may see how large has been this liberality on the part of both Phelps and Boone Counties, the following statement is presented Gifts of individuals in Boone County, in order to secure the location of the University, made in the year 1839 ..... . .... ..... 117,500.00 Rollins Aid Fund- A bequest by Dr. Anthony W. Rollins, to aid young men and women in their education. The proceeds were placed at the dis- posal of the President of the University, and now amount in gross to ........300........ ................................. 3 0,000-oo Gift of Boone County, to secure location of Agricultural College . 8o,ooo.oo Town of Columbia, for the same ........................... .... o,ooo.oo Gift of Phelps Count), to secure Mining School at Rolla ....... . 130,545.00 Total. 368,045.00 265 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. To the above is to be added 5oo, the sum guaranteed byJ. L. Stephens, Esq., of Columbia, to found the Stephens prize. Now, sir, let us see what the State has done, what amount has been ap- propriated from the treasury at different times for other State institutions since their establishment, and for their support. I hold in my hand a state- meent from the Auditor's office, giving the facts upon this subject as nearly as they can be ascertained. S/a ementlsowing aqrpfoima/e es/ima/e of Aggrega/e Afriopria/ions madefrom ihe State Treasury, for the various ins/it/uions ofthe S/ate from their frst organlizatio t/ Janz. f, .872r . Tota Amount ippropnr-d. Penitentiary ......................... ............ 6851 r25.87 Lunatic Asylum.......... ........................ 783,622.83 Deaf and Dumb Asylum ...................... .... .......... 319,257.20 Blind Asylunm (St. Louis) ......2........ .. .................. Z00,575.20 Salaries, Orphans' Home (St. Louis) .......................... .... Soooo. State Capitol. ..... .................. 449.797.03 Normal Schools ................................1.............. i2,268.60 Lincoln Institute . ............................................ io,ooo.oo Military Institute (Lexington). .o....................... - State University (Columbia) ...................r ........ .... o,ooo.oo MOST OF THE PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS WELL CARED FOR. It will he observed, Mr. President, that in the above tables I have referred only to those public institutions that are recognized by the Constitution and the laws- institutions part of whose support the State has taken upon tself, which constitute a part of its public polity, and are an imperative demand of our present civilization. These and similar institutions are found in every free State; and a State that was without them would hardly be recognized. I do not complain of these appropriations. They were found to be necessary and proper, and therefore the legislatures that made them were compelled by the obligations resting upon them to do as they did. It will be remarked, however, that while Missouri has expended hundreds of thousands of dollars from her treasury to erect buildings for the detention of criminals; whilst the insane, the deaf and dumb, the blind, the orphans have been cared for by large appropriations from the treasury (all of which is right, and mneets my cordial approbation); whilst various literary institu- tions have met with favor at the hands of the Legislature, and appropriations have been made from the treasury to sustain them, 266 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. LITTLE HAS BEEN DONE BY THE STATE FOR THE UNIVERSITY. The University, next to the oldest institution in the State, and the only institution recognized and expressly named in the Constitution of the State placed there in the Constitution of 182o adopted when Missouri was ad- mitted into the Union, retained there in every succeeding Constitution, anl the subject of a clause (article 9, section 3) of our present Constitution. which expressly provides, " The General Assembly shall establish anm maintain a State University, in which there shall be departments in teach- ing agricultural and natural science, as soon as the public school fund will permit " -this institution, the oldest of the kind in the State, the only one named or recognized in the Constituticn, standing at the head of our edu- cational system, has received only the sum of 10,000 from the State treasury, to be expended in the rebuilding of the president's house, which had been destroyed by fire. In a period of thirty-four years since the found- ing of the institution, this is the only sum that it has received from the treasury for purposes of permanent improvements. All the rest of its lands, deeded to the State; its fine buildings, the property of the State; its Normal department; its boarding facilities for the accommodation of students, worth more than a quarter of a million of dollars -all these have been the generous gifts of the people of Boone County to the State ' I speak, sir, of appropriations for permanent improvements upon the University grounds. It is true that byan act of the General Assembly, approved March II, 1867, in addition to the 0o,ooo mentioned, the sum of S14 per cent. of the State revenue was set apart, according to the express authority of article 9, section 4 of the Constitution, for the maintenance of the institution, and the whole amount derived from that source, up to this date, is betwixt 40,ooo and 5o,coo; and, sir, this is all (except debts paid and due the institution) that the great State of Missouri in niore than a quarter of a century has appropriated from her treasury for the support and maintenance of the State University. All the rest has come from private and county beneficence. I am particular in the accurate statement of these facts in orler to correct a wrong impression existing in the public mind upon this subject. Many people, and even legislators, believe that the University has been during its existence the constant recipient of large pecuniary appropriations from the State treasury; but this is not the case. I have stated the facts correctly, and they will not be disputed by candid men. RAPID INCREASE OF WEALTH AND POPULATION. But, sir, I wish to put the proposed measure of aid and relief to the State University, and its agricultural and mechanical departments, upon higher 26; JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. and more liberal grounds than those of mere contract, if, indeed, there can be any higher. I have endeavored to do so. I would make my appeal to a great and magnanimous State, increasing with unexampled rapidity in every element of power and wealth. Our population now is more than 1,8oo,ooo inhabitants. It will, during the present decade, reach at least 2,500,000. But wealth increases in yet a higher ratio. I have not the census tables of i870-they are not yet published-but in every prosper- ous country wealth increases in a greater ratio than population. The actual increase of wealth in the United States from i85o to i86o was, according to the census of i86o, no less than 130 per cent., while the in- crease of population was a fraction under 36 per cent. The increase of wealth in Missouri from 1870 to 188o will be in yet a higher ratio. It cannot be less than 200 per cent. The small amount asked in this Bill, and for other State institutions, is not even worthy of thought or consideration, in view of such facts and figures. SENATOR MORRILL S NEW BILL. It is a matter of pride that, while Congress has done so much, the differ- ent State Legislatures have, without exception thus far, done a noble part towards building up the industrial colleges. This has encouraged Senator Morrill, who introduced the original Bill donating land to the States for the benefit of colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts, to introduce a new one, making still further donations for the same object. SHALL MISSOURI FAIL And shall Missouri alone, of all the American States, fail in the grand work of supporting her Agricultural College and School of Mines It must not and cannot be. We cannot maintain our rank as a State, and do so. EXAMPLE OF OTHER STATES. Mr. President, we are to a great extent influenced by the actions of others; we are so as individuals, and no less as States. Could any State, for example, maintain its rank at this day as a Christian and civilized com- munity, that should fail in the establishment and support of what are called the State benevolent institutions, such as lunatic asylums, deaf and dumb, and blind asylums Surely not. And have not the State Universities be- come part and parcel of State civilization, and under our Constitution, quoted above, a part of the State system; and can a State at this day refuse support to her institutions of this character No State can do it. Missouri 268 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. shall not. She must come up to the standard of the times, or fall back in public consideration; she must stand abreast with her sister States in the great s ork of educational advancement. I beg leave to read here again from the report to which I have referred, to show what other States have done for their institutions of education. "The present General Assembly of Illinois, as the Secretary of State writes to Dr. Read, appropriated to the Illinois Industrial University a sum total of no less than 265,200 ; and this over and above all tormer appro- priations and its large income from endowments. To that sumI, 75,000 has just been added. T' The State of California gave her university at Oakland 245,000 in coin, in order to start it in a manner becoming its high destiny, and worthy of the State. MichWigan, isconsin, Iowa, Minnesota. and even Nebraska have made provisions for their universities and industrial institutions by the appropria- tion of thousands of dollars, and of even hundreds of thousands. Nebraska gave - 25ooo0 for the erection of her university buildings. "No State has better understood how to raise up great men among her sons than Virginia According to a recent statement of the chairman of the faculty, that State has given to her university a grand total of 1,044,304. She has given tuition fees to x,o8r students, known as State students, and has boarded a large number free of charge. It is estimated by the same authority that the amount brought into and retained in the State by the university is no less than 4,476,800. Even in the days of her poverty she forgets not her university. The recent appropriations amount to 82,545. " Shall our great central State of Missouri, so rich in all the elements of wealth and civilization, fall far below her sister States around her; or rather shall she not be pointed to as a model and example for her spirit and liber- ality in sustaining her university upon the broad basis on which by her Con- stitution and laws she has established it To this statement mitch inore might be added, showing such munificence in behalf of institutions of learning as the world has never before witnessed. I know, Mr. President, there has been a prejudice against what we call colleges or universities. But we must remember that these institutions for which this appropriation is asked are intended especially for tile working classes. They are not merely literary institutions for the advantage of those who are preparing themselves for the learned professions. We should fol- low the advice and example of the great men of the republic. Thomas Jefferson, the apostle of American liberty and of true democracy appre- cianted the importance of such institutions of learning for the American peo- ple. He had represented our Government at the most brilliant courts of lurope he was the third President of the United States, and he had held 269j JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. other important positions, yet when he came to die he did not choose to rest his fame upon the flimsy idea that he had been promoted to high offices, but upon the more enduring basis, that he had aided in planting the principles of political liberty and religious freedom in our soil, and in founding a great institution of learning where the people might be taught to understand, to maintain, and to defend their rights. The epitaph written by his own hand, and inscribed upon the marble that marks his last resting-place, reads thus: HERE LIES BURIED THOMAS JEFFERSON, AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, OF THE STATUTE OF VIRGINIA FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, AND FATHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA. Sir, we have seen enough of poor, starveling institutions, that have high- sounding names and lofty pretensions, but no means whatever for the scien- t'fic instruction that the present status of education requires, and which th-refcie havy no credit at home and abroad. The country is sick of them. We surely do not wish the first educational institution under the patronage of the State to be of this class. As citizens of Missouri we wish it to be of the very highest type, so that we shall have a just State pride in it; so that the stranger or foreigner when he thinks of Missouri will think of her great industrial institutions as part and parcel of the State, just as when he thinks of Michigan her university is first in his thoughts, or when of Connecticut it is Yale College, or of Virginia it is her university that rises spontaneously to his mind. As Missourians we cannot have our university any less. We have already excellent foundations; we can soon realize our best and highest wishes. Already our institution is beginning to command the attention of the most distinguished educators; its plans and method are beginning to attract attention. Will you see it starve for the want of nutriment Will you ignore it just as it is beginning to assume a position amongst the great institutions of the nation IDEAL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE. I would, -Mr. President, by every proper inducement, by affording every encouragement, by furnishing the highest advantages, gather the youth of the 270 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. State in hundreds if not in thousands. I would make it a great fountain of knowledge in all departments; I would throw wide open the doors, and in- vite all to enter without money and without price. I would place it far above the polluting influence of party strife and contention, and equally so above that of the contests of religious sects. It should be sacred to the best secular knowledge, to a sound Christian morality, and thus to the true interests of civilization. This, sir, is my ideal of what the State University of Missouri ought to be, and what you have it in your power to make it. Let this Bill become a law, and the stability and prosperity of the university will, in my judgment, be assured. APPROPRIATIONS ASKED MAINLY FOR THE LABORING MEN OF MISSOURI. This appropriation is asked essentially for the benefit of the working-men of the State. It is for their education and their elevation that we are now asked for the first time to do something. Sir, who pay the taxes Who build the cities and the railroads Who convert the wilderness into fruitful and smiling fields Who fight the battles of the nation ; who are its bul- wark, its hope, and its stay Who, but the farmers and the mechanics, the miners and the laboring nien It has been justly said of one of these classes of citizens by one of the ripest scholars and ablest financiers this or any other land has produced, that " It may not be foretold to what dangers the country is destined when its swelling population, its expanding territory, its daily complicating interests shall awaken the latent passions of man and reveal the vulnerable points of our institutions. But whenever these perils come, its most steadfast security, its unfailing reliance, will be on that column of landed proprietors, the men of the soil and of the country, standing aloof from the passions which agitate denser communities; well educated, brave, and inde- pendent; the friends of the Government without soliciting its favors, the advocates of the people without descending to flatter their passions. 'IThese men, rooted like their own forests, may yet interpose betwveen the factions o0 the country, to heal, to defend, and to save." How important, then, that they should have all the advantages of educa- tion, and of liberal culture, that this measure is intended to give. NO OPPOSITION TO INDEPENDENT OR DENOMINATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. Mr. President, no one should conclude from what I have said that I do not feel an equally warm interest in the success of all other higher institutions of learning in the State, whether they be indepetsdent or denominational. But it is not our province as legislators to deal with them ; we have only to provide for that system which the State itself has established and pledged 271 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. itself to maintain. However, sir, as they all constitute different parts of those great moral and educational agencies set on foot to enlighten and elevate the people, I am for upholding and sustaining all of them. They are needed in our country, and must be multiplied to meet the increasing wants of our rapidly advancing civilization. One of these institutions, William Jewell College, which is located in Clay County, and bears the honored name of a former distinguished and patriotic citizen of my County of Boone, Dr. William Jewell, now gone to his rest, and was founded by his liberality, and which has been largely increased by the contributions of other noble men of my own and other counties of the State, is in its highest prosperity, and I cannot feel other than the deepest solicitude for its success. And, planted in the town where I reside, there are two institutions for the education of women, one of them, Stephens College, called after another of our most public-spirited cit- izens, James L. Stephens, of Columbia, upon whose large endowment the institution principally rests; and the other, Christian Female College, built up by the means of its distinguished president, Elder Joseph K. Rogers, with the aid of others, and by long years of his patient care and labor until it has become one of the first female educational institutions of the West. In these and all similar establishments I shall continue to feel the deepest interest, and shall exert my poor influence to advance them wherever they rmay be located or by whomsoever endowed and sustained. Mr. President, I have thus, in a poor way, presented to the Senate my views on this measure. And I confess, sir, that besides these public con- siderations which I have mentioned, and which alone ought to govern our action. there are personal considerations why I feel some anxiety about the passage of this Bill. Thirty-four years ago, before the building of this capitol, I came here a youth, barely eligible to a seat in the General Assembly of the State, as a member of the House of Representatives from the County of Boone. The first Bill I ever wrote was one providing for the location of the University of the State. The first speech I ever made in a legislative body was in advocacy of the passage of this Bill. Under it the institution was located in the County of Boone, the people there having given the largest surn to secure it. I have been its steady friend and advocate ever since. I have been the author of other measures to strengthen and make it permanent, useful, and respectable. It has passed through the usual vicissitudes of literary and scientific institutions placed under the guidance and direction of political bodies, but it is now nearly safe from danger from this source. Resting secure on the larger intelligence of the people, and in the affections and confidence of the well-educated young men and women vho have hitherto gone, and will continue to go, out from the walls of their ablma mlater as faith- ful sons and daughters - it will be shielded against the assaults of those who would attempt either to wound or to destroy it. In time it will have an 272 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. ample endowment, with its departments greatly extended. Presided over by an experienced and enlightened President, with a full corps of learned and faithful professors, if at this session of the General Assembly a Bill intro- duced by myself shall become law, making it substantially free to all the youth of the State, male and female, between the ages of sixteen and twventy- five years, its progress must be rapid, both upward and onward. Let the State continue to do its duty (and there can be no complaint that the Legislature has failed to make the amplest provision for both elementary and secondary education), and there is no reason to doubt that in a fesv years Missouri will boast of an institution of learning equal to any in the XVest; and in the course of time, when ours shall be the great central State of the American Union, unequaled in wealth and population and political influence, the people who shall succeed us may boast of an institution rivaling and even surpassing those grand ones planted in the olden times, whose fame has come down to us through revolutions, and changes, and the gloomy mists of the centuries - those of Cordova, of Padua, of Salamanca, of Paris, of Oxford, and of Cambridge, not to mention those of more modern growth, Yale and Harvard, in our own country. Since I first entered this General Assembly, Mir. President, many changes have taken place, the course of empire has taken its wlay Westward. This country was then a w ilderness-even almost immediately around us. I look about me in this Senate Chamber, and through the hall of the House of Representatives, and I find that nearly all my contemlporaries have left these halls, and their sons (pointing to Senator Birch) are taking their places, or else directing their energies to other pursuits oflife. A still larger number of theni, having finished their labors on earth, have gone to The undiscovered country, from whose bourne No traveler returns. Standing amongst you I feel, sir, almost alone. I am next to the oldest Senator on this floor; my legislative career is nearly closed. I have seen much public service, and, whilst I may have committed many errors, I feel that I can say my aims have been unselfish, and I have endeavored to pro- mote the public good; and borrowing an illustration from my great model in political life I say: If the General Assembly will pass this Bill, I swill retire from these halls; I will go to my home at Lagrange, on the hospitable banks of the Hingston, and there, with a people who have honored me beyond my deserts, amidst my flocks and herds, beneath the shades of my trees, in the bosom of an affectionate family, enjoy an attachment and fidelity that we seldom meet with in the walks of public life. 28 273 ADDRESS Before the Congressional Convention Assembled in St. Louis, Ma) 13. 14, 15, 1873- Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Congressional Convention: A task has been imposed upon me, urged upon me, that I was afraid to under- take, and which, more than ever as I rise before you, I feel the difficulty of fulfilling. I have been requested to make a speech before the first speech- making body in the wvorld, a body that hears more good speeches, and perhaps more bad ones, than any other assemblage of mortal men. I am appointed to " carry coals to Newcastle," a most unprofitable venture, but I will promise that in such a commerce my cargo shall be a very small one. This is the first time that the Congress of the United States of America (not exactly, it is true, in its organized capacity) has met west of the great "Father of Waters," and yet not far enough west to be in the centre of our expanded country. But we promise ourselves that it will not be the last time that they will meet us here, either in their organized form or at any rate as individuals, to study the interests of our mighty republic; and in this great central city of the nation -it may be " The Future Great City of the World "- to behold for themselves the channels of commerce extending away to the north and to the west, by thousands upon thousands of miles; then again stretching to the south and to the east, by other thousands, and concentrating here where you stand all the advantages of business, creating such an emporium for receiving and distributing all the productions of industry, and all the good things bestowed by the bountiful hand of nature for the benefit of man, as I undertake to say does not exist elsewhere in our country, and is not surpassed upon the face of the globe. But whether meeting you here in the one form or the other, we greet you with warm Western hearts; we meet you as our common countrymen, bound to you by all the ties of patriotism; we meet you with the respect and deference due your exalted position as members of the grandest legis- lative council - the most potent for good or for evil - that ever sat any- where or in any age, from the beginning of time; we come to you with our hearts in our hands; and our speech, though it may be plain and blunt, shall be hearty and sincere. JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. And let it be understood, once for all, that this is in no sense a sectional or party assemblage, any more than would be a convention to consider the question of improving the harbors on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, in order to protect the commerce of the oceans, or to improve the navigation of the lakes on the north, or of the Gulf of Mexico on the south; or a meeting to stimulate and develop, to encourage and foster any one or more of the great industries of the country, in order thereby to increase the general wealth and happiness of the entire people. Far, far from it ' The day for the meeting of mere sectional conventions, with a view to obtain some supposed local advantage, or to awaken the political animosity and strife of one section against another section, has I trust passed - forever passed. The only subject upon which sectional parties have been formed hitherto in our country has been blotted out - removed forever from our political discussions, and buried in deep oblivion, from whence even its ghost may never again emerge to disturb the public peace and tranquillity. We wish to confer with you in regard to wants and interests that con- cern not merely ourselves but the whole nation, and, indeed, the wvorld itself, for the old doctrine of rival and adverse interests is almost expunged from a true economic, as well as a Christian, philosophy. Still more should it be utterly banished from the sections of the same common country. We come before you, then, rather as citizens of one country than of a particular section of it; and when we point you to special and sectional advantages or resources, we say to you, Behold ' all these belong to our great and glorious country; they are a common property; they belong to you, as well as to ourselves. Protect, foster, support, develop them all- not for a section, but for the whole country; nay, more, for the whole civilized and commercial world. We Americans-and especially, we of the Wiest-are sometimes charged with magnifying ourselves-magnifying our country, our prospects, our resources, our energies; in short, that our every-day language is full of figures, hyperboles, and all manner of extravagances. But what language, I ask, can come up to the reality, to what we ourselves have seen and experienced The soberest statement of facts, and made even in the driest statistical and arithmetical forms, seems like the very dreams of oriental magnificence. Facts so wonderful that the bare recital of them seems to others wild and extravagant have become to us quite common. Why, but a few decades since, the very spot where you stand was foreign soil and beyond the limits of the United States; now, you are not even midway, and must travel yet hundreds of miles to the west before you reach the territorial centre. You are hardly even in the centre of the great valley of the Mis- sissippi, which drains a thirty-sixth part of the land surface of the globe itself, and which, rising near the great lakes of the North 0so near as to 2 75 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. make their shores tributary to the trade of its valley), and flowing through more than twenty degrees of latitude, affords a variety of productions, for commercial interchange, compared with which those of the valley of the Amazon or the shores of the Mediterranean must, even under the highest development, remain utterly insignificant. The Mediterranean system and the valley of the Amazon are limited in their products by the climatic uniformity of a single zone. Here is a valley developing itself northward and southward, in extent of area 2,231,000 square miles; all of it now a part of our country, and under the jurisdiction of the Congress of the United States. Why, the whole territory of the original thirteen States, embraced within their actual boundaries, was but 34I,756 square miles, exclusive of the northwestern territory; and our entire domain to-day is 3,527,684 square miles, including Alaska, while the valley of the Mississippi is two-thirds of that area. This vast valley with its inconceivable riches from its soil and from under its soil-from its cereals, its cotton, tobacco, hemp and fruits, from its ores, its quarries, its forests; with everything needed for human sustenance, comfort, and civilization; with possibilities beyond even con- ception or comprehension; lying, too, in the centre of the continent, with no Alpine ranges to bar its outlets-what, to-day, is its chief want, its imperative necessity It is that the channels which the Almighty has furnished shall be improved and made available by man's skill and labor; and to use the very language of the Executive Committee in inviting you to this conference, our object is to ' secure your cooperation towards obtaining such national legislation as will insure the improvement of the present, and the opening up of new water-lines of transportation to the seaboard." It is the very order of Providence that we should do our part, and we must do it to enjoy the beneficence of our Creator. "T Ihe river navigation of the Great West," said Mr. Benton, " is the most wonderful on the globe; and, since the application of steam-power to the propulsion of vessels, it possesses the essential qualities of open navigation. Speed, distance, cheapness, magnitude of cargoes are all there, and without the perils of the sea from storms and enemies. The steamboat is the ship of the river, and finds in the Mississippi and its tributaries the amplest theater for the diffusion and display of its power. Wonderful river! connected with seas by the head and by the mouth; stretching its arms toward the Atlantic and the Pacific; lying in a valley which is a valley from the Gulf of Mexico to Hudson's Bay; drawing its first waters, not from rugged mountains, but from the plateau of tha lakes in the centre of the continent, and in commu- nication with the sources of the St. Lawrence and the streams which take their course north to Hudson's Bay; draining the largest extent of the rich- est land; collecting the products of every clime, even the frigid, to bear the whole to market in the South, there to meet the products of the entire world. 276 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Such is the Mississippi ! and who can calculate the aggregate of its advan- tages, and the magnitude of its future results " This river and its tributarie!i float annually upon their bosoms more than 2,000,000,0oo of (comnmerce, which is an excess of more than i,ooo,ooo0,ooo over our foreign conimcrce, and nearly 2,0oo,ooo,ooo in excess of our own carrying trade, coastwise and foreign. Were there an absolute and total famine over all the rest of the earth, and were no iron produced elsewhere on the globe, and asere there no productions for human housing or clothing, we could from this valley supply the whole twelve hundred millions of the human race, and provide, too, for their rapic. increase in case they should stop killing each other by war. Not only our sister States, east and south, but the commercial world itself stretches forth its arms for our supplies. Cheap transportation to the seaboard is the demand. Water communica- tion by the very channels of nature is to be provided, or channels are to be constructed by art where nature has pointed out the course. More than halfa century ago, and before the invention ofrailroads, a system of water communication was projected, embracing the entire territory of the United States. It was under the inspiration of that movement, that DeWitt Clinton started and carried to completion the great Erie Canal, connecting the waters of the Lakes with the Hudson River, opening up for settlement and cultivation the vast wilderness of western New York, giving a partial outlet to the rapidly increasing productions of the country still further west, and adding incalculably to the wealth of the Empire State. For a time, rail- roads became the popular enterprise. Thie "raging canal," with its snail-like pace, was forgotten in the more fascinating mode of travel and transit afforded by the locomotive, annihilating space and bounding over the country at the rate of from twenty to forty miles an hour! A still wider scope of country was opened up; immigration poured in from every direction; towns and cities sprung into existence as if by the enchanter's wand; and the great Northwest, hitherto a wilderness under the dominion of the savage and the wild beast, smiled with fruitful fields and happy homes. Land carriage, and especially for heavy freights-the multifarious produc- tions of a country so fertile and so vast in extent, and increasing with such incredible rapidity in population - cannot supply the need, both on account of the lack of facilities, and the great cost to the producer in reaching the best markets of the country. The old idea again becomes new. The demand for safe and cheap transportation is revived. Old schemes and new schemes of internal improvement for utilizing our great rivers, and uniting the waters of different States by canals, thus shortening distances, is again becoming the order of the day, and the cry is heard on every hand: water comosunication for heavy freights; the railroad for rapid travel and lighter burdens. 28A 2 7;. JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. I do not stop to inquire which of the numerous projects named is the most important, or which of them should first receive the national aid. Let this be decided after a careful survey by competent scientific men, and by the wisdom of Congress, after all the facts have been carefully collected, estimates of the cost made, and the relative importance and pressing need of different improvements fully considered. Among others may be mentioned the Lake and St. Lawrence route; the junction of the Ohio and Potomac, and of the James and Kanawha Rivers; the Mississippi and Gulf route; Lake Erie Canal and Hudson River route; the Atlantic and Great Western Canal, unit- ing the waters of the Mississippi Valley with the rivers of Georgia, eastern Alabama, and South Carolina. Regarding this latter project I may be permitted to quote a short para- graph from a recent address of Governor Smith, of Georgia: " The route for the proposed Atlantic and Great Western Canal has at last been found, as recent surveys fully demonstrate, and it passes through the State of Georgia. This work will furnish the cheap transportation so much needed by the whole country, will open a home market for our varied products more attractive than that which the West now finds abroad, and in my judgment will cure the trouble complained of wvithout resorting to the extraordinary expedient above referred to. U Initing, as it will do, two great systems of navigation, its importance to the whole country is so evident as to require no discussion. That it will greatly increase the production of cotton is firmly believed; that it -will fur- nish a home market of vast value to the food-producing section requires no demonstration; and that it will give us of the South what we most need - direct trade with foreign lands, immigration to fill and build up our waste places, and an increase of capital for the development of our resources- is susceptible of the clearest proof. The route has been surveyed and found eminently feasible. The verdict of the country pronounces it a work of national importance and necessity, and what now remains to be done is to devise the best and surest means for its speedy accomplishment." The Congressional Committee charged with inquiring into the necessity for such a canal furnishes some valuable information in relation thereto. The main features of the route are thus indicated: Commencing at Guntersville, the most southern point reached by the Tennessee River, thence to Coosa River, thirty miles distant, which it enters and follows to Rome, Georgia, up to which point that stream is navi- gable for large steamboats at all seasons of the year. From Rome the canal follows the Etowah River to its point of nearest contact with the Ocmulgee, and thence down the latter stream to navigable waters and the Atlantic Ocean. By this means the entire navigable waters of Alabama, east Mississippi 278 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. and west Florida will be connected with the vast inland sea, comprised ill the term 11 Mississippi River and its tributaries "; also with the navigable system of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and a part of North Carolina, embracing about 5,ooo miles of water easily navigated by vessels of light draught, used upon canals. These vessels would penetrate the streams and estuaries above referred to into almost every portion of these six States-- States that produce the major portion of the cotton raised upon this conti- nent. The census of I870 shows that Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, andl Florida-the States that will be directly affected by the construction of this canal - had an aggregate population of 3,074,455. These States pro. duce 57,2i5,600 bushels of grain. Their average consumption, according to data furnished by the Bureau of Statistics, is 104,521,470 bushels. This leaves a deficit of 47,305,870 bushels to be supplied by other States. As the larger portion of this grain is needed along the seaboard, in what is known as the cotton belt, we may assume the distance from St. Louis to Savannah as the average distance it is moved. '[his would make the cost of transporting each ton 14.40, at mt cents per ton per mile. 'T'hese States produce 2682 hogsheads of sugar, 172,233,812 lbs. of rice, and 1,167,705 bales of cotton. The number of bales equals nearly half the cotton product of the United States. The value ofthe cotton crop of these States exceeds 144,000,000. The great need of this section is cheap food. Its soil and climate are not adapted to the production of grain, and the high prices of breadstuffs have retarded its development. The opening of the proposed canal will supply this need. The census gives the average price of corn in these States at 97 cents per bushel, and wheat at I.91. in many counties, and especially in the cot- ton belt, corn is seldom less than 1i5o per bushel, and often more than 2.00. The scarcity of food, and the excessive prices demanded, force the tilling of more than 5,ooo,ooo of acres in these States for grain. This takes away from the production of cotton about one-half the labor and capital of the South. These acres, planted in cotton, would add 2,5o0,000 bales to our export, and increase the value of that export about 200,ooo,ooo annually, which would cause the wealth of the world to flow towards us, instead of away from us as it has been doing in times past. To complete the last-named improvement, bringing with it all the advan- tages so clearly pointed out by Governor Smith of Georgia, in his late ad- dress to the entire nation, would not cost the United States Government one-fourth the amount that has heretofore been given by Congress to a single line of railroad. 27() JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. For several reasons I should make at least some reference to another route: I mean the connection of the waters of the James and the Kana- wha called the James River and Kanawha Canal. There are many pleasant memories connected with this great project. The idea of a con- nection by water of the navigable waters of the James with the navigable waters of the Ohio, and thereby with the whole Mississippi Valley, has for its author and earliest advocate a person no less distinguished than George Washington himself. It appears that for years prior to the War of the Revolution this impor- tant project had occupied his serious consideration. His plan embraced a double connection between the waters of the Mississippi Valley and those of the Atlantic States: one by the Potomac River on the east, and the Monongahela on the west, to the point where Pittsburg now stands; and the other by the James River, on the east, and the Kanawha on the west, to the Ohio, at the mouth of the Kanawha, two hundred and eighty-four miles below Pittsburg. If time permitted me to go into it, the whole history of this improvement would be exceedingly interesting. Of Washington it has been most appro- priately said, that if he had left no other record of his statesmanship than his wise, but poorly followed up, efforts to secure to his native State the advantages and standing which nature intended for her, to the great benefit of the whole country, those alone would have placed him in the front rank of the wise and far-seeing statesmen of his age. Up to the beginning of the year i86o there had been completed of this work upon the original plan (the same as that of the Erie Canal before its enlargement) one hundred and ninety-seven miles from tidewater at Rich- mond to Buchanan, besides twenty-nine and one-half miles of lateral canal; and there had been expended in construction the sum of 11,785,455, be- sides the further sum of 3;o34,845 of net earnings in the payment of annui- ties, interest, etc. And now Virginia, all stricken with poverty as she is, but still true to her grand and noble instincts as when she gave to the United States the great Northwest Territory, embracing an empire within itself, proposes to turn over to the general Government, free of cost, this work of improvement upon the sole condition that it shall be completed. Neither the enterprise of a single State, nor the united efforts of States impoverished by war, can accomplish these improvements. They require and demand assistance from the strong arm of the national Government, and being themselves national in character they should receive the requisite aid. The Pacific Railroad, the miracle of our country, would not have been built in half a century by relying alone upon individual effort or depending upon distant and sparsely populated States; but with the assistance derived 280 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. from the general Government it was begun in the very midst of civil war and rebellion, and completed in the short space of six years from the time of its commencement. Are not the people of the whole country equally in- terested in these cheap lines of water communication Every additional bale of cotton, or hogshead of tobacco or sugar, or tierec- of rice raised in the South adds to the national wealth, in the same manner as the larger production of wheat, tobacco, hemp, corn, fruits, or stock, or in the manu- facturing industries; and these can only be stimulated, and produced smith profit to the great laboring population of the country, by affording them easy and cheap transportation over the continent, and by giving theni an outlet across the ocean to the distant marts of the world. This, I say, is the demand, the necessity, the cry of the people, the voice of the nation itself. The Congress of the United States, State Legislatures, voluntary assemblies, all make this the great topic of discussion. In a lecture delivered in February last, before the American Institute, by Professor William J. McAlpine, the following striking comparison was made between the transportation capacity of the canals and that of the railroads, and between the actual transportation by the Erie Canal and that by all the trunk railroads in the United States: "W With many persons there is an idea that the railway has superseded the canal, and that it now performs the chief part of the traffic of the country. While this is true in regard to interior short lines of trade, it is a serious error in reference to the great transportation between the agricultural West and the Atlantic. The Erie Canal, during the season of navigation, con- veys more of this traffic than all the railroads together; more than ail the trunk lines from the St. Lawrence to the Potomac. The boats which come to tide-water have an average cargo exceeding that carried by the longest freight train on the Central Railway. During the busy season more than 150 such boats arrive daily, and their tonnage would require more than r5o freight trains. The greatest number is but thirty per day, on the Central Railway. The Erie Canal, therefore, is performing more meza Jfie tinnes as much business as the Central Railway. Yet the slow, plodting canal-boat attracts no attention, though burdened with more tons than the bustling, noisy, whirling freight train, which creates a sensation in every village through which it passes. The 4000 canal-boats, of an aggregate of m,ooo,- ooo of tonnage, moving 5,ooo,ooo tons of cargo per annum, exceed the tonnage of the vessels engaged in the foreign commerce of this city [New York] even before the war." But it is to be borne in mind that the water communication is not all by canal. The river and lake portion is much cheaper: the one less than half as high, and the other only one-third as high as that by the canal. 281 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. When I look back upon our history, and the great progress of events, I feel that there are no impossibilities for our people. I have already referred to our territorial extensions - Louisiana, Florida, Texas, California, Alaska -some of which were much opposed by good and true men, more on account of the improper means of acquisition than from any decided dislike to the extension of empire. And I observe a statement in the public press in the last few days that a distinguished citizen of our country has very recently made a contract with the Mexican government to build a railroad from the City of Mexico to our frontier line. What does this mean What comes next It is the shadow of the coming event. There is, then, our unparalleled increase in population. Since our con- stitutional government was begun in 1789, our numbers have risen from less than 4,000,000 to more than 40,000,000, and in the near future will rise to more than moo,ooo,ooo. State, too, has been added to State, until from the old thirteen we are now thirty-seven, and with eleven territories soon to be admitted to the common sisterhood; and if we take the very State where we stand, now the fifth in the Union, and that great State so ably repre- sented here, upon which we cast our eyes across the noble Mississippi, these two alone, then a wilderness, now have more population, wealth, and power of production than the original thirteen. Governor Woodson, in his very interesting speech yesterday, referred to the mineral and agricultural wealth of Missouri alone. But he did not tell it all. This would require a volume. Behold her with 2,000,000 inhabit- ants, closing up in population, wealth, and power with the great States of our blessed Union With her 45,000,000 of acres of land diversified with prairie and forest: 15,oooooo for ordinary farming; 13,000,000 for hemp; 5,ooo,ooo for grapes; 2,000,000 for mining; ioo,ooo,ooo tons of coal annually for 1300 years; 230,000,000 tons of iron above the ground; with lead at five hundred points; copper in fifteen counties; gold, zinc, tin, nickel, cobalt, emery, granite, marble, limestone, pipe-clay, and metallic paints, within a hundred miles of St. Louis, exciting the wonder and cupid- ity of the adventurous and enterprising of other States ' Considering the development of this enormous wealth that must take place within the nineteenth century, every one must see that all our rivers and a// the canals and railroads that are likely to be built will be needed in order to enable us to reach the markets of our country and of the world. If we look back only to 1830, there were but twenty-three miles of railroad completed in the United States; now we have upwards of 6o,ooo miles, more than equal to all the railroads of Europe, if not of the world. Then there is the wonderful telegraph system, one of the miracles of our day, trans- mitting thought with lightning rapidity, girdling the earth, and binding men 282 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. together in instant sympathy. It would have been utterly beyond the con- ception of men of the past generation; they could not have believed ws hat is now simply an every-day business affair. The late Senator Mahlon Dickerson, a graduate of Princeton, President of the American Institute, Governor of New Jersey, and Judge of the Supreme Court of that State, sixteen years a United States Senator, and afterwards Secretary of the Navy under the administration of General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren, made a speech in the Senate in i825. in which he ridiculed the idea of Oregon ever becoming a State of the Union, inasmuch as, according to his calculation, it svas 4650 miles from Washington to the mouth of the Columbia River. He showed that an able-bodied Congressman, traveling at the rate of thirty miles a day, would have to spend in going to and coming from the seat of government three hundred and fifty days, which would allow him two weeks to sit as a member, and the rest of the time he must be "' on the tram)p." But he adds, " He might come more expeditiously by wvater round Cape Horn, or through Behring's Straits, round the north coast of the continent to Baffin's Bay, thence through I)avis Strait to the Atlantic, and so on to Washington. It was true," he said, 'i the passage had not been dis- covered, except on the maps, but it would be as soon as Oregon would be a State ! " Oregon has now been a State in the American Union for fourteen years' And what does the world now think of Senator Dickerson's predic- tion Vhy, for all l)ractical purposes of communication the Amierican Unioni is actually less in territory than at the Revolution- the 3,527,684 square miles less than the 341,000 square miles. On this subject of safe, rapid, feasible transportation, I must be permitted to give, not the prediction of a politician in a Congressional speech, but the mathematical demonstration of a scientific savant made from mathematical data. Dr. Dionysius Lardner, in 1835, made a demonstration in which he showed, by veritable proofs, that the Atlantic (lid not admit of steam naviga- tion from Liverpool to New York! He had hardly completed his problem, when his mathematical impossibility had become an accomplished fact, and the thing was actually done which the learned scientist had proved never could be done. We can do all we resolve to do, and all we consider necessary to be done. The Suez Canal, changing the commerce of the world, the Mont Cenis Tunnel, the Pacific Railroad are works (lone before our very eyes. What does it amount to that some of our navy officers have reported the impossibility of cutting a channel across the Isthmus of Panama The work will be done within the present quarter of a century; and its effect upon this city, and upon this whole valley, is beyond calculation or computation. We repeated the words of 'Mr. Benton, upon the completion of the Pacific Rail- road; still more may we do so when the great inter-oceanic channel shall be 2 83 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. ompleted: " There is the East, there is India! " There they are by water communication to this great central emporium. But if We are to have the full fruition of this great work, how much is to be done in opening water channels throughout this great valley, in improving them, in removing obstacles, in cutting canals. and otherwise providing for cheap transportation However much we may value railroads, and do value them, we must, for our hundreds and thousands of tons of produce, provide a cheap transporta- tion; and this is done by water at a rate six times less than that by rail, with its constant wear and tear, its multitude of employees, and its vast invested capital. But there is another kind of internal improvement-better, indeed, than all these, higher and nobler-following which, everything else will come, and without which other improvements cannot subsist; or if it be possible that they should, they will be of little value, or even prove to be a curse: I mean the culture and improvement of the people themselves. The people are more than all their works, and all their possessions. If we look merely at production and exchange, there is not a political economist who does not make the intelligence of the people a prime element of both. The great movement of the present day is for higher institutions, for the application of science to the arts of life, as well as for a more complete system of public educa- tion. It is science in the various arts of life that has done so much for our age, that has wrought these miracles of progress, and advanced our Ameri- can civilization itself and carried it over the continent. But we may look for yet higher and more splendid achievements. Harvard is worth more to Massachusetts than Hoosac; her University is more to Michigan than her Central Railroad. Our schools of engineering, of mining, of agriculture, of mechanics, a recent product of our country, we must sustain and build up, and enlarge and perfect. This is the true i civil reform" for our industries of eveiy kind. And we must also have a school system, that shall reach every neighborhood and embrace the whole people, and that shall be free to all, free as the air we breathe and as the sunlight of heaven. Here in this presence, and with all deference, I wish to say, and I hope it will not be regarded out of place, but rather, indeed, as pertinent to the very objects of the occasion, that I would devote every acre of our unsold public domain (saving the rights of the pre-emptioner and of the homestead) to the education of the people, who are to be its future inhabitants. Were my voice sufficiently potential, every dollar from the public lands, with the reservations above made, should go in the most direct manner to the education of the present and future generations of men and women who are to inhabit these lands. In my judgment there can be no true statesmanship that ignores the education of the people. WVe must, in our own land, build up those schools, 284 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. which so many American youths go to other lands to find. Two townships of land to a State for higher education, and a thirty-sixth part of it for com- mon schools, are not up to the standard of the present times. Nothing short of the whole of it, to constitute a perpetual trust fund to be held by the United States Government and for the benefit of education in the States, will meet the expectation of this enlightened day. That form in which a Bill to this effect passed in its essential features both Houses of Congress by so large a majority, and only failed to become a law by one of those parliamentary accidents that sometimes occur, will wisely meet the great educational de- mands of our enlightened people. I have dwelt so long on this topic, because I regard the people themselves as the State, the Nation, and as embracing all other possibilities and develop- ments; and because I regard a single scientific man, such as De Lesseps, who carried forward to completion the Suez Canal, a man equally skilled both in theory and in practice, as worth more to society than any material construc- tion whatever. The man [glancing at Captain Eads] who by his genius and his energy spans with a splendid bridge this great river, is worth far more to the State and to society than his structure, however useful, or elegant, or magnificent, or costly it may be. In conclusion, after the great war properly come the works of peace- not only to repair and reconstruct, but to enlarge and to build up. The very same energy and enterprise, courage and daring, that as a people we evinced in war-what will they not accomplish when turned to peaceful un- dertakings How nobly does Milton say, " Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war." This must be our age of peace, and its triumphs must be those of the arts of education, of commerce both internal and foreign. We must bring the producer and consumer together by the cheapest means possible, and thus promote the great interests of all classes, thus benefit the East and the West, the North and the South, and make imperishable the Union of all. This Congress is commencing in the right spirit. It has its committees to collect the facts: to study and designate routes of improvements; to collect statistics of present and probable traffic; to make exhibits of ex- penses of transportation. Thus it means to act with intelligence in securing the largest increase of business and the greatest economy in the expendi- tures of means. It is, also, an omen of good. It shows a high and patriotic purpose, that so many national legislators are here present in their individual capacity to gather facts, to consult, to see for themselves. And no man can without new inspirations, without higher sentiments of country, without grander conceptions, pass through our different States, over our railroads and along 285 286 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. our water-courses, and behold with his own eyes our immense and unsur- passed resources. There is every indication that it will be the glory of the Forty-third Con- gress to initiate a system for the improvement of our great rivers, that will meet that crying want of the country, cheap and safe transportation. And considering all the wondrous advantages vouchsafed to us as a people, we are, with grateful hearts, ready to exclaim: Great God, we thank thee for this home- This bounteous birthland of the free; Where wanderers from afar may come, And breathe the air of liberty ! Still may her flowers untrampled spring, Her harvests wave, her cities rise; And yet till Time shall fold his wing Remain earth's loveliest Paradise! Extradfrom Speech before Alumni Association, University of Indiana, 1871, on the "Progress of Our Country." NOR in the midst of this material development - the rush after wealth by our people - have they neglected wholly a taste for the fine arts, which is the highest expression of the human mind, as it is filled and moved by the love of all that is beautiful in the widest sense of the term, and which inva- riably forms the crowning chaplet of the most advanced civilization. We have every reason to believe that it will fulfil its proper mission upon our continent, in the production of monuments that will rival in excellence all that human genius has been able to accomplish elsewhere. Our brief past sufficiently indicates this. In historical painting, the works of West, Trum- bull, Copley, and Alston rank with the most successful efforts of European artists. In portraiture, Stewart, and lately Elliott, and many others have left us delineations of the -human face divine" that come up to all that can be required in that department. Nor will the productions of our modern landscape-painters suffer in comparison with any that the pencil of Claude or Turner has left to the world. In our own Church we have one of the greatest landscape-painters, whether of the old or the modern masters. His " Heart of the Andes " and "F Falls of Niagara " seem literal translations of nature as she appears in all her transcendent beauty and sublimity. They are scarcely pictures, but rather nature herself as seen through the eyes of her most devoted worshipers. We have also our Hogarths and our Wilkies. The graphic outlines of Darley; the humorous and natural productions of Mount, as seen in the "s Bargaining for a Horse," or those inimitable pictures "The Jolly Flatboatmen," " The Stump Speaker," and "The County Election," by our great Missouri artist, Bing- ham, assure us that our social and political characteristics, as daily and annu- ally exhibited, will not be lost in the lapse of time for want of an art record to render them full justice. And in sculpture we can boast such names as Crawford, Rogers, Palmer, Powers, Mills, Stone, McDonald, Ream, Hosmer, and oth ers, whose wonderful productions equally assure us that, in the progress of the age, this branch of the fine arts will neither fail to keep pace with the diffusion of knowledge and education amongst the masses of the people, nor discredit the high standard of culture, refinement, and civilization towards which we are rapidly tending. Not only have our people made rapid strides in art and invention, and added to the improvement of education and to the volume of literature 2v7 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. and science, but they have also contributed to the moral worth of mankind, and the advancement of a higher civilization. No people in the world have ever stood so high in the scale of elevated life as the American people. There is no official position that the native-born citizen is not eligible to fill, and no opportunity that is not afforded to the adopted citizen. The Gov- ernment knows no distinction of ranks or classes. In obedience to the law the millionaire stands side by side with the husbandman, the craftsman, and the artisan, no distinction being known but that which God has made. Not only are the millions of our people sharing blessings and opportunities never before afforded to any other people upon earth, but, in the greater amplitude of the enlightened and divine sentiment in the race, woman is now being lifted higher in the scale of civilization, higher in the intellectual, social, moral, and civil walks of life than ever before in all the ages of the past. The great statesman and the enlightened reformer have already learned that civilization is measured by the position accorded to woman in nations and society. And if the state would be elevated, if society would advance, then woman must take rank side by side with man-he her brother, and she his sister-he the master, she the mistress-the one com- plementing the other in personality and in duty throughout all the intricate relations of life. The wise father will accord to his daughter all the general advantages of education afforded to his son. The true government will open to her all the avenues of learning, and labor, and industry that she is fitted to fill, and that will promote her respectability and happiness; and will permit her to go forth into the great battle of life, free and untrammeled, to do whatever her genius and energy can accomplish, consistently with the purity and dignity of her sex. 288 Letter to the Mississippi River Improvement Convention, held in St. Louis, October 26, 27, and 28, i88i. [From the Columbia (Mo.) Statesmnan, Nov. 4, 108X.] COLUMBIA, MO., Oct. 24, i88r. TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER IMPROVENIENT CONVEN- TION, S-i. Louis. Dear Sir. I have been appointed by Governor Crittenden a delegate-at- large to the Convention over which you preside, but I may not be able to attend on account of the delicacy of my health, and therefore I beg leave to present through you to the Convention this communication. Forty-five years ago I was a delegate from Boone County to a conven- tion held in the City of St. Louis, on the 20th day of April, 1836, for the promotion of internal improvements within the State of Missouri. This was the first convention ever held in the State for this object, and, so far as I have knowledge, the first convention of the kind ever held west of the Mississippi River. The following were the delegates from the County of Boone: R. NV. Morris, William Hunter, John W. Keiser, Dr. James IV. Moss, D. M. Hickman, John B. Gordon, James S. Rollins, and Granville Branham; and of these I am the only survivor. The following gentlemen were the delegates from the County and City of St. Louis: Edward Tracy, John O'Fallon, Archibald Gamble, M. Lewis Clark, Henry WValton, Henry Von Phul, William Ayres, J. B. Grant, Samuel Merry, Joseph C. Laveille, Thornton Grimsley, Lewellyn Brown, George K. McGunnegle, and Pierre Chouteau; and of these M. Lewis Clark, nosy of Louisville, Ky., is the only one living. Of all the members comprising that body, so far as I can ascertain, there are not more than four or five remaining. At that time the Honorable John F. Darby was Mayor of the city, and aided largely in dispensing its generous hospitality. He lives to a green old age, an historic wonder, abounding with pleasant recollections, observations, and anecdotes of the city from the time it was a small French village to the present day. S since this letter was written, the last of the explored the headwaters of the Missouri Riser, living delegates from St. Louis, NMerriweather and the Rocky Mountains, and wito front t810 LewisClark, died at Frankfort,Kv.,October-8, to t8.a was Governor of the Territory Of Mis- I881, aged 77 years. I-e was a son of William nouri.- Editor Statesman. Clark,, ho in. t8o4-5, with MerriweatherLewis, 29 251 290 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. Great changes have occurred since the holding of that convention in the City of St. Louis, which contained at that time a population not exceeding 0o,ooo souls, the State itself having a population of about 250,000. Missouri was at that time a frontier State. The country between the western border of the State and the Rocky Mountains, and which now comprises the Indian Territory, the great States of Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado, was regarded as a sandy and sterile desert. The States of Iowa and Minnesota, and the great section lying west of them, stretching beyond the Rocky Mountains, extending to the mouth of the Columbia River, and embracing Oregon and Washington Territories, were almost wholly uninhabited save by hostile Indians, vast herds of buf- faloes, and other wild game that roamed over the plains and through the mountains. It was only now and then that the puff of the steamboat was heard upon our rivers, and the shrill whistle of the locomotive had never yet startled the denizens of the forest in this almost boundless valley. Since that time the empire of Texas has been added as a State of the American Union. New Mexico, Arizona, and California with its 700 miles of coast upon the Pacific Ocean, not to speak of the still remoter Territory of Alaska, have since been added to the domain of the United States. In the proceedings of the convention above referred to, I had the honor to introduce a resolution asking the appointment of a committee to memo- rialize Congress for a donation of public lands to be appropriated, under the authority of the Legislature of Missouri, to the objects of internal improve- ment contemplated by the convention. This resolution was unanimously adopted. The Honorable Hamilton R. Gamble, Edward Bates, and myself were appointed on this committee; and so far as I know, or now remember, this was the first memorial ever presented to Congress asking a grant of land to aid in promoting objects of internal improvement in the Mississippi Valley; and allow me to say, with becoming modesty, that I have stuck to this text with unflinching fidelity from that day to this' It would be an interesting and illimitable theme to point out what has been accomplished in this direction in the way of population, development, and progress in the western half of our country during these forty-five years. To do so would far exceed the appropriate limits of a letter like this. Let the imagination of intelligent In inds fill in the gap, and be amazed at the wonder- ful growth and grandeur of our country. So much for reminiscences. Allow me to say, according to my poor view and judging of the future by the past, with the increased intelligence and enterprise of the people, the im- pulse to public improvements which science has given by the application of steam and electricity in every department of human labor and industry: in the art of navigation, in the building of railroads and telegraph lines, in leveling and tunneling the mountains, in improving and utilizing every species JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. of machinery, and removing obstacles seemingly insurmountable, opening up the way for the effective and rapid development of all THE HIDDEN SOURCES OF OUR VAST INTERNAL WEALTH, that the American people are just entering upon another stage of change, improvement, amelioration, and expansion, which in the closing years of the nineteenth century will ins1ure for them a transcendent power that will eclipse all their achievements hitherto in advancing civilization, intellectual and moral growth, material wvealth, and political power. So much for prophecy. The intelligent Convention over which you preside, composed of a repre- sentation from eighteen States and Territories, bordering upon, and directly interested in the improvement of, the navigable waters of the Mississippi Valley. has a great work before it in devising a scheme that will be accep- table to the people of every part of our country, and in inducing the national Congress to make such appropriations from the national Treasury under a systematized plan of improvement of the great rivers as in the end may afford to all the people who inhabit that section THE EASIEST AND CHEAPEST OUTLET, through these natural channels of commerce, for the products of their toil and labor to the markets of our own country and of all other countries where there are such exchanges of production necessary to meet the wants and add to the comforts of peoples living in distant parts of the habitable globe. Your enlightened body will not be without guidance upon this im- portant subject. Super-added to the great intelligence of its large represen- tation, you will have the experience, the wisdom, and the recommendations of other similar bodies that have gone before you. The reports of learned scientific men showt the necessity and the feasibility of these improvements, with statistics of the population, the present wealth, and the productions of that vast and fertile area of our country, showing the interests to be sub- served and benefited by these appropriations and improvements, as well as the still greater wealth to be added to the aggregate riches of the nation. It is not necessary for me, in this short communication, to present these statis- tics here. You will have before you the able and admirable address of the commission appointed by Governors of States upon the commerce and im- provement of the rivers of this valley, including also the address of the Honorable Eugene Underwood, President of the Commission, presenting in a very able manner the considerations and arguments in favor of the national Government taking hold of and devising a plan whereby the improvement of the navigation of these great rivers may be accomplished and perfected. 291 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. The arguments presented in the able papers to which I have referred have not been, nor can they be, answered. To accomplish this great work the aid of the general Government is an absolute essential, without which it cannot be done. For the attainment of this great object we cannot rely upon the separate and sometimes conflicting actions of independent States. To achieve so great a work we need the united efforts of the WHOLE PEOPLE OF OUR GREAT COUNTRY. There are two great and vital schemes, which must in the future com- mand the attention and unite the energies and careful consideration of the national Legislature. One of these is to have the general Government make the necessary appropriations to improve and make safe and easy the commerce of those rivers that are national in character, and in which a large majority of the people are interested. The other is, to make similar and needed appropriations from the national Treasury and other resources of the country in aid of the varied systems of free public education existing under the laws of the different States, and established for the enlightenment of the entire youth of the country without regard to sex, color, or condition. Without intelligence and that enterprise which intelligence brings, neither the commerce nor the physical condition of the country can ever be prop- erly improved; and without the maintenance of a free system of public schools established in all the States, with the aid of the national Govern- ment, we cannot have that general intelligence so essential to the enjoy- ment of rational freedom and to the upholding of the free Government under which we live. By the omnipotent aid of this system of free public schools, we must wipe from our escutcheon the dark stigma of having, ac- cording to our last census, 1,500,ooo free men entitled to the ballot -the sacred right of suffrage - who can neither read nor write. This is the great peril by which our institutions are constantly threatened. It must be removed, and if in no other way, then by compulsory education and the limitation of the right of suffrage to those only who can read and write. Every thoughtful and intelligent citizen must feel and admit the necessity of this. We are always to remember that our possibilities and capabilities as a peo- ple do not lie merely in our rivers, though they afford more miles of naviga- tion than those of any other nation, nor in our independent and magnificent central position, nor in our soil, though richer than that washed by the Nile itself; nor in our mountains of iron, or our fields of coal, or mines of lead and the precious metals, or quarries of marble, or in any other natural ad- vantages however great and wonderful; but that they do consist far more 292 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. IN THE PEOPLE WE ARE TO HAVE; in our children and youth; in those who are soon to make up and constitute the nation itself- for let it be forcver remembered that the people are the State, and nothing else is; in those who are to possess and use all its vast and untold resources, and means of enjoyment; who are to develop its civilization and create for it the name and glory which it is to have among the nations of the earth. But we must not lose sight of our theme - the improvement of the navi- gation of the Mississippi River and its tributaries. It is a vast enterprise. The danger is that we may ask too much by attempting too much at the same time. It occurs to me that if the Convention would recommend to the Con- gress of the United States the improvement of the navigation of THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER FROM ITS SOURCE TO ITS MOUTH, with appropriations sufficient to enter vigorously upon the work, as an enter- ing wedge for the improvement of its larger tributaries in the future, it would be far better than to attempt any log-rolling scheme, by which hills are often loaded down and defeated. The strength of the friends of the measure would not then be frittered away, for there is no nman who will ever in the future wend his way into the halls of either House of Congress from this volley who will deny that the Mississippi River is a national stream and entitled to this recognition by making necessary appropriations for its improvement. Any one who would vote against a proposition like that may at once be set down as incorrigible and opposed to all schemes and appropriations by the general Government for the improvement of the navigation of any river, whether it be local or national in its character. With the main river properly improved tinder the direction of able and enlightened engineers, with its banks made secure from the jetties to St. Paul, and its navigation made easy, safe, and economical, the commerce of this great valley would seek an outlet mainly through this channel, and this would force at once the improvement of THE NAVIGATION OF ALL THE TRIBIUTARIES worthy to receive such aid, which would be promptly afforded either by the governments of the States through which these rivers flow, or by both the governments of those States and the general Government. In other words, the improvement of the Mississippi River proper would lead quickly to the improvement of all its tributaries, while the people living along its line would seek a passage for the products of their labor and the supply of their wants through the common channel. My suggestion, therefore, would be that you 29A 29_- JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. concentrate all your forces to obtain a sufficient appropriation for the im- provement of THE ENTIRE LENGTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER PROPER, as far as the main stream may be made navigable. It can hardly be out of place to quote, however frequently, the description given of this river by our former great Senator, Mr. Benton, many years ago, in which he says: Wonderful river ! Connected with seas by the head and the mouth; stretching its arms toward the Atlantic and the Pacific; lying in a valley which is a valley from the Gulf of Mexico to Hudson's Bay; drawing its first waters not from the rugged mountains but from the plateau of lakes in the centre ofthecontinent, and in communication with the sources of the St. Lawrence and the streams which take their course north to Hudson's Bay; draining the largest extent of the richest land; collecting the products of every clime, even the frigid, to bear the whole to market in the South, and there to meet the products of the entire world. Such is the .Mississippi, and who can calculate the aggregate of its advantages and the mag- nitude of its future results But I need not go further. The time is at hand when the claims of the Mississippi Valley can no longer be ignored. The sceptre has already de- parted from Judah, never to return! The potent voice of the Senators and Representatives from eighteen States lying within and bordering upon this great valley can no longer be stifled or silenced. Whatever may be the re- sult of the action of this Convention, it is a mere question of time as to when the voice of the people of this valley will be heard and obeyed. Every intelligent mind must see and feel that the political power of the Govern- ment is rapidly concentrating here; that here is to be the seat of empire, whence will emanate your laws, your great national policies, and whence the destiny of the continent will be directed and controlled. A lack of concert of action, the diversion of trade and commerce by artificial means, or other temporary causes, may hinder and prevent for the time being the ultimate control as I have predicted it, but THIS MOUNTAIN AND LAKE AND GULF-LOCKED VALLEY, unsurpassed in the extent of its resources and undeveloped wealth, capable within itself of sustaining a population ten times greater than the present en- tire population of the United States; this great Valley of the Mississippi, a river that drains a thirty-sixth part of the land surface of the globe itself, and which, rising near the lakes of the North, so near as to make their shores tributary to its valley, and flowing through more than twenty degrees of lat- itude, affords a variety of productions for commercial interchange compared 294 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. with which the productions of the Amazon, the shores of the Mediterranean, or the valley of the Danube, or the Black and Baltic Seas, must, under the highest development, remain utterly insignificant - this valley is appointed of God and Nature as the seat of greater than Oriental empire. The Medi- terranean system, and the valley ofthe Amazon, ofthe Baltic and Black Seas, are limited in their products by the climatic uniformity of a single zone. But here is a valley developing north and southward almost from the frigid to the torrid zone, in extent of area 2,231,000 square miles, all of it a part of our great country, and under the jurisdiction of the Congress of the United States -a land upon whose distant mountain-tops the snows never melt, and in whose green vales beautiful flowers never cease to bloom. This vast valley with its inconceivable riches springing from the soil or slumbering beneath it; with its cereals, its cotton, tobacco, hemp, fruits; with its ores, timber, its water power, its game, its populous towns andcities, its growing manufactories, with everything in fact needed for human sustenance, comfort, happiness, and civilization; with POSSIBILITIES EVEN BEYOND CONCEPTION OR COMPREHENSION; lying too in the centre of the continent with no Alpine barriers to hem it in - what to-day is its chiefwant, its commanding necessity It is the better education of the masses of the people, to the end that the channels which the Almighty himself has furnished shall be improved and made available by man's skill and labor. Why, it would seem to lie in the very order of Providence that the national Government should do its part -and it must be done -in order to enable the people to enjoy the beneficence of our Creator. That sooner or later the nation will perceive this there cannot be a rational doubt. Gentlemen, the people of this great valley, nay, I may say of the entire country, and of all who are well-wishers of the success of free government on the American Continent, look with hope, with anxiety, but with confi- dence to the deliberations of your body, praying that you may so direct legislation as to insure the success of your great enterprises at the earliest practicable monsent. I am, with very high regard, your obedient servant, JAMES S. ROLLINS. 295 PRESENTATION OF PORTRAIT. LETTER OF PRESENTATION. COLUMBIA, MISSOURI, June 24, 1873. THE HON. ELIJAH PERRY, Vice-President Board of Clurators, State University of Missor:i- Dear Sir: We have been appointed a committee by a number of the personal friends of the Hon. James S. Rollins, who desire, through us, to present to the Board of Curators a life-size portrait of him, to be permanently placed in the University edifice, along with those of other gentlemen who have manifested a commendable zeal in the cause of education. This portrait was executed recently by George C. Bingham, Esq., Missouri's gifted artist, and is pronounced by competent judges a faithful likeness of the original, and a most excellent work of art. We may properly add that this compliment is justly due Mr. Rollins on account of his lifelong labors in building up and promoting the best interests of the institution, now taking rank with the first literary and scientific institutions of our country. More than thirty years ago Mr. Rollins was the author and principal advocate of the Bill in the General Assembly, providing for its establishment, and was amongst the largest contributors to secure its location in the County of Boone. Whilst a member of Congress from this district, he was the earnest friend and advocate of the Bill approved July 2, 1862, providing for the endowment of agricultural and mechanical colleges by the general Government in the different States. Subsequently as a member of the General Assembly of the State, from the County of Boone, he was the author of the Bill which provided for the location of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Missouri as a department of the State University, and which, after a prolonged struggle, running through a number of years, became a law, and was approved February 24, 1870. He was the author and the earnest advocate of the Bill approved March 1 z, 1867, establishing a normal department in connection with the University, and securing, according to the ninth article of the Constitution of the State, a portion of the State revenue for the permanent maintenance and support of the insti- tution. He was the author of the Bill subsequently amended by an amendment offered by Senator Morse, of Jefferson County, adjusting a complicated account between the University and the State, approved March 29, 1872, whereby one hundred JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. thousand dollars was added to the permanent endowment of the University. Thirty-five thousand dollars was appropriated for the benefit of the Mining School department of the University, located at Rolla, in the County of Phelps, and the scientific building was completed. He was the author and eloquent advocate of the Bill approved April 1, 1872, throwing open the doors of the institution and making it substantially free to all the youth of the State, male and female, between the ages of sixteen and twent, - five years, which has been the means, among other agencies, of bringing within its walls nearly five hundred students during the collegiate year just about closing, representing upwards of seventy counties of the State. We feel that these long-continued and faithful labors of Mr. Rollins deserve honorable recognition, not only at our hands, but by every friend of education; and that this painting, so handsomely executed and so true to nature, should have a place in the halls of the University, so that his form and features, along with the fruits of his labors, may thus properly descend to the future youth of Missouri. In referring specially to a few of the principal measures of which Mr. Rollins was the author and chief advocate, adding to the strength, permanence, respect- ability, and usefulness of the University, wve do not in any way underrate, but commend alike the efforts and actions of all friends of education in and out of the General Assembly, at home and abroad, in their zeal and energy to build tip and sustain a first-class literary and scientific institution in our great State. We have the honor to remain, with high regard, your obedient servants, J. T. MCBAINE, J. WV. HARRIS, JAMES L. STEPHENS, JOHN MIACHIR, JAMES HARRIS, DAVID (GUITAR, J. K. ROGERS, TH. FEFER, WILLIAm F. SWITZLER, R. B. PRICE, JOEL H. HADEN, Conrnmittee. PRESENTATION ADDRESS BY W. F. SWITZLER. MVr. Presideni, Ladies and Gentlemen: It was the understanding and agreement of a portion of the members of the committee, if not of all, who subscribed the letter just read by the honorable secretary of the Board, that it should speak for the committee and the citizens they represent; that no address formally presenting this portrait should be superadded on this occasion. Certainly this was my understanding; and it was not till the moment of my rising I was informed of a desire or expectation on the part of any one 297 298 IJAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. that the letter of the committee, so full and accurate in its historical citations, and, I may add, so pertinent to the occasion, should be supple- mented by remarks from me. Mr. President, my long residence in Columbia as a journalist, a residence and professional life which antedate the completion of the building in which we are assembled, and the deep interest I have always felt, personally and professionally, in the prosperity of the University of Missouri, have made me familiar with its history, and with the self-sacrificing efforts of James S. Rollins in public and private life, and for a period of years embracing more than a generation, to enlarge its means, quicken its efficiency, and add to the number and glory of its achievements. We behold to-day in the breadth and solidity of this foundation the grand results of his efforts, seconded and supported by the efforts and sacrifices of other friends of the University, among the great living and the illustrious dead. Iet these efforts and sacrifices be remembered and reported. His and theirs are the common heritage of the country, the aggregate achievements of more than a quarter of a century. While we to-day conspicuously honor him, and in presenting to the Board of Curators this life-size portrait, the masterpiece of Missouri's most gifted artist, George C. Bingham, we also honor ourselves, let us not forget the noble men who by unexampled liberality in t839 secured the location of the University at Columbia. Let us not forget those who in subsequent years, as members of the faculty of instruction, contributed almost unrequited labor and great learning to the maintenance of this institution. Mr. President, noble deeds will be reported. Distinguished services will be remembered. The work. of good men follow them. Some one has uttered the golden thought that "the planet, the pebble, goes attended by its shadow. The rolling rock leaves its track upon the mountain, the river its channel in the soil, the animal its bones in the stratum, the fern or the leaf its modest epitaph in the coal. The falling drop makes its sepulchre in the sand or stone; not a foot steps in the snow or along the ground, but prints in charac- ters more or less lasting a map of its march, and every act of the man in- scribes itself in the memories of his fellows. The air is full of sounds-the sky of tokens; the ground is all memoranda and signatures, and every object is covered over with hints, which speak to the intelligent." How grandly, how eloquently to-day speak the growing reputation and achievements of this University, of the unflagging zeal and personal sacrifices of time and money of the early friends of the University of Missouri! In its unexampled prosperity we trace in characters more or less lasting a map of their march. In its achievements we read their modest epitaph. Among these early friends stands conspicuously James S. Rollins: and by JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. his side a long and honored line of noble men, most of whom have gone to their reward, men but for whose active cooperation and great sacrifices the University of Missouri would not occupy this spot to-day. I have here a paper, Mr. President, which is eloquent of early and remark- able sacrifices for this institution, and one which was never before exhibited to this Board. It is a copy of the original subscription made by the people of Boone County in 1839 to secure the location of the University at Colum- bia-a paper which may quite appropriately be called a Roll of Honor. Although made nearly a third of a century ago and at a period immediately succeeding the great financial revulsion of 1837, it guaranteed to the State of Missouri a bonus of one hundred and seventeen thousand dollars, on con- dition of the permanent location at this place of the University of the State. This Roll of Honor in some enduring form ought to be spread on the records of the Board; and with this view, Mr. President, during our present session, I intend offering a resolution making it the duty of the Secretary, in an appendix to the journal, alphabetically to record their names, together with the amount subscribed by each. Look at that Roll There stands the name of the eminent citizen and life- long friend of the University w hose portrait we present to the Board. On the same line with his name is his subscription of two thousand dollars. But he is not alone. See there also the name of Edward Camplin, a citizen who although unable to read or write made his mark and subscribed (and paid) three thousand dollars. See there also the names of Eli E. Bass, David S. Lamme, and Jefferson Garth, each for the same large sum; and after these for large amounts the names of William Jewell, Anthony W. Rollins, Warren Woodson, William Cornelius, David and Roger N. Todd, John Guitar, Sin- clair Kirtley, John B. Gordon, Moss Prewitt, Robert S. Barr, Oliver Parker, James H. Bennett, Moses U. Payne, A. IV. Turner, William H. Duncan, Robert S. Thomas, William Provines, Joseph B. Howard, Hannah Hardin, N. W. Wilson, R. C. Branhamn, Jonathan Kirkbride, Stephen Bedford, David M. Hickman, Thomas M. Allen, and hundreds of others for similar or smaller amounts, alike liberal and public-spirited. Sir, the history of the people of no county of a western State affords evi- dence of such sacrifices for the cause of education, or presents a more brilliant page or a roll of honor more worthy of the lasting gratitude of mankind. Mr. President, nearly twenty years elapsed after the admission of MIis- souri into the sisterhood of States before any legislation was had looking to the location of a " Seminary of Learning " or State University provided for in the Act of Congress authorizing the people of the Missouri Territory to form a constitution and state government. 299 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. The first act having in view the location of the institution was introduced by Mr. Rollins, then a member from the County of Boone, during the ses- sion of i838-9-an act which was approved February 8, 1839. [See Ses- sion Acts 1838, p. s85.] By this act five commissioners were appointed to select a site for the State University, namely, Peter H. Burnett of Clay, Ch. Durkee of Lewis, Archibald Gamble of St. Louis, John G. Bryan of Wash- ington, and John S. Phelps of Greene. The act provided the site should contain at least fifty acres of land in a compact form within two miles of the county seat of the County of Cole, Cooper, Howard, Boone, Callaway, or Saline. It was made the duty of the commissioners to meet in the city of Jeffer- son on the first Monday of June, 1839, and thereafter at such times as they might appoint at the county seat of each county mentioned, to receive con- veyances of land and subscriptions of money, to be void if the University was not located at the county seat of the county in which they were made. After visiting all the county seats and receiving bids as aforesaid the com- missioners were to return to the seat of government and open the bids; "and the place presenting most advantages to be derived to said Univer- sity, keeping in view the amount subscribed, and locality and general advan- tages, shall be entitled to its location." The passage of this act was followed, in five of the six counties to which the location was limited, Boone, Callaway, Cole, Cooper, and Howard, by the most extraordinary contest, in the popular excitement and unexampled liberality it disclosed, ever witnessed in any State at any period of our country's history. In each of these counties little else was done for several months than to attend public or private meetings, make and hear addresses, and circulate subscription papers with the view of excelling rival contestants in the amount of the bonus offered for the location of the University. During the pendency of the contest in the County of Boone, which was indeed signalized by a great upheaval of the popular heart, James S. Rollins, the author of the Act of the Legislature, was a tower of strength. Although younger in years than many of the noble spirits who contributed their acknowledged wisdom, great influence, and larger means to the magnificent enterprise, Mr. Rollins, unexcelled in zeal. ceaseless in effort, and eloquent in speech, led the friends of education in Boone County to battle and to victory. Under the law each county was privileged to appoint an agent or corn missioner to represent it at the seat of government at the final meeting of the commissioners whose duty it was to open the bids and make the location. The Boone County Court honored James S. Rollins with the 300 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLI.NS. appointment, and most faithfully, most successfully, did he discharge its high responsibilities. On tile 24th of June, 1839, thirty-four years to a day previous to the presentation of this portrait by the committee of citizens, the commissioners met in Jefferson City, opened the bids, and awarded the great prize of the location to Columbia in the County of Boone.t From that period to this, sir,-in private life and official station, in the Legislature and in Congress, in the Board of Curators and elsewhere,- James S. Rollins has distinguished himself by self-sacrificing efforts, often chastened and made illustrious by rare statesmanship and eloquence, to lay broadly, deeply, and enduringly the foundations of a great University. Services so faithful and long-continued, to promote the priceless interests of education, deserve honorable recognition at the hands of the people and of this Board. In testimony of our appreciation of these services we tender the Board this life-size portrait, an exquisite work of art and true to nature, expressing the hope, in the language of the committee, that it will have a place in the halls of the University, that his form and features, along with the fruits of his labors, may thus properly descend to the future youth of Missouri. ACCEPTANCE BY THE BOARD. ON motion of Mr. Conant of St. Louis, the communication was referred to a special committee, which was charged with the duty of preparing reso- lutions of acceptance. The following committee was appointed: A. J. Conant of St. Louis, J. F. Weilandy of Jefferson City, and J. XV. Barrett of Canton. I Extract from the journal of the County Court, p. sot: Tuesday, May 8, t839. 'resent Overton Harris, Hiram Phillips, NMatthew R. Arnold, Judges; Warren Wood- son, lerk; John M. Kelly, deputy sheriff. Ordered by the court that James S. Rollins be and is hereby appointed a commtssioner on the part of this county to meet with the com- missioners appointed to locate the State Uni- versity, at the seat of government, at such tione as said commissioners shall appoint, for the purpose of being present at the opening and comparing of the bids made by the differ- ent counties, authoized to bid for said Uni- -ersity; and in the event of said Rollins be- ing prevented from attending and acting as said commissioner that Sinclair Kirtley be ap- pointed to act in his stead, and that a certificate of such appointment be presented. t rhe following is a copy of the a.ard: The Commissioners appointed by law to select a site for the State University hae agreed unanimously in the chtoice of Boone County for its location. Given under our hands at the City of Jefferson this 24,h day Of June in the year t839. JoItt GANO BRYAN, CH. DURKEE, (Signed ARcHIBALD GAMBLE, JOHN S. PHcLPS, PETER Il. BURNE I ." 301 302 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. During the forenoon session of Thursday, June 26, 1873, Mr. Conant reported from this committee the following RESOLUTIONS. Resolved, That we accept with gratitude the proposed donation, as one emi- nently fitting and appropriate, and as commemorative of the life and labors of a distinguished citizen, who by his eminent public services, and especially by his earnest and untiring efforts in the cause of education, has endeared himself to the masses of the people, and has deservedly commanded the highest considera- tion of the members of this Board. Resolved, That the formal presentation of the portrait be made at two o'clock, p. m. (this day), and that the Vice-President designate some suitable person to make a proper response on behalf of the Board of Curators. The report was unanimously adopted, and it was ordered that with the communication it be spread on the records of the Board. The Vice-Presi- dent (Hon. Elijah Perry) appointed Mr. A. J. Conant to respond on behalf of the Board. RESPONSE BY A. J. CONANT. Mr. President, Ladies anm Gentlemen: It becomes my pleasing duty on behalf of the Board of Curators of the State University of Missouri to re- ceive from the hands of the committee of the citizens of Columbia this most excellent portrait of the President of our Board and the founder of this institution of learning. In thus representing this intelligent body, permit me to say to you, gentle- men of the committee, that I speak the unanimous sentiments of its members, when I say that it gives us pleasure unfeigned to join with you in doing honor to one who, though dwelling among you, belongs not to Columbia alone, where his eminent social qualities have been so long enjoyed and appreciated, and the results of whose labors in the cause of learning are the rich heritage of the sons and daughters of the great State of Missouri. I will not now detain you by dwelling at length upon the particulars of the great work which has occupied to a good degree the last thirty years of his active life: his long continued and successful efforts to establish this University upon a solid foundation, and for its subsequent support; his labors to promote the cause of popular education -exerting all his influence to secure liberal Congressional and State legislation, whereby millions of acres of our public lands have been forever devoted to educational purposes, and the endowment of institutions of learning in every State of the Union; nor of his ceaseless exertions, whenever and wherever his influence could be JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. brought to bear in creating a proper public sentiment in favor of a higher education among the masses of the people. The consideration of the par- ticulars of these thirty years of successful work, which have been already so appropriately alluded to by my distinguished friend, Colonel Switzler, we will leave to that time and occasion when a fuller appreciation of their value may be expressed, and a more fitting tribute be paid to their author. I surrender myself, therefore, the rather to those reflections which the peculiar circumstances of this occasion so forcibly suggest. As I look at that full-length portrait of the esteemed President of this Board, painted by one whom I am proud to call my personal friend and pro- fessional brother, George C. Bingham, I am reminded of a fact that may not be generally known outside of a limited circle; the fact that both the subject of this picture and the artist have been, from early youth to man- hood's ripened years, the warmest personal friends, and, next to his own kith and kin, each by the other has been the best beloved. Together have they traveled life's pathway; side by side have they labored; contributing in the Legislature and out of it, as best they might, all the power of their united personal influence to promote the best interests of this great commonwealth. In political life, in patriotic action, they have been onee; and in sentiment and affection, like David and Jonathan, they have been united by ties most intimate and tender. This portrait of the founder of this University, painted by the father of Missouri art, and the crowning work of his life in the line of portraiture- whose fame rests not alone upon this branch, for he has given to posterity those inimitable delineations of human character as presented in the history of the early political life of Missouri in those well-known election scenes - this portrait, I say, to us who are gathered here to-day, has not alone the in- terest of being a worthy tribute to a worthy man, but around it cluster the memories of the hard-fought battles of civil and political conflict, and the tender associations of undying friendship. There are times, ladies and gentlemen, in the history of communities and nations when the materials for some great enterprise or conquest lie all around ready to hand but unorganized; some comprehending and controlling spirit enters on the scene, brings all into systematic and harmonious action, and achieves success or leads to victory. Forces which when isolated are inoperative, when arranged and concentrated exert a tremendous power. Such in a good degree has been the work of him whose portrait we place upon these walls to-day. Without an appropriate field and efficient co- laborers little of course could have been accomplished; but the wise fore- sight which could comprehend the necessity and the possibilities of the enterprise, the faith and power to work were needed as well. 303 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. In the history of this University, two distinct periods are well defined: The first may be termed its infantile period, during which it struggled along under adverse circumstances, with little or no assistance from the State or any other outside source. The second period may be dated from the time when its administration was confided to the hands of its present efficient head, Dr. Daniel Read. Let no one understand me to utter one word of disparagement of the faithful services and eminent abilities of those noble nen who gave their best years and best thoughts to the interests of this University; some of whom sealed their service with their lives and fell noble martyrs to the cause. They accomplished but little- how could they when the great State of Missouri looked coldly on as they wore themselves out in her service, and gave them not one dollar during the long weary years to aid them in building up an institution she herself had created, and was bound by honor and interest, and public policy and every consideration, to foster and sustain At this time, then, when the period of its manhood began, under the lead- ership of Dr. Read, with increased resources and the hearty cooperation of an intelligent and liberal-minded board of curators, this University entered upon a sphere of usefulness the grandeur of which I venture to say none of us can begins now to comprehend; and unless it shall be so unfortunate-which Heaven forbid -as to be hampered and circumscribed by partizan or sec- tarian influences and complications, it will soon become the pride and crown- ing glory of our educational system, and a potent element for good, not only in the civilization of the State of Missouri, but through the length and breadth of the valley of the Mississippi. It is permitted to some men in our days to reap the fields which they them- selves have sown. We are living, we are dwelling, in a grand and awful time. The founder of this institution beholds to-day the rich fruitage of the vine- yard he has planted. These, however, are but the first fruits that it has just begun to yield. Its measureless glory lies all before us, and its priceless blessings are for future generations. While the foundations of this University were being laid and the super- structure slowly rising, what mighty events have taken place-what histories made, of nations convulsed or destroyed. During these long years how many mighty and noble men have appeared upon the scene of action-men of splendid intellect and brilliant accomplish- ments. For a time they absorb the bewildered astonishment of mankind; where are they now The names of many are scarcely remembered among men. Like a meteor flash they shone and disappeared; or like a richly laden 304 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. caravan with flying banners they moved across the sandy plain and were lost to view, leaving no sign but bleaching skeletons to mark their track. How different with him who contributes one new idea to the sum of human knowledge, or starts into activity otherwise dormant intellects; he rears for himself a living monument, and sets in motion currents of influence which cannot die with him, but must forever increase in their perennial power. Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow forever and forever. In view of the well-directed efforts of the past, the glorious realizations of the present, the magnificent possibilities of the future, the founder and father of the State University of Missouri may well indulge in manly pride and thankfulness that he has been permitted to contribute so much to the well- being of his own and the sister States of this great valley, and with laudable satisfaction thank God that to him has been granted the honor to labor so successfully in a field so vast and promising. Thousands have already gone out from this, their Alma Mater, who have here received those elements of education and those nobler impulses which have made them a power and a blessing in the widely scattered communities where they dwell. These are but the earnests of what is yet to be-the few drops before the copious rain. The old prophet, in ecstatic exultation, cried out as he beheld the vision of the coniing glory: There is a river the streams whereof make glad the city of our God. I n this figure he seems to reverse the order of nature. The picture is of a mighty river sweeping along in its majestic flow, and sending out continu- ally smaller streams and rivulets, which water and bless the land and make glad its inhabitants. This shall illustrate what I conceive to be the character of the work and influence of this University. Year after year young men and maidens come here to be disciplined and educated; year after year they return to their homes, educated and fitted not only the better to discharge the duties of the special path they have chosen in life, but also to become centers of benefi- cent power and influence in those communities where they may find their home; fitted not alone by the acquirement of scientific knowledge, but also by that broad development of the whole individuality which a generous cul- ture alone can give, to take a higher place in the realm of thought and in the sphere of personal influence, thereby refining and elevating all with whom they come in contact. In conclusion, permit me in behalf of the Board to thank you, gentlemen of the committee, and those you represent, for this most acceptable present, 30 305 306 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. the portrait of the esteemed and worthy President of the Board of Curators, and also to assure you that it shall have an appropriate place within these walls. And when from time to time the students shall gaze upon the living and characteristic expression of that glowing canvas, they shall be told that it is the representation of the man of noble heart to whom they are chiefly indebted for the exalted privilege they now enjoy of securing here a liberal education; and from his history they shall learn that the esteem of our fel- low-men, the approval of our own consciences, and the noblest and most enduring fame are found in the path of self-sacrifice for the good of others. Thus shall the name of James S. Rollins be inscribed, not upon one marble monument which time shall destroy, but upon the more enduring, yea, eternal, monuments of countless living souls. PRESENTATION OF BUST. LETTER FROM THE HONORABLE L. M. LAWSON. 102 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, Mfay 28, 1885. GENERAL ODON GUITAR, PRESIDENT, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI. Dear Sirs. It is impossible to express my regret in declining the invitation to present for you to the Board of Curators of the University of Missouri a bust of the Honorable James S. Rollins. The regret is the greater because I feel so sensibly the fitness of the gift you intend to make. All peoples of high civilization have delighted to preserve in inspired marble or enduring bronze, the " udmatched form and feature " of their eminent men, their soldiers and statesmen, their poets and orators, their sages and philanthropists. It is a graceful tribute. It responds to the best and purest feelings of our nature. It awakens our admiration of what is great, our love for that which is good, and our gratitude to those who have benefited us and our fellows. It revives the solicitude for posterity and the desire to erect beacons upon the heights of excellence whither we are struggling. In obedience to these sentiments it is your proud privilege to present to the Curators of the University a portrait in bronze of one whom we love and venerate. While his affections embrace the whole country, his peculiar devotion has given fifty years of his illustrious life to the service of Missouri, to the development of her industries, the enlightenment of her sons and daughters, and the building up of the great Commonwealth. To his wise forethought Missouri chiefly owes the iron courses whose ceaseless traffic fructifies her fields and enriches her people. To his love for his fellow-men she mainly owes the schools, academies, and colleges which illumine her prairies and her woodlands, her villages and her cities. To his wisdom and his fascinating eloquence more than all else she owes the prosperity of the great University which shines in the center of her educational system like the Julian star. Micat inter omnes Julium sidus, velut inter ignes Luna minores. It was the pride of the matchless sage and philanthropist to whom, next to Washington, America is indebted for her greatness and her happiness, that 307 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. he was the founder of a great University. The distant prospect, from his mountain home, of its white colonnades and lofty cupola informed his heart and brought solace and sympathy, satisfaction and recompense, to the soli- tudes of his later life. How truly did he comprehend the comparative value of his labors, and how clearly did he penetrate the future when he penned the crowning and closing words of his epitaph! He discerned the increasing and endless beneficence of the work when he united his name forever with the institution which has given him a distinctive title to the esteem and gratitude of the Republic of Letters. The last words upon the memorial of Jefferson suggest the honor and praise that are due to the association of Rollins with the University of Missouri. The gratification must be supreme that his fostering care has survived until the institution has assumed a foremost place among the universities of the land. I reiterate my regret that I cannot be personally present to assist in the memorable ceremony. While the genius of the artist has molded the noble effigy for temporal vision, Rollins himself has erected the monumentum fire perenzius in the grateful hearts of Missourian youth which shall tell to com- ing time the fame of the Father of the University of Missouri. With cordial fellowship for you, and with filial devotion to our Alma Mater, I am Yours sincerely, L. M. LAWSON. REMARKS OF COL. JOHN F. WILLIAMS. Mr. President.- I wish to make a motion, but before doing so permit me to state to the audience that the Alumni of the University of the State of Missouri and other friends have caused to be cast in bronze a bust of the distinguished President of the Board of Curators of this institution, the Hon. James S. Rollins of Boone, which they propose on this occasion to present to the University as a token of the high regard entertained for him whose r.semory it will commemorate. " Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war," and often the statesman is the real hero who wins the victory and conquers peace. The statesman, the philosopher, the philanthropist are the real architects and builders of the Nation's glory. They are the heroes who fight its battles and fix its destiny; and they either lift the standard of national life higher and higher, or sink it lower and lower, as the years go by. We fully realize this fundamental truth. History is rich with illustration and example, and we know that learning and culture are the cause and not the effect of high civilization, and that the university and the college are the 308 IAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. corner-stones in the arch of refinement and progress. Fully recognizing this truth, we have watched with miser's care the infancy, youth, and early man- hood ofthis institution, and while it is true that it has always had warm and devoted friends to stand by and aid and assist it in its hours of trouble and gloom, yet preeminent amongst them all, whether in sunshine or storm, Rollins has been the Leonidas of the Spartan band. The leader of the great movement that gave it birth, he has ever watched over it with parental care, and never despaired of its success. He saw the silver lining on every cloud. His energy never faltered, his courage never wavered, his faith never doubted. Onward and upward he led the way, always inspiring hope and confidence in his followers, so that to-day our young and growing University stands without a rival in the Mississippi val- ley. It is now the pride of our great State, and for this wonderful achieve- ment in the brief period of its life we are indebted chiefly to the able, timely, and continuous efforts of Major Rollins. For while it is true that he has been a most valued and useful citizen to both his State and his nation, serving them with signal ability in the Legis- lature and in Congress, guarding with scrupulous fidelity the honor and in- tegrity of both, displaying a patriotism and philanthropy that embraced our whole country, yet it is equally true that even in the hour of our greatest peril and his most laborious work, he nevcr forgot his higher and nobler ambition of elevating and broadening human thought and conscience through the methods of a higher culture and deeper learning. To accomplish this, his theory was to further and improve the common schools, and the Univer- sity of Missouri as the great central light of the educational system of the whole State, whose light must burn brighter and brighter, electrifying the whole system. To this noble and patriotic purpose Major Rollins has given the unselfish and intelligent labors of a lifetime, with what effect we all know and here testify. And as the immortal Jefferson was the Father and Founder of the University of the State of Virginia, so Major Rollins is the Father and Founder of the University of the State of Missouri; and I will say this, that while he is covered with honors both civic and martial, both by his State and nation, yet upon his monument, when he has crossed the dark river, I Would write high above them all: "The Founder of the University of the State of Missouri." Mr. President, I therefore move that the Honorable Luther T. Collier,' of Livingston, on behalf of the Alumni and friends, now present to the Univer- sity, through its Curators, the bronze bust of Major James S. Rollins. 'The address of this distinguished gentle- the Universit;h bht it has never fallen under man is deocribed, by -uch as were fortunate the eye of the present editor, and cannot be enough to hear it, as interesting and elabo- here reproduced and preserved. rate, sketching in bold outline the history ut 30A 3 09 MISCELLANEA. RESIGNATION AS CURATOR. Letter from the Honorable James S. Rollins. COLUMBIA, BOONE COUNTY, MISSOURI, May -, i886. HONORABLE J. C. CRAVENS, VICE-PRESIDENT BOARD OF CURATORS, MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY. Dear Sir.- On account of failing health during the past year, I deemed it my duty, on the i9th of April last, to tender to the Governor my resignation as a member of the Board of Curators. It was accepted and my successor has been appointed. As this step severs my official connection with the Board, I think it proper for me to express to its members, individually and collectively, the gratification my long and pleasant association with them, as sith former Boards, during the last forty-seven years, has given me, in our efforts to advance and strengthen the Uni- versity in the confidence and affections of the people of the State, to whom it belongs. So far as I am personally concerned I may add that it has been a life-labor with me, begun as it was now nearly a half century ago, when the institution was located in the County of Boone. From that day to this, as citizen, asmernber of our House of Representatives, of the State Senate, and of your Board, as a member of Congress from this district, and as a lifelong friend of popular and higher edu- cation, I have done all in my power to advance these great objects. This in- stitution had a severe struggle for existence at the beginning, and during these long years it has passed through all the vicissitudes attendant upon similar under- takings, and the varied fortunes of our country, until at last 1 am gratified to feel and to know that it stands upon a solid foundation. Wishing every member of the Board a long life of health, happiness, and pros- perity, I am with very high regard, Your friend and obedient servant, JAMES S. ROLLINS. After the reading of this letter, on the motion of Mr. Colman a committee of three was appointed to report resolutions expressive of the sentiments of the Board on the subject. The committee, Messrs. Colrnan, Allen, and Campbell, after a short retirement reported the following, which were unan- imously adopted: 310 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. 3' I Whereas, The Board of Curators cf the University ofthe State of Missouri have heard with regret that on account of failing health the Honorable James S. Rollins, who for many years has been a member of the Board and its honored president, has resigned both positions; and Whereas, it is eminently befitting the occasion, in view of his long and dis- tinguished services as both member and president, and the valuable aid he has rendered the cause of education in this State, both as private citizen and public official, that we place on record our appreciation of what he has accomplished for this institution and for other great and enduring interests of the commonwealth of Missouri. Therefore be it Resolzved, That neither the utterances of tongue nor press, nor attempted per- sonation, whether in bronze or marble, can suffice to record or perpetuate a faithful record of the long and honorable services which this distinguished citizen has ren- dered in private and public life to the conception, organization, and success of the University of Missouri. .Second. That during his first term in the Legislature of the State in 1839 he developed, anterior to anything except a general interest in the question, a fervid zeal for the establishment of a great institution of learning in his adopted State, and from that period to the present his life, both official and private, is a record of self-sacrifice, unshaken faith, and patient waiting for the fruition of his hopes. Third. That at that session of the Legislature, in a bill which he introduced, the policy was inaugurated of commencing the work of building in this great commonwealth, then in its infancy and sparsely settled, the institution of learn- ing in which we are assembled and which to-day rises like a thing of beauty and a monument to his fame. Fourth. That without attempting, in this brief testimony to his invaluable services, to recall in detail the long line of measures he devised in the Legislature and on the Board of Curators to advance the best interests of the University, we remark with pleasure and cordially indorse the eminently befitting terms in which these services are recognized by Governor Marmaduke in his letter accepting his resignation (which is herewith appended), wherein, in behalf of the people of the State, he tendered him an expression of their high appreciation of his long and eminently successful efforts in creating an institution of learning which is already an ornament to our great commonwealth and the pride of her citizens. " It is a matter of history" (the Governor continues) " that to you [him] more than to any one else is due its foundation, its location, its organization, and its growth and advance to its present position of extended usefulness ; and its perpetuity already assured will transmit your [his] name through the histories of countless future ages." Fifth. That these resolutions be entered on the journal of this body, and that the secretary be instructed to have a copy of them neatly printed on white satin, under the seal of the institution, and forwarded to Mr. Rollins, and that a similar copy be framed and hung in the library of the University. JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. THE BLAIR MONUMENT. Letter of the Honorablejames S. Rollins to the President of the Association. COLUMBIA, MISSOURI, January 22, 1880. COLONEL RICHARD J. HOWARD, PRESIDENT OF THE BLAIR MONUMENT ASSOCIATION. Dear Sir: I have received the printed circulars that you were pleased to send me, in regard to the Blair monument. It will give me pleasure to cooperate in the effort now being made to raise means sufficient to procure an equestrian statue of General Frank P. Blair, and I herewith send you my draft on the Third National Bank for 10o, which you will please have placed to the credit of the fund. I will also open subscription papers here, giving all an opportunity to be- come members of the association by subscribing to the fund. For twenty-five years before his death I was upon the most intimate and friendly terms with him, and sympathized with him in his political views and opinions. He was an honest, brave, independent, true, and patriotic man. On the break- ing out of the rebellion he was one among the first to volunteer his services in be- half of the Government of the United States, and with the lamented Lyon he gave the first effective blow against the rebellion. Hie did more than any other man to save Missouri from the disaster of secession; and I received it from the lips of the martyred President himself that except for " Frank Blair" he hardly knew how he would have managed successfully the affairs of the Government in Missouri at that critical period. He fought through the war for the Constitution and the Union, and when it was over he was liberal and magnanimous. For these deeds of valor and true patriotism, no less than for his numerous personal virtues, his memory deserves to be perpetuated in bronze and marble; and whilst Washing- ton, Marshall, Clay, Jackson, Winfield Scott, Benton, Lincoln, Bates, Farragut, Thomas, and others, all of them sons of Virginia, North or South Carolina, Ten- nessee, and Kentucky, have for similar services and virtues had such a tribute paid to their memories, there is every reason why Missouri and the country at large should commend to posterity the bright example and heroic deeds of our illus- trious statesman, patriot, and soldier, General Frank P. Blair. On the soil of Missouri, and in the city of St. Louis, is the proper place for such a statue. I am, with high regard, your friend and obedient servant, JAMES S. ROLLINS. EX PEDE HERCULEM. THE following letter addressed to Mr. R. B. Price, then at Jefferson City. is only one of a thousand, but it is interesting as showing how entirely con- 312 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. sumed were mind and soul of Major Rollins by zeal for the University, and it is valuable as illustrating his methods in dealing with measures and Xvith men. Disease had indeed prostrated his body, but from the couch of pairs he still reached forth a hand full-fingered, to press the keys of legislation and teach it how to sound. COLUMBIA, MO., March 14, 1883. MR. PRICE: Dear Sir: After you left yesterday I received a letter from our friend L. T. Collier, in which lie speaks encouragingly of the passage of our bills. He stated in his letter that his family was sick and he probably would have to lease there and go honme. I hope you svill see him promptly and induce him to remain, for besides his vote his presence there until the end of the session is very important to us. .My experience is that at the end of every session of the Legislature important bills are lost from carelessness and indifference, and I desire you, therefore, to trace up and ascertain the precise condition of the following bills, all of which were carefully drawn by me here and sent to various members for introduction. Ihirsi. A small bill changing the law in regard to the Treasurer of the Board of Curators of the University, and authorizing the Board of Curators to fix his annual compensation. I sent this bill to Proctor, and it was introduced, I think, by Hughlett. Find out hows it stands, and see that it becomes a law. .Second. The bill authorizing five Curators to act as a quorum to do business, I think, was defeated by the interference of . . . . of Phelps County. Third. The General Appropriation Bill you will, of course, look after. The item of twenty-three thousand dollars is put in the bill, to pay debts; this is better than the way I had it, which was to compensate for stock lost in the National Bank of the State of Missouri. We shall still have a good claim for this stock hereafter. I presume the items in this bill will be left undisturbed. fourtih. Senate Bill No. 35, providing for the investment of public educational funds and also for the increase of the said funds, I sent to Senator Bryant; he introduced it, it passed the Senate, and is now pending in the House. Look after this bill, and press it through the House. It will be in the long run one of the most important measures ever introduced into our Legislature. We must not lose it for the lack of close attention. F6i//h. There is Senate Bill No. 40, which I also sent to Senator Bryant. and which he introduced. It was finally passed through the Senate, and is now pending in the House. This bill appropriates ioo,ooo for enlarging and repairing the main edifice of the University. For present purposes this is our most important bill. It was most carefully drawn, and needs no amendment. Rally the forces and see that it is passed through the House, with the ioo.0oo appropriation retained in it. Do not allow this item to be changed. Contend for every inch of ground, and pass it. Sixth. There is what is known as the Sanborn Bill, appropriating 15,000 for the benefit of the Agricultural College. This bill was drawn up by Mr. Sanborn. 3 I3 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. I took it, remodeled it, and put it in good shape. It was introduced by, and is in the hands of, Mr. Marmaduke. See him, and also see that it becomes a law. .SLeveeth. Professor Schweitzer drew up a bill for a separate laboratory. I had nothing to do with this but to look over it carefully. It was an excellent bill and was sent to Senator Bryant also, but I think he never introduced it into the Senate. See how this is. Eighth. The Governor recommended in his message a larger permanent endowment for the University. Senator Bryant, I think, got up a bill for this object, but it was never pressed for final action in the Senate, I believe. See how this is, and get a printed copy of this bill for future use. The above, as I remember, are all the bills pertaining to the University. See that they are in good shape and get as many of them through the two Houses as you possibly can, more particularly the General Appropriation Bill, and also Senate Bills Nos. 35 and 40 above referred to. Nothing that I could say could induce either . . . . or . . . . to go to Jefferson. I sent . . . . in their place, who will do good service and will cooperate with you. I have written another strong letter to .... Call on him and talk with him. He is a man who can be impressed with good influences. See . . . . of Ray, and urge him to " make hay while the sun shines." I have written also to . . . . and .... See them both if they are in Jefferson City, and urge them to bring the railroad men to the support of our bills. There is no time to be lost. This is the seventy-first day of the session, and at one dollar a day the members will begin to scatter like wild geese. I hope you will remain at your post until the last one of our bills is acted upon, for if you leave a number of them will be lost. Confer freely with . and ....; awaken them to the importance of the occasion, and put additional springs in their backs. Although half-dead, I have worked myself nearly to death in my library this winter in behalf of these measures. It is about the last work perhaps that I shall ever be able to do for the University and for this town, and hence my great anxiety at this time. There is nothing new here. Pull the Moss-back string. Your friend, JAMES S. ROLLINS. P. S.-I sent . . . . a bill making the Governor, State Auditor and ex-officio Annual Visitors to the University, and also authorizing the Governor to appoint five other intelligent gentlemen to act annually as Visitors. This is a very important bill; it has passed the House, and is now in the Senate. J. S. R. 314 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS.1 MISSOURI UNIVERSITY ALUMNI REUNION. F-on the C:X-bi. (M.-tsod) SWakma-, J..,n -2 rSS3. PROFESSOR BLACKWELL S SPEECH. AT the Alumni Reunion held in the Library Hall of the State University, on the evening of June 6, 1883, J. S. Blackwell, A. M., Ph. D., professor of Hebrew and Semitic Literature and Modern Languages, in response to the sentiment "The President of the Board of Curators " spoke as follows: Afr. Chairmeanz. I feel that the world is growing. It is growing in that which best exalts the race: in the spirit of unselfishness; in generous reproof of the meanness of those who in past time stoned their prophets, poisoned their sages, and crucified their benefactors; men who were too short-sighted to perceive what a poor sagacity might have foreknown: a swift repentance on the morrow, and a deification of that which was yesterday abhorred. It is not the lessons of history alone which have wrought more of steadiness in the fickle affections of men, nor is it alone the persuasive influence of religious culture which has stolen like a blessing into the human heart. It is mostly the enlightenment of the people. The cry of every consciously deserving human soul that has suffered the anguish of misappreciation and neglect might well be, in speaking of the thoughtless workers of its undoing, that " they know not what they do." It is pleasant there- fore to-night to realize that hand which we recognize, with grateful acknowledg- ments, has been itself the scatterer of the beams of light, which our Alumni have gathered up, and that we can exhibit practically the beneficent influences of education in reflecting, while we have here the presence in the flesh of the founder of the institution, the kindred rays of gratitude, reverence, and love. We would honor James S. Rollins for the magnificent faith which he enter- tained of this people when he bent the sturdy shoulder ofan apostle of education to the arduous task of drawing the people of Missouri to that station of progress which he occupied, when forty years ago he lived far ahead of his age in the prophetic realities of this moment. We would honor him for his large, constant, and cheerful nature, as evidenced in the Roman fortitude which never despaired of ultimate success while carrying forward the interests of this sacred trust, when he argued and disputed with foes, -vhen he won friends, when he defeated duplicity and rewarded faithfulness, when he brought to every struggle the quick and facile fence, the surprising parry, the formidable thrust, or the shivering thunder- stroke of an alert, nimble, and ful-panoplied mind. We would honor him as a man who brings to this generation, which else would have no adequate concep- tion of the giants of other days, the vigor of an oratorical ,owver which breathed in fullest strength in Henry Clay, whose displays are not like the tinsel and glitter of our pinchbeck rhetoric, but in the uncreated, swift, fierce, and resistless torrent that sweeps in floods of 'olcanic fire from the hot passions of the heart. We honor him as the incarnate type of Missouri's best thought, the model of its noblest manhood, the representative of its highest refinement, as the presentient 3'15 6AMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. initial force, which first operating in the founding of the University gathers increment to infinity from the trained power of its graduates and from the multi- plied helps of prospering years; and finally we honor him for his brave friend- ship in the worthy cause of education. We assure him that not his political career honorable as it is, not his domestic virtues and fine personal qualities which bring him close to the hearts of those who love him, not the quiet triumphs and rewards of civic life will hand his name down to posterity, but the noble pile which here shall stand will be the crowning monument to an ambition truly Jeffersonian; and the fair genius of higher education reaching forth into the his- tory of Missouri will hold up to its youth forever, as trophies plucked for immor- tality, the name and the honors of James Sidney Rollins. THE RECORD. IT is currently stated as an accepted matter of fact, with apparent correct- ness, and hitherto without contradiction, that Major Rollins was either the author or the principal advocate, and generally both, of every important legislative enactment promoting the interests of the University of Missouri from its foundation, in 1839, down to his own resignation of the Curatorial Presidency, in I886-a period of forty-seven years. The following are some of his measures, which, it will be seen, both lay the financial basis and constitute the legal essence of the University: First. Bill to select site for the University, February 9, 1839. Under this act the institution was located at Columbia, Missouri, June 24, 1839. Second. Bill approved March i i, r867, establishing normal department in the University. Third. Bill providing for the establishment of two normal schools, one at Warrensburg and the other at Kirksville. FJorith. Bill approved March it, i867, appropriating ten thousand dollars to rebuild President's house, and givingone and three-fourths per cent. of the public revenues of the State, after deducting twenty-five per cent. for the public schools. Under this bill the President's house, which had been burned, was rebuilt, and the University received under the one and three-fourths' clause about fifteen thousand dollars annually for the period often years. Fifth. Bill providing for the location of the Agricultural and Mechanical College as a department of the University, February 24, 1870. This act has up to this time added to the permanent endowment of the University three hundred and twelve thousand dollars (312,000) cash, with sixty thousand acres of land yet to be sold. Six/h. Bill adding to the permanent endowment of the University and Mining School, March 29, 1872. This act appropriated one hundred and sixty-six thou- sand dollars (i66,ooo). Of this sum thirty-five thousand dollars (35,loo) went to the School of Mines at Rolla; thirty-one thousand dollars (31,000) towards the erection of a Scientific Building, and payment of outstanding debts of the 3 1 6 JAMES SIDNEY ROLLINS. 317 University, and one hundred thousand dollars (ioo,ooo) to the permanent en- dowment of the University. Seven/h. Bill making the University substantially free to the youth of the State, male and female, April 1, 1872. Eighth. Bill providing for permanent investment of University educational funds, 1883. Under this act the sum of about four hundred and fifty thousand dollars (450,000) of the University funds is now invested in 5 per cent. State cer- tificates of indebtedness, and is thus made absolutely secure. A most wise pro- vision, yet much less liberal and far-reaching than as originally drafted by Mr. Rollins, who fixed the percentage at six instead of five, and the period at fifty in- stead of twenty years. But even though maimed it is yet invaluable. Nin/h. Bill providing for the annual appointment by the Governor of a Board of Visitors to the University. Tenth. Bill appropriating one hundred thousand dollars (too,ooo) for enlarg- ing the main edifice of the old University building, 1883.

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